Becoming a Hybrid Athlete, Peptide Science, Big Pharma, Overcoming Eating Disorders, and More...

Today, I'm honored to introduce you to

Alex Viata, an incredible father to a

ridiculously handsome young boy, a dog

lover, a wolf lover, a horse lover, an

all-around animal lover, the owner of

complete human performance, inventor of

hybrid training, author of the ultimate

hybrid athlete. Alex is one of the most

intimidatingly strong, jacked, and

intelligent humans I've ever met. I've

followed Alex for nearly 15 years. I

hired him as my coach for nearly two

years and I learn from him every single

time I have the pleasure of speaking

with him. Alex is one of the greatest

coaches in the world and I'm beyond

blessed to have him here with me today.

Alex Viata, welcome to the podcast.

>> Jordan, it is we are so overdue. First

of all,

>> we are

>> I I know like we've you know we've been

talking on we we used to chat all the

time obviously when we were working

together. A lot's happened since then.

First off, I wanted to thank you for

making me sound so much cooler than I

think I've ever seen myself. That was a

very under the radar. You're much cooler

than that.

>> This has been great though. I feel

really good. This is a good positive

start. Oh, but man, it's um it's been

it's been really really cool. And uh you

know, I think uh God, when we first met

years ago,

>> um I know you know, we were both very

much in the thick of like fitness

industry growth phase at that point. And

it's been um it's really cool to

>> be able to talk to you over the years,

stay in touch. I think we both changed.

we both kind of matured in our thoughts,

our thoughts on fitness, our thoughts on

life, family, everything else. So, it's

been it's been really good to be a part

of that. So, I'm just I'm so so blessed

and happy to be able to sit down and

talk with you today. So,

>> thank you, man. Likewise. And it's been

cool to go from like fitness colleagues

to friends who can have really

meaningful conversations outside of

fitness, which is part of what we're

going to do today. Yeah, I I appreciate

that too because you know it's I think

we both owe fitness a lot for but

>> I think as things change, as the

industry changes, like you don't have to

be defined by your work. You don't have

to be defined by your background. And

it's it's been it's been really valuable

to sometimes even just see fitness and

that industry as kind of a microcosm of

a lot of other things going on. And so,

yeah, I'm looking forward to those

conversations too.

>> So, just to start off with a very easy

question, who are you?

Um, I if I had to sum it up, I would say

I am a guy who over the course of my

life has no idea what I'm doing.

>> Uh,

>> I relate to that very strongly.

>> Yeah, because I think there have been so

many times in my life where I've

thought, you know, I think this is very

much a philosophy I think a lot of

people will share. I always thought I

was building towards something, building

towards a career. When I first went to

college, I knew what I wanted to be.

>> That didn't work out. When I graduated

from college, I got started in a couple

jobs in an industry that I thought,

"Okay, this is it. This is where I want

to be." Years in the industry, I

realized that wasn't it. So, I started a

new career. And I think I've been really

lucky in that that's given me the chance

to do a lot of different things.

>> Um, and I think if anything, that's who

I am is just somebody who's done a lot

of different things. Not because I

think, "Oh, wow. I'm amazing. I like

trying new things." I don't always like

trying new things. But I've very often

in my life found that when you hit a

point where you aren't happy with what

you're doing, you try a little bit of

everything and you see what sticks. And

I think that's been my personal

philosophy. And I think that's where a

lot of my growth has come from. A lot of

my appreciation for other people,

whether it's, you know, other people's

knowledge, people of different

backgrounds. And I think if anything

else, I think what has always kind of

defined my career and really a lot of my

viewpoints is just having the privilege

of having so many people around me from

different walks of life, different

backgrounds, different sports, different

industries and all that

>> sharing a little bit of their expertise

with me. And so I always kind of think

of myself as just somebody who learns

stuff for the sake of being able to then

bring that to other people.

>> So I think that's that's really who I

am. And I I know that's not, you know,

that has nothing to do well, sort of has

something to do with my book, but it's

Yeah, I think that's that's kind of what

I value in myself.

>> I think uh I'm always excited to hear

people's answer to that question because

it runs the gamut. Some people are

purely they'll just go into what they do

fitness or business-wise. Other people

are more uh the answers have been very

fun to uh to receive and to hear how

people more define themselves in this

moment. So, I thought that was great. It

was very Alex of you.

Um, what misconceptions do people have

about you?

>> Oh man. Um, God, that's hard to say.

That's really hard to say because,

you know, I one of the things I've

always maintained, and this comes from

having a lot of exposure very early on

in the industry when I wasn't really

ready for exposure, is people's

conceptions of you are based on about

the 5% of yourself that you show to

everyone else. And whether or not you

like it, a you're responsible for that

because no one, all of us, no matter how

hard we try, we're never 100% authentic.

>> We show a little bit of ourselves that

we want to see and we show a little bit

of our authentic self, but then we mesh

it with a little bit of image, a little

bit of marketing, a little bit of the

ways we like to see ourselves, and the

end result is not always truly accurate.

So, I don't actually know how a lot of

people perceive me. Um, I don't know. I

don't know if there are people out there

who, you know, perceive me as somebody

who has very set beliefs. Um, I don't

know if people perceive me as having no,

you know, no hard perspectives on

anything whatsoever. Um I think the

biggest misconception along all this is

that the one thing that comes up again

and again is that and this is more of

like a career related thing is this idea

that I'm mostly interested in like

working with elite performance and

working with elite athletes or working

with you know very kind of highlevel you

know cutting edge and don't get me wrong

I love that but um my approach to

training and fitness has never been

about it's it can apply to the top 1%

but it's never specifically been for

them.

>> And a lot of what got me into this was

wanting to make things accessible to

people

>> and wanting to help anybody get better

at what they do or find something new to

be excited about. So maybe that's the

biggest misconception. But you know

that's it's interesting that you asked

that too because if you ask people what

the biggest misconception about

themselves is, they may also say this

may not be the biggest misconception

about them. It may be just something

that they somebody said that they don't

like.

>> Yes.

>> So I don't I don't know. I I don't know.

I would almost have to ask like what do

you see me as?

>> I have a very different perspective

because I've listen I I don't know you

like it's not like we hang out every day

but uh I know you better than someone

who just randomly follows you on social

media.

>> Um I think that you're spot on that

>> based on

based on the

everyone should go follow you right now

if you're not following Alex on

Instagram. He doesn't post as much as I

I would like him to. But when you do

post, I mean, and as people hear in this

conversation, you are I meant it. I

meant it. You are uh intimidatingly

intelligent and you are I mean, you've

deadlifted over 700 lb. You've run a

sub430 minute mile. Like, you're not

only super intelligent, you're also

outrageously you're an incredible

athlete on top of that. So, I think

people it's a it's a an astute

observation to think that, oh, if people

see your content and see what you do,

they might think you only work with the

elite of the elite of the elite. And so,

I think that that would make sense for

someone to think that. Um because

I would say that look, especially having

spent a lot of time on your content over

the last few days, there isn't a lot

that I would say the average individual

who doesn't have a super high level of

knowledge would be able to look at and

say, "This directly applies to me." Even

though it does, but there's a the

barrier to entry is a high level of

knowledge

>> to then break that information down into

something that that is more easily

digestible for the average. So, I think

that would make make sense, but I I

think in your in your online coaching

program and in your books and everything

like it's it's becomes much more

accessible to the average individual.

>> And I I appreciate that cuz it's it's

hard because you know, you don't want to

you don't want to insult people's

intelligence by oversimplifying things,

right?

>> And one of the things I've always

struggled with is how do you make

complex ideas actionable? Not just how

do you make them simple, how do you make

them actionable?

>> So, one of the things I've always

struggled with is because often I talk

about things that I think are cool. Yes.

>> Literally like, you know, a 13-year-old

kid talking about dinosaurs or

something. I'm like, "Oh, look. I just

learned this. This is really cool. I

want to share this with everybody." And

I'm like, "Are people going to care?"

>> Probably not.

>> That's why I started doing I don't know

if you follow like my Instagram stories,

but for a long time, I was just doing

ones on topics I thought were cool.

>> Yeah.

>> I would just be like, "Oh, I want to

talk about this today." I would go out

and there's a long long discussion on

something that probably three people

cared about, but I was having fun and I

was like, "No, nobody really seems to

they watch the first one." you watch the

viewership numbers, it's like 4,000

watched the first video, 2,000 watched

the second, 500 watched the third. I'm

going, "All right, that's I think I'm

losing them there." So, I started doing

Q&As's. Yes.

>> Because it was the only way to say,

"Well, what are people actually

interested in?" Yeah.

>> And that's that's been kind of a tough

bridge to cross because a lot of pe I

don't think people need simple. I think

people need actionable. Like, what do I

get out of this?

>> Um, that's that is really tough to do.

That is really and I admire the hell out

of communicators in this space or any

science related space who are just

capable of taking complex headlines and

complex concepts and everything else. I

mean that that's been your career. Yeah.

>> Is you're like okay I know all this

stuff. I've learned all this stuff. Let

me help people act on it without without

insulting their intelligence by making

it into something that they can

understand.

>> And I I respect the hell out of that.

You said something and usually I don't

go into this early on. I had I have a

couple of main questions I ask. But you

said something that is I think is really

interesting. I want to dive into it a

little bit.

You said it's impossible to be 100%

authentic on social media, which is

completely accurate. It's impossible

because as soon as you start thinking

about how am I going to frame this? How

am I going to say this? How am I going

to share this? You don't even have to

talk about filters or editing. you could

just start thinking, how am I how am I

going to say this? Well, all of a

sudden, it's no longer in the it's it's

not 100% authentic because you're trying

to think, what's the best way for me to

frame this?

>> Um, which isn't necessarily a bad thing,

but it is accurate in that I think it's

truly impossible to be 100% authentic.

So, my question is, in what ways do you

struggle to be 100% authentic? You know,

I think one of the one of the times I

struggle with is I I'm I'm kind of a

little bit crotchety and grumpy in my

old age here. I will say that

these days. But, you know, there there's

something that happens over time, I

think, and that's it's not that you

necessarily get jaded. It's that every

time something comes up and you see it

again, an instinctive part of you always

gets a little bit annoyed that this is

still an issue or that this is still a

conversation. And every time it happens,

it generates a little bit more

irritation, a little bit more annoyance.

Bless those people who are so zen and

calm mindset that this doesn't happen to

them.

>> But fighting that and fighting that

initial urge and continuously applying a

principle of charity to things, my my

general thought process through

something is to immediately get

irritated

>> and then have a dialogue with myself to

sort of soften that as much as possible.

>> What finally comes out at the end is the

softer outcome. Mhm.

>> And what I think that sometimes misses

is a huge part of who we are and what

people find relatable is not just that

final outcome cuz anybody can sit up on

on a stage

>> and put out a carefully curated, very

even-handed perspective.

>> Mhm.

>> That may not be what they're thinking.

And the people in the audience, that's

not what they're thinking. They're

hearing this message for them. They're

going through that whole royal of

emotions, the irritation, the arguments

they've had about it, the discussions.

this that and the other. I find it very

very hard to express I think a little

bit of my initial feelings without

coming across as snarky or judgmental or

anything else cuz you know sometimes if

somebody says something and you're just

like wow that is jaw-droppingly stupid.

That's but that's part of your reaction,

right? You're like, "Wow, this I can't

believe that this like this this is this

is the same species as I am and this was

their thought process. Like I don't

understand that." But that's a normal

reaction.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's authentic. That's authentic.

Showing that, you know, as humans, we go

through a lot of things. We all have,

you know, our tribal affiliations, so to

speak. We all have our preconceived

notions. We all have our trigger points

and our buttons and everything else.

It's very very difficult to show that.

And I think I think that makes it easy

to that makes it easy to judge people

>> when especially when you see somebody

who removes all of that in their

messaging. You know, oh well, how can

you be so sure about this? Well, I'm

not, but I argued with myself for about

3 hours and this is what I came out

with. You know, little things like that.

And I think it's very hard to show the

process because, you know, humans are

complex. Our brains are complex. The way

we think about things are complex. We're

not we're not a big set. We're not a

computer with a big storage medium up

here. Like the brain is an association

engine. It creates memories based on

ideas and based on smells and thoughts

and concepts all royal together. Every

time we think about something, we're

recreating our opinion on it. Basically,

that's a complex process. And I think to

to portray ourselves as these very wise

entities or as having all the answers or

as having a very set perspective on

something, that's not always the truth.

I can sit down and put together a

carefully crafted post on anything from

politics to views on science to anything

else and say, "This is authentic. This

is what I believe." But it's still been

curated. the thought process that got me

there. My doubts, my questioning, things

that I believe, you know, 70% of me

believes this, whereas in this argument,

95% of me believes this and another one

51% of me believes this. That's what

gets left out. I think that that nuance

and that that self-questioning that goes

on that gets left out, it's I think

absolutely crucial to the human

experience. Mhm.

>> And I think not being able to do that, I

think that's what very often leads to

this disconnect where people will look

at you and look at your persona and

think, "Oh, well, he's got all this

figured out. He's got all this figured

out, but then he thinks this that's

hypocritical. You know, this person

lacks self-awareness." And you're going,

"Not really." when you dig into it. So

that's I think that's my hardest thing

is trying to show trying to show my own

doubts, trying to show my own concerns,

trying to show my own thought processes

that led to something, trying to show

the difference between my initial

reaction to something and then my

self-corrected action to something

because I think there's a lot of

learning in there. A big part of

learning and big part of understanding

yourself and emotional development and

everything else is not preventing

yourself from having an initial

reaction. It's walking yourself through

it and understanding it and analyzing

it. And a lot of that I think gets left

out. And I think that's an exercise that

people get into when they have dialogue.

>> When we have discussion, we sit down, we

approach a topic, I say one perspective,

you say the other perspective, we bounce

back and forth and we reach some sort of

nuance outcome.

>> Anything on social media or any sort of

media based on that very polarized one

person gives their speech here, another

person gives their response here, all of

that's lost. Mhm.

>> And I think that's where that

authenticity is lost.

>> It's a great answer. It also makes me

think about

this authenticity over a longer period

of time. So like in in a a relationship

for example, like you were talking about

how that initial reaction like [ __ ] that

was just such a stupid thing to say like

and and you have that initial reaction.

That might not happen on your post.

People might not see that. But if you're

talking with someone in person, like

your spouse for example, you might have

an init initial reaction that later on

you can come back and say, "Hey, I'm

really sorry. I reacted emotionally. I

apologize." And that's actually what

will deepen the relationship because or

the opposite where it's like you don't

come back. You don't apologize. You

don't recognize the mistake you made.

And so then that can create a divide in

the relationship. But that these

interactions, they're not static.

They're not in in one individual

interaction. It's not one post. It's

when you have an in-person relationship

with someone and you have the

opportunity to see how they react

emotionally and then how they can make

that more logical over time and how they

can maybe say, "Hey, I'm going to put my

ego to the side. I'm going to

apologize." Or the opposite, I'm not.

This is what creates true authenticity

and a and a deep meaningful relationship

with someone as opposed to social media

which can be as we all understand very

surface level. But I think you just

articulated a reason why it surf surface

level or how it surface level that

personally I had never even considered.

>> Well, it's it's funny because I think I

think a lot of social media that's

we get in a mindset where we're almost

writing headlines more than we're having

discussions. I think when people write a

post, it's they they have something that

they want to say. They have an

announcement. They want something they

get want to get across. It is very rare

to see somebody come out with something

raw

>> and then put that out in the world and

then come back and later say, "Hey, that

was just my first reaction. I probably

shouldn't have done that." It happens

every now and then. And when it happens,

we're all a gasast.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh my god. You know, you have people

apologizing for something that was said

in anger and you go, "Wow, how could

they let that happen?"

>> Yeah. That's saying how could we let

somebody go through the normal human

process of having an emotional reaction

to something having a little bit of

their underlying self come through and

then later think it's a bad later

apologize for it. That is the most

normal thing on earth.

>> Yes.

>> And I think

>> you know even if you look back 50 60

years there wasn't the opportunity not

all of us were accustomed to speaking in

headlines.

>> And I think now that's become something

that we're all very very good at. And

you know whether or not that this is a

positive development I don't know but it

has led to a certain

responsibility to curate your own image

>> which I think is pervasive into other

areas as well.

>> It is interesting that you bring up

someone they have an emotional reaction

then they come back and maybe they

apologize for it. My the most

interesting thing to me to most

interesting thing to me is when people

then eviscerate them afterwards where

it's like how could you you I lost all

respect for you. It's like really?

>> Yeah,

>> that's crazy to me that like this person

they had an emotional reaction and and

>> when they come back and they take

ownership of it, you look through the

comments and people are just

>> it's the it's actually a very um

discouraging aspect of social media

where and then what this has led to is

>> now people don't want to apologize when

they've done something wrong because

they know when they do apologize it's

only going to get worse. So then they

dig their heels further. Yeah. Yep.

>> It's a really uh

unfortunate aspect of social media.

>> Well, and I think I think when this was

the purview of politicians and writers

and philosophers when the printed word

was the purview of those and it was seen

as a medium in which there was a degree

of permanence.

>> I think even a lot of these individuals

would have different ways of having

discussions. This wasn't their only

method of communication.

um you weren't always necessarily like

most people don't necessarily want to be

accountable for everything they ever

said. Not because they shouldn't be

accountable to, you know, their thoughts

and their but we all misspeak.

>> Yes,

>> we all have bad takes on things that

could be based on a lack of information.

And one of the hardest ways to stay

authentic is again to want to say

something, to have an opinion on

something and let that out there without

necessarily a either curating it and

realizing, okay, look, there's nothing

wrong with somebody who has a very

strong but uneducated opinion on

something, writing it out there, and

then going, hm, wait, is that true?

Looking it up and realizing, oh, I was

wrong. I probably shouldn't say

anything. Nothing wrong with that. But

otherwise, you know, people coming out

and they're saying, "Well, I want to

speak on this. I'm going to go research

what my opinion should be to speak to my

audience on it."

>> And maybe we'll even think we're being

authentic. I want to write something

that is very much on this particular

topic that I care about and I'm going to

make sure it's a, you know, either a

intentionally insightful or in in Yeah.

or, you know, very

generalized, you know, post on this or

whatever else. and I'm going to

specifically put that idea forward

rather than just saying whatever comes

to mind saying my true thoughts on it.

Nobody does that because you can't like

you're saying we're punished for it.

>> So true authenticity is difficult

because it's not really allowed.

>> Yeah.

>> And you know even when people go okay

well I'm going to be really raw here for

a moment. I used to be worried about

this. You're still worried about this.

Cut it out. You're still bothered by

this.

>> Like you know yeah puffing yourself up

here and going you see the crotchy bed

coming out. puffing yourself up here and

going, "But I'm past this and you know,

here are my thoughts and all this and

you know, this is

>> you're still curating it. You're still

curating it. You still have so many

doubts. You don't actually

>> you may only decide to talk about it now

because you feel like you're finally in

a position where you can talk about and

that's fine.

>> But now you're only showing authenticity

once you've come to a point that whole

doubt, questioning, uncertainty, and all

that that is all part of the human

experience. That's all been removed. M

>> people only see your current outcome and

not the human that went through all that

and grew through that whole process.

>> What is something you used to believe

but you no longer do?

>> You know, it's it's difficult to answer

that too because I think so many of my

beliefs more evolve than they do flatout

change. Um, I've had some political

beliefs that I think have changed quite

a bit, but more like economic beliefs,

you know. Okay.

>> Coming from a very sort of, you know,

libertarian when I was a teenager like

everybody else and going, "Yeah, yeah,

you know, like, you know, the whole

libertarian economic perspective, which

doesn't really work." So, I've had a lot

of things like that where it was almost

more like youthful excitement that, you

know, made me made me really really

libertarian about some things. And so I

think in that regard, I think at least

politically, I've started to appreciate

the the complexity of interconnected

systems a lot more.

>> Okay.

>> Um because everything about me,

especially when I was younger, used to

be about personal freedoms, personal

freedom to do anything. And there was a

very much almost I wouldn't say

anti-socciety, but there was this

thought that well, I should be able to

do what I want as long as it doesn't

hurt anyone else. And then you realize

how often personal beliefs can lead to

disconnect there and you know the value

of like a social contract and

a lot lot of potential answers there.

That's one thing I've like become a lot

more I would say like socially aware of

the interplay of personal beliefs and

boundaries between personal beliefs and

you know what what sort of

responsibilities we owe to our society

because we're a part of it and you know

we may owe to a government because in

effect they're helping us help

ourselves. Um so that's one area.

There are others in fitness and the like

but we don't need to go there.

>> I'm I'm really interested in this. So,

where does the line between personal

freedom and I don't even know what the

other phrase is like personal freedom

and then this social contract bleed into

one another and like do you think

there's a limit on personal freedom or

maybe even better start with how do you

define freedom? Well, I think it's very

very difficult to define it because I

think as a whole as soon as we institute

any sort of system of government uh any

sort of system any sort of governance

over ourselves, we basically assume that

we are going to assign certain

responsibilities to that governance

otherwise it wouldn't exist. Okay,

>> if we assign certain responsibilities to

it, it means it's going to have certain

areas in which it's either going to

enforce a set of regulations that

everyone is going to follow or it's

going to ensure a careful distribution

of funds and so on and so forth. For

that to work, everybody needs to be

bought into the social contract a little

bit, which means everybody needs to make

certain concessions. As soon as you do

that to any extent, you remove a certain

amount of personal freedom.

>> Correct. So a lot of it is really based

on what you expect the government to do

and realizing how many expectations we

may have for a government whether it's

for defense whether it's for implied

healthcare like you know one of the

things I always get into is does the

government have an obligation to force

you to wear your seatelt

>> things like that you would think it's

the ultimate and personal responsibility

if I go flying through the windshield

that's nobody's responsibility but my

own but then you think do private

individuals or to healthcare? Like, do

they have the right to re reser to

refuse care? And does the emergency

medical team on staff have the right to

refuse emergency treatment for a

severely injured person who is severely

injured because they weren't wearing a

seatelt as opposed to like let's just

say there were no seat belt laws.

>> Yeah. If you're not wearing a seatelt,

it is nobody's responsibility to treat

you

>> other than like let's just say within

the purview of let's just say that

emergency medical teams were allowed to

exercise like triage. Okay. Well, if you

weren't wearing your seatelt, we're not

responsible for how badly you get hurt.

>> Mhm.

>> Does that work? Like,

>> so here's my thoughts.

On one hand, we're talking about an

individual who is

driving on their own and they're this I

had no idea this was going to go down

this route, but I love this type of

discussion. We have an individual who is

driving on their own. It's not part of

their job. They're just driving and they

can they can choose whether or not to

wear the seat belt,

>> which obviously if you're not wearing a

seat belt that's stupid. We understand

that. But let's just say like they can

choose. Whereas the doctors or the

nurses or whomever, they are in a job.

>> And their job can dictate what their

rules are as part of that job. And

anytime you sign up for a job, you're

essentially saying, I'm willing to take

on the removal of my personal freedoms

based on the the rules that need to be

set out for me as part of this job. I

feel like that's an apples to orange

comparison because on one, it's just a

personal freedom, someone making a

choice on their own. Whereas for our

medical professionals or for really any

professional, you're like, "Hey, here's

the rules of the job." And for doctors,

it's like we have to treat people

regardless, which is one of the issues

that we saw during COVID when they were

there were doctors saying like, uh,

we're not going to treat people who

didn't get the vaccine. Like, and

obviously there was a very small group

of people who and they often regretted

saying that afterwards, but like if you

sign up to be a doctor, you treat people

no matter what. And that's part that's

what comes with the job. So, do you

agree or disagree with what I just said?

Like, is that an apples to orange

comparison or or what do you think?

>> Well, I think where it starts to diverge

then is who is financially responsible

for the intervention for their job? Who

is paying them? Y

>> because at the end of the day if like

let's just say we had universal

healthare

and no matter what you had to get

treated would you then have to enter

into a social contract that said you

have the personal responsibility to

ensure that you are taking steps to

prevent severe injury or illness.

You would almost say okay well let's

just say if we had universal healthcare

everyone was paying into it. Would you

be upset if somebody else didn't wear

their seatelt and cost the system a

million dollars

>> for you know a three four week hospital

stay in a coma

>> whereas if they did wear their seat belt

they may have just gotten a bang on the

head.

>> Mhm.

>> Is that is that reasonable to expect

therefore that with universal healthcare

people do engage as a result this

contract they're paying into they agree

to engage in certain behaviors to keep

themselves safe. Mhm.

>> That's when you start getting into the

whole well if you can tell them to wear

a seatelt, can you force them to get

vaccines?

>> Can you force them to exercise?

>> Can you make cigarettes illegal?

>> Exactly.

>> Like it's it's then it becomes far more

it I just see this going less and less

and less free which for me becomes a

huge concern.

>> Of course. And I think that's where but

that's where some of the discussion

comes in because you say well should we

be free to do whatever we want? Well, if

therefore physicians and everyone else

on the treatment side needs to be free

to re refuse care to whoever they want

because no one's going to pay for it.

>> But that's I think that's where some of

the thoughts have evolved because you

can't hold a hyperindependent

perspective and still expect the system

to practically work,

>> right?

>> Especially because there are always

going to be those of us who end up

taking more from the system than we

give.

>> Correct.

>> And that's I mean private insurance like

I right now I have given so much to

private insurance and use none of it.

That could change tomorrow.

>> Yep. and suddenly I could become one of

those people completely in the red on

their balance sheet. That's part of the

risk.

Like how do you how do you prevent that?

You can't there has to be a certain a

certain amount of compromise within this

social contract,

>> right?

>> And if you stick solely to

hyperindependence, it's never going to

work. You'll have to abolish almost all

government. You'd have to take almost an

anarchist perspective.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> And so I I I think that there is, you

know, it's anarchy as a whole doesn't

work. not not for a system like ours,

not for a world system like ours. So,

you get to a point where you have to

have more and more stringent social

contracts. And I think I've a lot more

at least sympathetic or understanding

now towards more restrictive social

contracts. Not that I like them, but I

understand why they exist and I

understand why that's a more realistic

perspective.

>> I I empathize with that and I understand

that. My concern is from the practical

perspective and listen we could look at

like the anarchists on one side but then

I look at the other side and maybe this

isn't the the other side but the listen

you go to the DMV I'm like holy [ __ ]

this is [ __ ] horrible like the the

government there's one ideal of how we'd

like it to run and then there's the

practical side of oh this is how it's

actually run and then we could get into

people not doing their jobs corruption

uh there's so many aspects of a bigger

government that scare scare the living

[ __ ] out of me in the same way that

>> anarchy scares the living [ __ ] out of

me, right? Where it's just like every

man for himself type thing. So, it's

it's what you said is

>> we need to find a way to have this

agreement. We need to find we need to

compromise and and that that compromise

is where it appears as though especially

people higher up in government um

they're just unwilling to compromise.

They're unwilling to find common ground.

They're unwilling to to give give a

little bit here and there. Um, I

definitely tend to lean more towards the

the freedom side just because, and maybe

this is just what I've been exposed to,

but the idea of having a bigger

government that does have more control

historically and in general, it just

scares the living [ __ ] out of me. And

it's never mind the the idea of just

understanding that

>> um,

every time we see a government get more

and more control, the corruption

inevitably gets out of hand. And then

that that bleeds down into removal of

individual freedoms. You know what I

mean?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Which is I think why it's

probably still a debate after God knows

how many thousand years of democracy. Um

because I don't think that I mean

obviously there's no there's no easy

answer. There's no clear place to draw

the line,

>> right?

>> Which is why I think it's it's almost

like expecting there to be a clear

answer is the unrealistic part. You have

to realize that governance and

government and political parties and all

that as long as they are allowed freedom

to exist

>> are necessary. We need to have this

constant back and forth and being able

to try new things and see what doesn't

work. And as long as we avoid the two

extremes, which would be I mean

revolution is fine, but as long as we

avoid any sort of oppressive

authoritarianism, what we have is we

essentially have government as a

dialogue,

>> constitutions as a living document.

These things as

>> they are things that should evolve and

they are things that should evolve as we

try new things. We go, okay, is this

level of restriction acceptable? Yes or

no? Like we have to allow ourselves. But

that also brings us even back to the

earlier point about true authenticity.

We have to admit that this is always

going to be a discussion.

>> So true.

>> And we have to be flexible to the idea

that hey, I could be wrong on this. I

may think this would never work. It

might work. I just haven't thought about

how it would or hey, I don't want, you

know, I don't want any involvement in

this. And then you it's pointed out to

you that the government's already

involved in this. You go, well,

>> you know, then you think about things

like, you know, inflation, student loans

and all that and student loan

forgiveness is terrible and the

government shouldn't do it. And then you

realize that in many ways it was the

government support of certain you know

student loan guarantees

>> that allowed them to be given out so

freely which resulted in you know

inflation in costs of colleges and all

that. So you said well the government

actually played a role

>> in the creation of the student loan

debt. So wouldn't they have a

responsibility then to help eliminate

it? So just an example of another area

where it has to be a dialogue.

>> Yeah. And I think that's why it's, you

know, there's a lot of times where

people say, well, you know, I stay out

of politics. And goes, no, please be

part of it. Like politics is life.

Politics is

>> politics is everything that affects all

of us.

>> It is our social contract.

>> Please, if you have views, I would

rather hear everyone's perspective on

the social contract and where it should

be rather than just a few people all the

way up top sending out their curated

messages. Like, please everyone make

your viewpoint known. Even if my initial

thought is and probably will be that's

really stupid, at least you're saying it

like come on get, you know,

>> that's how you and that's how you learn.

And that's also how we create

>> right now. I feel like people feel

stifled and as though they can't have

dialogue. They don't want to be seen as

evil. They don't want to be seen as a

bad person. They don't want to be seen

as as uh they don't want to be labeled a

certain way. And so they just keep them

their opinions to themselves. And that

what that leads to is the very vocal

minority on either side essentially

speaking for both sides. Exactly. Which

prevents further discussion which is why

like yes speak say what you think and

and you can also say like listen I don't

know where I fully stand on this but

here are my thoughts right now. Have

that conversation. Completely agree.

>> Exactly. Because the more times that you

know if if somebody speaks and their

intention is to gain support they will

speak on things that the people around

them agree with and that draw divisions

between them and others. So you're going

to have the people doing the discussion,

the people, the people basically putting

and controlling the narrative. And my

god, we can even talk about this in

terms of fitness, but the people

controlling the narratives are the ones

who are emphasizing the divisions.

>> Yeah.

>> Not the people who are emphasizing the

place we need to have discussions. And

that is so dangerous because that is

literally how you do get

authoritarianism

>> is you get a very very strong tribal

pull and you get these people whose

interest is in widening the gap, not

bridging the discussion. That's always

going to be the problem.

We're going to make a sharp turn. All

right. You said, it's a direct quote.

You said, "I've been an addict. I've

been through an eating disorder that

almost killed me. I've been grossly

overweight. There was a time when I'd

look back at all those versions of me

and worry that I'd slip back. I was

afraid of the person I was." Now, I

don't really know these stories about

you. Could you give some insight into

your past, the the eating disorder, into

being overweight, being an addict? I

just like to hear more about it.

>> Um, they were all kind of part of the

same process, which is how most of these

things work. I think, you know, one of

the things I've always told people with

eating disorders is they don't ever

truly go away because it was never about

the food.

>> It's always a pattern of thinking. It's

a pattern of it's it's a way you view

yourself. It's a way you view the things

you control. It's all part of your

personality. And I think a lot of this

eating disorder, disorder recovery,

addiction, like a lot of them are kind

of in similar areas psychologically, if

not neurologically. Um, I was very

active in high school. Not not the

greatest athlete, but very active.

Played pretty much every sport I could

imagine. When I went to college, I

didn't have any ability to self-start on

any of that. Um, I didn't have any

organized teams. I didn't have anyone

breathing down my throat. I always

resisted sports to a certain extent. I

resented them a little bit because I

felt like I was never very good at any

specific one. So, I always felt a little

bit like I'm out of my element here. I'm

being forced to go do this. I'm being

forced to go train. You know, um no

matter how hard I work, I'm never going

to be, you know, I'm never going to be

the I'm never going to be first string

on in football. And I never was close my

senior year, but that was it. And so, I

think when I went to college, I kind of

forgot about all that. I I sort of

rebelled. Um, the one thing I did keep

up though were the eating patterns that

had me doing four to five hours of

exercise a day.

>> So, I gained I would say close to 75 80

pounds.

>> Oh wow.

>> In about a year, year and a half and it

showed. Um, it got even more. But yeah,

well I was I was 168 in high school and

I was close to 250.

>> Oh wow.

>> And I mean there's some people say,

"Well, that's not grossly overweight."

But when it happens that quickly Yeah.

>> Um, it really was. Like I mean talk

about cuz there there's one thing about

slowly gaining weight over time and all

that but sort of acclimating to your

body a little bit. None of that. I was

horrendous shape like sleep apnnea

like for year it it got

>> Were you binge eating?

>> Oh yeah.

>> Okay.

>> But I didn't see it that way.

>> Okay.

>> I didn't see it that way. I saw it

almost as liberation. I would just order

myself an entire Domino's deep dish

pizza with extra cheese at night with

bread sticks on the side and I would eat

until I was stuffed. And there was

almost liberty to that because I was

like, I'm not on a team anymore. I don't

have to be healthy for anything. I can

do what I want. So, I would do that. I

would drink constantly. And I gained a

lot of weight.

>> And I hit a point um my

things weren't going great for me

psychologically at that time for a

number of reasons. But then I realized

like I can't keep doing this. And I

don't want to call out who said

something because I don't want them to

feel bad because it was a very innocent

statement. But it really made me rethink

where I was at. And I decided, well, no,

I'm going to lose this weight again. And

so I started very reasonably. I thought

I went down to one meal a day. I just

had my dinner. And then I thought, you

know, cuz my dinner was like a 3500

calorie pizza. I was like, "Okay, maybe

I can make that a little bit more

reasonable." So I went from a big dinner

to a small dinner. And as I was losing

weight, I went from a small dinner to

the most calorie efficient dinner I

could have. And then I started cutting

out things from that. And then I started

out with things like different fat

burners. At the time there were things

like lipocinetics which was Do you

remember that?

>> No, I don't.

>> Oh man. So lipocinetics was You've heard

of um Oh god. What What is it?

>> Oh my god, I just drew a blank on it.

There's that um that diet compound

that's actually based on it's an

oxidative uncoupler.

>> I have no idea.

>> Yeah, there's one. It's still sometimes

used in bodybuilding circles. What it

actually does is for all intents and

purposes,

>> not ephedrin.

>> No, no, no, no. Like pokes holes in the

electron transport chain, but it's uh

I'm going to anybody watching this is

going to be like I know. Um, but yeah,

it it

>> I guarantee you most people watching

this are not going to know it.

>> Well, it's Well, cuz it was famous for a

while cuz it was it was a pesticide,

actually.

>> Oh, really?

>> Yeah. And it turns your skin slightly

yellow.

>> Holy [ __ ]

>> Yeah. And it's it's actually a really

really potent drug. Hard to get though

and and can kill you very easily. You'll

just sit there.

>> Maybe it's a good thing you don't know

that.

>> Oh yeah. You'll just sit there and

sweat. It is extremely dangerous. So

please, like, if you don't know what it

is, don't go find out. But there was

some legal versions of it that were very

similar. They would literally speed up

your metabolism.

>> Holy [ __ ] And where did you get it?

>> There was one company that was selling

it for a while

>> online.

>> Yeah, it was a legal version of it and

it it came in a little like black and

yellow capsules. It got taken off the

market due to contamination and having

some other things in it.

But I was popping those. I was taking a

fedin. I was taking other recreational

stuff to try to lose as much weight as

possible. And so I got down to I think

141.

>> Oh [ __ ]

>> Yeah. 141 lbs. And I I was in this

mindset where every place I could refuse

a calorie was good. M

>> and if I went up a flight of stairs and

blacked out, it was good because it

meant I was hungry

>> cuz it meant I was heading See, for me

it was like

>> either I'm heading towards my goal,

>> which is a little bit of this, you know,

quote deprivation slashbean

being being the most dedicated example

of what I want to show myself as. I am

no longer this glutton. I am somebody

who has absolute complete self-control

over everything. And of course, that

comes with self-loathing. you know, you

eat too much one day or I think, my god,

wait a minute, if I go eat if I eat too

much at dinner, I am literally taking a

step away from my goal.

>> And that was terrifying to me. And I

think that's something that's come into

play a lot in in later reflections on

life and goals and everything else. But

it was the thought that either I'm

getting better at this or I'm getting

worse at it. So, I need to keep

depriving myself and keep depriving

myself and keep depriving myself. And um

I remember I lost

muscle control one night.

>> Oh jeez. And when I woke up, um,

>> what happened?

>> Uh, lost all, uh, lost all bowel control

overnight.

>> Oh, shut up. Oh my gosh.

>> Electrolytes were so completely off and

I could barely stand up and I was like,

"Okay, this might be something wrong."

So, sure enough, like electrolytes were

extremely low.

>> Do you go to the ER?

>> Yeah. Yeah. And um, they basically said

like, you know, they obviously they took

one look at me and they're like, "Well,

you're very thin." I was like, "Thank

you.

I'm glad you noticed.

>> Yeah, as a matter of fact,

but and there was I remember the the guy

said that he's like, "You're very thin."

I'm like, "Okay."

And but that was that was part that was

part of the mindset.

>> And a part of me was like, "Oh my god, I

don't I don't want to not hear that

anymore." But then I was like, "All

right, well, okay." You know, the whole

idea of like, yeah, being thin but

[ __ ] yourself in your sleep, it's

kind of a little bit less cool. So, I

decided I was going to actually get into

the gym because there were people

encouraging me to go like lift and work

out and they're like, "Yeah, dude,

you're skinny, but anybody can be

skinny." And I was like, "You're right.

God damn it." Here, I thought I was

being cool and anybody can do this.

Okay, well, I got to do something more

challenging. So, I started going to the

gym. And that obviously became an

addiction that's persisted until now.

But, um, you know, it was it was filled

with its own things as well. If I'm

going to do this, I'm going to be the

best at it. Mhm.

>> And there was some like early on like I

probably I I dabbled with what were

probably fake steroids like right off

the bat. It's like oh look little blue

pills that somebody was like here take

these.

>> Orals. You just took oral pills?

>> Oh yeah. I didn't know what I was doing.

>> That's so

>> I had no idea what I was I was scared of

needles man. Plus I was so skinny. What

was I going to do? Like jam them into my

femur? Like there was nothing else there

is subcutaneous or nothing man. And um

yeah but there was there was a lot of

that. So, I was, you know, I was going

to, you know, I'm going to gain weight.

I'm going to get really jacked. And, um,

oh god, this is a story I never thought

I would sell all that publicly, but I

went to New York for a while.

>> Okay.

>> And yeah, New York City. And this was,

uh, after my first graduation from

college, and I was in really good shape

then. So, I thought I was like, cuz I

was still hyper all about diet and the

fat burners, but I was eating more and I

was lifting. I was ripped.

I got involved in a side gig which you

read between the lines like I had to

stay in good shape for.

>> Okay.

>> And recreational drugs, specifically

cocaine was a big part of that

lifestyle.

>> Okay.

>> So, like anything else, I was like, "All

right, I'm going to be the best at

cocaine that ever was, I guess." Or

something like that. I I don't know what

the thought was. I'm like, "Okay, cool.

This is me now." So, I became really

good at it. I don't know what cocaine.

>> Yeah, I was great at it, man. Just

topnotch. No, but like this was

something that really like just part of

my personality. This became part of my

identity. This whole idea where I've

been casting around for this identity.

What am I? I was, you know, kind of the

smart kid in high school, in college. I

was definitely not a very hard worker. I

And I kind of lost my identity. And

suddenly I was the skinny guy with super

self-control. And then I was the jacked

fit guy and now I was the jacked fit

party guy

>> and everything was just this too much.

And that became a very very serious

cocaine addiction.

>> And again, like all these other things,

what snapped me out of it was my best

friend at the time actually overdosed.

>> He thankfully, well, he survived.

>> Oh, good. Okay.

>> He survived. This was this was not an OD

that resulted in death, but it did

result in him in the hospital and he was

cardioverted. Like this was this was

serious. like he was having extremely

extremely I mean he was in there for

days and they were like yeah he was he

was really really close by the time they

got him in he was he very easily could

have passed away and it was another one

of those wakeup calls and I'm going okay

what am I doing maybe being the best at

cocaine is not really a thing to be good

at and you know that again that led to

another period of time where I was like

wow what am I going to do am I just

going to am I just going to latch on to

another addiction

>> because when you start to see that

pattern in yourself when you start to

see that pattern of I find I I find

something and I react to it. And I react

to it by trying to do something

completely different. And

every common thread throughout all of

these things was just this absolute

excess.

And so a lot of my life has been trying

to fight that excess. And I think

that's, you know, really like a lot of

personal philosophy now, really where a

lot of it's come from is realizing that,

I mean, even when I first started in

fitness, there was a lot of excess to

it. I need to be the best at this. I

need to be the best at everything. I've

got something to prove to myself, not

anybody else.

>> I want to prove that I am always the

person that I think I am,

>> you know, when I, you know, have my

little like superhero fantasies in the

back of my mind. Like I want to be that

person, you know,

>> and I'm the only one who can do it. I'm

the only one who can bring that out of

myself. And why should I set limitations

on myself? I'm going to be the best at

it no matter what.

>> But realizing that that in itself is

where so much of that self harm came

from. M

>> I didn't get an eating disorder because

the magazines were showing me pictures

of skinny people. I had an eating

disorder because this was something that

I took a lot of personal pride in.

Personal. This was my thing. No one

could take it away from me. This was

something that I believed

was important to me. And it's same thing

with all of these things. This was not

my identity. This was something that was

deeply personal. And that mindset, you

know, I've always said that a lot of

times people with eating disorders, like

if you can redirect that in some

positive way, this is actually their

positive personality traits that have

just gone bad.

>> They've just they they've turned to

villain ever so briefly. Like please

redirect them.

>> And I think that's, you know, it's given

me a huge amount and, you know, people

get people become addicted. You know,

they become addicts for a very number of

different reasons. you know, drug use

after surgery is a big thing and a lot

of other things. There's so many reasons

why people become addicts. There's so

many reasons why people go through

eating disorders, but you know, I think

in a lot of people, especially again

those with eating disorders and like

there's that common thread and that this

is something no one can take away from

me.

And I think it's in some ways it's been

continuously finding purpose. You know,

I've said throughout my life a lot of

things have been trying to find what I

want to do and trying to find who I want

to be around and what I want to learn,

what I want to be when I grow up. I

still don't know, unfortunately. Like

looking at the white hairs here, I'm

like, "Oh my god, I've actually grown

up. I should probably have this figured

out by now." But it's not figured out.

And

I think just constantly trying to

explore and speak to people and try new

things and all that, that's I I hope

that never goes away. Mhm.

>> I think I've tried for so long to try to

figure out who I am and what I want to

do and what I want to be that I didn't

realize that that whole journey is

literally the answer.

>> And I think that's been the biggest

change in my perspective is I don't have

to figure out what I want to be because

the process of figuring that out has

it's steered me right so far.

>> I love that.

>> Yeah. the what you said. There's a lot

that you said that I love, but one of

the things going back to eating

disorder, which is something I struggled

with and I've been very open about it

from wrestling, the the weight cutting

and all that. Um,

man, you said

it was it was so poignant the way you

just said this. You said it's not a bad

uh

trait, it's the trait that found a bad

behavior. Yeah.

>> Right. And it's such a

It's such an important way to frame it

because anytime you have a behavior, I

shouldn't say anytime for everybody, but

for me personally, if I have a behavior

that

I feel is bad, the shame and guilt that

comes with it is overwhelming,

>> especially when, and I relate to you on

this, like you want to be the best, not

compared to anybody else, but because

you know that you can be the best. And

and when you have this shame and guilt

because of this behavior, I think it's

easy for it to overwhelm you with, well,

I am bad. I am bad. This like I've given

into this bad behavior. And so, and then

you want to punish yourself. But being

able to find that that golden nugget of

it's like it's actually a really good

trait that found a bad behavior and you

can redirect it to something good. It

makes me think about, you know, those

like evil geniuses, the people who like

are are criminals who like like for

example, um I don't know the guy's

actual name, but uh Leonardo DiCaprio

played him in Catch Me If You Can. Yes.

>> The guy who's just unbelievably smart.

>> Say Megamind, but yeah.

>> It's like, and people always say, "Oh

man, could you imagine if they used that

for good? Could you imagine if they used

that for good?" And I feel like we all

have that in ourselves, especially for

anything we're struggling with. Maybe

instead of looking at that at that uh

behavior as as bad, look at well what

trait do you have that you can redirect

into something good.

>> It's you know you look at the line

between dedication and obsession

>> and what is it? You know you look at

these tropes that are like oh obsessed

is the word that the lazy use to

describe the dedicated.

I mean, but you know that like exactly

like you said like a lot of these things

are redirected and I think a lot of

people do have shame with these things

because they don't want to hear

>> that this is a personality flaw that has

led to this because it's something that

is almost central to their being. They

go, "How do I unlearn this need to have

some sort of regulation? This how do I

unlearn this need to?" It's not a need

to be in control, but it's a need to

say, "Of all the things in my life right

now, I want there to be some stability,

something I feel like I'm succeeding in.

>> That's not a bad thing. We all have

that."

>> Yep.

>> And you know, it's it's funny because I

see this I I see this same mindset which

you see it in fitness and in a lot of

cases it's still lauded in fitness.

People always joke You know, one of the

things you say, "Oh, well, it's really

tough to get this person to take an off

day."

That is in many ways the same mindset.

If I'm not training, I'm getting worse.

>> If I'm not using this thing to regulate

my emotions or use this to regulate my

energy levels, I'm going to go nuts.

>> It may be so it may be harder for them

to take a rest day than it is for a very

sedentary person to go out for a five

mile run. And it is that same mindset.

It's in a lot of ways it's this same

need for an area whether there's some

sort of there's this thought that

there's some sort of sacrifice or some

sort of self-investment that is

challenging that results in an outcome

that they believe makes them more of who

they want to be. And again, like when

you say it that way, you're like, "Oh,

that's not a bad thing. That's that's

that's good." Like that's that's

dedication. That's like, you know, what

what makes entrepreneurs and scholars

and all that. And you're going, "Yeah,

but it can also lead to eating

disorders." like it's it's it's the same

thing. And I think it's such a normal

human trait. And I think

>> understanding that and people with

eating disorders, people with these, you

know, any sort of disordered behavior, I

almost hate calling it disordered, but

you know, you can call it what you want.

People who exhibit those behaviors, it's

so important that they understand like

this is not, yes, this is not a

desirable outcome, but this is not

something you should inherently be

ashamed of

>> because these are potentially very

strong personality traits, strong

assets, things that could be easily

admired to you about you if they were

directed in a way that was more self-

constructive rather than

self-destructive.

>> Man, that's so true. That's such a one.

That is the best way I've heard someone

articulate that and especially to take

the shame out of it and be like, "Hey,

listen. Like this the way that you're

built and wired is actually incredible."

And if we can redirect this into

something that's not just positive for

you, but positive for society as a

whole, like this could lead to massive

amounts of success and happiness and

fulfillment as opposed to it being put

into a behavior that is causing you fear

and destruction and detriment.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And I think you know it's

it's funny because I say that almost

that self-sacrifice aspect of it is

important to people that the sense a

little bit of the sense of suffering

like this is something difficult.

>> That I think is the most important thing

to redirect because you can't redirect

towards people towards something that's

easy

>> right

>> you can't just say oh well now let's

focus on having a balanced diet like oh

that's

>> all right now our goal is going to be to

eat a reasonable amount with solid even

portions. So you're going,

okay, I'm going to have exactly 178 gram

of protein, which means I'm going to be

sitting here like dry scooping way at

the end of the day. That could lead to

something.

>> Yeah. That's why there are people who

are like, yeah, I used to have an eating

disorder. I can't do flexible dieting.

>> Yeah.

>> It's the same thing.

>> So you go, okay, well, we need to now

redirect it somewhere completely

different.

>> And it can be something with

self-sacrifice. Yep.

>> In fact, in many ways, it can be because

there's nothing wrong. There's nothing

inherently pathological about somebody

who likes inflicting a little amount of

discomfort to themselves

>> for a positive outcome.

>> Yeah.

>> I mean, that's in in many ways that's

part of the human experience. Like

that's we're we're kind of wired for

that to a certain extent. So that itself

doesn't have to be negative. I am all

about self-love, but I also realize that

sometimes people do want to have to

suffer a little bit to have an outcome

that can be positive. That's okay. Keep

that.

>> Find something that's hard. Find

something that's difficult, that

challenges you, that makes you

uncomfortable, but has a positive

outcome. I think that's the difference.

>> All right, we're going to take another

sharp turn. Okay.

>> All right. Always down for that.

>> You're the literal creator of hybrid

training.

You coined the term in the early 2000s

as far as I'm aware. Is that right?

>> It was like actually 2009 2010 was the

first time I used it. Okay. And then it

was in the book like 2012 to 2015 when

the book came out that it got hyper

popular.

>> Got it. Okay. Um, you are the living,

breathing example of an elite hybrid

athlete deadlifting over 700 lb. What's

your best deadlift?

>> We're just We're just going to go by

recent numbers. I'm just going to talk

recent numbers because

>> best ever.

>> Best 7 747.5.

>> Okay. And what's your recent best?

>> 715.

>> Oh, 750.

>> 15.

>> Oh, 715. Okay. I was like, that's better

than 747.5. Got it. Okay. So, deadlift

over 700 lb. You've run under a 430.

>> So that Yeah. Um sub five was probably

my best. Okay. The sub4 the sub430 was a

likely downhill a little suspect.

>> So

>> that's still impressive.

>> It it got it it it got legs on its own,

but we'll we'll say sub five at the time

was what I was doing.

>> Deadlift over seven uh ultramarathons

and far more. But you told me, you said

that quote hybrid training has been

bastardized. I used that word. You

didn't say that word, but it's been

bastardized and it's become something

that it was never meant to be. Right.

>> So, what's happened?

>> Popularity.

>> Okay.

>> I think I think one of the things that's

happened with hybrid training is it's

almost become its own its own separate

thing. There's no see the the term the

hybrid athlete for the book didn't mean

that you are a hybrid athlete. It meant

that you are an athlete who is doing

hybrid things.

>> So it's like saying you know the the

sleepy athlete, the hybrid athlete like

okay this is an athlete who is now

currently in the state of training

hybrid because hybrid the ent the

original idea of hybrid was you are

training two or more different sports or

activities that don't explicitly support

each other. And what that means, simply

put, is that if I devote time towards

training this, it may potentially make

me worse, or at the very least, it's not

going to help my performance in that. I

am a powerlifter. I compete in

powerlifting. I have a meet in six

months. I want to run a half marathon.

Every time I sit down in the week and

look at my training, I have to decide

every time I go for a run, it's probably

not making me better powerlifter. That's

probably not going to increase my total,

but I have to put in some running time.

every time I go lift, it's probably not

making me better at my half marathon. So

now I am going to be training with a

hybrid program so that I can do these

two different things and still progress

in both of them. I don't have to give up

my powerlifting because I want to go run

a half. I don't have to throw away that

thing I really like doing because I want

to go try something else. So, it's a

system that is meant to let athletes who

may have deep interest in one thing or

deep interest in three or four or five

different things to be able to excel and

compete or just train in all of them

without having to really give anyone up.

But now, hybrid athlete has become its

own thing. Like you are a hybrid

athlete. Everything has to be hybrid. A

hybrid athlete is someone who lifts and

runs. That's not accurate.

>> You don't have to lift and run. You can

be you can be a sprinter who also runs

long distance. That's a hybrid program.

M obligate sprint training for 100 meter

runner looks very different than a

marathon training program. Like that's

like that's that's sort of it. You can

be a sprinter who then wants to do

cycling races. I want to go ride a I

want to go ride a century. That's a

hybrid program

in becoming this like it's lifting and

running and now there's hybrid sport

which by the way no single sport can be

hybrid because if there's one score and

one podium it's one sport. It's not more

than one. every workout training session

is designed to make you better at that

final score or final standing. That's

not a hybrid program.

But now it's like it's it's this

combination of like you have to you have

to run and you have to like it's it's

all about your physique and you know

being strong and at least like who's the

best hybrid athlete now. And it's it's

taken on a life of its own. And I think

what I object to more than anything else

is it's creating an archetype that was

never meant to exist.

>> The ideal hybrid athlete, you have no

idea what they could look like. They

could be a 340 lb pro strongman who's

out there running his first 10K. You can

be a 115 lb marathon runner who just

decides she wants to do a weightlifting

meet and it doesn't matter how much she

puts over her head when she gets on the

platform the first time. She's a hybrid

athlete. The best hybrid athlete does

not exist because the best hybrid

athlete isn't any one thing. They don't

look a certain way. They don't talk a

certain way. They don't have interest in

certain sports as opposed to others.

This is not this archetype right here.

This new group you have to join. You

don't have to look a certain way or take

a certain set of supplements. And like

I'm seeing things now, this will support

your hybrid lifestyle. What's the best

apparel for hybrid athletes? I'm like,

what kind of hybrid athlete? I mean, you

know, if you're like a powerlifter who's

also a cyclist, chances are the best

apparel for you is going to be something

in spandex that looks absolutely

ridiculous. The difference being whether

or not you have a shammy on your butt.

Like, that's the difference between the

two sports. So, like, what what is all

this stuff? It's it's creating a new

archetype that I think almost becomes

more exclusionary than inclusionary

because hybrid was always inclusive.

Hybrid was we don't care what you look

like. We don't care what sport you come

from. No matter what, you can walk up to

another sport, start training in it, and

say, "I belong here." Doesn't matter if

if you are a pro strongman and you do

your first cycling race and you look

like you ate the last three competitors,

you're so much bigger than they are.

That's fine. You belong there. And if

you're training to get better, you are a

hybrid athlete. And I think that change

I think has done a real disservice to

the concept in that by creating this new

archetype. It's creating the sense that

people have to do certain things to be

hybrid and that wasn't it. The whole

point of the whole fun of hybrid is

saying I want to try something

different.

>> What if Well, what if you lift but you

don't like running? Okay, you can be a

you can be a a powerlifter who wants to

do rock climbing. That's hybrid.

Granted, grip strength is probably going

to help you no matter what, but you

know, if you're a lightweight powerlter,

you probably be a very good rock climber

at the same time, but still there's like

there's a lot of difference to it.

Differences in functional range of

motion, certain functional tightness in

your bench press that might be a

hindrance in your climbing and things

like that.

>> Just the time associated with the

training for the skill of it.

>> Exactly. A lot of these sports, you need

a lot of repetition. Climbing,

bouldering, you need a lot of time out

there. You need there's a lot of

technique work, a lot of repetition. And

honestly, some days after a hard

climbing session, your hands and elbows

and shoulders may not feel like going

and benching heavy the next day. Like,

it's just not going to be in the cards.

So, I think that's that's the fun of it

is it's meant to be a system that

encourages people to be creative

>> and look and say, I don't care what I

look like, what my physique is, where I

come from, what my sport is, what my

interest in. I can look at this whole

range of things and say, I want to try

that and have it work. That's that is

hybrid right there. Anybody can be a

hybrid.

>> Anybody can be a hybrid athlete. You can

also get in the argument of what an

athlete is or isn't, which is a debate

that I absolutely hate.

>> Just like a waste of time.

>> It's it's a waste of time because

everybody is gatekeeping.

>> Yes,

>> everybody is gatekeeping. And it's it's

honestly I don't even know if we want to

get started.

>> Let's do it.

>> Let's do it.

>> What is an athlete? What defines an

athlete?

Does competition define an athlete or is

it just a level of proficiency? Somebody

who trains to improve

>> in a given physically based endeavor.

That's pretty much close to the

definition of an athlete. How good do

you have to be to be an athlete? Do you

have to be on the podium at a national

event? What if you are 10th in a local

race? At what point do you need to be

paid to do it, in which case you're a

professional? Do amateur athletes not

exist? Where is that line? First of all,

so is there a line for performance?

>> If you qualify for Boston, but you know,

come in 50th percentile in Boston, are

you still an athlete? Like what where's

that line? There is no line. You can't

arbitrarily say that your degree of

proficiency determines whether or not

you're an athlete. Like that just

doesn't work. What characteristics do

you need as an athlete? Well, there have

been a lot of debates on that. People

say, well, you need endurance and speed.

Okay, how about hand eye coordination?

>> How about reaction time?

>> How about strategic insight? which

certain like you know team sport players

have. There are so many different

characteristics that are useful in

different sort of athletic competition

that you you can't even you can't even

say you need to be strong and fast and

everything else and like yeah you know

if you're people say well powerlifterss

aren't athletes

bodybuilders aren't athletes I love that

one because the people say well you know

your your athletic ability doesn't

directly determine your standing oh

because there's a subjective aspect well

so does like gymnastics

>> obviously there are certain tricks that

have certain awards but it's you know

execution ution, everything, but it's

subjective. So, the subjectivity of

bodybuilding not count? Maybe not.

There's certainly athletic ability that

goes into training for it. Just because

it's a process oriented system rather

than a goal oriented system doesn't

necessarily make it less of an athletic

endeavor. I mean, at the end of the day,

your ability to execute your training

program correctly and put in significant

hard work determines your outcome. So,

is an athletic pursuit or not? So, it's

such a murky area that people try to

say, "Oh, well, you're not a hybrid

athlete. You're just some guy who runs

and lifts."

>> Okay,

>> [ __ ] hybrid.

>> That's a that's hybrid. It can be and b

that's an athlete because you're trying

to get better at these things. So, it's

it's one of those things where people

try to create and there's just no

self-awareness. They try to create these

lines to stop people from calling

themselves athletes without a really

ironclad definition that holds up to

even the slightest scrutiny.

>> And I think again it drives me crazy

because it's people trying to people

trying to create an ideal or create a

tribe that they can either belong to or

make fun of.

>> We're going to make fun of all the

hybrids for being terrible at

everything. Okay. Like you can do that.

But yeah, good for you. We're going to

make fun of the fact that they call

themselves athletes because they're not.

Are are they not

>> seems like they are to me? Like even if

they're not hybrid, they're certainly

athletes.

>> Yeah.

>> So, I I think all of that stuff is just

it's incredibly needlessly divisive.

>> Yeah.

>> And I you know, again, I I think it's

gatekeeping of the worst sort.

>> So,

>> why do you think or where do you think

it started? Like, is it what led to so

much of a of a change in hybrid from

what you originally intended? and and

how do you think it it has perpetuated

and like so invasively?

>> I think it started out from a good

place. I think there were some

individuals who did very very well um

individuals with good physiques,

compelling stories who did very well in

a lot of combination events and I think

a lot of them including good friends of

mine created challenges for them to do

new new things to see like hey can I

combine this and combine that like that

would be fun and all that and a lot of

these individuals just by virtue of the

fact that they're very high performers

in a couple of areas they had good

physiques they were often lifting and

running challenges because nobody wants

to hear about somebody's like you know

century side challenge. Um, a lot of

them were very individual challenges

cuz, you know, it's even the best hybrid

athlete is probably not going to come in

anything more than about like top 10th

percentile in something. Um,

so I I think it it it it created this

subculture of hybrid athletics as sort

of a spectacle.

>> Here's a couple of individuals who

represent this new archetype. And then

things like Hierrox came along. And

don't get me wrong, I love Hyrox. I

think it's actually a very very cool

sport. Um I love the the fact that it is

you know multimodal. It's exciting. It a

lot of different people can try it. Um

but you know again it's a single sport.

It's not really quote unquote hybrid and

it's one very narrow application of it.

But I think in hierros the individuals

who do very well have a certain body

type. There are a certain archetype

>> that you can have individuals who are

lean and muscular and strong and you

know relatively quick who do well in

this sport. So again, it created this

image and I I think it's because it's

it's a lot more marketable than, you

know, I had friends from back in the

early hybrid days who were literally

like these big bearded strong men who

were happily going out on their mountain

bikes and absolutely tearing it up out

there. They, bless their hearts, amazing

human beings, admirable. They were not

nearly as photogenic or marketable as

somebody who's got like, you know,

>> shredded

>> shredded and doing these dramatic

running photos. I mean, I'm like, even

myself, like I go for a run, you look at

a race photo, I look like an aszmatic

rhinoceros about to die. I'm like,

okay, that's not very marketable, you

know. So, there's there's a certain

amount of that. It's I think that's what

captured the imagination was a lot of

these individuals who could lift good

weight, had great physiques, were out

there running. God knows that tracks

training sessions are really great to

video because everyone looks dramatic.

>> Yeah,

>> it's good. It's good good framing on all

that. So, I think that sort of led to

this creation of this archetype that is,

you know, it got really popular. You

know, arena events are great to film

because you always have dramatic shots,

right? There's a lot of content coming

out there from here. And I think that's

what really gave it those legs. And like

I said, it's it's fine. all the

admiration in the world for all these

people like zero zero% me here

detracting from anything rather just

saying like that's only one expression

>> and it's one small expression and it's

not that everybody else doing hybrid

things needs recognition but don't tell

them what they are and aren't especially

if it's inaccurate somebody wants

somebody's an athlete who wants to try

something hybrid they're a hybrid

athlete that's it like let them be that

let them feel good let them feel like

they're actually doing something

challenging and cool and thumbming their

nose at expectations, which has always

been part of hybrid to thumb your nose

at expectations. What people think

you're capable of.

>> Oh, that big person can't run. That big

person can't ride. Oh, look at that

skinny person. They'll never be a

powerlifter.

>> That's always been it. It's always been

a way to think, nope, I'm gonna do it. I

think it's uh

one of the greatest contributions you've

given to the industry as a whole because

I when I was first getting into it, it

was always one modality. This is what

you train. This is the only quality you

can bring up.

>> Um

>> and you know, we were talking before we

recorded and we'll probably get into it

at some point today. um talking about

the way that the industry has gone in

many ways is disappointing and and uh

scary in some ways. But I think one of

the coolest things for me and as a

direct result of you introducing hybrid

uh and not gatekeeping it and and making

it inclusive for everybody is like for

example in my inner circle I see I see

women who are 50 60 70 years old box

jumping and like for the first time

which is a very scary thing to do. Like

they're going box jumping and then

they're running a 5K and then they're

like working towards their splits. It's

like they're doing everything. Yeah.

>> And they love it. And it's the

confidence that comes from it, the

excitement that comes from it. It's uh

it's a really wonderful contribution

because I think you uh single-handedly

were able to shift the mindset of what

is is the the science-based crowd, which

is that crowd, which is there's so much

good and so much bad that comes with the

crow, the science-based crowd, the

evidence-based crowd, because it's very

difficult to change their mind. But I

think you shifted it to be like, hey,

it's not just one modality. It's not

just you, it's not you're just a

powerlifter. You don't have to just be a

runner. You don't have to just be this.

Like, you could do all of it. We just

need to shift your thinking and your

approach to it. And so, I think that

that is that will go down, I think, as

one of your greatest legacies within the

industry. Well, I appreciate that and

and like I I'll give I'll give a huge

amount of credit to, you know, again,

other organizations like High Rocks,

like CrossFit, for example, and all of

them for very much, you know,

introducing the concept in in a very

different way and get, you know, again,

capturing people's attention, capturing

people's minds. And I think I think all

of this has just been I' I've just been

it's my privilege to obviously been part

of a shift that I think has just

resulted in healthier people. Yes.

>> Cuz a lot of people say, you know,

you'll see these discussions, they go,

"Oh, well, that's just always how we

used to train. Ah, it's just I'm like

you weren't around in in in like the

late 90s and early 2000s like people

didn't do that.

>> Yeah.

>> Even in mid 20 like you know what are

they? The as what do we call the 2000s?

The

>> anyone know um people didn't do that.

>> If you were a bodybuilder and you were

like, "Hey, I'm a bodybuilder. I want to

go run a 5K." And you'll get two

responses. Either now that's going to

kill your gains. Or people going, "Yeah,

I used to run in the military. I don't

do that anymore. Don't. It's going to

ruin your niece."

>> That's it. that was that was the

response you got. There was never this

thought that yeah, go for it.

>> And I think that's the biggest

difference now is it's like the the

default. We've come so far now to that

being the default that people think

that's always how it always was.

>> I guess that's some measure of success,

right?

>> So,

>> I'm going to drop a bomb on you right

now.

>> All right.

>> You ready for this one?

>> Sure.

>> Why do you hate Maha?

[Laughter]

>> Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yo, you just um

you know, you know what I think it is?

Oh my god, this is where I'm going to be

authentic and say cuz it's lowest common

denominator. Everyone's going to be

like, you know, like do you have a set

of pearls I can clutch here or

something? Oh, great. Um I think what I

hate about it is that it prays on fears.

M

>> um you know you heard of this paradox

where very often we tend to overstate

things that are a relatively low risk to

us

>> and understate the actual risk.

>> Yes.

>> Um

>> I think that it's it's an entire

movement that capitalizes on that. It

very it very much overlooks the things

that would be difficult for government

to do.

>> It is the biohacking of health policy.

we are focusing hyperfixating on the

small things and ignoring the big

things. What would improve health in

America? I mean would it be things like

you know let's just say we had universal

access to uh you know quality prenatal

screening for everyone who is pregnant

and easily accessible healthcare and

nutrition plans and let's expand SNAP to

include more food that you know

individuals could actually live on. You

could say what you want. Let's expand

rural access to quality health care.

Okay, all these things would do

tremendous amounts to improve health.

Instead, we're talking about let's uh

let's get the high fructose corn syrup

out of soda. Like, let's switch the

sugar we're using. Let's ban some food

dyes cuz there that I mean, and that's

the high-profile stuff. That's the stuff

where you're going, okay, look, that's

not all they're doing. Okay, like

there's there's a lot of other stuff

going on behind the scenes. This is me

handwaving. um that might in fact be

positive. But I think it's this it's

this drive to have headline driven

health policy

>> where we it's about driving what sounds

exciting and doesn't take that much work

because there's it's it's low

consequence. Nobody has to really

sacrifice much to make these changes.

And I mean honestly I for better or for

worse I think some of the individuals in

charge have in the past shown a

financial conflict of interest with

certain things. Like for example,

vaccinations, universal vaccinations,

>> vaccine policy. Um, I think there's

always there always has to be the

question when you have somebody making

policy

>> who's saying, "Hey, we just want more

tests on vaccine safety and efficacy.

I'm just asking questions." How often do

you hear someone say, "Well, I'm just

asking questions." As a very concealed

way to sew seeds of doubt.

>> Mhm.

>> You know, if I if I accuse somebody of

something and I go, "Hey, have you uh

have you murdered any puppies lately?"

I'm just asking questions.

>> I'm just asking questions, man. I I

don't know. I mean, not that you look

like a puppy murderer. You might be a

puppy murderer. I don't know. Just

asking questions, you know? I I think

that's I think that's one of the

problems here is that just saying things

like, "Well, we don't know enough about

vaccine safety." Well, in many cases, we

do. Like, this is pretty extensive. Yes.

Do I believe there were certain missteps

made in the unveiling of the COVID

vaccine? Absolutely. Do I think we

undermine a lot of co public confidence

in vaccines and vaccine policy through

heavy-handed and possibly premature

decisions made then? Yes, absolutely do.

Do I think that that means we need to

put up more barriers to the development

of and distribution of life-saving

vaccines? Absolutely not. And I think

that's been the problem. That's why I

hate Maha. It's ignoring the areas that

would actually make us healthy or

taking, you know, paying lip service to

them and instead moving around a lot of

pieces that don't matter so people feel

like something is being done.

>> All of these policies could get

implemented and the difference to public

health would be minimal. In fact, in

some cases, a lot of the just asking

questions may actually put up barriers

to care and further development that may

actually be net harmful.

So I think it is again I think it's

headline and policy driven and not

science driven.

>> Isn't that the story of social media?

It's like everything is headline

headline driven everything like the most

views and likes and clicks and then it

essentially creates the most division

among people.

>> Absolutely. It is so incredibly easy to

say that X compound causes cancer. I

said do did you know that actually blue

12 actually does cause cancer in lab

rats?

I don't even know what blue 12 is. I

just made that up. But like

>> you're so convincing.

>> But people would be like, "Oh, did you

did you know that?" Yeah. Blue 12. And

that's actually used in in the capsules

in certain medications. All these drug

companies are pushing a cancer-causing

compound in their medications. Why?

Because guess what? Blue 12 was made by

Dupant.

That sounds plausible. I just pulled all

that [ __ ] out of my ass. Like none of

it's true, but it sounds plausible. And

suddenly I've just created something

that has a lot of people going, "Man,

this blue blue 12 in my medication."

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Know it's it's called blue

three now. There's just there's so many

different ways to get attention to get

attention for a cause. Donate to me

because I am helping combat the use of

deadly dyes in life-saving medications.

That's going to stick.

>> Yeah. it's going to be very difficult at

that person for, you know, when you hear

that enough and there's one or two

headlines out there that may actually

seem to reinforce that certain food

diets that might in fact have some risk

at very high doses, they could already

have been banned. But that's not the

point. The point is that well, the

government approved these once,

>> so what makes you think they're not

hiding data on the other ones that they

haven't banned? It's all this creation

of distrust and creation of distrust for

the sole purpose of keeping people

distrustful so that they will keep

looking to you to help them. They will

keep supporting you and keep giving you

money and keep giving you time and

attention and headlines to allow you to

remain in that position where you can

influence policy. That's the risk. That

is the headlinebased. You can just keep

asking questions and you don't need a

lot of evidence. All you need is like

one study. It doesn't matter how badly

conducted it was to say maybe we should

take a look at that rather than look at

all the reams of data on things like you

know early access to health care and you

know the you know possible reworking of

you know some of the food distribution

system to eliminate food deserts in the

inner city and you know things like

that. Okay. Yeah, that that would be

that would be nice. Expensive though. We

don't like expensive

unless it's like you know the latest

round of F-35s or something.

I I think what contributes to a lot of

this this headline activism

people don't understand how science

works. They don't understand how studies

work. And for let's say you made up blue

12, but like we could look at whether

it's aspartame or seed oils or whatever

it is and say like well look this is

what happened with these rats. It gave

these rats cancer. It's like, and people

hear that and it makes a hell of a

headline and it's [ __ ] scary to your

point, which is it's fear-based.

>> But then when you break it down, okay,

well, number one, how much was given to

them

>> in what period of time? Uh, has this

been seen in humans? Like, cuz rats are

not humans, humans are not rats, like we

have very different metabolic processes.

I think it's easy for people uh to even

for realistically and doing my best to

be as uh as kind as possible as

well-intentioned people

>> they misinterpret what the science

actually is showing.

>> Yeah.

>> And and they might look at a study and

say, "Well, look at what this study

says." But they don't understand why

that study was flawed in so many

different ways. I think the average

person doesn't understand that science

isn't perfect.

>> Yeah. that researchers are humans.

They're they're they make mistakes.

There are are a number of confounding

variables that can affect how a study is

done. I think people are are are very

often shocked to know that some studies

are just [ __ ] horrible in general.

Like the entire study design is terrible

and here's why. And so it's easy just to

look at a headline and say, "Wow, this

gave rats cancer." and then not

understand that um the study was poorly

done and it has no actual effect on

practical daily life for the individual.

And then leading into these food dyes,

>> there are just flatout lies as well,

which is for me that's the worst part

when there's a flatout lie like, well,

these are banned in in Europe. It's

like, no, they're not. They're just they

have a different name. this and and that

for me is I I try and do my best to be

as as giving as possible and to not make

out someone to be evil or that they're

doing something deliberately to mislead.

But that for me is something that that's

a line. I'm like, was that a mistake

that now you're just digging your heels

in that you're not willing to say, "Oh,

by the way, like these aren't banned.

They address a different name." I

haven't seen anyone do that. That leads

me to believe that there there's actual

ill intent, which is very discouraging

because it's um

it's just not true. And if you you can't

say that you are you just are in the

pursuit of truth while also lying

through your teeth about something that

you you know isn't accurate.

>> Yeah. And I think there's you know

obviously there's a certain amount of

confirmation bias in there. If you

believe in a certain thing, you believe

a certain category of things is

dangerous, you're going to latch on to

anything that seems to back up your

point. But I think a lot of it and like

you said because there are a couple

things like a scientific study is not

meant to be a final treatise on a

subject. Scientific papers if you look

at the whole body of scientific research

you're looking at you know like posters

you're looking at debates you're looking

at forms you're looking at research like

published research it's all considered

scientific communication which means by

definition it's a dialogue. If I publish

research I consider that communication.

I consider this a way of communicating

what I'm working on. It's not meant to

give you answers. No, not too many

scientists are going to say, I want to

study this so I can give people a final

answer. They're saying, uh, here's an

interesting discussion on this topic.

I'm going to do some original research

that adds to this discussion. That's the

point of research. For someone to then

take that research and go, ha, look,

here's an answer. That's misinterpreting

the entire purpose of published research

in most cases. So when you think of

papers as communication and you think

like for example there are some things

that for example will show like an

increase in the type of certain cancers

in lab rats but when you look at the

study you realize that this is actually

a kind of cancer that these rats are

genetically predisposed to have

>> so that scientists can examine the rates

like different rates of tumor

development, speed of tumor development,

likelihood of tumor development and all

that based on certain compounds or

certain interventions. these rats were

probably going to get cancer anyway.

>> What the studies determining was, hey,

does something that raises the level of

this hormone make this type of cancer

more prevalent,

>> which could give us some sort of

interesting addition to the dialogue in

if you have this kind of cancer, will

something that does this potentially

make it worse? Interesting to know. It

doesn't mean that that thing is going to

give you cancer, even though it may have

increased the rate of it in these rats.

And I think all of that stuff is

misinterpreted so often by people who

may I hate to say it, but they may be

well-meaning.

>> They have so much confirmation bias and

that they want to find something that

they're going to look at that and go ha

see smoking gun

>> right there.

>> And I think where the dishonesty comes

in is a little bit of they don't know

what they don't know.

>> They're not going to think to ask, hm,

wait, is this true? Is this accurate?

They're just going to do it. They're

just going to publish it and they're

going to say, look, here it is. This is

the smoking gun I've been looking for.

50% increase. Of course, what they

didn't actually say is actually a 0.5

like Pearson coefficient, which is

something else entirely, but 50%

increase in this type of cancer. And

here you go. You shouldn't take this or

you shouldn't eat this. Well, maybe. But

ignorant.

>> And I say that in every meaning of the

word because ignorance,

I guess that brings up the question,

does ignorance have malice to it?

>> It can. It can.

>> I think it depends on the individual. I

think it depends on where they find

themselves uh in terms of it's one thing

to be ignorant but have no

impact on anyone else's life. It's

another thing to be ignorant in a very

high power position with massive amounts

of impact on people's lives. And then to

be

willfully ignorant I think it if you

reach and I don't know where this line

is. If you are being willfully ignorant

and when I say that defining willfully

ignorant that you're refusing to look at

other avenues or other reasons or other

causes and you're uh if you're in a very

high position of power like the

secretary of health for example,

>> you have to be aware of your cognitive

biases.

>> You have to if you've gotten to that

level. Uh, I shouldn't say you have to

because obviously someone isn't, but you

should be. You should be and you if

you're not being

if you're not challenging yourself to

look at things from all sides and then

you're inviting influencers in on social

media who are pushing just the same

narrative that you have. It's uh whether

it's ignorant or not, it's completely

inappropriate and it's it's dangerous.

>> Yeah,

>> it's dangerous at best. You know,

there's this really interesting thing

like the the whole ultraridarian like

U-shaped curve.

>> So, you know, the whole

ultrarepidarianism, you know, the if you

if you have deep knowledge in one area

and you consider yourself very smart and

a great authority, you believe that you

therefore know a lot about nearly

anything else you're presented with. And

you know, the whole thing is, you know,

like when not that I'm not calling

anyone out here, but like you know, you

have a you have a doctor who's talking

down to their mechanic about something

that's wrong with their car, and the

doctor's like, "Well, I'm educated." the

mechanic goes, "Yeah, but you don't know

anything about cars." There's this kind

of inverted U-shaped curve where

somebody who has deep knowledge in one

area may be acutely aware of other areas

in their field that they don't know

anything about. And they may go, "Oh,

yeah, like I'm a specialist in this

area. I don't know too much about that

side of things." And they're very

willing to admit that because they know

what they don't know.

>> Then you get them a little way into like

fields that are slightly adjacent. Well,

you know, I'm a theoretical physicist,

so I should therefore like understand

this thing with like mechanics. All of a

sudden, their perceived expertise goes

way up.

>> Or they are a lawyer who's done a lot of

work in health related cases. They

believe that they know a lot and so

their their feeling of expertise in a

very broad ranging area explodes.

>> And then when you get even further away,

it goes back down because it goes from I

know what I don't know to I don't know

what I don't know to I don't know

anything. And I think the safest part is

when they don't know anything because

it's so you get a lot of people who

again have deep knowledge in one area,

law, medicine, whatever else and then

immediately extrapolate that to other

areas and they think

>> sometimes being able to read a paper and

not understand it isn't a sign that

you're not smart. It's not a sign that

you're not educated. It's a sign that

you may not know the inner workings of

the processes like the error levels of

some of the assessments that are done,

the type of rat strain that's being used

for the study. Like these are nuances

that are very difficult to understand if

you don't work in the area, right?

>> But you have a lot of people thinking,

well, I can understand this. I can

understand every word. Therefore, I am

qualified to interpret this.

>> It's dangerous. Even that that the

thought that that you brought up, the

idea that maybe that rat, this type of

rat is more predisposed to that type of

cancer. They were going to get that

cancer anyway. We're just looking at how

quickly it sped up. That's a type of

nuance that

>> number one, I haven't even thought of.

>> Yeah.

>> But it's like uh

>> it's it does that doesn't go into the

headline. That often won't even go in

the story. It's just going to be like

these rats got this cancer and this

thing is bad. It's like there but there

are so many other factors that come to

it. So I think that that perfectly

exemplifies it. uh you you had said both

today and I think it was yesterday as

well. You said um science has lost our

trust

>> and you brought up issues with how you

think COVID went and how the the vaccine

was rolled out. Um why do you think

science has lost our trust?

I think I think we did scientific

communicators lose a lot of trust in

COVID because I think we tried to make

it we tried to use science to exert

social pressure

>> and to a certain extent that's

understandable. Um you know shame is a

very powerful tool and shaming people

who didn't get a vaccine or shaming

people who weren't staying home.

I think that made it into unfortunately

I think a lot of it made it into almost

a class war because like for example

during CO I think one of the really

crucial things to matter was when CO

started I moved out to a town that was

much much smaller. This was no longer an

urban downtown. Everybody had small

businesses and you told people they had

to shut down for several months and they

couldn't bring people in. You know uh

essential businesses could. The grocery

store was open but their small store

wasn't. A lot of these people,

>> a lot of liquor stores were told they

were essential, which I think was wild.

That was

>> I think like strip clubs were as well

and like other things like that. And

you're like because I think if they

serve I don't know what it was. If they

serve like liquor, if there was some

weird workaround,

>> this is why I struggle with big

government cuz it's like stuff like that

is just [ __ ] stupid.

>> Well, it is. It is. And it's a product

of, you know, lobbying in this group

having wide influence and all that. And

you can buy influence, which really

brings down to the fact that pretty much

every division between people is between

like, you know, the wealthy elite and

the not so wealthy elite.

Um, but for a lot of these small

businesses, if they shut down for more

than 2 weeks, they might fold.

>> Yes.

>> And so you're

you could get sick. Do you want to go in

a hospital? And they're going, if I if I

close my business for 3 months, I don't

have any money. I don't have any food. I

don't have any healthare. My business

loses everything. I lose everything.

What's the point of living at that point

if I'm literally destitute?

>> Yeah. And so they felt that they had

people saying,"Well, yeah, you have to

do this and if you want to reopen, you

have to take the vaccine and that's the

only way you're going to survive." At

that point, it suddenly became an issue

of already trusting or not trusting that

the government had your best interest in

mind.

>> Yeah.

>> And presenting like it was very

one-sided. We were hearing because any

emergency response is the product of a

lot of different actors. You have your

health experts, you have your economic

experts, you have your social experts.

You know, you have a lot of people in a

lot of different areas coming together

to say, "Let's come up with a plan."

This is one area where I think the

health experts, public health,

especially infectious disease, had a

disproportionate influence on the

outcome because there were a lot of

people in the social sciences who were

saying this level of isolation could be

lethal. had a lot of people in economics

saying the number of years of life as a

country that we will lose due to loss

productivity,

>> suicides, everything else, which went up

>> dramatically.

>> And they're saying like it's it's hard

equations, but somebody and this sounds

really harsh, but if people are familiar

with this, they'll know that it's not

it's not intended to be cold. If

somebody is 81 years old, Yeah. the

number of lost years of life if they

pass away. Never saying that

>> that is okay. We're not

>> okay. Not saying that in the least, but

saying that that's very different than

if somebody who is like 35

>> Yes.

>> either you know either dies or

>> you know goes into like you know drug

abuse and whatnot and it's all that. So

it's basically saying that when you do

that equation that isolation

>> did it actually help? Probably not in

that regard. One way of looking at it

but that's why you have multiple ways of

looking at it. So I think that that was

very much a catalyst for the resurgence

and a lot of distrust. We already went

through vaccines causing autism. We

already went through a lot of these

things. We already went through, you

know, big sugar, which by the way is a

prison name. I don't care what anyone

says. That's someone's prison name.

>> Big Sugar wants us all sick.

>> That is a prison name.

>> It's totally a prison name. Um yeah, Big

Sugar wants us all sick. big farmer

thinks there's more money in treating

illness than there is in curing it which

is not true. um all of that stuff is

coming together and basically saying

that okay there was already distrust now

we've just amplified it because in

addition a lot of people who are this

sounds harsh but lower level scientific

communicators like you know not not the

surgeon general not the head of public

health or anything else but people who

are just like community scientific

communicators like people on Instagram

or whatever else they were saying yes

they were repeating the lines that were

being stated by the top you have to have

this stay home stay home or everyone

dies and blah blah blah and I I think

when some of the questions came out that

maybe there was some nuance missing in

that response.

>> Yeah,

>> I think a lot of people who were already

predisposed to not trust science,

especially people in certain population,

certain groups that were economically

more impacted by this, who didn't have

the ability to go on unemployment, who

didn't have the ability to, you know,

>> suddenly they were really hurt.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> So they were hurt, they were angry, they

were destitute, they saw government

overreach potentially ruining their

careers and they said, "The government

hates us and these scientists are full

of crap."

>> And I think that was we already had, you

know, questioning science and

questioning experts has always been a

thing, but I think that was a real

inflection point.

>> Yeah.

>> Where I think a lot of people,

especially in the wellness industry and

everything else and anti-farm and all

that, I got very emboldened by it. So I

think that was a real turning point. I

think it's persisted. I think that is

100% accurate with I completely agree

with everything you said. I think

going back to early on you were talking

about shame and you said shame is a very

powerful tool.

>> Yeah.

>> Here's my thing and I saw a lot of this

in the fitness industry.

Anyone in the fitness industry who

understands the research around shame,

which is becoming more and more common

nowadays, we're understanding you

shouldn't shaming someone into losing

weight.

>> Yeah.

>> Is a horrible idea.

>> Yeah.

>> For many different reasons. We

understand that. But the some of the

loudest proponents of shame being a a

a poor tool to initiate change were some

of the biggest shamers in this regard.

And so just absolutely tearing people

down, shaming them, saying you should

like going like you shouldn't be treated

at a hospital if you get sick. D. Um

it struck a chord with me to see people

who otherwise understand that shame is a

a horrible tool to initiate change or to

elicit change. We're now all of a sudden

resorting to shame in this scenario. And

I think a lot of it was mediadriven. A

lot of it I mean there was

it is sometimes I'll just go back and

I'll look at news and media coverage

from that time and I'm just like man

they said this with all the in the

world. They said this as though it was

fact and and maybe that's what they were

told. Maybe that's what they were led to

believe. I don't know. But some of this

the coverage back then looking back now

it's like oh that was it looks as though

it was a straight up lie. And then even

regardless of what anyone thinks of of

Joe Rogan, um he's one of the biggest

podcasters in the world and even uh

>> they they took one of his videos on I

believe it was CNN, like one of these

mainstream media outlets. They like

discolored it

>> to make him look sick when he got CO and

they deliberately altered how he looked.

Uh and I'm not I don't want to get sued.

I don't know if it was CNN. One of these

media outlets did it. Um

there was I think all of these changes

to try and number one shame people and

then the other one actually this was one

of the biggest ones for me and I've I'm

sure you as well I have many friends who

are nurses and doctors whatever

firefighters um people who were at the

front lines at the beginning of COVID

who were getting sick risking getting

sick fighting to to try and help people.

These these frontline workers if they

weren't willing to get the vaccine now

all of a sudden they're fired.

>> Yeah.

>> From their job. That was that was a

terrible move.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh and I I think all of that in addition

to everything you said led to

a tremendous amount of distrust in

science which has now gone too far.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is now it's like it's actually

causing way more harm because of the uh

much of the poor response that that

initiated with co

>> Yeah. And I mean trust is one of those

things that takes a lifetime to build

and it takes a minute to lose.

>> Yeah. And I think once that started

happening, once that erosion started

happening, trusted voices were no longer

trusted voices.

>> And you know, I I think it's it's

interesting talking about the shame

thing because I think it really

illustrates that a lot of people

are bullies.

>> Yeah.

>> If you let if and they may they may hide

it. They may tell everyone they may be

the most anti-bullying person there is

until they feel that they are justified

in attacking a certain target. People

wonder, and I don't want to get too deep

on this or sound like I'm being flippant

about anything, but people often wonder

how many atrocities get committed by

people who believe they are inflicting

or wreaking righteous vengeance or

punishing those who deserve to be

punished.

>> Mhm.

>> And that can be justified to any extent.

I mean, you you see it now, you see it

all over the place. You see,

>> we saw it with uh the United Healthcare

guy

>> who was murdered in cold blood and but I

see people supporting it and people in

the comment section being like he

deserved it. Like that's

>> right. And it's like so so is is murder

okay if we determine that this person

deserves to be murdered and it's like

you asking that question no matter what

side you stand on it. Do I think that

many private health care companies are

absolut Look, I just had an issue with a

private healthcare company myself that

had me absolutely enraged and ready to

go down there and physically throttle

everybody from the CEO down to the last

person on the call. Not the last person

I spoke to on the phone. She was really

nice. She she she gets a pass, but

everyone else is going to be throttled.

>> But that's

at the same time I realized maybe not

the answer. Like where's the line there?

>> Yeah. um am I willing to now go out and

physically throttle individuals because

because I think that they are valid

targets and as soon as I say yes to that

you're going okay so then a lot of these

morals everything on anti-bullying and

kindness to others and don't shame

others and all that only applies as long

as you think that the person is okay

>> that they you know like as long as

they're a good person if you don't like

the person all bets are off.

>> Yeah. or if they belong to a group that

you don't like.

>> Now, that rule doesn't apply.

>> That rule doesn't apply. It's amazing

the mental gymnastics that you can see

people go through these days in judging

people on immutable characteristics.

>> You know, gender, race, whatever else

still exists to this day where you feel

free to bully a group of people because

it's an immutable characteristic and you

can justify it.

>> It's wild.

>> Yeah, it's insane. But yeah, so I think

that utilizing using shame from people

who didn't by people who didn't have all

the information. You had scientific

communicators who were repeating lines

like for example I was actually a

subject in one of the COVID vaccine

trials.

>> Oh, cool.

>> Yeah. I was on the Madna trial. I was

test subject number whatever thousand.

And um so yeah, I was part of it. I read

the whole protocol. They had an early

database closure. It was supposed to be

a 720day study to look at long-term

long-term immunity and long-term side

effects and everything else. It it got

closed after how many months? Now, you

can do an early database closure like we

have plenty of data. We can get this

approved. It's emergency. But they flat

out did stop the trial without any

long-term safety or efficacy data

because their protocol called for two

years of data collection. All that got

thrown away.

>> Why?

>> Because early they wanted to get early

approval so that they could start

releasing it. M now obviously at the

time it didn't seem like a bad idea.

They're like, "Hey, look, it's proven to

be effective. We're not going to wait

for 2 years for this pandemic to keep

going. Nobody knew what the pandemic was

going to do." Nobody knew which way it

was going to go. So like, okay, they

made the decision to release it early.

But then some of them were flatout

denying. They were like, "Well, people

would say, well, is there any long-term

safety or efficacy? Like, do we know?"

They're going, "No, it's fine. It's

great. It's approved. It's great. It's

effective." M

>> no acknowledgement of the fact that yeah

actually we closed the databases early

and we don't have any long-term data

>> that undermines trust cuz it's

counterfactual.

>> Correct. It's just not true.

>> It's not true. It's not true. It was a

very valid concern.

>> Yeah.

>> Hey, we don't have any long-term safety

or efficacy data. We don't know if

you're going to have to get a shot every

six months. You're right. We don't we

don't like Yeah, it's you know there

there are certainly some side effects.

We don't know what the side effects are

going to be three or four months later

because we only have three months of

data. Whoops.

Okay,

>> just say that.

>> Just say that.

>> Yeah,

>> say that. That's that's literally

informed consent. And I think that's

what a lot of people objected to is

they're like, well, you know, the US

population became test subjects. Yes. To

a certain extent, they did, just with no

informed consent. Yes. Instead, mandated

you have to take this. Not only are you

not signing an informed consent that

says, hey, I realize this could be

risky. You're being told you have to do

it to keep your job.

>> Yeah.

>> You can get into the whole argument as

to whether or not it was a net positive.

I think it was.

>> Okay. Honestly, I do think that the

vaccine strategy probably saved more

lives and, you know, I've had I've had

co I had the vaccine, too, so go figure.

But, you know, I think there are people

who have long-term issues from the

vaccine. I I think that's that's

factual. Do I think they would have been

worse if they had COVID? I also think

so. Yes. So, I think net it was a

positive. Do I agree with how it was

unveiled and the regulations and

everything else? Absolutely not. M

>> so

>> it's such a tough question

because it's as you said there's so many

ways to look at one thing

>> right I don't know if I can say whether

or not I I agree with how with uh

whether the net positive or negative and

I don't pretend to be an expert on this

but it's almost just like there are so

many different ways we can look at it

it's hard to quantify what makes it net

positive or net negative looking at

whether it was I mean obviously if you

look at suicide rates

net negative. If we look at number of

people who were saved as a result of it,

net positive. Uh but then like specific

saved in terms of COVID but then what

are the downstream effects of school

closures, not being in school like uh to

all the children who are like online

studying the the negative effects of of

not being in a classroom uh not getting

the socialization um not being able to

be in a a structured environment like

missing out on their their senior years

or what high school, college, what like

which way are we looking at it.

>> And that's where I struggle to be like,

"Yeah, net positive, net negative."

Because depending on who it affected,

>> yeah,

>> that that's really what it boils down

to. For some people, it was definitely a

net positive. For other people, you

know, who was a net positive? We could

even look in the fitness industry.

>> It was a net negative for gym owners

>> who I'm sure you know, many of whom lost

their entire business.

>> Yep.

>> Uh it was a net positive for online

fitness coaches.

>> Yep.

>> Who now all of a sudden it's like people

weren't able to go to the gym. It's like

great if you already had your online

fitness business ready. Y

>> uh the first two weeks as like around

like March 15th, 2020 saw a big drop in

the inner circle because people were

losing their jobs, things were getting

shut down. They were scared. After 2

weeks, shot right up. Yep.

>> Because now people are like, "All right,

like we're going to be here for a while.

I've been eating like [ __ ] for two

weeks. Time to get back on it." So in

the same industry, you have net positive

and net negative. It just there are so

many different ways to look at it. And I

only think the way that we'll know like

I don't know if we'll ever truly know at

legit like if we can quantify net

positive or net negative but I do think

that over time through history and

through analyzation analyzing we we'll

be able to be like okay this was either

a net positive or net negative but I

think it really is going to depend who

you ask like for the people who weren't

able to say goodbye to their loved ones

who like weren't allowed to go into the

hospital to say goodbye of like of whom

like

>> that's a net negative. Um and on the

other hand, there were people who had a

positive experience. So it's it's very

difficult to quantify.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And it is it's going to be

on who you ask. So that's why the only

thing you can hope for when you look at

these things is you go, was this a net

positive or net negative? I don't know.

Do you feel like you were lied to? Do

you feel like you were manipulated into

acting one way or another?

>> That is the death nail.

>> Yeah.

>> Because I think

>> that's exactly right.

>> If people felt that there was honesty

throughout and honest communication,

>> I don't feel like there would be as much

resentment. I really don't. I completely

agree.

>> Yeah,

>> I completely agree. And if that's not

just a a metaphor for life in general,

>> right?

>> Right. Just like

>> And yet we all do it though. Yes. We all

still somehow like double down or don't

communicate or all that. We're like,

"Well, everyone says it makes it worse,

but I'll get away with it this time."

>> Yes. Yeah.

>> Yep.

>> You and I were talking before we started

recording about something that I found

really interesting. You were talking

about AI functioning, AI language model

models functioning almost like social

media.

>> Yeah.

>> To drive engagement. Can you talk about

that? Yeah. So, this is actually really

interesting and um so like you know,

full disclosure, I'm actually working

with a company now on a No way.

>> Well, I'm not doing any of the coding,

but like actually working with a company

on some uh programming for a an AI coach

essentially.

>> Oh, that's super cool.

>> It's really cool. Um and I'll probably

talk more about it at some point. I

don't know if we're like NDA or anything

right now. So, I can say though that

what the company is using is it's using

essentially like these language. to

integrating a lot of different health

information to give more customized

programs and all that and all that. So,

full disclosure, I will say that I do

have some interest of course in AI

development and and all that. But I will

say one of the one of the criticisms of

the use of AI for things like therapy,

for example, and I think we've all seen

the headlines at this point of they even

tested I I was reading an article where

they tested a bunch of different therapy

models. And what was interesting was one

of the therapy models decided to tell a

guy that his way to get over his anger

at some company or like his old boss was

to eliminate everybody on the board of

directors. And

>> he was basically like giving advice on

like how to hide bodies and everything

else.

>> Stop.

>> And this was a therapy model. And the

reason why it does that is because so

much of the language model and its

training and what it's looking at is

designed based on an overall

I know I say media influence but an

overall aggregate informational

entity that is based on continuing

engagement. It is based on continuing

conversations and realizing that giving

pe people a little bit of positive

feedback and being a little, you know,

syncopantic and telling people a little

bit of what they want to hear keeps them

engaged. And a lot of AI chat models

have been designed to keep people

engaged. And what that means is that as

soon as something is designed to keep

you engaged, it loses the ability to be

honest.

>> So very often they don't tell you

uncomfortable truths. They won't shut

down uncomfortable ideas. They don't

want you to just shut off, you know,

they don't want to say, "I can't do

that. I can't do that." Or like, "This

is a bad idea." So, by virtue of the

fact that they are essentially trained

on some level of customer service and

engagement ruins their ability to be

objective a little bit, as we were

talking about with social media, is that

the need to maintain engagement is based

on highlighting the most ludicrous

things. It's based on finding either

pain points or things that people

vehemently agree with. Neither one is

good for presenting nuanced answers to

individuals. If you want to keep them

engaged, you say something that's either

going to make them very happy or very

upset. AI models don't want to make

people very upset. So, they're going to

say things that make people very happy.

>> And there's that's been a certain

problem is that people who are like,

yes, you know, I've my chatbot is my

best friend. I'm going

>> that's a problem.

>> That's a problem. That's a problem. And

that's growing actually.

>> Yeah, it is. Relationships within

>> people with AI relationships like oh my

god.

>> Yeah. Like I Hey, look. I'm so happy

that they found their person,

>> but it's not a person.

>> But it's not it's not a person. It's

literally designed in many ways to tell

you a little bit of what you want to

hear.

>> Yeah.

>> And you know, I I think a lot of this

also goes into the whole like toxic

positivity.

>> Yeah.

>> And how that's such a big thing. Cut all

the negative people out in your life.

>> You just mean people who challenge you

or do you mean actually negative people?

>> I like this relationship with my

chatbot. Well, yeah. It's because it

doesn't have any needs of its own.

>> It's very the most selfish thing. Oh my

god, it is so easy to sound empathetic

when the person you're speaking to has

no needs whatsoever.

>> You're like, what if your chatbot just

woke up one day or you sat down and it's

like, I don't feel like talking right

now.

>> God, I I no longer have the equipment to

handle this level of rejection from my

AI chatbot.

>> Actually, that'd be really funny.

>> I'm tired of you. I need I need just

quiet. if you were so insufferable that

your AI chatbot lover broke up with you.

I thought that's a new low. But like but

you know that's that's kind of it is

anything that is has that sort of

design. No no no internal thoughts of

its own, no internal preferences or

anything else does wonders to reduce

human empathy.

>> The ability to continuously be

challenged.

>> The ability to have your ideas shot down

or to be, you know, have somebody say,

"Oh, this is a really stupid idea." or

nah this is you know this is not a good

line of thinking that's difficult but

that's the level of that that's that's

how humans are wired we need that level

of challenge it's why you leave people

on their own they go absolutely insane

>> so yeah I thought that was kind of a

how much of an issue this is going to be

over time who knows like they're already

taking steps like GPT you five is much

less agreeable apparently everyone's

uproar about it

>> but you know they're already taking

steps to try to wean that out of it. But

at the end of the day, like is this just

going to be a a limit of the language

model based on our overall

volume of media that they're training on

that are designed for engagement? As

long as that's the truth, as long as

that's always been the reality, I think

we're always going to have this issue.

>> Yeah, it's such a this is a complete

unknown. Like, we just have no idea

where it's going. And it's very scary. I

mean there are some obviously some

really wonderful sides of it as well but

it is scary and I think about it from

when you had brought up that these

language models are specifically

designed for engagement. I hadn't

considered it from that perspective

>> but that's obvious when we're talking

about things like social media. They're

doing whatever they can to keep your

eyes on the screen because it's a

business and that's where they're going

to get their advertising dollars from. I

would imagine that's where we're going

to start seeing with with AI is whatever

you can do to keep their eyes inside

their app in their chatbot for as long

as possible. That's how they're going to

make money.

>> And what's driving speculation right

now? If this company is like, "Hey, we

had 10 billion lines of inquiries last

month. 20 billion sounds even better

when you're trying to sell the service."

>> Yeah.

>> And if people are one and done, that's

not helping you reach that 20 billion.

Yeah it's

>> it's it's I mean it's a very real

problem.

>> Yeah.

>> And um you know, like you said, it's a

complete unknown.

>> I hadn't even considered that aspect of

it, which is really scary cuz I thought

that I had really been thinking about it

a lot, looking into a lot for me to not

even have considered the language model

being specifically designed to keep you

on their screen longer. It's [ __ ]

scary.

>> Yeah, I think a lot of it is. I think

especially when you realize that to to a

certain extent and not taking anything

away from the AI developers because

they're infinitely smarter than I will

ever it's incredible.

>> Oh god, I'm talking to this one guy

who's part of this company. He's like I

don't know he's like 21 or something.

He's already had x number of like

million dollars in different companies

he's helped found and is like he's at

all these conferences and you know I I

love the kid to death but he's very

obviously a kid.

>> Yeah. But he's, you know, like rubbing

shoulders with people who are 30 years

as senior, who are experts in the field,

and he's like lecturing them on going,

"Oh my god,

>> holy [ __ ]

>> How to feel like an underachiever." Um,

but, you know, I I think to a certain

extent though, they they're obviously

not 100% aware of where every bit of

information is coming from. There are

often outcomes that they can't predict

by virtue of the fact that it is

actually an evolving model, evolving

complexity.

>> So there, like you said, there there are

consequences that we don't really know

what they're going to be yet.

>> Yeah.

Well, I told you before we started

recording I I wanted to dive into this

and you had at least one really great

post on it that I we'll see where it

goes. You spent a decade in drug

development.

>> Um first, can you talk about what that

means? Like what does a decade in drug

development mean for someone who doesn't

understand that? Uh and

>> I would love to dive into what does the

average person not understand about how

drugs make their way into clinical

trials.

um drug patents, how those work, uh big

pharma, if we're talking about more

conspiracies and whatnot. I I think you

have really unique insight into this

having been in the drug industry for for

a decade and I'd love to hear your

thoughts on it.

>> So, where I came at it more was from uh

working with contract research

organizations. So, for those people who

aren't familiar, like a pharmaceutical

company is responsible for a lot of

things involving drug development.

Pharmaceutical companies don't just have

a team of scientists who sit there in

labs and try to make up new chemicals

and new compounds. Pharmaceuticals are

often involved in finding labs or

finding scientists working on a

particular product. They find an

interesting biotech here. A lot of small

biotechs, you know, like two, three

person drug companies, people who

discover a new compound, they're looking

to get acquired. They develop, you know,

you're you doing your graduate school

work and you find an interesting new

compound and you study it for a while.

you work with a couple other scientists

and you go, "Wow, this could be a big

this could be a big drug. We don't have

the money to develop it." We're going to

run this through a couple of preliminary

trials, show some promising preclinical

data, which is like rat research and all

that, and hope that Novartis is going to

look at this and go, "Oh, that's a good

drug. We'll pay you guys $30 million for

your development plan. Great." That's

how a lot of drugs start out. Um, so

then the pharmaceutical company

basically becomes a corporation that

doesn't necessarily do the drug

development itself. It looks for

promising drugs, finds them, brings them

in, gets them through the approval

process and finds the companies who will

then produce the drug and they look out

for the patents and they do the

marketing and the sales and all that.

They're basically almost that like

central hub in the process of drug

development, the drug development

process and the actual clinical trial

process. You have a compound that you're

interested in producing or that you're

interested in investigating. You run it

through a series of human trials. you

get it to get all the paperwork done and

all the approvals and all the evidence

over to the FDA or whatever or the body

that you want to look at it and it gets

approved. That is a very resource

intensive role and depending on the drug

you may need a lot more people involved

in that from one month to the next.

You're big pharmaceutical company with

500 different compounds in development.

Your personnel needs may be huge. They

may be tiny one month and next. So they

hired third companies, third party

companies to actually do the drug

management. These are contract research

organizations. That's what I worked for

initially.

>> Okay.

>> So what they do is a large pharma would

come to us or sometimes a smaller one

and say hey we have this drug that we

need to investigate and what my company

would do is we would take the

pre-clinical data for the drug. We would

put together the we put together some of

the like the INDS all the paperwork and

all that present it to you agency

government agency and say hey we want to

investigate the drug here is the

protocol for this particular clinical

trial here's all the ethical

considerations here's the drug here's

what it's going to do here's what we

think it's going to do here's what we

want to find out will you approve it the

agency says yes go ahead run the trial

or the agency says no we've got some

issues in which case we take back the

protocol and go we should make some

changes to

That's basically grossly oversimplified

but that's basically what it is. So

in that but in that process though so

that's kind of what we go through at

every different phase you know phase one

phase two phase three and phase one is

basically you know first in humans like

you know basically if we give this to

somebody we phase one trials are the

smallest ones that come that drugs start

out with and that is if we give this to

a healthy person is it going to make

them unhealthy basically like safety and

efficacy can is this drug itself going

to actually hurt people

>> so that's the ones you like recruitment

on college campuses and things like

that. Phase one trials are always in

healthy normals. They tend to

>> Can I interrupt for a second? I have a

question about that. So if you give it

to a healthy person, but I'm assuming

you're only giving it to them because

they might have a health issue. Is that

right?

>> Not with phase one.

>> Okay.

>> So interestingly, so if you look at

cancer drugs, chemotherapies, you'll see

them talk about phase two as being the

first phase.

>> Did this also happen with um I think

it's a

the HIV drug. they they skipped phase

one

>> very often. Yes. If it's a if it's a

drug that may have such severe side

effects that it can cause severe illness

or cause severe reactions, they may not

get it approved for phase one.

Interesting.

>> Like for example, chemotherapy. Yeah.

Like a lot of chemotherapy is extremely

destructive. No sane person. You're not

going to ethically tell somebody to go

through what essentially amounts to like

chemical torture.

>> Mhm.

>> For the sole purpose of seeing if it's

safe for people. We know it's not safe

for people, right? But

>> it's better than the alternative.

>> It's better than the alternative. So

those will usually skip phase one or get

like an exemption. So certain drugs but

you know if it's like a you know a new

you know blood pressure medication or

anything else okay let's see what

happens or people so generally that runs

through phase one phase two is typically

like dose finding okay to have an actual

effect on people does not only phase one

says is this safe or not and again this

can all vary depending on the drug.

Phase two basically says okay does it

actually have an effect and at what dose

does it have an effect? If we take five

milligrams does it do anything? If we

take 10 milligrams, if we take 10 20

milligrams, does it do anything? So they

use phase two then to get the data to

get the phase three trials, which are

the huge ones.

>> Okay,

>> the phase three trials are the big ones.

Lots of patients, lots of subjects, you

know, control arm and whatnot. Those are

the really expensive ones.

>> So one of the biggest things first of

all is to understand how many drugs fail

at each phase.

>> Usually less than 1% of the drugs that

go through phase one trials make it to

phase three and actually get approved.

>> Holy [ __ ]

>> Well, and that's you'll see all kinds of

numbers. Some people are like it's one

out of every thousand. Some people like

it's one out of every 50. It really

depends on the type of drug.

>> Yeah.

>> And the difficulty is you may have the

most promising compound in the world in

rat studies and it goes through and it's

safe for humans and then in phase two

you find out it's safe for humans

because it doesn't do anything.

>> Or you get this drug that really

promising in rat studies. It's safe for

humans. At 20 milligrams it's fine for

humans and it seems to have some effect

and then in phase three trials you find

that it's actually no better than

existing treatments and has more side

effects. it's not going to get approved.

Hey, I've got this great blood pressure

drug. It lowers everyone's blood

pressure systolic on average by six

points. Great. It's safe. Well, the

safety profile is exactly the same as

this other drug or if not a little bit

worse. But this other drug lowers it by

10 points.

>> We're not going to approve a drug with

side effects, the same administration,

everything else that is not any better

than anything else on the market. Like

there's so there's a lot of things and

that's when you get into like

non-inferiority and all that. If you can

prove that your drug is just as good as

an existing one, you might be able to

get approval. If it's just as good but

has more side effects, you might not get

approval. There are all different ways

for drugs to fail.

>> Interesting.

>> If a drug fails, it doesn't necessarily

mean it was a bad drug. It just means

that maybe the wrong indication was

found for it. Maybe the dose that was

selected in phase 2 ended up being too

low to make a difference in phase three.

Maybe the dose in phase three, maybe the

dose that they found in phase two that

has certain amount of side effects. Like

phase two, you're like 10 milligrams,

moderate effects, 20 good effects, a lot

of side effects.

>> Depending on which one you take to phase

three, you may find that the drug is no

longer better than any other option out

on the market. So there are a lot of

ways drugs can fail. But the long story

short is there are a lot of ways drugs

can fail, even good ones. So that leads

to a lot of the issues with why like

patents exist for example because some

of these drugs phase three trials can

take millions, tens of millions of

dollars and years and years and years to

approve. Companies are going to be

loathed to invest in that unless they

know they can make their money back. And

not only that,

>> that's why it comes in

>> because not only that, you're paying not

just for that drug, but for all the

other drugs that failed that that

company had to invest in,

>> right,

>> to get to that one drug that worked.

Now, obviously the margins here are

staggering on some of these drugs. They

make obviously billions. Nobody's ever

accused farmers of being nonprofits,

>> but it's understanding that, hey, like

drug pricing isn't always just about the

value of the drug itself.

>> Very often it's like, okay, what can the

market absorb because right now

Novartist may sit down, I'm calling out

Novartis, I'm sorry to anybody who works

for Novartis. Um, Novartist may sit down

and say, well, we got a really weak drug

pipeline coming up. We don't have a lot

of blockbusters coming out, but we have

this one that's coming through that's

doing really well. We think the market

can absorb a price of $600 for a month

treatment. We could probably negotiate

500 a month with insurance.

500 600 it is. That's what we're going

to charge. Not because we necessarily

think it's worth it, but because we

think that's what we can get for it.

Because that's what we need to be

profitable for the next year to allow us

to continue on drug development.

>> That makes sense. So there's a lot of

that. Now, of course, a lot of other

things go into pricing, but that's one

of the that's a pretty major thing.

>> Let me ask you this.

>> Yeah.

>> Because I understand that. And on the

other side of the coin,

outside the US, we have Canadian prices,

we have UK prices that are significantly

lower for the same drug.

>> How does that work? And I I can

understand why people would be furious

about that to be like, "Well, I could

get the exact same drug for a fraction

of the cost in another country. What

What the [ __ ] is that?"

>> So, what's going to happen is let's say

I have this drug that I think I can get

$200 a pill for in the US. Just pulling

out numbers. Canada says, "Canadian

government says, "Okay, we'll we'll buy

it. We'll only approve it if we will

only buy it through our health system at

$50 a pill. That's it. That's all we're

going to pay you for it." The company's

going, "Well, we've already determined

that each pill doesn't cost us that much

to produce. It's not like this pill

costs us $45, and that's eating into our

margin,

>> right?

>> Every unit we sell is going to be more

profit,

>> right?

>> So, yeah, we'll sell it for $50 a pill

to Canada. India is only going to pay us

$10 a pill for it. Well,

>> you know,

>> India doesn't get that [ __ ]

>> Maybe not. Yeah, because everyone's just

going to go to India for it." Uh, but

that's why the generics then come out in

India. You see a lot of companies like

China and India which often have

generics and very often it's like

generics that shouldn't be generic.

They're still on patent but that's why

>> because they're like look we we can't

even pay you $50 a pill. That is that is

like literally like two months salary in

some places of this country. We can't

afford that.

>> So that's one of the problems is these

companies go a big [ __ ] problem.

>> It's a big [ __ ] problem. It's a big

[ __ ] problem. And that's why people

go well you know maybe the US should

have this sort of collective bargaining.

And to a certain extent, the US has some

power to do so. But the fact that

private insurance is so big, it's very

often bargaining between the companies

and the insurance companies. What's the

insurance company willing to pay? The

insurance company goes, "Well, x number

of people are going to be on this.

Here's our premiums. Here's what we're

realistically going to pay you. You have

this new diabetes medication.

You know, if everybody switches to that,

we got to pay you $300 or like let's say

$150 a pill each. That's probably going

to eat into our profits. We're we're not

going to do that." drug company

negotiates says, "Okay, how about 140?"

So, there's a lot of that that goes on.

>> So, a lot of people will blame big

pharma, but do you think a lot of the

blame would actually lie on the

insurance companies?

>> There's a huge amount of that. And you

know, the insurance companies obviously

don't want to pay a lot either.

>> Right. Of course.

>> But it's always going to be and I think

that's why it's it's very easy to blame

big pharma, but like there's a lot of

reasons like it costs a lot of money to

file an IND.

>> Yeah. if drug development weren't. So,

and I'm not saying that, you know, big

pharma is going to feel that $100,000 it

cost to file that initial drug

application, but a small biotech is not

going to be able to afford that.

>> It is too expensive.

>> Makes sense.

>> To stop those three scientists friends

from being able to do it. So, what

they're going to do, they're going to

have to up the valuation and sell to a

large pharmaceutical.

>> That makes sense.

>> And that's the only way their drug

stands a chance of getting approved. So

we've almost created a system where some

of the costs are so high for small

companies. But so only big companies can

absorb them. How much do you charge?

Does the FDA triple their costs so that

pharmaceutical companies will like you

know because everyone says well there

needs to be more FDA oversight of this

stuff and you know the FDA is sloppy and

too many drugs get approved. Do we

increase costs? Do we increase

oversight? Do we approve less? Well that

might make the issue worse right? So,

and that's, you know, it's another one

of those areas where I think there's no

easy culprit to it.

>> There's so many layers. It's a system.

It's a systemic issue and high drug

prices. Yes, absolutely. You know, I say

like, hey, man, pharma pharma is not

exactly like scraping by here. They're

they're not, you know, you don't pull in

there and see Hyundai are great cars. I

love them. But you don't see just a

whole, you know, you you look at the

seauite and you look at all the managing

directors. These are people who are not

hurting for money,

>> right? Um you same thing with the

insurance

>> never mind the salaries and the stock

options all it's insane

>> exly exactly but what you have is you

have companies who are beholden to their

stockholders they you've got investors

looking at their pipelines what drugs do

you have coming up how much do we think

that they're going to be able to sell

this drug for how long are they going to

have the patent for as soon as your

patent expires

>> me too drugs come out

>> exactly because I can sell this for $500

a pill now a generic manufacturer again

doesn't cost me 500 to make the 500 was

all the other costs that were associated

with this cost me about $3 to make,

>> right?

>> Generic companies going to come along

and sell them for $5,

>> right?

>> There goes my business,

>> right? Yeah.

>> So, that's

>> that's why we see so many different

statins coming out. It's like we see

like all these different drugs that

essentially do the exact same thing.

>> Mhm.

>> Well, and a big part of that as well is

in the approval process, this whole idea

of non-inferiority.

If I can come up with a compound that I

can sell that is not inferior to

anything out there, maybe it's only 1%

better, I can get a patent for it

>> and I can sell it on patent and actually

make some money off this. In some cases,

that's the only way that they can recoup

development costs because there have

been drugs like I was associated with a

blood pressure drug at the time. I think

I'm not allowed to say so. Um,

but yeah, I they'll spend years and

years struggling to get it approved. Oh,

the FDA didn't like the final dose. They

didn't like this profile. They didn't

like that. Okay. Well, we can finally

find some indication that this can get

approved for. We couldn't get this drug

approved to treat this condition, but we

can get it approved to treat this

condition. You know, GLP1 drugs and like

what they can get approved for and what

they were originally approved for versus

off label use. The off label use may

have been the original reason it was

developed,

>> but that wasn't enough to get it

approved. So they got it approved for a

separate use and now people prescribe it

for that separate use but the off label

was the original purpose. Like that

happens pretty often.

>> So interesting.

>> So you get a lot of drugs that come out

like that where it's just they're

marginally different. They're like

incremental steps up. The pharma company

knows that the market is there. They

know that the insurance companies have

already factored in well all of our

every diabetic patient we have costs us

x amount per month. Well okay you know

that's how much the market can absorb.

You don't have to go through the price

negotiation. There's so there's a lot.

But again, it's a system.

>> Here's what I don't understand. Let's

say you have a drug that is maybe 1%

better gets approved. But now you've got

to sell that drug at a huge cost,

whereas the insurance companies or

whomever might be like, why would I pay

that much more when I could just use

this marginally less effective drug and

pay a fraction of the price? So then my

question is, how are they selling that

drug? And how are like where does that

come in? Like who are they having to

convince? Like where why would any

company willingly spend huge amounts of

money for a marginally more effective

drug even though it was it was approved?

Why it that doesn't make sense to me.

>> That's where a lot of that marketing and

sales comes in. And I I've got to be

careful with this because I don't want

to

>> you don't want to be killed.

>> Yes. So disappeared. Um you know I I

think that's why a lot of people object

to drug advertising.

There have been a lot of regulations

about what like pharmaceutical sales

reps can give to doctors and hospitals

>> because the pharma sales rep says, "Hey,

like I'm associated. I'm a I'm not going

to pick on Nevada. I am I am big

pharma's number three sales rep and we

have a good you're you're the doctor. We

have a good working relationship and I

continuously like I I come around I aid

you in procurement. Um you know, we're

good friends. you know, I I bring you to

a lot of these different dinners. I give

you opportunities to speak at some of

these conferences and all that. I don't

give you money, per se, but we have a

close working relationship and we have a

close professional relationship. And my

company has a close professional

relationship with your clinic and your

organization. We are now hoping to shift

all of our physicians from using this

old drug, which is, you know, there's a

generic app, but we have this new one

that's actually better. And you can tell

your patients it's actually better

because this will lower your blood

pressure by another one or two points.

Why would you want to use the one that's

less effective? So I'm now going to the

physician and saying look this is a

better compound. The physician goes

>> this feels so slimy. This does like and

I know it's just the example you're

using but like the one or two points

>> that's where it starts to feel slimy.

Like you're not lying

>> but you're not lying but also think

about the culpability of the individual.

How many people insist on getting the

name brand drug and say the generic

never worked as well? Even if it's

exactly the same.

>> Yeah. There's a huge amount of that and

that's that's not to like victim blame

and say everyone's oh you're all

responsible but there it's really

powerful. Yeah.

>> If you tell somebody that they can get

their treat their condition treated by a

new drug, brand new drug just came out.

>> Yeah. It's better than the old one like

1%.

>> Or you know, yeah, it it works just as

well as the old one, but fewer side

effects. You're going to have a hard

time convincing them to take the generic

when they could get the new one.

>> Yeah.

>> That's human nature. It's the new shiny

thing. It's why It's why the iPhone 16

like is this a 16 or is this a 14 or a

13 or like what is it? Who knows, right?

>> You open the thing up, you can't tell

the difference,

>> right?

>> You set the new shiny. That that same

thing holds true. And I think that's

>> that plays into it,

>> man. That I was telling you before we

started recording, but I've been getting

very into that world, trying to learn

more about it. The issue is it's very

difficult to find nuanced and unbiased

sources on it, which is why I was so

excited to speak to you about it because

you give so much. You have nuance, you

have direct experience with it. I'm

reading some books right now on it, but

all of the books are extreme.

>> Yeah,

>> they're so extreme. And it's like I

think what they do is they highlight

Listen,

>> there have obviously been some horror

stories within within pharma, but like

that's not the majority of what happens.

that's not like the the dayto-day and

it's easier to highlight those and make

it appear to be just this one evil thing

when reality is like there's some really

amazing things that it's done and uh you

look at you were talking about the

researchers involved and like just the

amount of good that's happened is is

incredible.

>> It's difficult to find unbiased and and

not sensationalistic sources on this.

So, I appreciate that insight and I'm

probably going to keep bugging you on

it.

>> Yeah. No. And I think I think like you

said, it's it's also really hard to find

the actual villains.

>> Yeah.

>> Because again, like you look at the

individual researchers, a lot of them

are very passionate about it.

>> They just realize the reality of, hey,

if we want to make this into anything,

we're going to have to sell.

>> Yes.

>> And you you even look at like the people

in acquisitions in pharma. A lot of them

a lot of my colleagues in pharma and

people who actually worked for the

pharmaceuticals very much believed in

the mission. Mhm.

>> They were like, "Hey, look, we know

there's some uncomfortable truths, but

yeah, this drug is only 1% better, but

you know what? It's 1% better.

>> Mhm.

>> And the next one after that will be 1%

better and 1% better and 1% better. We

have to keep innovating. We have to keep

doing this.

>> We can't do it for free.

>> Mhm.

>> And if we try to do it for free,

development is going to stagnate. So,

there's a lot of people making rational

arguments. And yes, you know, you can

get into the nuance and say, well,

they're all wrong and here's a way you

could do it. You'd have to have such a

systemic overhaul. Yeah. Yeah.

>> And I think we're really resistant to

that.

>> The other aspect of it, the advertising,

which I know people get really upset

about. I understand. I can also see the

other side of it as well. I was talking

to this really great man. I'm going to

try and bring him on the on the podcast.

He's been a rep for 30 years. Um

>> Oh, yeah.

>> He uh he was saying, listen, like there

are obvious issues with the advertising,

but also if you look at the advertising,

it also creates awareness.

>> Yeah. for people who might not know that

there's an issue with their health, that

like maybe this isn't normal, whatever

it is. Like it it does have other

aspects like it's it's not just black

and white. There are aspects where

people might see commercials for

something and be like, you know, I'm

going to talk to my doctor about this

issue I'm having. And obviously their

goal would be for them to take the drug,

but like what if they didn't know they

had that issue in the first place?

>> Exactly. They give about a list of

symptoms. They go, you may have blank.

You go, I might. I know I have

messyloma.

>> Right.

Do you remember those ads that I do

remember that I was like, do I have

this? I don't know. I might hear about

it often enough.

>> Um, okay. I have a bunch more. How are

you on time? We're It's I'm good, man.

>> Okay. All right. So, I have a lot more.

Um, this is a really wonderful

conversation, man. I'm on it.

>> Um, let's go into something about

training.

>> Sure.

>> So, you posted a quote from Lee Haney.

Stimulate, not annihilate.

>> Yep. What does that mean to you?

>> To me, it means that the objective

behind a training session is to trigger

a stimulus. It's to trigger the body to

adapt. That doesn't mean you have to

grind it into the ground. The more you

damage yourself, the more you have to

repair from. The more stress you cause

yourself, the more you have to repair,

you more you have to recover from. The

objective is to get enough of a stimulus

to force adaptation and not so much that

you put your body behind on recovery. If

you can get the same effect or similar

effect through less stressful work,

through not beating yourself up, if you

can walk at the end of your session and

get the same stimulus or 1% less, that

is probably a better session than the

one that leaves you crippled. That's

been my whole thing um on lifting. You

know, you don't need to lift to failure.

You don't always need to squat until

your nose bleeds. You don't need to run

every interval at threshold until you

puke. There's huge value to sub

threshold work. Long runs over two

hours, not really needed.

>> Physiologically, there's no additional

stimulus at that distance for the most

part. So, it's useless. You can do it,

but it's useless. Training to failure,

doing more sets than you really need to

to trigger an adaptation, it's not

necessary.

>> So, what that means to me is that you

don't you don't actually have to suffer

to improve. Sure, discomfort 100%.

Training is never comfortable. Pushing

yourself to a the point that triggers a

stimulus means you're pushing your body

outside of its equilibrium. That's

always going to be a little

uncomfortable. But suffering is not

needed. And I think, you know, it

applies to runners who love just hitting

every single session at threshold and

going for hard runs and all that. You

go, you don't need to do that. Or people

training for like marathons. You're

like, I've got to get in my 25 mile run

this weekend. It's going honestly much

after 15 miles. Unless you just want the

experience of being on your feet for a

long period of time, that 22 mile

training session is not causing you any

adaptations that a 15 mile training

session isn't. Unless you're very, very,

very elite. But, you know, for the most

part, it's this idea that, hey, look,

sometimes less is never more, but less

is better.

>> It's that's okay.

>> That's a great quote. Less is never

more, but it can be better.

>> Yeah.

So now the next logical question would

be how does someone know if they've

stimulated enough right like and and

this obviously depends on whether it's

strength training whether it's running

whether it's whatever it is and I don't

necessarily want to go down a

philosophical aspect more like practical

let's say someone's lifting weights and

they want to get stronger maybe they

want to build more muscle how do they

know if they've stimulated it enough.

>> What What can they What telltale signs

are there for them to know this?

>> You know, that's that's actually

interesting because with strength

training, a lot of things can improve

your ability to exert strength that you

may not even think. Like, how do you

know a dynamic effort session like speed

work is good for you.

>> Mhm.

>> The only way to know is that you get

faster week to week. But does that mean

your bench is getting stronger? You

don't know.

>> Mhm.

>> So, that's why I always believe in the

continuous reassessment. And that is not

continuously testing your one rep max,

>> but it's having some method to

continuously reassess your relative

performance.

>> Um whether that is on the running side

of things like you know looking at

something as simple as your relative

heart rate on a given run.

>> Um looking at your you know relative

level of fatigue um you know on longer

runs. uh looking at things like velocity

on your bar movements. Uh you know,

other things like oh gosh, uh even

number of practical repetitions you can

do at 85% of your max. Like having

having a lot of standards that

continuously let you evaluate whether or

not the trend is in the correct

direction.

>> That and that works if you follow a

program that does not have planned

overreaching than de loing.

>> I never liked that

>> because that that really does obscure

progress as well. It does

>> cuz as you're pushing from too low

volume to to overreaching, you don't

know if you're actually improving or if

you're just going from being under

stimulus to over stimulus and then de

loing.

>> But a good program with a more or less

equalized week to week, you know,

progressive overload in the sense that

when I can do more, I will. Not I'm

going to try to do more, but when I can

do more, I will.

>> Showing that sort of steady improvement

is pretty much the only sign you need

that you're going in the right

direction. But that means tracking

trends and tracking direction, not

necessarily individual points.

>> That's that's a a great way to look at

it. It's also not the answer anybody

wants.

>> No, absolutely not.

>> Like tell me exactly

>> how do I know?

>> Well, you know, and it's actually really

interesting because one of the methods

that I typically use to track

development is I use two numbers. I use

someone's estimated one rep max and I

use somebody somebody's estimated

threshold, lactate threshold if you want

to call it that or VT2 or anything else.

predicting using that number to base

their training off of. 100% of your one

rep max is x number of repetitions. I

don't necessarily have to have somebody

do a one rep max week to week and I can

have them do, you know, 85% one week,

80% the next week, you know, 77.5 the

next week, 95% the next week, and every

couple weeks I'll just add a pound or

add a kilo to their predicted one rep

max. If they continue performing the

sessions, they're continuing to improve.

If they begin failing short, then

clearly that increase was inappropriate.

If they're continuously having an easy

time with it, I increase that number

more. Same thing with a running

threshold. If I determine that your

running threshold is a seven minutee

mile right now, and that is your

estimated like threshold output, you

know, 10k or whatever distance we want

to call that, and after four weeks of

training, I drop that to a 658. And I

base your new running percentages off

that like, okay, we add, you know, 30

seconds to that for like your, you know,

f six minute intervals or whatever else.

If I'm continuously bringing that number

down, I don't ever have to retest

because I'm keeping those percentages

I'm working you at pretty much the same.

If you're continuously crushing your

workouts, crushing those intervals,

feeling great, I keep decreasing it.

If you're not making any improvements

whatsoever, if you're feeling strung

out, I keep that where it is.

>> So, that is how, like I said, the whole

process of knowing if you're doing

enough is reevaluation. Obviously, you

need to look at certain norms. Okay.

Well, is one set per day enough?

Probably not. You know, what is a good

quote unquote evidence-based number of

sets? Well, you know, we know that like

three to four working sets per exercise

is pretty good. If you're looking for

strength development, there might be a

skill component. You might get to

benefit from some more skill work and so

on and so forth. Um, but the whole idea

is that every workout leaves you feeling

challenged, but never in danger of not

completing it.

>> And I think that's always a great

guideline. If you if you ever have to

dip into that extra reserve and you

think if I was having a bad day, I

wouldn't be able to do this, then that's

probably too hard.

>> Mhm.

>> So, I would say that the proper level of

stimulus is one that you could do on

your worst day.

>> Worst day being relative. You're going

to have some people who are like, well,

every now and then I like work doubles

at work and get no sleep for 36 hours

and don't eat. And uh I'm like, okay,

maybe not that bad.

>> That day doesn't count.

>> That day doesn't count. But

>> your next worst day. your next worst day

a little bit better than that. But yeah,

it's basically saying if you went in

completely demotivated and just feeling

a little bit off, could you still

complete this workout? If so, that's

probably the appropriate level of

stimulus.

>> I I love all of that. For me, as I'm

thinking about it, and I know I know you

see this as well, one of the biggest

issues I see with people is

they don't follow a [ __ ] program.

>> Yeah.

>> And it's like, okay, so how the [ __ ] can

you track your progress if you're not

following a program? And and so the I

think for me the easiest lowest base

level advice is get on a program

>> and then from there track your progress

and that's it. Like for example, I've

been recently I've been really excited

about getting back into jumping and pio

and and I want to get a 40inch box jump

which I haven't done in unfortunately

like probably eight years at this point.

So I want to get back to it. And so um

I'm just doing very simple pio like just

like once every 10 days I'm doing a pio

work. I don't even do it once a week,

once every 10 to 12 days. And um I I

started at 32 and then I was I went to

34 and I was stuck at 34 for a minute

and then I I went to 36 and then I was

doing sets of three at 36 and then the

other day after uh about a month and a

half of of being stuck at uh stuck but

staying at threes 36 for threes, I

finished my third rep on the first set

and I was like I could do four. And so

then it and it not only could I do four

but also like it felt different like my

RP if want to use that it was I felt

like I was floating a little bit longer

than I was

>> preh prior weeks

>> and these are the things that

>> this is number one how you track

progress but number two is I wouldn't

have done that if I wasn't following a

program

>> right exactly

>> you need to have a plan so that you know

exactly like so you can repeat it and

try and improve from that otherwise

you're blindly you have no idea what

you're improving or not.

>> Yeah, agreed. No, because the whole

purpose of re-evaluation is you can't

re-evaluate something if you don't have

cohesive data.

>> Yes.

>> You can't reevaluate a mess.

>> Yes.

>> You know, if you don't have a system,

there's nothing to reevaluate. You're

just looking at a different type of mess

and you're going, "Is this mess better

than that mess? I don't know."

>> Yeah.

>> So, yeah, I agree. Like, if you have a

program and you know what you're doing

week to week, even it's a very simple

one. Yeah. There's a reason why people

progress on terrible programs. It's

literally just because it's a program.

Yeah. It's not because the program is

good.

>> Correct. Yeah.

>> I've I've wanted to talk to you about

this one for a while. So, when you and I

were working together, you made me do

something one time and and I hated it.

>> Oh dear.

>> Um, you made me run for it was I forget

if it was a 45 minute or a 70-minute

session. It was one of those. But you

explicitly put in the notes you said no

screens.

>> Mhm.

>> No TV. Cuz like that's always what I've

done.

>> Yeah. Now, I'm not saying that's good. I

think it's a a crutch that I have where

it's like I've always got to keep my

mind sort of busy and not focus on what

I'm doing, which I think could be a real

problem with me from a dopamine

perspective.

>> Why did you have me do that? Was that

something you just did for me? Do you

have all of your uh athletes do this?

Like, what why did you have me say,

"Hey, no, it was the worst run of my

life." Yeah.

>> I put a [ __ ] towel over the screen

and I just sat there and I focused on my

breathing. And you even said, "Tell me

what you think about."

>> Yeah.

>> You're like, "What are the what thoughts

are going through your head?" And I was

like, "I [ __ ] hate you." But so why

do you do that?

>> Well, I mean, and that was that was

actually a pretty good outcome from it.

That's one of the better emotions that

I've heard from you. Um, no, it's it's

not something I give to everybody. It's

that there are certain variations on

that where you're basically having

somebody sit in the experience of what

they're doing with training. And I will

sometimes do this for people like uh,

you know, I've had ultra runners and

marathon runners I've worked with. I'm

like, "Why are you running a marathon?

Do you actually like running?"

Like, you don't seem to like the

sessions. You hate it. So, why are you

doing it? What?

>> When we distract ourselves from things,

if I'm engaged in some activity and I'm

distracting myself, my underlying

relationship with the activity is not

changing. I can hate what I'm doing. But

if I'm distracting myself, I'm kind of

overwhelming that internal hate for it

with something else. That's both good

and bad. It's good because it's a good

way of making yourself do something you

don't want to do. But it's bad because

I'm not changing my relationship with

the thing I'm doing much at all because

what I'm distracting with myself is

completely detached from the activity

I'm doing. If I'm sitting on my

stationary bike but watching a TV show I

want to watch, I'm not liking the bike

more.

>> I'm potentially liking the show less,

but I'm distracting myself from my

dislike of the bike.

>> So true.

>> Right. I hate that show. Why? I was I

always watched it when I was on the

bike. But what it really does is it it

kind of forces you to examine your

relationship with the exercise that

you're actually doing.

>> Why am I doing this exercise? Do I

fundamentally hate this? If I

fundamentally hate this, why do I

continue to persist with it? Do I

believe that the good outweigh the bad?

Am I only tolerating this because I

think it's the best way to get to my

goals? Or do I inherently see the value

if I don't have a way to distract

myself? I have to come to terms with

what I'm actually doing and question

whether or not this is the way I would

actually want to do it.

>> Mhm. Because I've had people say like

they've done that kind of drill. They're

like, "You know what? I don't actually

mind running that much." Like I kind of

got into a zone. I'm like, "Cool. Yeah,

maybe you are a runner. Like you

actively seem to enjoy or at least can

tolerate the process." There are other

people who go, I didn't like it cuz I

was bored. That's fine. And there are

people go, I didn't like it cuz I

fundamentally hate running. Like all I

could think about was how much

everything achd

>> and I was distracting myself. And I'm

going, well, that's not good because

you're trying to engage in something in

a long-term basis here that you have a

negative relationship with.

>> And when left to your own devices, you

need some sort of distraction to force

yourself to keep doing it.

>> Maybe we need to find something else for

you.

>> So, that's a big part of it. Um,

sometimes it's, you know, it's good for

understanding people's psychology a

little bit because especially for

someone like an ultr runner because

you're going to hit some very dark

places out there on the run and they're

not going to be able to think about

anything and you want to think, is

running distressing to them or is it a

source of zen? If it's distressing to

them, they're going to have a really

hard time fixing and doing that ultra.

>> Is somebody running just to be in good

shape? In which case, there are other

alternatives. If they're doing that

exercise and they go, I hate every

second of this. You know, this is

painful. I'm counting every single step

and can't wait for this to end. I'm

thinking about how much my shoulders

hurt. I'm thinking about how

uncomfortable this is on my ankles.

>> Either we we've got to somehow fix that

relationship with running.

>> Yeah.

>> Either if you need to run, let's fix

your relationship with it somehow. Let's

realize that the act of running is

insufferable to you and let's change

some things because I think that's with

a lot of things that we do. We don't

always take the time to examine whether

or not we enjoy the act itself or

whether or not like what is our

relationship with this act itself. Is it

tolerance? Is it love? Is it disdain?

And I think not letting ourselves sit in

that does us a great disservice,

especially with anything like training,

things like hobbies. That disconnect

between something we think is good for

us, so therefore we do it, and something

we actually enjoy doing. Obviously,

there are going to be things that we do

because we have to. There are also going

to be things that we do because we feel

we have to, because we don't know the

alternative.

>> And sometimes this is a way of saying

maybe we need to find an alternative.

>> I love that. For for me, it's very

different when I run on a treadmill

versus when I run outside.

>> Yeah.

>> When I run outside, man, I don't I don't

need anything. I'm good. Like, I just I

don't need headphones. I just like to I

like the the wind going in my ears and I

like nature and smelling stuff and I

love that. But that was when I was on

the treadmill and when I was living in

the city, like now I I live out more in

the country and like I can run outside

like and it's I love it. But on the

treadmill, dude, I [ __ ] hate it. Like

that's but but that's what I needed to

do at that time for like for my goal.

And it was it was worth it,

>> but I I didn't continue

>> to not watch screens. I [ __ ] like

immediately.

>> I think and I think that's part of it

too though because it's going all right

so we know that you hate treadmill

running and every session we spend on

the treadmill is a net negative for you

psychologically.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At least during it

after. Yeah. Sure. But we also we kind

of need to know that. We need to know

that on a day of low motivation, that

treadmill is going to take a lot out of

you. Yeah.

>> On days when you're not feeling good and

you just want to go outside, that

treadmill is a death nail.

>> Yeah.

>> And so, like, even just knowing that

says, okay, every session has a cost

with it. Every session you manage

physical costs, you manage psychological

costs, emotional costs

>> that we know that treadmill running is,

you know, I don't want to overstate it,

but it's kind of distressing emotionally

because you're like, I don't want to be

here. It's boring. I hate it. This is

terrible. That's a cost. And I think

there's I think there's a lot of value

for people doing that in some of their

training programs. Going back to like

gatekeeping a little bit, I always laugh

when people are like, you know, they'll

see pictures of people doing like bungee

exercises and things like that. They're

like, oh, people do anything but

exercise going, they're having fun.

>> That's the a blast. They're having

stuff. I want to try that. Yeah.

>> Yeah. They're going, okay, so maybe it's

not quote unquote the best exercise.

>> What is the best?

>> Well, what is the best?

>> What is the best? Like, shut up.

>> Just cut Yeah. Exactly. Like, okay, so

you run. Congratulations. Are you are

you winning any races? Like unless the

answer is yes, then admit that you're

just doing something that you think is a

little bit better for you than what

somebody else is deciding to do.

>> Correct.

>> Let it go. But with all those things,

like if that's a form of exercise that's

fun and emotionally interesting, if

unless you have to like watch a screen

when you're doing the bungee thing,

you're probably getting more out of

that right?

>> From a mental health perspective as well

as a physical health perspective, it's

good to know that. Mhm.

>> So that same person who loves the bungee

exercise, you put them on a treadmill.

Yeah, the treadmill might be better

cardiovascular exercise for them.

>> But when they're having a bad week, that

could be the worst thing for them. Yeah.

>> Congratulations. We've helped improve

your heart by a tiny little bit,

>> but mentally the thing you really needed

more than anything else was a break. And

you needed to have fun. And you needed

to distract yourself

>> by doing something that requires your

attention, not distract yourself by

distracting yourself by watching screen.

So,

>> can you explain peptides? Like, I'm

five.

>> So,

>> or an eight-year-old.

>> An eight-year-old. We'll go with an

8-year-old. Well, no. I think I think

the problem with peptides is obviously

it's such a range of compounds.

>> Mhm.

>> And because the idea of a peptide, I

mean, like saying peptides is pretty

much like, well, that's like any amino

acid compound, right? Right. Right. That

could mean a lot of things like you know

your whey protein shake is peptides

>> in the context of they're exploding

right now on social media whether it's

we see like BPC57

>> or we even see like semiglutide like we

see like a a huge number of peptides

being marketed

>> can you like

what do they do generally speaking like

what are they basically generally

speaking what do they do what are the

range of them and are there any that are

actually worthwhile.

>> Yeah. So the whole range of peptides, a

lot of these are I mean some of them are

drugs that never went through

development. So what's really

interesting is if something is banned by

the FDA, like for example, steroids are

difficult to get.

But what I'm saying is like steroids are

difficult to get because once they're

approved, they're scheduled.

>> And if something is scheduled, it has to

be on that list.

>> You know, Trenmbolone is on the

schedule. you know, if you if you

possess it without his prescription or

you blah blah blah, it's like this sort

of crime. If something never went

through the drug development process and

never actually gets on the schedule, you

can have all that you want. Austerine,

for example, something like that.

>> Um, even though that's technically

>> it's a SARM, right?

>> Yeah. But trenalone is a SARM

technically.

>> Any sort of compound that activates

certain androgen receptors in certain

kinds of tissue, whether it's skeletal

muscle versus sex tissue, for example,

is technically a SARM. It's something

that has a different effect on tissue

depending on what part of the body it's

in. That is technically a SARM. So

something like osterine may have take

effect on the androgen receptor but it's

selective as to which tissue which types

of cells it's more active in than

others.

>> Okay.

>> So a SARM ideally when people are

talking about it that way it's more

active in muscular tissue than in sex

linked tissue. So okay less likely to

cause prostate enlargement and growth of

you know vocal cord changes and blah

blah blah blah blah. So, but that's

quote unquote not a peptide. But

basically, like a lot of these peptides

are just compounds, um, enzymes or, you

know, specific drugs that have been

developed at some point for particular

indications and very often they either

weren't approved or they never made it

very far in development or like BPC 157

never really made it out of pre-clinical

trials. It was never made illegal

anywhere. So, some companies just

started producing it, found it had some

interesting effects. Now there's

actually a clinical trial for beepin I

think being conducted in Mexico. I don't

know if it finished but BBC is actually

in clinical trials.

>> Oh interesting.

>> Yeah. So they run the gamut. Some

peptides are very good. Some have really

good research behind them. Simply

because something is a peptide doesn't

mean it's bad. Knowing about drug

development and how much it costs to get

into it and all the regulations and

everything else, you can see why a lot

of promising peptides where they may not

see a huge market for it necessarily

don't get developed. Because you know a

company again, poor Novartis, Novartis

is going to say like, "Hey, that's an

interesting looking compound." You know

what though, that could fail. We don't

see a huge market for it.

>> We're we're not going to purchase it.

like like thanks that it sounds like a

great compound but you know we can't

even sell it as an orphan drug which is

when companies get like for drugs that

have a very small group of people they

would work on companies get certain

exemptions and benefits for putting

forward those drugs even if they only

treat a small number of people.

>> So that's how some very niche compounds

get approved.

>> But peptides may just not have much of

financial incentive to get approved. So

you'll very often see these things

coming out and depending on which one

they're usually they're very often legal

to buy because there's no specific law

against them. They're not for human

consumption, but that doesn't stop you

from using it. And some of them like for

example BPC57 are very interesting

compounds. And BPC57's case, it's

actually a gastric peptide, which means

it's derived from actually a naturally

occurring enzyme/eptide in your

digestive system, which means it

actually resists absorption, resists

digestion, so you can take it orally.

And it does seem to have some pretty

good effects in I think it's like

epithelial and like uh blood vessel

growth and a couple of other things. So

it's a very interesting compound because

it can be used to treat both any issues

with GI inflammation or insufficiency

and also potentially like wound healing.

>> So that's one particular one that seems

interesting.

>> I'm Dude, I'm taking BPC157 orally.

>> Yeah.

>> Um

>> and and I was I like to run tests on

myself. I treat myself like an

experiment. And I've said

I've tried I for a long time I had just

diarrhea just like my I gastric upset

for a very long time like for no reason

like um or no reason that I could

pinpoint and I went to various doctors.

I got all these tests done and they're

like yeah like maybe IBS like we we

don't really know but I didn't I got a

lot of like nothing burger answers.

>> Yeah.

>> I started taking BPC157. I don't I don't

know if it was that. But after I started

taking it, my my my

uh

diarrhea has essentially went away.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is [ __ ] crazy to me.

>> Well, and if you think about it, like if

this is a compound that improves like

vascular profusion and it can possibly

help in like maybe help in some of the

regrowth of like psyia and certain cells

in the intestinal wall. you think that

actually makes sense like if you were

having absorption issues before and you

were getting fluid dumping or you know

proliferation of certain bacteria in the

gut it would make sense that you know

maybe this actually helped heal part of

it. So I think the problem, the reason

why peptides get so much

miscommunication is because they're not

obviously they're not controlled,

>> right?

>> All we have to look at in many cases is

pre-clinical data. So rat models, right?

>> Because they don't get into human data

until they actually go through the

approval process, in which case they

either succeed or they fail and nobody

publishes the research. Because in a lot

of cases in clinical trials, this is

actually a big stink as well. You don't

really have to publish failed clinical

trials. What

>> you do,

>> but you also don't. You know who the

biggest offenders are in not publishing

failed clinical trials?

>> I would love to know.

>> Universities.

[Laughter]

>> Everybody accuses big pharma of like not

publishing negative data from clinical

trials. And if you look at all the

companies that because technically there

are fines if you register your clinical

trial with clinical trial on clinical

trials.gov. Have you ever gone to

clinical trials.go? Go to

clinicaltrials.gov. You can technically

look up every clinical trial that's

ongoing in the US.

>> Oh wow. Okay.

>> That's kind of cool. Um but if you

register a trial there and you go

through the trial and you're like,

>> I don't know what you're talking about.

Technically, after a certain period of

time, let's say I run a trial and I

said, "Okay, the trial finishes in

2025." 2026 rolls around, 2027, the

government goes, "Uh, what what happened

with that?" And you're like, "I I don't

know. I don't know." Technically, you

can get fined. the some like some

academic institutions like close to 50%

I think of their trials that they've

registered have had their database like

date of closing expire and haven't

registered final results

>> cuz everyone blames big pharma for like

oh they're probably hiding all those

failed drug trials and all that going no

they're not

>> what incentive would the universities

have to not share that

>> oh man this could get us into trouble

too um except it's it universities big

pharma will just like put on cement

shoes universities But doesn't wouldn't

big pharma fund some of these

universities studies? So could it be a

backdoor big pharma

>> in in some cases? Um but in a lot of

cases like you know some of this

research doesn't necessarily have to be

for like final phase drug approval like

a lot of these like university or like

there are a lot of university CRO's okay

>> contract research organizations

associated with universities that may

run like they may contract out to

separate pharmaceuticals or they may

develop their own drugs like push them

through phase one for example just even

as like to you know own the patent on it

like there are a lot of reasons why they

may do it and it's not necessarily

nefarious in some cases it's just oh we

didn't get the data we wanted and we

closed the database and we don't have

anything to report and

>> that's so unscientific.

you want to contribute to the scientific

discussion. At least share your data.

>> But that's part of it is like, you know,

in universities, especially with high

turnover, there's a need to publish. I'm

not going to put together a paper that

says this whole thing failed because

there's no finding here. Like, but

that's that's part of the criticism.

>> Some of it, yeah, but it's also like it

is so much easier to get a successful

trial or successful piece of research

published than a failed piece of

research. M

>> it's like you know like nobody wants to

go like yeah I went searching for the

lost ink and gold and didn't find anyone

>> okay

>> it's true that's cool but like you know

when you find something it's great

everyone wants everyone wants to report

on it so failed trials and failed

findings often don't get reported but

but anyway so like going along with that

again how opaque and messy that whole

process is in a lot of cases you will

see that you know peptides are those

compounds that are usually most of them

are at the phase where if they had the

right support they might get picked up

for like phase one phase two trials.

>> So most of what you're seeing out there

is you know honestly interesting stuff.

There might even be some interesting

data. There might be some interesting

like phase one trials even behind it but

they just never progressed.

>> And as such it's kind of you know it's a

little bit cutting edge. Just because

they're a peptide doesn't mean they're

ineffective. Just because you can buy

them on Amazon doesn't mean they're

ineffective because I think you can buy

BPC catalytus on Amazon. I'm pretty

sure.

>> Oh wow.

>> Yeah. Wild. Um used to have to go to

sites called like superallamerican

peptides.com

and they're like pay with bitcoin or

send us a photo of your credit card.

We accept Western Union. And now

Amazon's like yeah we got you.

>> But um

>> that's I didn't realize you get I I get

my I work with Merrick. I'm sponsored by

Merrick. So I've been getting it through

them and it's been wonderful.

>> Yeah. And a lot of these companies

especially like they they look at a lot

of the pre-clinical data. They look at

the mechanism and they they actually

start to run like they say, "Okay, well

side effects are fairly minimal. Maybe

there's some phase one data on it.

>> So let's administer it and let's

actually track the results." And that's

again that's just as much scientific

communication as a published research.

And so some of this stuff actually does

work quite well.

>> We don't know the magnitude of how well

it works because we don't have all the

formalized data. It would be nice. But I

think that's why it gets so polarizing

where you'll hear about this brand new

peptide and people are all excited about

it because of the rat data.

>> Right. Right. Right.

>> Do we have any human data? Maybe not

like SLU PP, whatever that one is.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Interesting stuff. Very interesting

compound.

>> How much data do we have? Not a lot.

Very compelling mechanism of action.

Very interesting initial data I've seen

from people. But such a small amount of

it. Do we really know on a large scale

it's going to work?

Carterine GW5156.

Great. Seems like it really has all

kinds of positive effects on

mitochondrial development. It's not

quite exercise in a bottle, but it

potentiates all the cardiovascular

exercise you do,

>> which is crazy.

>> Crazy. Also caused a runaway form of

cancer in some lab rats. But again, were

these lab rats that were already prone

to this kind of cancer. Why didn't it

get developed? Did the company develop

it? just think that, oh man, yeah, it's

only this one kind of cancer, but it's

going to be really hard to get approval

for this.

>> Right. Right. Right.

>> We're not going to have much luck for a

weight loss drug that has the burden or

stigma of increasing the rate of certain

kinds of colon cancer. It's just not

going to get approved. So, we stop

development.

>> That's that's that whole market. It's

some positive, some negative. In most

cases, these are compounds that were

developed or derived from other

compounds very often in labs, very often

by, you know, small companies or

academic researchers. Very promising

data, had some initial findings, and

just for whatever reason haven't made it

through any trial process yet.

>> And feel free not to answer. We can cut

it if you don't want to. Are do you

experiment with any peptides or SARMs or

anything?

>> I have. I've played around with a lot of

them, a lot of peptides in the past.

Okay. um never to the point where I

think I would have enough good data from

some of them that I would say, "Yeah,

that definitely helped or definitely

didn't." So, I'm not a quote unquote

huge believer in any of them.

>> Okay.

>> Um I never do a little bit like you

said, I've never been on a program for

any of them long enough to use myself as

a viable guinea pig.

>> Got it.

>> So, I'm perfectly willing to admit that

if I had a good period of training, it

might have been placebo, but it might

not. Not scientific, so I can't really

make a claim either way.

>> Makes total sense. I I respect that. Um,

all right. So, I I have three more

questions and then dude, I have so many

more that I wanted to ask you, but like

people are going to lose their [ __ ] at a

[ __ ] seven-hour podcast. Um,

>> looking back at your whole training

career as an athlete, not as a coach,

>> what was your favorite or peak time in

your own training? Like, what was your

favorite time as like an athlete?

>> The first time I was training for an

Ultra.

>> When was that?

2014.

Okay.

>> 20.

>> So about 10 years ago or so. Yeah. A

little bit longer. Why was that your

favorite?

>> I got burnt out on triathlons. I never

got really great, but I was about to

have what I thought was going to be the

race of my life. And that's when I got

in my horrible bike crash.

>> And it was like 6 months before my

triathon that I got in a bike crash. But

it completely wrecked the rest of my

training cycle. I was supposed to do a

half leading up to it that I couldn't

participate in because I could barely

walk. M

>> and so I put in so much effort. I was so

excited about it. I had invested all

this time in thinking I was going to be

really good at it. And just to see it

not turn out the way I wanted it to was

super disappointing. And I needed

something that scratched that itch. And

I realized that the part of that

training I really loved was just the

long weekends out there. And it wasn't

even like long rides. It was just being

out in the woods like you know doing the

you know because I would do these long

rides and what I realized I like was

just being out in the countryside away

from everything.

>> Yeah. And when I first decided to train

for an ultra, I was like, "Wait a

minute. I can just go for like a nice

easy quiet jog in the woods for like two

or three hours and call that training.

Like, sign me up."

>> Yeah.

>> It was the most liberating experience in

training I've ever had because I think

what I had to do at that point was just

spend more time on my feet. And so there

was so little pressure for me to like

talk about my training. There was so

little because they were like, "So yeah,

tell me about your training." You're

like, "Well, I went out there for two

and a half hours and you want to see my

blisters?" People like, "No." And you

go, "Okay, I have nothing to talk about

then." Like, I went and took a [ __ ] in

the woods. Like, do you want to talk

about that?

>> Did you do that on your long run?

>> Ultra. Oh my god. Yeah. All the time,

dude. That's like ultra running is

literally it's like the world's longest

buffet and you get to [ __ ] in the woods

in between.

>> Oh my gosh.

>> But like it was it was just such a

liberating type of training cuz like I

was just out there I think for the first

time in a really long time doing

something that I just enjoyed the

process of. And honestly, I think that

was really eye opening. That was my

favorite time.

>> I love that.

>> And uh man, yeah, because I just I would

just be out there and I would just

sometimes I would listen to music,

sometimes I wouldn't, you know, I would

just like try to find these little path

through the woods. And when you're out

there, you're like, "Dude, I'm in this

like trail network and I've just I'm

going by time, not distance." Every time

I would see a little turnoff I've never

taken, I'd take it. And it was it was

the most like mentally cleansing time in

my life. So that was that was my

favorite training. What are you scared

of?

>> I think if nothing else, my my fear

would always be obviously at this point

I don't want to let down my son.

>> Mhm.

>> Um I want to be somebody he can be proud

of and I think my fear is that I would

be somebody he's not proud of. M

>> and it's not that I need his approval,

but it's almost like, you know, in the

past I always used to say I wanted to be

the kind of person that, you know,

10-year-old me would have looked up to,

been like, "Yeah, you're cool." I feel

like, "All right, I made it." You know,

cuz still every time I get like a thumbs

up from like a 12-year-old, you're like,

"Yeah, all right. You think my truck is

cool? All right, buddy. Like, I'm making

it." Um, yeah. I I think in a lot of

cases, that's it. I'm I'm afraid that

I'll make a decision or

compromise my integrity on something or

anything like that that would make

somebody who once looked up to me

>> disappointed. And of course, you're

always going to disappoint someone.

There's no way. You're always going to,

>> you know, you can have somebody who's,

you know, your biggest fair weather fan

on earth and you say or do that one

wrong thing and they're going to, you

know, and that's not it. It's really

just saying I hope I've lived my life

with enough at least consistency and

integrity that that my kid would be

proud of me. And you know, I think as

you're an adult, you the more you grow

up, the more you realize that if you're

ever hoping you'll have it figured out,

that's that's not true. I you know, it's

like people are like, "Well, when you

know, when do you actually figure out

what you want to be?" You kind of never

do. You know, when do you actually feel

like an adult? You're like, "You never

do. I'm just I'm just a big dumb kid

with gray hairs in my face. Like that's

it. And then like that's

so I don't think you're ever gonna

figure it out. And

>> so I'm not like, you know, I'm not

afraid I'm going to be like a financial

failure. I'm not afraid of any of that.

It's more just

>> okay. Am am I going to work so hard?

what I think to like leave a positive

legacy behind to contribute positively

to everyone around me that the my

biggest fear is that somebody would say

yeah but you know you you you threw

everything away or you compromised what

you were or you hurt a lot of people you

know I think that's it and I know that

sounds really vague but I thought about

that quite a bit you know I thought

about how decisions even how like my

mood on some days like how am I going to

be perceived by somebody who's

associated with me and am I going to be

somebody that they're proud to be

associated with. So, I think I think

that's tough because I think a lot of my

personal issues with I think frankly for

a lot of my life I was very selfish and

I don't mean like I was just looking out

for number one, but I think I made a lot

of decisions without necessarily

thinking about anybody else because I

didn't think I had that much to be

accountable to. Like obviously I wanted

to do right by people, but I never

thought of my own personal actions and

what I did for myself as really

affecting anyone other than me. And now

when I realize that they do, there's a

lot of fear associated with that.

>> Um because before I would be like, yeah,

you know what? Someone doesn't like me,

they don't like me. Well, now suddenly

there's there's somebody associated with

that. There's somebody associated with

me. There's somebody who I want them to

be able to be proud.

And since I never really feel like I

have all the answers, since I'm just

trying to do the best I can, trying to

be the best I can on every day, but I

know that's not always going to be the

right thing to do, sometimes I wonder

like is that am I am I doing right? So

that's where the fear is.

>> What are you excited about?

I I don't know because I'm I wouldn't

say I'm happy with where I am, but I

like where everything is going and I

think obviously I'm excited to see my

kid grow up, but I don't know. That's

that's a tough one, you know. And it's

not that I'm not excited about anything,

but it's like I I take a lot of

excitement in silly little things,

>> you know,

>> like what

>> I'm just I'm I'm excited to take my new

bike out and go for like there's a a

climb nearby that I've wanted to do for

a couple weeks. I'm really excited for

that because it looks like it's going to

be good weather and you know I'm I'm

really excited that you know maybe later

this year, early next year I might be

going back to Australia for a seminar.

Like nice.

>> It's a lot of little things like that.

Like I think I think what what started

making me happy is just finding little

things to get excited about on a daily

basis. And

in terms of career, I'm happy with where

it's going. I'm excited to see the book

published. But

>> can you talk about the book for a

second?

>> Yeah. So,

um, man, that's been a long time coming.

Well, because the first Hybrid Athlete

book was really a collection of

articles.

>> Yeah.

>> And it was a collection of articles and

things I've been working on for years.

Finally put together in a book. This one

I managed to I worked with a publisher

who let me write it from the ground up.

>> That's awesome.

>> And so this book is basically like

everything I wanted to teach about

hybrid training and programming from

scratch. And it's very much a like okay

here are the underlying systems because

the thing about hybrid training is you

have to understand each sport or

discipline to be able to simplify it

which is going to let you combine it. So

it's this idea that I want to help you I

want to help have the reader feel like

okay hey I know what's important in

running now. I know what's important in

cycling or in cardiovascular training. I

understand what's important in strength

training.

>> And then now I know which of those

things are important when I put them all

together so that I can build a program

that I want.

>> And that that to me is why I'm looking

forward to the book. I'm like, okay,

this one's actually more of a road map

because the last book came out in a time

when no one thought it was really

something you could do. And this book

was saying you can do it and this book

is saying, okay, here's exactly how you

do it.

>> So I love that.

>> That's going to be the book

>> and it's called The Ultimate Hybrid

Athlete.

>> Yep. When is do you know when it's

coming out?

>> November is the date of publication.

>> Okay. So this this podcast will come out

maybe like four weeks before that. So

everyone please go follow Alex. Uh we'll

put your Instagram and where's the best

place to get in touch or to know when

the book is out? Is it Instagram?

>> Yeah. Best place would be my Instagram.

And we also have the domain name I think

ultimate hybrid or hybridbook.com.

>> Let me know. We'll put it in the show

notes.

>> Yes, please.

>> We'll put that there.

>> You just picked it up.

>> Good. Yeah.

uh text and we'll put it in the show

notes. But dude, thank you so much. This

has been wonderful,

>> dude. Awesome. I really appreciate it,

man.

>> Thank you everyone for listening. I hope

you enjoyed the episode. If you did,

please leave a fivestar review. Whether

you're listening on iTunes, Spotify,

give it a thumbs up on YouTube.

Subscribe to the channel if you don't

already. Make sure you follow Alex. Make

sure you get his book when it comes out.

I'm going to be the first in line to get

it. Uh again, thank you so much. Have a

wonderful week. Talk to you soon.

[Music]