Hey, Athletes! Do you drink alcohol? Listen to this week’s episode to find out if it can affect your gains!
Episode 58 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
Alcohol and Garage Gym Athletes
This week we have all four coaches on the podcast. First, they fill us in on life and updates. Then they go over the study which is on alcohol and whether or not it can affect your training. Lots of good info on this one!
Next, this week’s topic is about the fitness background of each coach and how they came to their senses and gave Garage Gym Athlete a try!
Lastly, this week’s Meet Yourself Saturday workout Under Pressure. Definitely a good one so listen up for some good tips and tricks on how to smash this one!
If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:
IN THIS 55-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- Under Pressure
- Ashley’s Back and With Some Test Results
- Alcohol
- The Coaches Fitness Background
- Joe’s Fartlek Training
- How The Coaches Started With Garage Gym Athlete
- Updates and Announcements
- And A LOT MORE!!
Diving Deeper
If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you:
Study of the Week
Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week
Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:
Related Resources at End of Three Fitness:
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Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
Episode 58: Alcohol and Garage Gym Athletes
[00:00:00] Jerred Moon: ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. I’m your host, Jared moon. The garage team athlete podcast is a result of my desire to build better humans, unequivocal coaches, and autonomous athletes. I’ve spent the last several years obsessing over program design nutrition in every other way, you can optimize human performance.
This podcast distills the lady scientific research with what I’ve learned and blends it with the not so scientific field of mental toughness. We are here to build you into a dangerously effective athlete. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find out more about our training@garagegymathlete.com. And if you want to pursue more into the field of coaching and programming, head to end@threefitness.com.
Thanks for listening.
All [00:01:00] right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. Jared moon here with Joe Courtney. What’s up Joe Lou with Ashley Hicks. How’s it going? Good day, mate. Good, good thing. We didn’t miss miss her two weeks in a row. So then we have Kyle Schrum. What’s up, dude.
Kyle Shrum: Hello,
Jerred Moon: governor.
Ashley Hicks: Okay.
Jerred Moon: I didn’t even understand the words that came out of your mouth.
He said, hello, governor.
Ashley Hicks: It was British.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, it was, it was an attempt that’s for sure. All right, Kyle, with that, let’s just go straight to you from,
Kyle Shrum: Oh man, I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know. Life is kind of boring right now. I don’t,
Jerred Moon: couldn’t really, you go from like update with, I have the biggest update in the world last week to be like, you know what, life’s boring again, center,
Kyle Shrum: my wife and kids, go back to school this week.
since Anna’s. It’s insane as the teacher, she goes back earlier than everybody else. So I’m starting on Thursday. I’ll be [00:02:00] by myself in the house again. Oh. So, so time
Jerred Moon: celebrate
Kyle Shrum: by the first time, since, you know, COVID and nobody went back to school, so,
Jerred Moon: yep. That’s crazy.
Kyle Shrum: So that’s happening, but yeah. Other than that, nothing.
Jerred Moon: When does
Ashley Hicks: school actually start for Hannah?
Kyle Shrum: Next Wednesday. I believe it was when students first report, but yeah, but it’s going to be kind of weird. Like it’s going to be half in classroom, half virtual. Like some of the students will be there part of the week and the other handful by their part of the week.
Yeah. So it’s going to be kinda weird and she’s learning a lot of virtual platforms and stuff this week. So
Ashley Hicks: that just means double the work. That’s what I think about when I hear about that. I’m like, she’s going to have to do that in class and online. Well,
Kyle Shrum: it’s exactly what it means,
Jerred Moon: but
Kyle Shrum: anyway, so yeah, lots of, lots of busy-ness for her, but I’m just kind of watching her be busy.
So
[00:03:00] Joe Courtney: I have a very important question and that is. Kyle, you have a different hat on. I’ve never seen you without the other, very worn down 17 year old or whatever had you have that’s
Jerred Moon: completely faded. Can I take a guess? Cause I don’t actually know what I want to take a guess. Why he got a new hat? okay.
Let’s see it disintegrated
Joe Courtney: probably.
Kyle Shrum: no, it didn’t disintegrate, but that one was. I’ve sweated so much in that one this summer, that it’s actually just kind of holding it now instead of like drying out. So I’ve got a different hat on today, so,
Joe Courtney: so it’s just a salt cap.
Kyle Shrum: Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that, hat’s not very old, actually.
It’s only like two or three years old, but just never goes into Washington.
Joe Courtney: If you just like, take it off your head and put it in your mouth. Is that like a salt tab? So
Jerred Moon: you can get some of the electrolytes back without having
Joe Courtney: to pay for recycling
Jerred Moon: what it
Kyle Shrum: is. Yeah.
Jerred Moon: Joe ran out. [00:04:00] I
Kyle Shrum: ran out of salt sticks. So,
Jerred Moon: you know, around
Ashley Hicks: assault hat,
Jerred Moon: that’s it.
I mean, who knows? Maybe a good idea. Maybe not. I don’t know. We’ll we’ll have to ask a doctor about that. Ashley. How, how are things?
Ashley Hicks: Things are good. My a minor one. I got a new office chair and it’s super comfy. I like it. It’s pleather. Yeah. But we
Jerred Moon: all remember my old office chair. It was a cool time.
That’s
Ashley Hicks: what was happening to mine. Like if that’s why I always started on the bottom. So you guys would never see me dropping.
Jerred Moon: It gets too embarrassing. Just can’t.
Ashley Hicks: So Scott and I finally pulled the trigger. We actually went to this really cool thrift store in Dustin. There are a lot of neat things and thrift stores in places where people have money.
Yeah. So, we’ve kind of had. Hit, like we’ve kind of found some really cool things there. So, [00:05:00] but, update big update is finally got my labs back after 28 days, hashtag air force, but it’s okay. Cause it was free and I got my labs in finally and it’s actually the opposite of what my doctor and what I thought I was.
We both thought I was. Estrogen dominant. And basically, so he had high levels of cortisol. I actually have lower like super low levels of course, from a normal person. So I start out. Very like fatigued in the day because of it. And I also have low progesterone, so the opposite of what I thought I had. so we’re doing some supplementation and then they also found that, I have Hashimoto’s for those listening and they found that one of my nodules actually grew.
So I’m going to have to do a biopsy, with my endocrinologist, which I’m not excited about. Cause you know, A needle sticking like in your neck, just not fun, but it’s okay. [00:06:00] It’ll be all right. Just going to roll out, cancer, not cancer and you know, benign, and then go from there and then treat, that as well.
Cause my thyroid levels are I’m within normal limits, but I’m very low within normal limits. So just my thyroid needs a little boost. So. Yeah, at least I have the answers, but now I have to wait for all the testing to be done in order to take certain supplementations.
Jerred Moon: I did not think low cortisol was like a possibility for anyone.
Ever. That’s good. Yeah.
Ashley Hicks: The funny thing is they took me down like 75%. We all heard about my workouts and now they’re like, actually we need you to get your heart rate up because that’s why you feel so good in the morning. They’re like after, you know, cause you’re kind of raising your cortisol when you work out.
So they’re like, yeah, you obviously, I don’t do high intensity every day. Cause I follow garage, gym athlete programming. But they were like, yes, yes. You can get your heart rate up above 75%.
[00:07:00] Joe Courtney: Sorry. Doctors note to not Slack it.
Ashley Hicks: Yep.
Kyle Shrum: So meet yourself. Saturday is just go faster for you
Ashley Hicks: all the time. Almost conditioned me to grave, but I did something else.
but it was, it was awesome just to like see my heart rate back up to like one 71 75. I was like, this is possible. I know I’m weird.
Jerred Moon: It is a, it’s a high heart rate.
Ashley Hicks: I’m not Joe. Speaking of that, Joe, what are your updates for us today?
Joe Courtney: So my face is just the point where if I have a bandana on it’s 50 50, if my phone recognizes me and opens.
So that’s my life right now.
Ashley Hicks: That is awesome.
Joe Courtney: Yeah, it’s not drink. but the biggest update is I’ve also, I posted this in our closed group, but I got. So a garment has a bunch of awesome little activities and functions and data screens and wash spaces and stuff you can download. Normally I spent like 20 minutes on this when I first got it.
It was like, alright, cool. I got a working watch and that’s about it. But then I’ve discovered recently there’s a whole bunch of [00:08:00] new ones and I found a fartlek one, which is pretty awesome. And the right above it is also really funny if you read it. when I posted it and the guy who made it actually did it because of.
More people running and tow it in such a distance and stuff. But how it works is you give it parameters of a minimum. so it tells you whether you’re going to go fast or slow and that’s it, it just switched the fastest loan. It gives you a five beat countdown. And then before you start, you get parameters of, fast, minimum and fast, maximum.
So whatever your animal’s going to be, and then slow minimum and slow maximum. So you just minimum maximum of both of what your interval is going to be randomly assigned to it. In no particular order and gives you a five second count. So, the believers or not, I am pretty decent at, what is it?
Pacing? You know, when I do runs and this one, I could not pay them at all because I had no idea what was coming. So I would just like, go fast. All right. I went fast and then it was like, Oh my goodness. When is this going to end? And there was just one of my pace would taper down. [00:09:00] And it made it hard, but then it would finally end and then like my rest of them really slow or keeping really, really long.
but it was pretty cool. It worked really well. And it was the time kind of,
Jerred Moon: I think, I mean, I thought the point of a far lick was supposed to be like the randomness of it, which there is randomness in there. You’re putting in a lot of parameters, but there’s also the, you know, when people start to program for themselves, they like leave a lot of things out there.
Like. Yeah, I’m just going to deadlift and bench press every day. That sounds good. But I feel like the same thing can happen with the fartlek. If you, if you are just going to self regulate that you’ll be like, you’ll probably only ever run like 75 meters hard and then the rest of it will be like really light.
So I think it’s a pretty cool, cool app to make sure you’re not, you’re not cherry picking your heart intervals when you’re doing a far lik.
Joe Courtney: Yeah, and you can do really long intervals. So if you want to do it on a bike to do longer of those, and then just like an easy scroll, be kind of cool to, to make sense.
And then lastly, I got a new data screen. So like whenever all of your [00:10:00] data screens, you can put whatever info that you want. And the one of them that I did. Actually with a heart rate zone one, which is cool. So it shows that your heart rate your current already to go that level. And it has the five different zones and they’re different colors and belong to your workout goals.
The there’s bars that fill up under those colors. And at the end of your workout, it’ll show you like how many bars are under different zones and how long you spent in those zones while you’re still in your activity and your app. That’s, that’s just kind of a cool thing. Yeah, new technology stuff that garments and other things have that are fun to explore.
You can add
Jerred Moon: it’s cool stuff. Yeah. Alright. my update. So I’m officially in my new house and it’s been, let’s see, they finished unloading the truck Saturday night. It’s Tuesday, and I still don’t have a fully functional garage gym. So I have a very minimally. Effective garage gym. I’ve been doing everything, [00:11:00] barbell and like, concept to bike for the most part, but I don’t have everything set up.
So that’s my plan this week, but yeah, new, new garage, new house, be setting all that stuff up over the next several weeks. The only thing I need to get installed, like I feel like I it’s, it’s a long time now, Chris Morgan was even giving me a hard time in one of the groups of pull-ups. I feel like I haven’t done a proper pull up in.
Six weeks. And I feel like I’m going to be a little bit angry when I go back to do a pull up, because if I can’t do a lot of pull-ups, I’m going to get kind of frustrated. So then I’ll have to like, cause literally the only thing I can do pull ups. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’ll actually have one shortly after.
Podcasting is over today. It’s not hard to set up. I just need to go set it up. You’re going to do
Ashley Hicks: yesterday’s workout today.
Jerred Moon: I might, I actually sorely missed that workout. Like I [00:12:00] programmed it and I’m like, I really want to do this one, but I can’t. So yeah. That’s it. Yeah. I’ll, I probably will do another video tour at some point, once it’s all said and done, but that’ll be months down the road.
Cause like I said, it takes a long time to perfect the gym to the level I had it before and I’ll, I’ll get there eventually
Ashley Hicks: where you gotta get the sauna in there. There’s just,
Jerred Moon: there’s so many things side this time. He’s not taking up space in the garage. So that’s a, that’s actually why we got the barrel sauna.
Cause you, most people put them outside. They’re all saunas outside. I don’t have a three car garage. I downsized to a two car garage. So no sauna. Yeah.
Ashley Hicks: Gotcha.
Jerred Moon: Gotcha. I think I’m gonna turn the video off. Kyle’s counts faces. I don’t know how to read them half the time. And it’s
Joe Courtney: about your
Jerred Moon: face. Okay.
Let’s let’s see, go into the study. So we’re talking about beer, and hit. [00:13:00] So the actual study is called influence of daily beer or ethanol consumption on physical fitness in response to a high intensity interval training program. The beer hit study the actual name of it. They, they, they added a period and then the beer hit study.
let’s see Molina Hildago at all 2020. So it came out this year, pretty recent. so they’re just. Well, they set out to investigate the possible influence of moderate alcohol consumption on cardio fitness, muscle strength, and power following a 10 week high intensity interval training program. so the methods that healthy adults they’re assigned to one of five groups.
With four of the groups participating in a hit program and the fifth group being a control subject subjects in the four training groups, received beer or ethanol, which was the beer group or ethanol group, or alcohol free intake, men ingest at 330 milliliters of their beverage. Monday through Friday at both [00:14:00] lunch and dinner while women consume 330 milliliters only at dinner.
This corresponded to moderate intakes of alcohol, 24 to 36 grams of ethanol, for men and 1224 gram a day 2012 to 24 grams per day for women maximal oxygen uptake via two max maximum heart rate, total test duration, hand grip strength in four types of vertical jet jump were assessed. And so the results all hit groups, improved performance and fitness, moderate outcome.
Alcohol intake did not impair adaptations. That’s a lot of it in a nutshell. Now there’s a lot more to talk about, but that’s the study, how they did it. Well, they were kind of looking at, I do like that they were looking at a very small amount of alcohol, two drinks for, or men. I also liked those. We’re spaced out in the day for men and not two at once.
I think that would have been a big difference and something that should be noted in this study. But other than that, what [00:15:00] do you guys think about this study methods, results? Anything, when
Joe Courtney: did they train, do they only train once a week
Jerred Moon: or twice a week?
Kyle Shrum: At least 48 hours between.
Joe Courtney: Okay.
Ashley Hicks: And it was all body weight.
There was no strength. So it was like TRX bands and, Yeah, it was all body weight movements, which was interesting. But again, I guess it’s high intensity. So they were just like, okay, we’re going to just use your body for this.
Jerred Moon: And I’m trained.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah. And right. And that’s what I took away from it too. Cause they were talking about like that they had gotten better, the people who, so there was also a control group that never worked out.
They only drank. Right. So, and they’re like, Oh, the control group didn’t get
Jerred Moon: America.
Ashley Hicks: And so it was like, well, of course the control group didn’t get any better, but these people were untrained. They, you know, didn’t high intensity. [00:16:00] So they, but they actually, they got better. Not that the. Beer or the alcohol made them better. It’s almost like, well, they weren’t trending in the first place. So, and then you put them through 10 weeks of training.
I feel like they’re going to improve somewhat, but I guess to note that the alcohol, I guess didn’t hinder them in the results. but for me, it’s like, well, I know how I feel. If I train typically I’m I will not drink alcohol. I think alcohol negates my training. I’ve always done that. And so, yeah. I also know how I feel, even if I have.
You know, my drink of choice is a margarita. If I have a margarita by the next day, I will have a slight headache, headache, even though like I can make the cleanest margarita. You think about like just a lime lemon, orange tequila, triple sec, a little bit of honey. And that’s it. Like there’s no sugary added anything and I still feel.
Not too great. And I just, I don’t know, to me, [00:17:00] this study did not move my stance on how I would drink and work and train at the same time, if that makes sense. But that was my takeaway from this
Joe Courtney: curious about the daily intake. I know Jared, you said it was good that they space it out and how they do it like that.
But. I don’t know of anybody that would have one drink at lunch and one drink at dinner, they’re going to have drinks. It’s going to be two or three at dinner kind of thing. They’re pretty much going to be together.
Jerred Moon: No, you’re right. It’s not realistic. The reason I like it is because that’s the healthier way to consume alcohol.
If you’re going to consume it is to drink, like a big, this was in Rob Wolf, spoke, wired to eat. And he’s talking about if you’re going to consume alcohol, try and do it as early as you possibly can. The day he kind of has a joke in there. Like I’m not talking about. Know, drinking with breakfast or whatever.
But if you do drink how most people drink, which is like, right before you go to bed, it’s like the worst way to drink alcohol is like three or four drinks and then go to sleep. It’s like the worst thing you could do. So I liked it from a health standpoint because it drinks, but yeah, you’re right. It’s not realistic.
This isn’t [00:18:00] what people do. They’re not like, Oh yeah, one, one beer at lunch. And then one beer, you know, one glass of wine at dinner. Maybe some people do that, but I just, I don’t. Typically, if you’re drinking like that year, you enjoy drinking and you’re going to drink a lot more in the evening than that.
Joe Courtney: We are all about the day drinking Liz and I, we don’t like it don’t like it to affect our bedtime. We still keep our bedtimes on the weekend, but we still want to do our drinks. It was like, well, why not just start earlier? So we do.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. That’s, that’s how you should do it. I mean, Before you go. That’s how I drink these days.
If I drink, it’s very rare that I do consume it, but you know what I mean, example, if I’m like at my parents’ house, they have a pool and the whole family’s there. We’re hanging out now. Saturday or Sunday, something like that, two or three o’clock in the afternoon. I might have one beer and not go beyond that.
But if you move that same situation to like five, 6:00 PM or later, And I’m offered any sort of alcoholic beverage. I [00:19:00] won’t touch it. I’m like, Nope. No, thank you. I’m just, it’s gonna affect my sleep. It’s gonna screw me up. So yeah. Yeah.
Joe Courtney: So I think out of our group of coaches, I’m probably the one that drinks the most.
I will completely admit it and that’s fine. I’ve looked scared. I don’t have kids. And I also don’t have a wife the most of this year, so I can pretty much do whatever I want.
Jerred Moon: we don’t drink. Yeah.
Joe Courtney: Look, when you have to survive on your own in the mountains, sometimes you need it a little bit to stay warm. Sometimes you calories, whatever. where was I going with
Jerred Moon: that? I don’t know.
Joe Courtney: So when I do drink, so I know, I know that when I will strategically drink still, but it’s how I do it is, like I said before, I, I will.
They drink if I drink and I still go to bed at my normal time and I’ll usually go to bed and what I do, I’ll have electrolytes and take some melatonin. Cause I think drinking suppresses the release of melatonin of sorts. And then the next day, I fast for a long time because
Jerred Moon: that’s an issue yourself.
Joe Courtney: Well, and that’s also how your body’s getting rid of it. I mean, if [00:20:00] you, I think it’s because alcohol is the easiest thing for it to process. So it’s going to get rid of the fast or faster than anything else that you eat. And if you eat something else, then it’s gonna kind of divide and conquer, knock your alcohol faster.
that’s just my theory and how I kind of do it, but I know that this whole thing of, Oh, you know, it’s not going to mess up your performance. I know exactly that it’s going to affect me in that. I, the only time I drink is when I know that I’m not. Can I work out at all the next day or not doing anything crazy strenuous that I want to perform it.
And, I definitely don’t do strength, but, and I can lose my train of thought.
Jerred Moon: Did
Kyle Shrum: you drink earlier today?
Joe Courtney: All right. Just out of it,
Jerred Moon: to your point on strength and conditioning, if you actually. One, the reason I like this, this study is because this is more how I would actually drink. I’d actually never consumed two, two alcoholic drinks on the same day.
I’ve kind of set a rule for myself that it’s one it’s the max allowed if I’m going to drink anything. So it’s cool that it’s not going to affect me that much, but if you look at the actual [00:21:00] charts and graphs, like, you know, their conclusion was. It’s not a big deal, but there, there is a fluctuation. And if you look at the, the results of each independent category, that people who didn’t drink, the people drank water, that people drink vodka and all this stuff.
And it’s pretty interesting. You can dive into that. I don’t want to pull out any conclusions about vodka being better than beer or anything like that. You guys can look at this study and trying to cut, try to come to those conclusions yourself, but it seemed like it had much less of an effect on cardio-respiratory markers and more of an effect on power and strength.
If you are just looking. Not at the conclusion, not at any of the literature, just straight up, look at the charts and you’ll see that there seems to be a bigger, like almost no change when you’re looking at cardio respiratory stuff, VO two max related, but a bigger one when you’re looking at power, those jumping tests and strength.
So that is something to keep in mind for your given fitness protocol on what you’re trying to improve, whether or not you consume any at all, if you are more strength bias, maybe this isn’t, maybe it’s a good idea to keep your alcohol intake to none.
[00:22:00] Joe Courtney: Yeah. I, I usually would always avoid strength and power stuff, but even though conditioning would be somewhere miserable after drinking or whatever, it’s still doable in it and it’s fine.
But the untrained athlete, I think, is what I wanted to get after is because although, after alcohol, the untrained people did a progress. Yes. But we’ve seen that you can pretty much give untrained people anything and they’ll progress in matter what the non-alcohol group had better gains and better progress than the others.
I kind of like to think of it or my metaphor that popped into my mind is like, thinking about walking in the airport and then drinking alcohol. It’s like, you’ve just started walking on a moving sidewalk, headed directly at you. You’re kind of not going anywhere or maybe just not very far, but you’re still moving versus if you’re not drinking, then you’re still just walking like home.
Does that make sense?
Jerred Moon: I think so. I hope so I’m letting it, letting it again. Yeah. Yeah. I haven’t been to an airport. It’s so long frickin COVID, but
[00:23:00] Joe Courtney: I don’t, I don’t get it. I’ve been in an airport it’s I can’t really comprehend.
Jerred Moon: Alright. Any other comments on the study? Oh, you got anything?
Kyle Shrum: No, I don’t really have much to, I will say I’m probably the only person on the team that doesn’t drink.
Ever at all. it’s just never it’s and it’s not, it’s just never something that I’ve ever gotten into. So I can’t really make any personal recommendations, you know, based on how it affects me or anything. I don’t know how it affects me cause I’m never drinking any of it. but I would say just. based on this study, I think, I think it got passed around on social media.
A lot of people were like, Oh yeah, we can drink. And it doesn’t pop, you know, mess with our gains and stuff. And it’s like, you, you need to dig into the study a little bit more than that. Cause that’s not exactly what it’s talking about, but I would say, if, if you’re going to be consuming alcohol, Wow.
While training or along with your training, I don’t really see anything wrong with it. It fit doesn’t bother you. You know what I mean? [00:24:00] make it, make it an assessment for yourself. but also at same time. Cause I feel like we may have some people who have always, you know, paired drinking or binge drinking and also training and they’re like, well, I can keep doing it.
Cause it doesn’t affect me. Well, Maybe test it, you know, maybe go for a week or two without drinking anything and see. What it, you know, what, what it does for your training. And so kind of be open to maybe testing it, to see if it’s affecting you in ways that you’re not aware of. cause you know, we’ve covered alcohol on the podcast before and really talks about, especially, and we’ve talked about, you know, today, you know, kind of how it affects your sleep and, and things like that as well.
And so it could be affecting you in ways that you’re not aware of. so I guess I would just say, make a decision for yourself and, really actually test it to see what it’s actually doing to you. And if it’s not doing anything to you, don’t worry about it. It’s all
Jerred Moon: good. Yeah. And I think the big takeaway is yeah.
Putting a hard limit on how much you drink. Because if you do [00:25:00] run across this study and you’re like, as Kyle said, Oh great. You know, new science says we can drink. It’s like, just assess how you actually drink. Do you, do you have two drinks per day and split them apart by six to eight hours? Or do you maybe have a large glass of wine?
Maybe two, a couple of beers at night. That’s very different than this study. So I pulled up another study that looked at. Just bumping up a little bit, three drinks up to five drinks per day and what that can do. So, this research Demond that chronic alcohol consumption, which is only three to five drinks per day can negative.
We impact muscle protein since this testosterone and performance. So this is if you guys want to actually look it up, it’s called the effects of alcohol consumption on recovery, following resistance exercise, and it’s. Systematic reviews. So systematic review is a study of studies that are looking at all other studies, right?
That they could find on athletic performance and alcohol. Here’s the conclusion it’s [00:26:00] kind of long. I’m going to read the entire thing. Alcohol consumption. Following resistance exercise. Doesn’t seem to be modulating a mod modulating factor for creatine kinase heart rate. Lactate blood glucose, blood glucose, sexual hormone, binding globulin, leukocytes, or cytokines C reactive protein and calcium force power, muscular endurance soreness, and rate of perceived exertion are also unmodified.
Following alcohol consumption during recovery so far, not a big deal, right? Cortisol levels seem to be increased while testosterone. Plasma amino acids and rate of muscle protein synthesis decreased. So it’s jacking with your hormones, primarily, all those other things. If you guys go look at those creatine kinase C reactive protein has to do with inflammation, like all blood glucose, do you know, you guys know what some of these things are, but a lot of those we don’t, you know, we don’t care about as much as we would, like something like protein, a muscle protein synthesis that being decreased in your training.
That’s a huge deal. [00:27:00] Your testosterone being decreased. Huge deal having three or four drinks. And we haven’t even got into the effects of sleep, having three or four drinks and then effing with your sleep, you know, night after night, huge fricking deal on all of these things going up too. Cause if we’re just looking at sleep now and you’re going to be messing with your C reactive protein, you’re going to be messing with your blood glucose, your creatine kinase, your heart rate, heart rate variability.
So this is a very complicated topic in which you need to be very careful of what your. Takeaway is from it. So my official recommendation would be the same thing that I allow myself to do. You can have one alcoholic drink and it needs to be somewhere in the middle of the day, beyond that. Do whatever the hell you want, because I don’t actually care if you have one or two drinks at nighttime, but I’m talking about being optimal.
Right? a lot of people, I’ve never been a huge drinker going to college when I didn’t care about this stuff almost at all. I’ve just never been okay with a hangover, like [00:28:00] almost ever. So I’ve never been a big drinker because of that reason. Like it ruins an entire day of your life the next day, you know?
And so I’ve never, and when I was in college, it took a lot of alcohol to have a hangover that would ruin my next day. And now, as an as, I mean, I guess it was an adult there, an older adult, it is seriously takes like two drinks. And I have an entire day. That’s not ruined, but like not optimal far from what I I’d like to be at.
So yeah, I don’t, not a huge fan of alcohol for a lot of reasons. So be careful on your takeaway, and pay attention to what was actually in the study. If you are going to use it. I don’t know. Drink alcohol. You said as an excuse to drink alcohol. All right. You guys want to get into the topic, actually picked this topic and I quoted directly how she wrote it.
So how did we train in our past before garage gym athlete and how we eventually came to our senses with a think it was a [00:29:00] wink fate. Yes. Yes. Okay. So I could go on for. About two or three minutes short for me on this topic? No. So I’d love to hear how everyone trained. I feel like I have a general understanding of everybody, and I’ll kind of end with what I’ve done and, and why.
It’s almost like why garage, gym athlete is the way that it is. And, but, whoever wants to go first, I’d love to hear how you got here and what you were doing.
Kyle Shrum: All right. I’ll go first.
Jerred Moon: I
Kyle Shrum: was going to let Ashley go first, but no, I’m going to go first. actually I did, I was when I was an athlete here, just an athlete.
I did, you know, an episode on the garage gym athlete podcast and kind of talked about this a little bit too. that was before I was a coach and only coach and team, but, I grew up the fat kid. exercise was not really my favorite thing ever. and one of the last [00:30:00] things in my life I ever thought that I would be was a fitness coach.
So, yeah, I never, I did not really start. Exercising or working out in any kind of structured capacity until high school football. So my freshman year of high school, we did some workouts in middle school football, but we just, we weren’t, we weren’t in the weight room very much in middle school.
so high school football was really my first introduction to structured, programming, structured training. that’s structured with air quotes. But even then I did like the bare minimum. Like it was still like, okay, I’m going to do exactly what the workout is for today. And then I’m going to go home.
Like, I’m not going to do anything extra at home. I’m not going to go do anything saying that I’m not required to do. So. That was just kind of my mindset. so I got through high school, went to college and spent a few years not doing anything. I would go with, [00:31:00] some of my buddies to the gym every now and then sporadically and just do something.
but I was just never, never really into it. even with a bunch of my college buddies, I’m doing CrossFit with rich back when rich was winning the CrossFit games every year. Cause I went to him. To, college at Tennessee tech and Qubole, a bunch of my buddies got into that. I wasn’t into it. It wasn’t my thing.
so even after college, moving to Chattanooga and starting work, still wasn’t really, my thing never really got into it until my son was born in 2016. and so in 2016, had, Gotten up to like two 35 that’s the heaviest I’d ever been still. Wasn’t really exercising and realized I needed to do something different.
So started doing programming, pop in like free stuff online. I had a buddy of mine, who lived like a mile away from me. I had a gym at his house that I could use for free, but the free stuff, wasn’t it doing it for me because it didn’t have anything. [00:32:00] and so then, came to my senses. When I read, they article, seven ways to train alone and actually push yourself.
And I found it on Facebook and read that article. And I was like, it’s time for me to start invest in something in actually getting my life together. So signed up for programming and haven’t looked back. That’s my whole history in it. And still kind of track hop even today. I’m missing the strengths track pretty, pretty hard right now.
Jerred Moon: So the human element right there.
Kyle Shrum: Yep. That’s it.
Ashley Hicks: Jelly. You want to go?
Joe Courtney: I guess so.
Jerred Moon: Yeah.
Joe Courtney: so going, growing up, I was always a multi-sport athlete through high school and all that stuff, but I was always close, dealt with the definition. Scrawny. I never lifted a weight. I was just, I just ran a lot. I was just fast and that’s about it. slowly after high school.
You’re not [00:33:00] long after high school, you’re in the military. I went through that still didn’t exactly help me get stronger. And after my first year in the military, I was doing. The, required three PT sessions a week. And then I played flag football and soccer whenever they were in season on base. And I just want to say this, that I was doing more than the recommended PT for the air force, eating the air force approved meals at their.
at Joe Hall and I still gained like 10 or 15 pounds as a 19 year old, which shouldn’t happen,
Ashley Hicks: after pop tarts are like green and bacon is red and the defect. So let’s just say that right.
Joe Courtney: Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s a lot of, a lot of fake stuff. And then after a year active duty, after I gained that weight, a bunch of, bunch of dudes, a bunch of brothers came back from deployment and they were all completely jacked and had been working out for six months.
That’s all you do when you, when you deploy. And somebody made the comment that I’ll get man boobs. And then I was like, Oh, that’s fun. And, Then one of the guys was just like, [00:34:00] he’s just like basically dragging me to the gym with them when they worked out during lunch. And I started lifting weights and did the whole bro lifting weights for two or three years deployed a second time, but deployed wants doing all that then deployed a second time.
And while I was there, I was getting tired of the whole body building stuff. And then there was like, The main gym, which is always packed with bros. And then like right outside the main gym, there was a, a, an entire, a little soft temps area, or like a soft shell tent that was fully enclosed. And it was CrossFit tent.
Absolutely. Nobody was in there. So it was all just bumpers. It was racks. There was no mirror. There was
Jerred Moon: no CrossFit just because you didn’t want to be around people. I love
Joe Courtney: it. I was just like, well, Rose and all that stuff is just wakes you back. I’m going to go in here. And I knew another guy that was like really into process, like, well, I’ll start looking up things.
And so basically self-taught myself, CrossFit workouts and made my own for six months and I got really good in shape. And I was, I got a lot, really, a lot stronger and it was great. And then once I got back from deployment, I joined up [00:35:00] with the cross. The gym did that for awhile. several years. Then I was coaching cross it.
And while I was coaching CrossFit, I found kind of three, the very first, accelerate cycle after I’d already been doing all my, my barbell stuff. And I was doing that while I was still coaching CrossFit. and I would always get, get cramps with people like, Hey, why don’t you do today’s workout? I got my own thing I’m doing, don’t worry about me.
And I would just go off to the side and do my own thing. And then that’s that stopped.
Jerred Moon: Stopped going there. Here we are.
Joe Courtney: It took like two or three years of actually being. Working for anything fitness, actually get my MGM. Other than that, I was going to military gyms and even like, across the gym has gone off to the side and have my own little, little, little nook and now navigate again,
Jerred Moon: always bringing it back down, man, come on.
Joe Courtney: You know,
Ashley Hicks: just being real,
Kyle Shrum: all of that. And now all it has is a pergola.
Joe Courtney: Well, I don’t even have that as my brother
Jerred Moon: lie. Yeah. You got to keep [00:36:00] up to date, Kyle. He’s not there anymore.
Ashley Hicks: I’m, I’m kind of like joke. I, I grew up in soccer, so I ran a ton. I. As a child, like from, I was probably in first or second grade when I started soccer. And then from then on, I play all the way, even through college and or murals or whatnot. So running was always a thing that we did for conditioning and we did some drills and whatnot.
So when I got old enough to like work out on my own, which was basically college for me, all I did was. I did the elliptical. I did the StairMaster. I did all the, all the girly things that everybody thinks females do. And I definitely did them. Then I would, turn on like a TV show on the TV and just go for like 45 minutes to an hour.
And then that would be it. I maybe would do some abs or something, but I had no idea how to lift. And I was, to be honest, I was pretty afraid of lifting. And then, I actually [00:37:00] met my husband and he was like, I’m going to teach you how to lift. And, but at the time he was doing bodybuilding things and I hated every second of that.
And I was like, Nope, I don’t like this. And then of course what you said, Joe, lots of bros. There was a ton of bros in the. The tech gym, there was like a burrow off to the side behind the basketball court. Jared, you probably remember. And I hated going in that room. Cause there was just nothing but like mirrors and like dudes that were cut off t-shirts and I was like, no, I don’t belong here.
This is not where I belong. and then after college, my husband went to pilot training at shepherd. we knew the moon’s there as well. And I think Scott worked out with you a few times, but I. I was still doing my own thing. I was doing like Zoomba and Pilates and taking all these workout classes and I was continuing to not lose weight.
And I actually gained a little, our first year of marriage and, I had a friend, I was actually running on [00:38:00] the treadmill when a girl came up to me and she was like, Hey, I’m going to the CrossFit class. Do you want to go? And I was like, what’s CrossFit. And she was like, Oh, you’ll love it. You’re a people person.
You’ll love it. And she was right. Do what
Joe Courtney: did you know this girl?
Ashley Hicks: Yeah, no, it wasn’t just like a random chick. It was
Joe Courtney: Oh, one Oh one here. Come drink.
Jerred Moon: This. Having a gathering leader.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah. I guess I should have said that. No, I knew her, most people, most of the females that were in the gym where the spouses.
Right. And a lot of the spouses knew each other because all of our husbands were going into pilot training. So she came up to me and she was like, yeah, you’ll love it. And she was right. And I did it for the opposite reason, Joe. I did it for the community. Like I loved. I loved the, the community aspect.
I love all the people aspect. And then, I just, wasn’t getting stronger and I felt like I should. And it wasn’t even about strength. It was just, I felt like I was plateauing. Like I just couldn’t, there was not much more that I could do. [00:39:00] And I was kind of getting burnt out and it was right around the time we were moving to England.
And so we had actually stopped to see, we did this long cost cross country just to say bye to family. And we stopped and I saw the moons cause my dad lives in Dallas and. We had lunch and Jared was just talking about his and stuff and said he was running a shred promotion. And I just remember it. Just thinking about it.
Like it never left me. I was like, man, I just want to check it out. I want to see what Jared is doing. And so, I remember I contacted Jared and Jared was like, are you sure? And I’m like, yup. Wow, here I am. I’m all in I’m I’m no more CrossFit. Let’s do this. And so, cause I mean, I drank the CrossFit.
Kool-Aid like it was going out of style and and then I did and I exactly what you said, Joe, I worked out in a, base gym with grudge. No. Programming. Cause I didn’t have my own garage and our garage was kind of small in England and then it was right around when I had Connor. So it was about two weeks, two years in, that I realized like I need my own, my [00:40:00] own set up.
And so we made room in the garage and it was. Way easier for me than to have to commute the gym every time. But yeah, that’s pretty much it. And haven’t looked back since and still growing within this programming, which is really cool. Cause I think it’s, it’s ever evolving and that’s the coolest part is I feel like the more that Jared and the coaches, all of us learn, the more that the programming continues to, continues to grow and learn with it too.
So it’s kinda cool.
Jerred Moon: Awesome. So I was just born working out. You came out with a mouth I’m here now. Eileen Fisher price barbells. so I’ve told this story, I don’t know, on a lot of other podcasts, I probably told it here, but essentially I was a skinny kid. My uncle was like, Hey, you’re too skinny. Lift the weight.
I was like, what do I do? He sent me a program. That’s how everything got started. But shortly after that, I think is a real defining moment for me that I haven’t told this story as much is. [00:41:00] I wanted to run track. I had played, I played football, but I was never like a serious athlete. Like I didn’t take it seriously.
There’s all my friends were playing football, you know, starting all the way back and. I mean, as early as you can start playing football, I played football and then growing up and I played football, but then track, I don’t know, it’s kind of naturally fast. And so I wanted to see if I could actually get good at track back, but again, only relying on being naturally fast, not doing anything else.
And so I was right at the cusp, cause all these other people were saying and I was like, Oh, okay, they’re real runners. And so I wanted to run the 400. And so the coach was like, it was between me and this other guy. And he’s like, okay, Ah, alright, is, I don’t know. I can only take one of you for this, for her mere spot.
And so you guys are gonna race against each other right here right now. and whoever wins gets a slot and, it was a super close race and he beat me and I was like, how do [00:42:00] you get faster? Like, this is not something. When I got this body building program for my, from my uncle, I was like, is this, does this make you faster?
I don’t know how to run faster. Cause there’s nothing about running faster or running at all in this body building program that I’m doing anyway. Had I, I often think about this. if I had won that race, I think it would have been really bad for me as a human being forever. That’s why I say it’s a really, really defining moment because what that did was one, I don’t like losing, I lost.
And ever since that, it kind of changed my perception on everything. I was like, okay, I’m going to, I’m going to start studying how all this stuff works. I started studying nutrition. I started studying training. I started diving into these things at a really deep level, even going back to like 15, 16 years old.
Like I have old notebooks of like jotting all this stuff down. and so anyway, I, I put that all into track. The end of that story is I did get faster and took that guy’s slot and ran track and all that stuff. But the, my point to this is I started [00:43:00] bodybuilding with a little bit of conditioning. And then that conditioning became a little bit more because I wanted to be a track athlete.
And then I did more bodybuilding with a much heavier role conditioning, slant going into college because I want to be the best in. ROTC. I want to have the best scores for everything. Increase my chances of becoming a pilot, all that other stuff. So I did bodybuilding plus aerobic conditioning. And if you have been into bodybuilding at all, I mean, I was on significant bodybuilding protocols.
I think some people will just start, like, there I go. Yeah. I did that back and buys. I get it. I’m like, no, like I would, I would gain like 30 pounds in like three months intentionally, and I would also know how to lose it. Like I was a great manipulator of my body, weight and muscle size. And, but I just didn’t what, what came with that was, we’ve talked about this before was the, the mental side of bodybuilding, which I have since completely been released of.
And I’m so thankful for, but like carrying how much, how big my arms are or my quad size, or if I’m [00:44:00] bigger than this dude, like that was damning to my, my mental state and this strength and conditioning protocol has like freed me from that, like, I don’t care at all, how big my arms are or any, like all, I care about some performance metrics and not even in comparison to anyone else only comparison to myself.
So really glad I found conditioning army strength conditioning in general, but this, the idea of in bodybuilding is there’s always this conditioning element. Always it’s typically fasted cardio because that’s how you lose fat. So when you actually enjoy talking about getting into CrossFit, I got into CrossFit, but CrossFit was only ever.
My conditioning. Like it was never what I did. I never, ever was like, what’s the net con for today. Cause that’s what I’m doing. It was always, here’s the strength training I’m doing, whether bodybuilding style or powerlifting based. And then my conditioning, I have simply tried to replace that element with shorter CrossFit workouts.
and so that, that was how I got into cross that I’ve never [00:45:00] been a part of a CrossFit gym or community like Joe super self-taught. But I did get into CrossFit because yeah. I just thought it was, I was like, this looks challenging. I want to try it out. It’s hard. And so I got into it that way, but it was only ever that conditioning piece instead of being on the elliptical or doing this low intensity stuff that bodybuilders like to do, But then I kind of moved on.
I, the reason I really liked crossed it, cause Glassman kept touting all of this, like data driven science backed stuff that all ended up being crap. Like Glassman never came out with any of that stuff. He was just talking about it at seminars. He’d be like, Oh yeah, we have all this debt on this. And we have.
Have have any of you ever seen any of that data from CrossFit inc? Cause I sure have. I haven’t, but it got me obsessed with the idea of having science backed data driven training. And so that’s kind of what led us here. So going all the way back to losing my first track race to Glassman, introducing.
Yeah, we, we are the data driven science backed thing. It’s like, no, you’re not. You’re just the high intensity model. Like that’s, that’s all [00:46:00] you are. and so that’s why I. heavily straight away from CrossFit, just cause I realized that this is not actually what I was looking for. It was kind of a facade that I had been been sold on.
but what’s interesting is this entire time, what have I been doing? Concurrent training almost since day one. I’ve been doing concurrent training, which I think is what I do now. So what we all do right now and the reason I. Program the way that I do. And I, I, you know, garage gym athlete is here as I, I want to know all the different muscle contractions are being hit and I want to train as many different strength methods as I can.
I want to hit all the different energy systems. I want to balance the three human planes of movement, and I want to reduce injury and just be as optimal as possible for as long as I can. It can. And so that’s why I do the programming that I write, because I don’t think anybody else is doing it. You know, and so coming to my senses is like, I realize most coaches out there think that programming doesn’t matter that much.
And I think those coaches haven’t seen enough. [00:47:00] They haven’t had an, a volume, like we’ve had more volume than, I mean, arguably a lot of fitness companies in the entire world. Like we’re, we’re probably at the top as far as just a volume based component. How many. Athletes we’ve actually touched or worked with, or have data points on.
And we actually have the data points and back it by science and looking at research and they’re on a lot of their people doing it. Cause I think they just don’t care and it’s a lot of work and it’s hard to do so they don’t do it. And I can’t, I don’t think I could follow anybody body else’s program at this point, because even if I didn’t audit it and look at it, which happens when you show me a program, but I would just be like, I don’t are you, I would worry too much about what they’re not thinking about.
And not want to like, and some people think that’s not a big deal and I don’t think it’s a big deal for your next 12 weeks or your next year. It’s a big deal for your next decade or 15 years or 20 years of what you want to be interested in because we all found out what happens to athletes. When they do high intensity CrossFit workouts, every single day, it’s not [00:48:00] good.
It’s not a good end result after a decade. Or two decades, and it has nothing to do with being an injury causing you have to, you have to be like Ashley and somehow have low cortisol, like as like a genetic trait to be able to probably hit high intensity every day. And it be okay. But most humans out there aren’t going to have that.
So anyway, that’s, that’s kinda my been my journey, you know, from the start to now, it’s pretty much always been concurrent training. And then I just wanted to get way more serious. And here we are. Oh,
Joe Courtney: the journey
Jerred Moon: journey. Speaking of the journey, the workout under pressure.
Ashley Hicks: No pressure.
Jerred Moon: Okay. Got it. If you want.
Okay, I’ll go ahead.
Joe Courtney: So, Oh my goodness. Should have pulled it her from the beginning. Just. It’s under pressure. This is very simple. And I think in the past, we’ve paired it with other things in meters and Saturdays, but you’re going to complete four time, 200 kipping pull-ups [00:49:00] or 100 stick pull-ups and there is a 35 minute time camp, but every time you drop from the bar, when you dropped in the bar, you’re gonna do a hundred double unders or 200 single letters.
And for this. 200 kipping pull ups is the workout. But if you can’t do a bunch of strict balls, I’m going to go out and say at least 50 to 70 strict goals, not in a row, but like
Jerred Moon: in a day.
Joe Courtney: Yeah, you shouldn’t be doing 200 kipping pull-ups you should be scaling down to whatever your stick pull up is and do 100 hard strict pulps, whatever it is.
Jerred Moon: Did you mention the time cap? 35 minutes? Yeah. Okay. and what’s funny is I was going to be. My exact recommendation is basically I might rewrite this workout to not have kipping pull-ups because you should be able to, there should be some sort of like, this may have been the only thing CrossFit has actually introduced to the world.
Like otherwise, you know, they didn’t create exercises. They just put them together in a model to make high intensity. [00:50:00] But the kipping pull up. I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere about anything. Like people talk about being a part of gymnastics, but I don’t think they train it. You know, I think it’s just like a way to get up to the bar if you aren’t strong enough to do it.
So anyway, giving pull-ups not great for you, especially if you’re not strong enough to do them. If you are strong enough to do them, then you’re fine. but I, I really feel like there should be like a 15, 20 strict pull up for males, like test. That you have to take before you’re allowed to start doing kipping pull-ups and not doing kipping.
Pullets due to some sort of lack of strength, which is why a lot of people are doing kipping. Pull-ups. If you are strong enough to do them, then you probably won’t have any issue, but yeah, just do them strict. Most 99% of everyone listening to this, just do the a hundred strict pull-ups version. That’s that’s my advice.
Anybody else?
Ashley Hicks: I would do. And if you can’t do it strict, I would do inverted. What was I not supposed to go? Was Kyle
Kyle Shrum: supposed to get, [00:51:00]
Ashley Hicks: I would do the inverted body Rose, or ring rows. that’s probably what I would do cause I know personally I can’t do 100 strict pull ups. I mean, I’ve probably got like
Jerred Moon: maybe 10 it’s a lot of double unders.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah, it’s going to be a time. I remember the last time I did, I think this I’ve only done this work at once. My calves were super sore the next couple of days. So just, just be prepared people.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And strict pull-ups they aren’t like that. Like, like with a barbell you can like muster up that little two to 3% extra to like, get the bar up.
If you need to. That doesn’t really happen with me at least and pull ups. So like, I can, I can be on 98. And be like, okay, it’s just two more. And that I literally can’t do them. So I have to drop what two reps left and do a hundred double unders and then do my last two. Pull-ups but yeah, it’s a, it’s a fun one.
It can be really frustrating. It’s like, if I could combine this with like zone to Murph, it would, it would be like the most [00:52:00] mentally frustrating workout, you know, you could, you could, that’s a good idea. Do you have any tips for me? Get out of here, man.
Kyle Shrum: No, no, it says from me I’ve never done this one. So
Jerred Moon: I don’t, you don’t feel right giving advice.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah. I don’t have advice to give on that one.
Jerred Moon: Alright, well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s it for this week. If you haven’t already make sure you leave us a review, a five star review, positive comment really helps out. And if you are interested in all of that training, That I was talking about earlier, and you’re not a part of it for some reason, it’s a huge problem.
You can fix that problem by going to garage gym athlete.com signing up for a 14 day free trial and see, see what it’s like when someone actually tries to program and they don’t just throw together old football programs and a random junk they found on the internet. So if you want to, you want to see what that looks like.
Go ahead and sign up for free trial. We’ll show you for everyone. Who’s enjoying that. And you’re awesome. you’re part of the awesome community. Thank you so much for being a part of that. [00:53:00] Until next time. Thanks for listening to the garage gym athlete podcast. You want to learn more? Go to garage, gym athlete.com.
You can learn about our training. Let us send you a copy of our book, the garage, the mathlete, or you can even get featured on the garage gym athlete podcast. Thanks for listening.