Hey, Athletes! Do you supplement with creatine? Tune into this week’s episode to learn how it can help with your training!
Episode 53 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
Creatine & Holding Yourself Accountable
In this week’s episode, the four coaches are back again. They go over their updates and announcements before diving into this week’s study. The study is over creatine and how much or little to use to see gains.
This week’s topic is about holding yourself accountable. The coaches talk about when to give yourself grace and when to be hard on yourself.
This week’s Meet Yourself Saturday is the Harder to Kill 5-Miler! The coaches go over tips and tricks on how to tackle 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 47-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- Creatine
- Holding Yourself Accountable
- Harder to Kill 5-Miler
- Tips and Tricks for MYS
- Grace Or Be Hard On Yourself
- Kyle Got A Bike
- 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
- Effects of Low-Dose Creatine Monohydrate on Muscle Strength and Endurance.
- Effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function of healthy individuals: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials
- Oral creatine monohydrate supplementation improves brain performance: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial.
- Assessment of the usefulness of dihydrotestosterone in the diagnostics of patients with androgenetic alopecia
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:
53: Creatine & Holding Yourself Accountable
[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 is stills. The lady scientific research with what I’ve learned and blends it with it, 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 Ashley Hicks. How’s it going?
Ashley Hicks: Hey,
Jerred Moon: Joe, Courtney.
Joe Courtney: Hello,
Jerred Moon: Lou. Here it is.
Joe Courtney: We’re playing the
Jerred Moon: repeater. I’m just going to go straight to updates. I’m going to pretend that didn’t happen. Kyle how’s life, man.
Kyle Shrum: Well, I was good.
joined the ranks of cyclists this week,
Jerred Moon: actually. Yeah. And then the group, man, did you put it in the group?
Kyle Shrum: No, I didn’t put it in the group. I can, I will, bought an old clunker bicycle, the road bike to kind of start riding around and, feeling that out, seeing if it’s something I wanna. Invest more time and money into getting into, but st is pretty cool.
Jerred Moon: it is an expensive sport as you get more into it.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah. Even for a, even for an old clunker, like
Jerred Moon: Mike wasn’t too much of a clunker as you’re describing. I mean, it was still like a, it’s a road bike. [00:02:00] Like you can, it’s pretty nice.
Kyle Shrum: It’s got some rusty spots on it, but other than that, it’s definitely used, but I don’t know.
I like it. And, Yeah. Looking forward to jumping into that a little bit more and maybe not having to run so much.
Jerred Moon: Well,
Joe Courtney: yeah, probably be a purchase in Bahrain that will make, if depending on where we live, we might only be like 15 minutes from base. So I might just like a 10, 15 minute. Or so for based on my, just like ride my bike to base, to work out and that’s
Ashley Hicks: yeah.
In the winter months.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. Cause it’s like low of 55.
Ashley Hicks: That’s what I mean, like don’t do it in the summer. You’re done, right?
Joe Courtney: Yeah. No, I, that’s not going to happen. We’re I’m going to have the opposite effect to where, like, you know how you do bulking in the winter. Well, Inbar rains can be bulking in the summer cause it’s
Jerred Moon: yeah.
Alright, you’re good, Kyle.
Kyle Shrum: I’m good.
Jerred Moon: Alright, Joey, you have man.
Joe Courtney: So first I’ll ask, do you guys like bacon,
Ashley Hicks: duh,
Jerred Moon: obviously you can only do this.
Joe Courtney: Do you duck bacon? Is [00:03:00] that a
Ashley Hicks: thing
Joe Courtney: you like? Nut butter says in like peanut cashew, almond.
Jerred Moon: Yeah.
Joe Courtney: Well then you guys have no reason to not like my BLT PB.
Kyle Shrum: Oh my gosh.
Sorry
Ashley Hicks: with avocado too. I mean, it’s like a fat bomb
Jerred Moon: that logic you just like. Walked us down. That’s definitely, I don’t have to agree with anything.
Joe Courtney: Are you in that trap? Yeah. Well, w we called Kyle out of the Wednesday question months ago, and then I was like, Hey, post, your weird combo that you grew up with as well.
My dad always made us BLT PBS. And then when I posted the, the other day when I just had them, I just made them on my Instagram, like three people responded and one of them was, and they were the athlete. Or like, what the heck is this? Like,
Jerred Moon: why are you like with peanut butter?
Joe Courtney: Yeah.
Jerred Moon: So, so
Kyle Shrum: it’s actually almond butter, wasn’t it?
Joe Courtney: Yeah, but I did all, if my content peanut butter
Jerred Moon: that’s AB well, yeah,
Joe Courtney: it was in parentheses.
Jerred Moon: Okay.
Joe Courtney: Well, I’m just, let’s just, let’s just not get too technical here.
[00:04:00] Jerred Moon: Tab kind of pay attention. Oh. Just in case I want to make it.
Joe Courtney: There you go, whatever kind of nut butter you want.
Ashley Hicks: True. It’s almost like a new, you’ve had a burger with peanut butter on it.
And like, people do that.
Jerred Moon: Oh, I didn’t know that either. No,
Joe Courtney: there’s got like a very thin for interest. If they get food.
Kyle Shrum: Hey, I’m in that boat too. I’ve never heard of that.
Jerred Moon: I’m cooking for myself. Very simple. If I’m going outside of my little zone it’s because Emily cooked it and it’s good, but she wouldn’t cook something like a bird, peanut butter
Joe Courtney: ever had a burger with it.
Jerred Moon: It’s not that adventurous. Yeah.
Joe Courtney: Let’s let’s do something.
Jerred Moon: Let’s take
Kyle Shrum: some peanut butter, not the same.
Jerred Moon: So let’s
Kyle Shrum: not equate those two.
Jerred Moon: It’s still a Hebrew basically. Yeah,
Joe Courtney: it was a good tangent.
Jerred Moon: That’s all. It seems like the peanut butter would melt quite a bit.
Joe Courtney: It gets a little runny, but it’s actually in a good way.
So like you have to do a BLT on toasted bread so that it spreads all really, really well [00:05:00] anyway. And you just toast. The sandwiches are the best
Jerred Moon: talking about on the burger. Yeah.
Joe Courtney: Or two. Yeah. And there’s actually our go to burger joint in San Diego. They did a PB and J burger and it was fantastic.
Kyle Shrum: So really it would be a BLT in B.
So like nut butter,
Jerred Moon: just to get whatever you can
Joe Courtney: put the end in there, if you want.
Jerred Moon: What about just normal butter?
Joe Courtney: I mean, you can just butter bread. Yeah. That’s not going to add that much flavor. It’s just butter.
Jerred Moon: Alright. I disagree. Any other updates from Joe? That that was all. It was
Joe Courtney: just a tangent
Jerred Moon: though.
Kyle Shrum: I can’t believe that it is what it did.
Jerred Moon: I know how long we’ve been talking. Ashley, what do you have?
Ashley Hicks: so I am officially off of coffee. Like
Jerred Moon: not even I’m drinking coffee right now.
Ashley Hicks: Oh yeah. Well, good thing. I can’t smell it cause that’s, that’s the, that’s the worst part smelling Scott’s coffee in the morning and like, just want some Gabby, but completely [00:06:00] off caffeine.
The worst of it was headaches. I didn’t really have any other symptoms.
Jerred Moon: So like vomiting,
Ashley Hicks: vomiting, or shakes, like people have ridiculous. And like I said, I’ve had caffeinated coffee since I was 14, so I was kind of scared, but I think the way I did it, I weaned myself off slowly. I think it was good. Yeah.
And that was on Emily’s requests. So, or Emily suggestion, which was great. Then I went to the doctor yesterday. My doctor’s appointment ended up being like almost three hours, but it was the best doctor’s appointment. I’ve. Ever had, if anyone can see a functional medicine doctor for any sort of issues that you have, I highly suggested it was amazing.
It was just nice to be heard and you walk in and there’s like, All sorts of medical grade supplements that are clean and all sorts of stuff. They had water in a Berkey for you, if you wanted. Like, it was super like, I was like, these are my people. Like where have you been? And anyway, so I’m on an elimination diet.
Still waiting on [00:07:00] labs. So I’ll, we’ll keep everybody updated on that, but I’m basically on an, like an AIP auto-immune right. So speaking of butter and bread and all of the things, I can’t have those right now, so it’s okay. I, hopefully this helps my gut issues and some adrenal fatigue and, my cortisol levels too.
So we’ll see. And if not, they do do additional testing and, and go from there.
Jerred Moon: So. Yeah, really important stuff. Yeah. Emily’s done a lot of that. I have a functional medicine doctor as well. He’s online. It’s actually Julie Fu Shay’s husband. so it’s steady MD. I know I’ve mentioned it before. I just never mentioned the company.
We, we use steady MD just because of what Ashley’s saying. I hate, I hated going to the doctor when I had an issue. Cause they’d just be like, it would, I don’t know. The appointments were always so useless. I’d go in for something. If something like, say I got hurt or like I hurt my chest or whatever. What did you work out recently?
I’m like, yes, that’s probably it I’m like, but this is not normal. Like I work [00:08:00] out a lot and have for a long time, I’m telling you this is not normal, but it was from the workout. I’m like, okay. Oh, it’s nice to have a doctor. Like you said, who listened? You can have like an hour long appointment with and just talk to them and stuff.
So, it’s just good. I think that’s a great thing.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah. The one thing I’m nervous about is they told me that I’m going to have to take the intensity down. So, I’m not nervous about it. I’m also mourning it. So I’m probably going to have to either cut my workouts in half or do like a strength portion and.
Or do the workout that’s prescribed that’s on harder to kill and then just take the intensity down and just make it like a zone to
Jerred Moon: whatnot. Intensity is a choice, right? Like intensity is, is not prescribed in anything most of the time, unless we’re like, Hey, this is an 85% intensity, but, a lot of the circuits and all this other stuff, you know, intensity as a choice, you can do it as fast or as slow as you want.
Especially if you, if you need to go lower intensity for medical reasons, you know,
Ashley Hicks: For sure. And that’s what, you know, my health is more important and, but it also shows [00:09:00] that, you know, you can take the same workouts and just kind of dial it back a little bit to help you out.
Joe Courtney: When I was doing CrossFit, I would do scale up to do heavier so I could go slower.
So you could do that advice.
Ashley Hicks: That doesn’t surprise
Jerred Moon: me
Ashley Hicks: at least.
Jerred Moon: Hey, no one’s ever asked me that before. I normally just like inject it forcibly. Okay. So I, nothing personal really. I might have some personal updates in. By the next podcast or next couple of podcasts, because I do have some things happening in my life, but not ready to share any of them yet.
So I’ll keep it garage your mouth it related. first, if you are an Apple user, we, the garage gym athlete icon just dropped. It’s a small, big deal to me. So if you update the team, build their app and you do have an iPhone. It should ask you, Hey, do you want to change your app icon to this awesome garage?
You map that logo and you just say yes. And now on your home screen, you will see garage, gym athlete logo instead of the team builder one. So [00:10:00] that’s really cool. And I’m excited about that. And then the next thing, this is an announcement it’s not coming out yet, but I have decided, and the team will be assisting in testing and doing some other stuff over the next 12 weeks.
The fitness standards. Tests are changing. a lot of them are gonna change. A lot of Americans stayed the same cause we have whatever, like 16 ish, I think right now. And we are going to keep the ones that we like and get rid of the ones that we don’t like predominantly, anything that looks or smells like take Lyft will be gone just because.
You know, though, I developed those standards a very long time. Yeah. And you know, we, even in the programming back in the day, we used to have more Olympic lifting than we do now. Now it’s, it’s really not. I mean, there’ve been more cleans and hard to kill this. I call them than other cycles, but still for the most part, don’t have those things in there.
We’re going to take it. It goes out and update, but a big. Part of what [00:11:00] we do is not just arbitrarily pick things that we want to do. I have to have at least like three to five different studies backing every single. Factor. And so that’s what I’m diving into, making sure we’re assessing things correctly, the correlation to VO two max and strength and longevity and all those things.
That’s why it’s like a 12 week project. And not just like, Hey, let me whip up some new things. and then the standards are the harder thing to set because a lot of these scientific studies are going to tell you like, Oh, well, someone who’s elite would do this. I kind of have to test it myself. Have you guys test it?
They probably have a few ear, three coaches. who’ve gone through the certification tested. And if you are one of those coaches will. We’ll be sending out information to test some of these standards. but yeah, that’s it. I’m excited about that one. Yeah,
Ashley Hicks: me too.
Jerred Moon: Okay. Yeah, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be good.
I think every more fun I have, I have way more data now than I did the first time we put those together. And so I can pull a lot of that stuff. [00:12:00] All right. These study this week. Is effects of low dose creatine. Monohydrate on muscle strength and endurance. So I talked about creatine, not that long ago and how it makes me gain absurd amounts of weight.
And that’s not, that’s not true for everybody. So if you’re scared to gain, like you, you are not me. It could, you could have a different, different experience, but what they had here, it was basically three grams versus five grams versus placebo. Over five weeks, they did strength testing, max pushups, things of that nature.
There are 36 males who had to have at least six months of training and yeah, they did. I think I. Is there anything else about the study? I need to mention you guys catch
Ashley Hicks: anything, but it doesn’t really matter.
Jerred Moon: Oh yeah. It was an insane, I love reading that sometimes, because I think it’s hilarious, whereas it was a I had it highlighted. Where did it go? I was like [00:13:00] double blind control here. It is. Study was a randomized parallel group, double blind placebo controlled design. There you go. So what does that mean? The more words they throw in there, the more legit this study is that’s all we need to know. So that’s what they try to throw in every word that they could does.
That means it’s legit and yeah, they texted ’em stood ups, pushups. When it max BMI height took all that stuff into account. the basic findings just for the drum roll. You the three and five gram creating intake, did a lot better than the people not taking it. The people who were taking the placebo.
and, but there wasn’t that much difference between the three and five gram, supplementation. So we can get into more of that, the nuances of that, but that is the, the basis of it. And there are more conclusions to draw from that, but essentially, if you were on creatine, it didn’t matter if it was three or five, you’re going to see more results than if you’re not on creatine.
but we can get into some of the other stuff.
Ashley Hicks: So my thing for this one [00:14:00] was that even though both groups were taking, or excuse me, three groups for different rights. So the two groups that were taking creatine, they did significantly improve. The other thing that they did state though, was that the group that had the placebo also improved.
So
Jerred Moon: it was a very important point. Yeah.
Ashley Hicks: And that it was, it was a longer time. Like they didn’t see results. I think it was two weeks, they said after, but at the same point they still saw strength gains still saw, you know, differences. So in my that too, like, you don’t necessarily have to take creatine, but the creatine obviously helped those guys get stronger than just the placebo group.
But that was a main point for me. And then, Yeah, I didn’t understand about, I’ve never heard of like loading or anything like that either. So I, I, I’ve never taken creatine. I don’t, I don’t know, females probably.
Jerred Moon: It’s a big it’s even [00:15:00] on the labels of some creatine that you buy. That you should do, or that you should do grams of creatine for like five days as a loading phase to like saturate your muscles with the creatine.
Then after that, you can go to what they call a maintenance phase, which is about five grams of creatine. and this is basically saying that’s not necessary. It’s not necessary to do this massive loading phase. And even in some of the tests, if you read some of the other creatine literature that they just have them on 20 grams of creatine a day, which is absurd.
I think, I think five grams of creatine is like eating like two chickens. Like that’s five grams, you know, we’re going up to 20 grams. Like it’s kind of stupid. And that’s what I look at in supplementation. A lot of times is. Like I’m okay with supplementing with things, but like what would I have to do in the real world to get this supplement?
And that helps me with my decisions. So if it’s like, Oh, you’d have to eat like half a cow every day to get this much creatine. [00:16:00] I’m like, my body was probably not intended or created to be able to handle that. So I think won’t do that. but he’s, those ones are, it’s very doable even in, in an, in a normal diet.
Ashley Hicks: Okay, well, thank you for explaining that to me. So then that even further proves, like, if you’re going to gain strength on just a smaller amount, that’s something that your body can handle, then this proves that you can do it.
Jerred Moon: So, yeah. Yeah.
Joe Courtney: so the, Basically don’t pay attention to the loading phase because it’s just another marketing ploy.
Like a lot of
Jerred Moon: other things I was even told that like early on, when I first started working out, well, I took creatine almost when I started. And I think my uncle back then was like, don’t, don’t do the loading thing. It’s BS. And I got to talk to him like 20 years ago. He was telling me that. So he is either way ahead of science or just like.
Knew that these companies are trying to rip us off.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. Yeah. That seems from, the study as well. That three, three game Graham seems to be a good enough number for [00:17:00] most people, the majority of people. But if you’re a large person, then you probably do five, like actually big, big person, like probably two 20.
Plus size wise, because that kind of factors in how much, you know, if you have more muscle to go around and you’re gonna need more creating to be spread out, but anybody else, three grams would be sufficient enough to get your, get your, your strength gains. And this is from a purely strength basis.
Performance, not, not conditioning, not hypertrophy, not size, just strength. Yep.
Jerred Moon: So I would say anything, Kyle.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah. So I would say, I agree with everything else said, absolutely. Understand that a supplementation isn’t necessary. Like, just because it’s good for you. It doesn’t mean it’s something you have to do.
It’s like what Ashley said, like the placebo group still made gains. but the supplement, the creatine does speed the process up. and, and you’ll see more gains through it as well in a shorter timeframe, but I would make [00:18:00] the point that. Since we have a study here that says that creatine does help you, supplementation can help you.
if you’re going to make the decision to start supplementing, make sure that you focus on the quality of the product you’re using. that’s absolutely crucial to. to supplementation and that’s kind of why I kind of stay away from most supplementation personally. Like I just don’t supplement with very much at all.
Jerred Moon: just because, yeah.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah, because it’s hard for me to even the ones that, you know, that. That I hear from other people, or, you know, can verify online or whatever are good quality products. I still just kind of, I don’t know, there’s just something in my head that just keeps me from really trusting it a hundred percent.
But I would say do your homework on, on the product that you need to use. and. Also understand that it’s probably going to cost you some money, right? the cheap stuff is typically cheap for a reason. and it, it probably means that it’s low quality and it’s not actually gonna do [00:19:00] for you what you want it to do.
so just be aware of the, the marketing schemes and be aware of the, the quality of the product that you’re using and make sure that it’s something that’s something that’s good for you and something that’s actually going to do for you, what you want it to do.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. So a few things on creatine, in that vein.
Korea pure it’s a C R E a pure is a, is a fairly good brand. they source creatine, I think on it, on it sells creatine. That is from Korea pure. So they’re just buying it from Korea pure and creepier is doing it. There are a few other companies, I think Korea pure. I’ve done my research on creating for the same reason.
Cause I’ve taken creatine. We’ve talked about that, but I also want to take something that’s really like a, I mean, the best that I can get and create pure seems to have like, The stamp of approval by most everyone as like one of the most legitimate, legitimate ones. And it is more expensive. Like Kyle said, it’s more expensive because I could go to Walmart right now by creatine monohydrate for like $3 and I would never ingest it.
Cause I’m just, [00:20:00] don’t. Not really sure, not really sure about it. but create pure, is a little better now thing is if you’re into like organic and natural and all that stuff doesn’t exist with creatine, treat a teen cannot be sourced in a supplement format from animals is not possible because they would have to, they’d basically have to kill like a hundred cows and get the creatine from the meat for you to have one tub that would make that one tub.
Like $7,000. So that’s why all creatine is basically synthetic. You can’t get, like, you are taking a synthetic form of creatine and not getting it from a food, so you can absolutely get creatine from food. So if you make sure that you’re getting enough meat, chicken, and beef specifically have a lot of creatine has a lot of creatine in it.
If you’re just getting enough meat in your diet, you should be fine. But sometimes I feel like I don’t even eat enough meat and that’s why I will. Suffering with creating. I’m not anti meat by any means, but like, yeah, if I’m just trying to keep like a creatine ratio in my head, I’ll be like, [00:21:00] I don’t think I ate enough meat to get enough creatine.
And that’s not something I’m thinking about all the time, but. Just something to keep in mind with your supplementation. It’s a
Joe Courtney: good time for those on vegetable based diets that don’t really mean
Jerred Moon: you basically would need to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There’s like a list of like three to five supplements you should probably be taking if you’re a vegan or vegetarian and creatine would be one of the things that you should probably supplement with.
And not, not even at these doses, maybe like one to two grams a day would be fine. Okay. I do have a lot more to say about creatine, just because I know some people are probably interested in, in taking it. this stuff wasn’t necessarily in the study, just some factors se so late when I take creatine, P some people say it makes you cramp.
it does not give me like a side cramp or whatever, like you’d normally think of, but my muscle contractions, like if I’m like reaching my arm out, like. My arm kind of like seizes up and it’s a weird, like pee. That’s what people call cramping. My muscles start to feel very weird when I’m on creatine.
And it’s only for a short period of time. [00:22:00] like the first couple of weeks when I’m taking it. And then that kind of goes away. but that just know that that’ll happen. We, I talked about weight gain, so I’m normally a really lean person. you can. This is not a flex. You can see a lot of my muscles if you will, with my shirt off, but I get very not lean when I’m on creatine, because I gained so much weight so fast and most of it’s water weight, my abs go like invisible.
Like I just get real puffy. It’s, it’s pretty noticeable when I’m on creatine. I’m just not near as lean. So keep that in to account as well. And again, this is just my personal experience, that water retention, So
Kyle Shrum: you just become like the rest of us,
Joe Courtney: always on creating.
Jerred Moon: There you go.
Kyle Shrum: That’s what I’m going to tell people from now on.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, I’m just on creating that’s it’ll go away. okay. Other things, the last three things I have there’s a lot of, there are a lot of studies on creating and your cognitive abilities so we can link to some of them in the show notes. I have, some of them pulled up. I was just going to read [00:23:00] really some of the conclusions here.
nah, nevermind. We’ll just put ’em in the, it helps with. Your brain energy capacity and your processing speed and recall short term recall like all of these, there’s just a, there’s a lot of stuff. So creatine has a lot of benefits to your brain. And so it shouldn’t only be you shouldn’t only be worried about, the performance thing.
So there are a lot of cognitive benefits to creatine. the, there are a ton of performance benefits to creatine. If you’re going to take creatine every time I take creatine. I mentioned this before it makes fit week. Really fun. Cause like PRS are a lot easier. I feel a lot stronger, and stuff. Now the last thing, the only negative increases DHT.
So DHT is a hormone. I think it’s derived where it turned is drive from testosterone or the other way around. anyway, DHT higher levels of DHT. we’ll accelerate hair loss. And so there are, there’s only [00:24:00] like one or two studies on creatine, specifically in hair loss. But if you are trying to get your information from like a strength coach, so people are going to Google this and I’ve, I’ve done it before as well.
You’re going to be like, okay, what is this a concern? And you’re going to find. Coaches, strength, conditioning coaches who like creatine. They want people to take creatine and they’re going to be like, as one study, it’s not a big deal. Like, no, you, you, hair loss will not happen from creating. That’s what you’re going to find when you kind of try to go research this yourself, but I’ve talked to medical doctors about this who specialize in hair loss and they are like, they’re not even talking about creating.
They’re like, if you have increased levels of DHT, You are going to lose your hair period dot. So you have to ask the right questions to the right people. And so that’s another thing to take into account. So you have cognitive function is a big deal performance possibility of hair loss. But again, if you’re taking this low dose two to three grams a day, That probably will not affect hair loss at all, just because [00:25:00] it’s kind of just like having a normal diet.
You wouldn’t lose your hair any faster than you would be predisposed to do anyway, if you are losing your hair. So anyway, just things to take into account. If you’re taking 20 grams a day, You could be bald in like two years,
Ashley Hicks: just make sure that strength coach isn’t bald telling you,
Jerred Moon: please.
Yeah. Cause I think there’s only one study on it and they were taking like 20 grams a day. And so I’ve seen people review that study and say it’s complete BS. And that’s when I just like, how about, I just talked to a doctor about DHT and I did. And they were like, yeah, you’ll lose your hair. If your, your DHT levels go that high, I’m like.
Thank you.
All right. That’s great. And you guys have anything else? No. Okay. Let’s get into holding yourself accountable, holding the line if you will. Okay. So I I’ve been, battling this as a coach and personally for a long time. So when should you cut [00:26:00] yourself a little bit of Slack, go easy on yourself. And once you wouldn’t, should you be hard on yourself and really hold yourself accountable?
and I like to just ever get everyone’s opinion on this. So when, when is it okay to like, give yourself some, some grace and be easy and be like, yeah, everything is okay. And when is it? Like, okay. Maybe you’re just making excuses. That’s, that’s a line that I think everyone needs to everyone flirts with.
And, we, I want to talk about it. So what do you guys have?
So
Joe Courtney: I think when you look at the, like, if we’re just talking about working out and staying disciplined with whatever you’re doing, whether it’s nutrition, workout, stuff like that, I think you have to look at things in both a recent view and like a grand macro view.
so like, if you’re going through like a rough month where it just like, you’re moving a ton of things are happening, you might have gotten sick and you only work out like two or three times a week and you might even miss entire week. That’s just one month. But if you look at that months before that, and if you think your things I’m going to clear up after that, then it’s like, okay, you know, it was just a [00:27:00] month.
It’s fine. You shouldn’t beat yourself up about that kind of thing. But if that month goes into three months and you look back on your year and go, Hmm, I was doing five days a week, and now the last three months, I’ve only been doing three days a week. Then you might need to re reevaluate reassess and see where you need to compromise a little bit.
but still kind of take things into a whole everything into account. So. Can kind of get the decent, tiny for me because last year I was, six training sessions a week. And, you know, there were, there were some weeks I didn’t even take a rest day or I was doing, two days kind of things. And now this the last two or three months because of no gym moving, everything like that, I workout like four times a week now, maybe five, maybe there’s a fifth every couple of weeks, but I just, I just realized that like, That’s just kinda my new norm because of the situation that I’m in.
I’m still getting the work in, but yeah, I’m not, I’m sorry. I have to beat myself up too much about not hitting those numbers that I were last year because situation’s different, but I’m still, so I kind [00:28:00] of. Lowered my, my new norm, but I’m still holding new norm and realizing that, you know, down the road, it’s still going to clear up and, as long as I’m still getting into my, for that, I’m fine for now.
And then I’ll go, I’ll go about it from, from there once, once the, once the dust clears.
Jerred Moon: I like that. It’s very healthy view.
Joe Courtney: Keeps me happy saying.
Jerred Moon: Yeah.
Ashley Hicks: so I will kind of piggyback on Joe, I guess, but I think you have to know, when. It is time to when it is time to dial back. So for example, you know, when I was dealing with postpartum depression, I couldn’t even, I didn’t even want to leave a house. So that kind of stuff, if you’re dealing with all sorts of like medical issues, or if you are going through a patch like that, where you’re going through some anxiety, some depression, you know, seek help.
You know, I I’ll say that. but at the same time, like, [00:29:00] no, that. It’s okay. It’s going to come back, right. If, if you want this. So I slowly worked myself into it and I knew coming back after having a baby, it wasn’t going to be the same. So, but I was going to give it the most intensity that I could give at the time.
So I remember I just back squatted 85 pounds and normally, you know, I back squat. Way more than that. And I just remember feeling so sore and I was, so I just felt so accomplished, even though it was something that, you know, my old self would have looked at that weight and gone, like, what is it? This, this is cake, wait, you know, kind of thing.
So you have to again, take your circumstances into account. It kind of exactly what Joe was saying and realize, okay, you know, what can I do now when. Now in turn to that, or flipping that on its head when to be hard on yourself. So if you’re just not feeling it that day, Those are [00:30:00] always ended up being the best workouts for me.
If I just, and I’m not talking like I didn’t sleep or I’m injured, I’m talking like I just, I just want to sit on the couch and I want to binge some Netflix kind of day that’s the day that I get in the gym and it ends up being the best kind of workout for me. I feel better. I don’t feel like sitting on the couch and Benji, Netflix, and it always in turn after that, you know, dopamine hit, I feel like I am going to do something else.
Like I ended up doing laundry and cleaning my house and I ended up being super productive if I’m able to get that workout in. So. You have to give it’s a balance, right? The grace part has to come when you need it. But at the same time, you need to also be diligent and say, I’m going to get in the gym today.
I’m going to get these five sessions this week. You know, I’m not sick, I’m not hurt. I’m not, you know, I don’t have X, Y, and Z, and you have to mentally push yourself. And the best part about that is if you [00:31:00] have, you know, if you have a spouse. If you have a someone else who does garage, gym athlete workouts with you, you know, online, I hit the boys up in Slack and I’m saying someone told me to get outside so I can go work out.
And typically someone gives me a reason to go and do it or makes me laugh and then I’ll go and do it. But, yeah, that’s my advice for that.
Kyle Shrum: So I’ve got several things I would say on this and I’ll keep them quick. first thing I would say it depends on you depends on your body. as far as pushing yourself, someone else’s pushing yourself, pushing themself does not mean it’s the same for you. In other words, there’s a whole lot of people out there that are, trying to show you what it looks like to push yourself.
But most of those people don’t know you and don’t know your situation. So you need to find what pushing yourself is for you. And don’t play the comparison game, right? There’s, there’s plenty of room for going and finding inspiration from other people and motivation [00:32:00] from other people, but someone else is pushing, pushing themselves hard.
That is not the same as you pushing yourself hard. So understand what it looks like for you on top of that, or piggybacking off of that, I’ll just read it the way I wrote it in my notes, knowing your limits comes with the reps. So don’t skip the reps. you, you have to get out there and, and feel what it’s like to push yourself before, or you can know what your limits are.
Does that make sense? I’m trying to articulate it properly, but. If you don’t get out there and actually put the reps in, you’re not going to know what it’s like to work out when you’re sore or workout when you don’t feel like it, or, or those kinds of things, you need to actually put the reps in. so find a way to get the reps in so that you can then make better decisions moving forward and kind of analyze things a little bit better moving forward.
Also, I would say when it, when it comes specifically to work at now, and it [00:33:00] comes specifically to pushing yourself, in a workout program, know the difference between sore and injured. Right. soreness should be part of your life. If you are pushing yourself and working out, like you should be sore some of the time and soreness is okay.
Like, I like soreness. I like being sore. Not like, it sounds kind of weird, but I like walking around the next day, like feeling sore and like removing my arm or moving my leg or something. It like, it reminds me that I did something. It reminds me that it did something hard and it reminds me of that, that I got better injured is different.
Injury is the time to it is okay to take a step back, right. It is okay to. Watch what’s going on and to maybe get cut yourself some Slack and just rest for a minute. but the difference between injury and soreness is, is, is pretty stark. and it can be, it can be yeah. Difficult for somebody, especially people.
If you’re new, [00:34:00] maybe you feel, Oh man, I got injured. No, you’re probably just sore, but. Cause it takes me, it takes a whole lot to actually injure the human body. Human body’s pretty resilient. It’s very strong and it’s meant for some pretty great things. so understand that when it comes specifically to fitness, I’m understanding the difference between sore and injured.
Like I’ve, I felt sore from all kinds of workouts, but, and we’ve talked about it a lot, but after that Spartan beast, like that was different. That was a different kind of pain, you know what I mean? and I just felt like I needed to take. Some time to kind of let that work itself out before I really got back to pushing myself hard again.
so anyway, that’s what I would say is, is know your body and know what it looks like to push for you, and get the reps in and understand the difference between soreness and
Jerred Moon: injury. I think you all make really good points and that should be taken into account for everybody’s personal. Situation, I guess I’ll speak to [00:35:00] the, more hardcore nature of all this.
And if I cut myself no Slack. None. And so I’m, I’m also incredibly hard on myself if I make mistakes completely unforgiving. if I make a mistake and yeah, like I said, I’m incredibly, incredibly hard on myself. This works for me and because I never get into a, it doesn’t beat me down to where I’m in a bad mental state.
And this is where I think the line needs to be drawn for everybody. I think you should be as hard on yourself as you want to be until it starts to like mess with your brain. And you actually, if you like, they’re starting to lose self-confidence or you don’t believe in yourself where you actually think you’re a piece of crap.
Like that’s not the kind of, self-talk like, if I miss a workout, I’m not like, Oh, you’re so stupid. And, like that’s not the self-talk, I’m just like, I’m more like, that’s completely. Unacceptable. You had no reason for that. I don’t do that again. Like I’m very [00:36:00] hard on myself in that regard, but I don’t think it works for a lot of people.
So I think everyone needs to like take that into account. but I do, I, the reason I want to push this message is not to sound hardcore or whatever, but I know there are probably other people out there like me who get on that slippery slope of. You know, maybe giving themselves a little bit too much grace, when you know, you could have done better because I think if you’re not continually sharpening the ax, then we start to move backwards.
And that’s kind of the premise of the beginning. Parts of the killing comfort book. Are you becoming a little bit complacent because you decided to give yourself grace that one time and now that’s, that’s something you do. And it’s not nothing you really done before. And now the next time it comes up.
You’re being a little bit easier on yourself. Like, let me give myself a little bit of grace here. It’s fine. You know, life is crazy, right. But is it bad enough to where you shouldn’t be held to a standard? So I think that you need to set some standards for yourself and hold yourself to those standards.
But [00:37:00] like I said, you can’t get into a negative. It can’t be at the cost of your mental wellbeing. So if you are beating yourself up or you do get into a negative mental state, then everything I just said about standards and holding yourself. Out the window. I’m like, I don’t lose self-confidence over stuff like this.
I’m just really hard on myself. I hold myself to incredibly high standard and I have a lot of people around me and in my community who are the exact same way. And so it’s never, as never that, weird to me. But when I talk to other people, like, what if I’m really hard on myself, let’s just, let’s move away from fitness.
Santa may made a mistake in life. Emily knows this. I’m like. Just completely unforgiving on, on myself and she’ll be like, you’re human and like, unacceptable. Like not, not, not okay. It’s not an unexcused. And so, you know, I, I probably am an extreme on that level, but I want to push everybody who to not find that stuff.
Nope. Give yourself grace and like Joe’s situation. When life [00:38:00] gets crazy like that, you have to be realistic. And so I’m not saying, you know, those kinds of situations I’ve been in those situations. I’ve had three kids and each time I’ve had a kid, things get a little bit different for a short amount of time.
and I’ve been a lot of crazy situations life wise, but then don’t let those times you allow yourself to like, Be easy on you yourself to be a new standard. You’re willing to accept moving forward when life is basically right. Perfect. Nothing’s wrong with you? Nothing’s wrong at all? And you’re like, yeah, well it’s okay.
Like it’s not okay. You have no reason for it. So I didn’t give any of the opposite side of that because I feel like the three of you did a great job. so I only got hardcore side. If you guys wouldn’t set it, I would have said some of the stuff that you guys said. So I think. Cumulatively. We covered all the bases.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. I just want to, yeah. Yep. One, a final words for me is that, stop yourself from falling. And that’s like when you get on a slippery slope of your losing, whether it’s you’re [00:39:00] losing fitness days or like, well, in terms of like intuition stuff, just stop yourself from falling, but don’t try and, bounce back right away.
See where you’re at, make that a, not necessarily a new norm, but just don’t make it worse than it is now. And then, take little, little measures to make it a little bit better versus going, you know what, Monday flipping everything upside down and I’m changing everything. Cause then you’re just going to start falling again or you could,
Jerred Moon: I like it.
All right. The workout. One of my faves, hard to kill five miles. It’s tough. I guess I’ll brief it cause it’s ridiculously hard to brief. So it it’s, it’s pretty simple workout. It is five miles of 400 meter intervals and it can be done rowing or running and we give you standards for both. I believe. and so mile one is your faster pace.
And then mile two is you’re slower pace than mile three. You go back to that fast pace mile four, you can slow down again in mile five, [00:40:00] that fast pace and the pacing is set out for you for competitor establish and recruit levels. And the only way to. Not get killed or to succeed in the workout is to keep the pace selection that you wanted to, whether that’s competitor establish a recruit.
And normally if there’s a waiting involved, I say, Hey, don’t, don’t go competitor. If you’re not actually a competitor, right. But here there’s, I mean, it’s very safe, especially if you’re doing on the rower, like push yourself. Don’t, don’t go recruit if it’s going to be too easy for you. but yeah, I think that’s it for me.
And then the only other advice tip I have is this happens every time these are 400 meter intervals, not 500. And so when you look at the row and you’re like, how the hell am I going to keep a minute 24, 500 meter row pace while you’re not because. That’s a 500 meter row pace that the PM 3:00 PM five is showing you.
It’s not showing you a 400 meter pace. So keep that in mind when you’re doing these intervals, [00:41:00] what tips do you guys have? Well, first
Joe Courtney: I’m just going to say, dang it. Cause I can actually do this one.
Jerred Moon: Good.
Joe Courtney: I’ve I’ve done it a couple of times and competitor is super hard. It, I remember the first time I did it, my hamstrings were absolutely smoked during this.
So
Jerred Moon: cause you run or row
Joe Courtney: run I’m will, I’ve only done this running.
Jerred Moon: Okay.
Joe Courtney: So I’m not sure if I would try for competitor because I don’t know if my running’s even up on those standards anymore. So I might do establish, I gotta see what the, what the splits are. But yeah, it is, it is tough. There’s there’s absolutely no tips on this.
The patient is set for you.
Jerred Moon: Let me see if I have it pulled up here. So running competitor is
Joe Courtney: one of nine. It’s like one Oh nine or something. Isn’t it awful
Jerred Moon: running competitor. There is one 18 for 400. Yeah. the rest pace is one 23 and then it goes to one 33 and one 38. Yeah.
Joe Courtney: Five seconds difference for, for rest.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. So, I mean, it’s, they’re pretty [00:42:00] ridiculous. and the rowing’s not. Easy either.
It’s just, people can normally keep faster paces on the rower because you recover faster. Cause running is just the most metabolically demanding thing you can do on the planet other than like a burpee. So RO if you can’t run, that’s the advice
Joe Courtney: and you should get a good warm up. Loosen your
Jerred Moon: hamstrings.
Ashley Hicks: I don’t really have any,
Kyle Shrum: yeah, I said on this one, don’t
Jerred Moon: like, actually don’t.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah, well that would be my first, my first day. No, actually sprint it, you know what I mean? There is a stipulation, if you, if you get killed within your first mile, start over like. Add five seconds to your pace. In other words, make your pace five seconds slower and start over. so that you can do it again,
Joe Courtney: rethink life a little bit too while you’re in there.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah, but, but actually actually sprint like embrace the mentality of the workout, you know, I mean it’s cart, it’s called the harder to kill. Five miler. You know what I mean? Like you’re, you’re trying to be hard to kill here. You’re [00:43:00] trying to do something that most people can’t do embrace the mentality and actually spread it.
You know what I mean? Like don’t try to, don’t pick a slow pace just cause you want to go slow like this, this one’s not about going slow. It’s not about doing, it’s not about doing five miles, 400 meter intervals. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about doing those intervals really fast. And so embrace that mentality and.
Don’t sandbag it, just get out there and push yourself and do it fast.
Jerred Moon: I might do this one on a biker, the harder to kill 10 miler. How would you
Joe Courtney: adjust your, would you do three miles or, or
Jerred Moon: 10? So, yeah, I would do 800 meter intervals. 800 meter. Yeah. On the, on the concept to biker. It’s crazy how, at least for me, and it might be for everybody.
I just don’t know a lot of other people with a biker. It’s like. One for one, if I double the distance on the biker, like if I run a mile in six minutes, I bike two miles on the biker again in six minutes. [00:44:00] Like if I double the distance on the biker, the times work out to almost the same. So that’s been a, that’s been cool to do that stuff.
So I would do, I would just do 800 meter splits. It would take probably around the same time. I’d probably test it a few times before I did it, but I might do the harder, it can kill 10 miler just to try it out. Can you do? Yeah, I will do me. All right, guys. That’s it for today’s podcast. If you haven’t already leave us a review in your podcast app.
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