Hey, Athletes! Have you heard of Hormesis? Listen to this week’s episode to find out what it is and to hear about Killing Comfort!
Episode 46 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
KILLING COMFORT
In this week’s episode, the team go over their updates and announcements for the week. The big announcement is Killing Comfort drops this week so make sure to snag a copy! For this week’s study, the team talks about hormesis. They define it in layman’s terms and talk about how you can implement it in your own life!
For this week’s topic, the coaches are going over Jerred’s new book. They tell us about their favorite parts, biggest takeaways, and why you too should get a copy! Lastly, Memorial Day is coming up so this week’s Meet Yourself Saturday is MURPH.
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 65-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- Killing Comfort Releases This Week!
- The Iron Mile Showdown
- Hormesis
- Huel-Black Edition
- MURPH-How to Tackle It
- Balance and What That Looks Like
- 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:
KILLING COMFORT
[00:00:00] Jerred Moon: All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. Joe Courtney, how’s it going? Hey, first of all, once, yeah, I didn’t even introduce myself and Kyle. How you doing?
Kyle Shrum: Hey, I’m doing okay and I am not. I’m offended by my place in the order
Jerred Moon: actually. How’s it going?
Ashley Hicks: Going
Jerred Moon: good. Alright. And I’m Jared moon.
And Ron burgundy
Ashley Hicks: who put a question Mark on the teleprompter.
Kyle Shrum: Perfect.
[00:01:00] Jerred Moon: Starting off. Great. This is going to get way better, and I’ll tell you why, because we’re going to be talking about killing comfort today. But before we do that, we’re going to jump into updates. Ashley, how’s life? What’s going on with you?
Ashley Hicks: I’m still on a high from Saturday. Maybe I should let Kyle tell. Tell the people why.
Jerred Moon: No, I’m just kidding.
Ashley Hicks: We did the iron mile. Yeah. And, uh. I beat Kyle. It was, it was at a race, a female weight accordingly. Obviously not, I did not do the one 35. I would have died. Um, but I went to the dentist today. Uh, it, they are letting inpatients.
It’s obviously not a full schedule, but you have to like check in. And out in the parking lot. They come, they take your temperature, they ask you a bunch of questions, kind of screening you beforehand, then you go in, but found out something cool. The dentist, I really like her. It’s a female dentist and she, um, I basically have some clenching issues.
And so she kind of asked me a few questions to kind of see like, [00:02:00] you know, is this new? Have you always done this? And then she got down to the rivet and she’s, you know, how was your postpartum healing? And I was like. Oh yeah, I did. I did have some postpartum depression. Maybe this is, uh, you know, I remember my whole body clenching lots of things that were physical with it.
And so she goes, you could have potentially built in a habit of clenching and not even known it, and you are continuing to do so. So I have a night guard to hopefully help that. But she even talked about like, if they are. Points in the day where I don’t have to talk. So basically my kid’s nap time, but my night garden and see if I can catch myself clenched though.
That’s my, that’s my new goal this week, not clenching, so that way I don’t know that my jaw can give himself a rest.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. That’s intense. That’s some intensity you got going on. Yeah.
Uh, Kyle, who’s probably clenching his jaw after the loss during the iron mile. I saw in your, I saw you had one more thing on your update cause I [00:03:00] kind of wanted to talk about it.
Ashley Hicks: Oh, okay. Well Scott and I, we, so my husband Scott is on the heal train and hulas just, um, it’s kind of, you can put it in a shake and it’s, anyways, it’s got like pea protein in it and we really love this stuff.
And um, my husband especially, he uses it, uh, cause when he flies he doesn’t have time to eat real meals. So he hurries up, mixes up some fuel. Down some heel and it just gives him the, uh, carbs and protein and stuff that he needs right then. So, uh, we are. Upgrading if you will, to the black edition, even though it’s the same price, it’s just more protein and less carbs in the black edition.
So,
Jerred Moon: yeah. Yeah. I just, so he was like a meal replacement powder. Uh, Scott turned me onto it and so I’ve been trying it and I went to the black edition and again, no affiliation with the company, but something I’m using, um, Scott naturally are using, if you guys want to check it out, it’s pretty. The ingredients are pretty good and like not everything’s like organic and [00:04:00] so, which is fine, but like that’s why it’s the price is where it’s at.
Because if you were to try and get something like this, everything, all organic, it’d be like $125 a bag, but it’s more like, you know, whatever, 65 to $75 for a month’s supply, which isn’t too bad for all. It’s doing ice. I try to only have one powder drink per day, and so I switched to Hewell because. It was like the calories.
I really just needed more calories in my life without having to. Eat them all, as ridiculous as that sounds. I’m just not a big fan of wasting my time eating things. Um, if that makes any sense to anybody. Yeah.
Kyle Shrum: It makes no sense.
Joe Courtney: Like to enjoy food.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I’m not normal in that regard. I think, like I’ve said before, I don’t, I think my tongue is not like, it doesn’t taste things like other people don’t have a good palette.
Like, I don’t understand it, you know? Yeah. That’s all right. That’s all. It’s also a good thing. I don’t like desserts for that reason and [00:05:00] stuff, cause whatever Kyle life, how’s it going?
Kyle Shrum: Life is good. Um, I can seed victory. To actually on our, our, our mall challenge. Um, it doesn’t mean that music is better for you on the Armo.
That’s not what that means. Um, that’s kind of where the challenge came from, was to see, but I will say I did still have. Probably my best iron mile ever. Um, and it was the first time I ever did one 35 and I surprised myself being able to actually complete it at one 35. I’d never done that before.
Jerred Moon: How many times did you put it down?
Kyle Shrum: Zero. Zero and that, and that’s, yeah, that’s the thing is that, um, I knew that being out. Um, where I was in that neighbor in the neighborhood that I have to walk in, um, clean and jerking one 35. After being tired, um, was not going to be, uh, [00:06:00] advisable. And so I just kind of locked my hands in place. Like my, my hands were like, I mean, I talked about it on the podcast.
My hands get like tingling and stuff and kind of cut off circulation and stuff, and they were kind of, um. Fidgety a little bit for a couple hours after I was done. But like I just, I locked them in place and just went in cause I was like, I can’t put this thing down. So the only way out is forward. So went to a dark place.
It was fun. I enjoyed it. And uh, but I will, I will be victorious next time. Also, I got a haircut this week and I feel like a new man.
Joe Courtney: I think the haircut’s even bigger news than the iron mile. It’s big. My scaling.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. Chapstick and yeah. That’s your biggest jail. How’s life.
Joe Courtney: It’s okay. But I did get in some new gear.
I ordered some under armor and Reebok, uh, this past week or two, because I got basically half off for both on both companies. So that was awesome. And I got the new, new [00:07:00] things to try out. Typically, I only wear Reebok shorts. They have like the best shorts to me because of, you know, they, they have it open so you can squat in them.
And then like for my, um. Phone when I go running, they have one pocket and that one pocket has a zipper and it’s just enough size big enough to fit my phone in. Well, uh, I decided to try out some under Armour ones because I wanted to get new ones and to try their running ones. They had the weird front pocket where it’s like, it’s a speed pouch and it’s right there in the front.
There’s no side pockets and it kind of had to put my phone sideways and there’s like a stretchy thing that goes over top. Well running was, was great. I mean, they’re, they’re pretty short shorts and like the phone barely fit in there, but getting the phone in and out, it was a pain. So what I was doing is all I would do, and I didn’t realize this until after I was toward the end of my run, what was pulled my waistband on it out a little bit and then change the song.
But people around the city will probably just saw me pull my waistband out and poke it down and not knowing there was a phone there, so I might not [00:08:00] wear those as running shorts again.
Ashley Hicks: You need an Apple watch?
Joe Courtney: No, I do not. I do
Jerred Moon: not. That’s awesome.
Joe Courtney: I’d rather get crazy looks then switched to completely new gear.
What? The shorts work that well.
Kyle Shrum: Well, that’s the best update of all the times.
Joe Courtney: I felt like I had
Kyle Shrum: to circle in the middle picture.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. Other than chapstick for sure.
Joe Courtney: I felt like I had to add to the chapstick. I don’t know what I’m going to do next week. I might just take a break, take a week off.
Jerred Moon: Oh man.
Joe Courtney: Jeremy speechless right now.
Jerred Moon: I guess it’s, I guess it’s my turn. I don’t know. I don’t know where we go from here. Yeah. Okay. So my only update is the book, uh, cause my life is the book right now. As crazy as that seems like between. Talking about it, reading it, speaking it into a microphone, editing like, and not editing the book.
It doesn’t matter. No one, no one cares. Just there’s a lot of books, stuff going on, so that’s pretty much my life right now. But the story I wanted to tell [00:09:00] was the signed copies that we did see about a week ago. If you’re listening to this on the day, it comes out. So, and I already told this story in the Facebook group, but not everyone gets to see my live videos in the Facebook group.
So I, we, I did a limited like, Hey, let’s, let’s do a signed copy thing for garage gym athletes. Anybody who is a garage math, you can get a signed copy of the book. I had about 50 60 books at my house that I could ship out. And I was like, okay, this will probably cover it. Like not that many people are going to want a signed copy or whatever.
And I was way wrong. I was way wrong about that. And so I just want to say sorry to everybody and here’s why. So one, I gave the option for paperback or hardback. The other wrong assumption I meant I made was that most people would want the paperback and not the hard back. Just every bit of me was wrong.
Like I have no book intuition, I guess. Like I’m not, I don’t know what I’m doing. And so anyway, [00:10:00] I’ve ordered a bunch of more books. So if you ordered a signed copy. Just bear with me. It’s going to take a while. I’m waiting for the next shipment of books to come in so I can sign and then ship them out.
Probably going to throw an extra little surprise in your package if you are going to have a delayed delivery. Um, but anyway, so if you did order one, thank you very much and I do apologize if they are a little late getting out, but I’ll make it up to you. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.
The books are on their way. I’m really excited because this is. It’s Monday when this is published. The books pretty much out. It’s pretty much out that May 19th is the official date. This is being published on May 18th, you go by the book on Amazon everywhere. We’ll go do it, killing comfort, and Amazon grabbed the book and let me know what you think.
And then about a week, uh, the audio book will be released and I’ll give you guys updates on that.
Joe Courtney: This week.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, you guys got yours. Oh, and one more update on the audio book we talked [00:11:00] about. Should we do like I, I read the chapter and then we do like a recap and we can’t do that. So I, my apologies. Um, and the real reason is actually a huge technical one.
Um, audible has like very strict standards on the audio quality, but like down to a specific bit rate at, look, I didn’t know anything about this stuff until. I started researching to see if we could actually do it and when we would have to record everything over zoom or Skype. Um, and that’s just, no, no internet quality audio.
We’ll hit the bit rate that we need to be able to process for audible. So anyway, I have to read the book by myself and that will be the audio book version. Can’t bring anyone else on, even though I would love to do that. Um, we’d have to all be in person to be able to achieve it. So maybe we can update later.
Next, next time we’re all a meeting up for Spartan race or something. Just read your
Kyle Shrum: entire boat.
Jerred Moon: No, no, no. We’ll just talk about each chapter. We’re [00:12:00] gonna need like a week recap, recap. Now we get it done in a day. Just like I thought I could do an audio book,
Joe Courtney: which,
Jerred Moon: how’d that go? Yeah. Audio books are tough.
Not even worth it. Not even worth talking about. So today, the topic, we’re really just talking about killing comfort today, guys. And so. Uh, we kind of have a study, but not really in a sense. Uh, it’s on hormesis. So we’re gonna be talking about this idea of hormesis because in the book, I, uh, propose three different habits.
I think basically every human should have and, and participate in every day. One of those being hormesis. Um, and when I use that word, most people don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. And. I would like for people to know a little bit more about what hormesis is and what the science says about it.
Uh, so we have, um. I mean, if you’re going to talk for me, he this, this is the most referenced study. It’s, it’s a review. It’s called hormesis, defined by Mark [00:13:00] P Mattson, and it’s by the laboratory of neurosciences, national Institute of aging, intramural research program in Baltimore, Maryland. Joe,
Joe Courtney: stop next door and check it out.
Jerred Moon: Anyway, it was received 2007 published 2008. And the reason I think the publish date is important is because of some of the information that’s in here that I think is funny. Like if you just hear about something and you’re like, Oh yeah, that’s new, and that’s cool. It’s like, no, it’s been around for awhile.
You just, you’re late to the party. So the concept of hormesis, uh, who feels like they can explain hormesis easily of you three, and I’m gonna don’t, don’t jump at it all at once. Go with. Ashley. Okay, Ashley, we’ll take a stab at it. What is where music is for everybody who’s now wondering, since I’ve had said it like 10 times, what is harmony?
He says in short,
Ashley Hicks: so I put defined in layman’s terms. It means small [00:14:00] amounts of something are good. It can be very beneficial to you, but if you in turn do that same thing in a. Like do it big. A lot of it, I guess, then that can be detrimental and actually be harmful
Jerred Moon: to you. Yes. So Nietzsche, that which does not kill us, makes us stronger.
Also, I believe Kelly Clarkson, um, absolutely the great philosopher, uh, has said something similar. Um, and it’s just true. That’s essentially what hormesis is. And I think anyone who’s listening to this, maybe you’re not familiar with the term, but. You get it, you get, cause you, if you work out, you get hormesis like you get it.
Like if I were to go work out for an hour. A little bit of working out. My body’s going to then repair itself like in, in the moment working out as bad for you. We’ve talked about this before, like it’s just ripping muscles apart. It’s breaking things down like it’s in that in the moment of exercise, it [00:15:00] is actually bad for you.
It’s the response, your body’s response. Post-exercise compensation, super compensation that makes exercise good for you. It’s not good for you in the moment. It’s good for you after you recover, and that’s where you build stronger muscles, you get more aerobic endurance, so a little bit good recovery.
Great. Now you’re better. However, if I were to go run starting now and try to not stop for 72 hours, I might just die. You know, that is, that is an a dose that is too high. That’s going to break my body down too much and I will just die. So a little bit good. Too much bad dead. So that is where music is explained.
And. I just would love to know what you guys pulled away from this document itself. I have some, some things I want to talk about with Joe. What did you think about, um, hormesis in general and this
Joe Courtney: study? I mostly just looked up into hormesis so I can better grasp it and give a, um, examples. Honestly, I’ve watched some videos on it and I actually was looking into your book to [00:16:00] make sure you didn’t have this quote, but I found a really good quote from.
Somebody’s a Swedish, uh, physician in the Renaissance period. I don’t really know how to say his name, but they call him Paris. Celsus. A seal says something like that, but he said poison is in everything and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy. And I think that’s pretty good for this, um, instance, because what we talked about with, with running and fitness and stuff, and I’m going to go with a water example for how.
Um, water. Everybody knows you hydrate and usually drink water, but too much can be bad. And there’s people that, you know, this happens in basic training, this happens at sporting events and like Spartan racism, endurance events where people think they just need to hydrate, hydrate, drink, all kinds of water.
But. They ex people that ended up dying and even in the medical tent because they’re way too over hydrated cause they just kept pumping themselves with water in or like rounding from the inside. So water is good, we need it. But you still [00:17:00] have to draw a line somewhere. And some of the examples I saw as well, like I think you’ve talked about with programming sometimes is just picture picture, either a bell curve or a U shaped curve or whatever to where small amount bad, not enough.
Right, I’m out. Good. And then more than the right amount is also just as bad as, not enough.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. Not what you’re talking about in our training is kind of like that. That graph we have for like sedentary than like moderately active, two hour training and then like CrossFit competitor training, five hours per day every day.
Like, yes, they’re gonna be healthy, they’re there. They might be jacked, but longterm, what’s that going to look like? Is that going to be, you know, negative or to their detriment? And the answer is most likely yes. Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s an amazing quote. I wish I would’ve found it before I published the book.
Joe Courtney: You’re right,
Jerred Moon: Kyle, what were some of your takeaways, man? So
Kyle Shrum: let’s think we actually have another. Graphic that we’ve made before that would kind of demonstrate this. Um, the [00:18:00] one that the fill in the bucket graphic that we have where it’s got the spigot at the bottom and, you know, the spigot is letting water out of your bucket and you know, that’s exercise and, and these other things that kind of let water out and then putting things back in.
It’s the way you recover. So your, the way you eat, the way you, uh, sleep, um, the minerals that you’re getting to. You know, supplement, all those things. So that’s kind of, that’s kind of hormesis. Um, in general is that’s what that process kind of looks like. So if you let too much water out of the bucket, that’s a bad thing.
But letting some of the water out is a good thing if you replace it too much, but too much water in it. And so we’re floating at the top, that’s also bad. So, um, you want to kind of keep it in the bucket and let out a little bit and then replace it and let it out a little bit and then replace it. So that’s kind of, um, just something else that we’ve.
Put together in the past, I think illustrates this, this process. Um, something we’ve also covered in the past. It actually wasn’t very long ago. Um, we were talking about. Antioxidants in foods that you eat, things like [00:19:00] blueberries, and I think it might’ve been when we were talking about tart cherry juice.
Yeah. Yeah. Chuck Berry in Minnesota. It’s Minnesota,
Joe Courtney: Minnesota. The Chuck Berry state. That’s right.
Kyle Shrum: I remember because I’m the one who found that. Anyway. Um, but we talk about how, and we talked about it in that episode, um, that having too many antioxidants in your system is actually inhibiting your gains because there’s, um, certain inflammation that needs to happen in your body in order for you to make gains in order for you to get better.
Um, and so having too much in there that’s blocking all of that inflammation is actually bad for you. Um, you don’t want to have too much inflammation, but you need to have a little bit, um, in order to get better. And so that’s kind of, that’s kind of what hormesis is, is talking about we need enough stress to grow, but not, um, not enough recovery to set us back.
And it’s kind of that fine line in between.
Jerred Moon: Ashley, what’d you get from it?
[00:20:00] Ashley Hicks: Uh, I think I immediately went to nutrition. So it’s just kind of how my brain was, you know, a lot of people, some people will tell us, you know, I drink a little bit of alcohol, you know, is that one glass a night or do you drink a whole bottle of wine?
And you know, in the night I think of that, or, you know. An Apple a day keeps the doctor away. You know how people say that? All that, and it’s like a sane and then, but if I ate 10 to 12 apples, you know, how many carbohydrates, sugars am I putting in my body?
Jerred Moon: I
Ashley Hicks: think it’s do it
Joe Courtney: the fetus.
Ashley Hicks: Um. But I think that’s good with thinking of not just training, not just nutrition, but I think of work life too.
You know, your, um, work life balance with your family. You know, are you doing too much to where you can’t even, um, enjoy time with your fear and stress? And you kind of talk about that in the book, which we can get into later. But I think basically what this just points out is that balance is a good thing.
And you kind of have to know when too much is too much. But know that. When you are [00:21:00] putting stress, um, on your body, like training or doing things like, you know, the sauna or fasting or stuff that like that is going to help you grow in the long run. But you can take those things to the extreme. So you have to know when to dial that all back.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And I think, I think that’s important part. So what I love about this study specifically is they have like a graph of like the hormetic factors by lifestyle, exercise, exercise, dietary energy restriction, dietary phytochemicals, cognitive stimulation. Then they have environmental exposures, toxins, radiation to mature water.
Um, and then they have the cell stress signaling. So if you do these things, what happens? And then it goes one further. What are the hormetic. Effect where so like what happens, antioxidants, all these things, it’s pretty interesting and a little bit more scientific. Um, but it’s, it’s just something that I think the process is what you need to understand.
Not any of those specific ones is like, there’s [00:22:00] the hormetic factor. So what you’re doing, your body is going to have cell stress and signal something from that, and then there’s going to be a hormetic effect due to that process. And that’s essentially how things work. And you mentioned, yeah, like, so you can, here’s one thing I want, like I love science articles sometimes because people in nutrition get like all, um, it’s, you know, like vegan is the best, you know, paleo is the best.
Carnivores is the best. And then, um, they just straight up say, like. They, they kind of talk about nutrition a little bit, but they’re like, yeah, but we, there’s not really any conclusive evidence. The only well-established means of improving health through diet is maintaining a relatively low caloric intake.
Yes. Thank you. Like, and then, then that’s kind of their segue into talking about a caloric restriction, and this is going back to 2008 and 2005 2006 studies that they’re referencing. Like. [00:23:00] Fat. Like we’ve, we’ve always known about the benefits of fasting, but it’s, it’s gained a lot of popularity and in the last like two years.
Right. But they’re, they’re referencing studies that were done on fasting and how the hormetic benefits, you know, a long time ago, you know, like 15 years ago in some of these cases. Uh, and so, yeah, you can do things like a fasting sauna. So extreme heat exposure, ice pads, extreme cold exposure. But like what Kyle said, too many, too much of the cold exposure we’ve talked about as a bad thing.
Uh, yeah. Getting out in the sun and getting vitamin D too much of that. Give you skin cancer, so on and so forth. So a little bit will make you better. Now, to Ashley’s point, how much is too much to where you’re. Burning the candle at both ends. And this is like, hasn’t been studied, but I often wonder because I fast 16 hours a day, I train, I do the sauna, you know, um, I do a lot of different things that would be considered hormesis.
Like, where’s the line? Where too much is. Like, how much is too much? Like how many, [00:24:00] how much stress is too much. I haven’t found that point cause I’m sure my body would start breaking down if I really got to that point. Um, but I think it’s something to take into account because people who are generally interested in health and these types of things want to do everything.
I know I’m, I’m in that camp. I’m like, yeah, let’s do an ice bath in the morning, get in the sauna after that, then we’ll work out. I won’t eat until noon. Like I’ll just like, let’s do it all. But you can go too far and instruct your body too much. But I think, I think the concept before me says is really cool and what I’m challenging people to do in the book now that you know, there’s so many different ways.
I’m not necessarily saying that you need to work out every day. Obviously that is our chosen poison. I grabbed him. Athlete is training and the right dose multiple times per week. But if you don’t get to train today, and this is the question I asked myself, if for some reason I’m not going to train today.
Is there other, some like other form a poor me says I can practice today since I know I’m not going to be able to exercise. So maybe if I’m like, Oh, I’m not going to exercise, I’ll push this [00:25:00] fast a little bit longer, or at least I’ll be able to get in the sauna. Or like what is the one thing that you can do to still stress your body, have that signaling effect and then to get better from it.
So I. Challenge. Everyone has some form for me, so it’s in their life every single day. And I think for most of them that’s training. Do you guys feel like you do anything else? That’s a a form of for me, since right now,
pretty much fasting, still
Joe Courtney: intermittent, fasting a diet all the time.
Jerred Moon: Yep. Yeah. So everyone’s still fasting. So you guys fasting training? Yeah. I think that’s all. Other than sauna usage, it’s the only other thing I’m probably doing.
Joe Courtney: I’ve even tried to break my fast inhabit on like certain days, but I just can’t anymore.
Especially for training. Like I’ve done noticed that if I eat anything and then I go train, I probably get more nauseous sometimes
Jerred Moon: my body’s fixed. Broken
Ashley Hicks: heavy. Yeah, I agree with that
Jerred Moon: now. Yeah. I kind of like backed off of the fasting recently. And it didn’t go well for me, which I don’t like. Things like that.
[00:26:00] Like did I, did I break myself in the opposite direction? Because we talked about, I started fasting because I had like probably some blood sugar issues. Right. And like those kind of resolve themselves when I started fasting and I start eating early again. And I’m starting to have issues. Again, I’m like not shaking or anything.
I just don’t, I don’t feel right. Things are normal. I’m like, okay, well go back to, I guess I just should always fast. That’s what my body wants. And then the last thing I think is really interesting in this study, they point out that basically every drug you take is a form of hormesis, which I think is, I never thought of it that way, but it’s kind of true.
Like you take, you take some sort of drug and it’s. I really think of, um, chemotherapy cause I keep chemotherapy, I feel like is the definition of this. Chemotherapy is like trying to kill everything and just like, hopefully you survive at the end of it. Like we’re going to kill everything with chemotherapy.
Hopefully the cancer gets killed and you’re alive at the end of it. Um, but then really any other drug is the same way. Like it’s a lot [00:27:00] of, any drug is bad for you, but a little bit is there to help you and assist you. Uh, but the most interesting one for me was, um. Vegetables like too many vegetables. I never thought of that for some reason.
Obviously too much of anything is bad, but if you’re injecting your vegetables, I feel like that’s when it would be possible. Like a lot of smoothies or juicing and things, you’re having too many nutrients. Like there are things in plants that. Are there naturally to fight off bugs and everything else.
And if they’re, they’re not good for you either. So if you have too much of them, um, it’s going to be bad. But at the right dosage, they’re, they’re good. Which is like an annoying, annoying equation cause you don’t actually know what the dosage is for any of this. So good luck, everybody. I’m kidding. It’s, it’s pretty.
It’s pretty standard stuff. Eat some vegetables, but you then don’t always drink them. Work out an hour a day fast as needed. Cool. All right, you guys want to get into the book?
Kyle Shrum: Let’s do
Jerred Moon: it. So we’re talking about a [00:28:00] book today called killing comfort, the overlooked prerequisite to extraordinary results. I did write it.
And forced everyone on the team to read it. So now we get to discuss it. Uh,
they, they actually, it was their idea, like, I just like, Hey, we should do the book. So, um, okay. Uh, what I wanted to actually read. I’m not going to actually read it, but I’m going to, I’m going to,
Joe Courtney: you’re not over reading it.
Jerred Moon: No, I have. I have the unpublished prologues so this was going to go in the book, but I didn’t put it in the book and.
I was going to actually read it for you guys, but I’m not, cause it’s not super polished. But I wanted to talk about how I did everything in my power to not write this book. Like I really tried for a long time to not write it because writing a book is a complete distraction to like everything else. And so let me, I’ll just put this in perspective.
So [00:29:00] Grazia mathlete I hired, um. A publishing team, marketing team, like there were a lot of people working on that book and it costs a lot of money and it did really, really well. Like I was competing. I beat out Kelly star at, we really spoke to the same scene, same week. I beat Kelly Starrett and sales. Uh, the only person who ended up beating me after a couple of days was, uh, the book shoe dog by Phil Knight, which is like still an extremely popular book.
And I’m not saying that to brag, I’m saying that to say like. That the, the book didn’t help the company that much. And to be honest, it doesn’t, it didn’t make that much money. Like people think that that’s why you do these things. Like you’re, you’re writing a book to publish it, to make, to sell a million copies and make all this money.
And that’s not realistic. Like it’s just not the only people who are really truly living off of book publishing are. The 0.001% of authors, the ones that we all know and could name right now, they are doing it, but no one else is. And so that’s why I tell you to the, the success of the garage [00:30:00] gym athlete, book fire, to try to live off that alone.
Uh, we’d be living in a cardboard box on the side of the street right now from garage and athlete book sales. And that book is doing better than 96% of most authors out there. So just to put that in perspective, that’s not why you write a book. If anyone’s thinking about doing it. Um, so I tried really hard because I already knew that I was like killing comfort probably won’t even do as well as that book and I don’t want to do it.
It’s going to be a distraction for, for you guys. Like it’s going to take you away from some of the things that you’re doing. It’s a distraction for me. Leading the team. It’s a distraction from garage gym athlete. Um, so anyway, I tried really hard to not write it and the harder I tried, the more I felt like I had to.
And that kind of plays into the idea of killing comfort. I was like. Look, you have this idea, you need to get it out there. So let’s just like buckle down and do it. Um, so with all that, I tried really hard not to write. It. Ended up killing the comfort, wrote it. I’m still in a very uncomfortable situation getting this book out there at the time of recording this, but it’s going to be all out there and I’m really glad that it is.
I’m really proud of the work I’ve created. [00:31:00] Uh, and the only reason I did it is to try and help. People in the process of them reading it as like the true reason, as altruistic as that sounds and you, you may or may not believe it, it’s 100% true. Like I, I did it for more of a legacy type thing. It’s something my kids can have or like when I die, my grandkids could be like, Oh this is an interesting book.
Grandpa wrote like that. Those are like the only real reasons behind me writing a book like this and very little to do with the business at all. Um, so with that, uh, I love to kind of get everyone’s thoughts cause we haven’t discussed the book at all. And. And team meetings or anything because you guys recently finished it, uh, or most of the way.
So Joe, what were some of your takeaways from the book.
Joe Courtney: Oh boy. Um, so there’s one code that as we, so we got kind of advanced site, slight copies of it, uh, months ago because of just happened with edits and stuff. But there was one code that I remember that I pulled out as I was going through that, that I just really liked and I’m probably good to start with.
And that is when you kill comfort, you don’t change your ecosystem, your ecosystem [00:32:00] changes around you. I know that was really good because. When you’re trying to make your changes, you’re not just forcing changes around you. You’re just, you’re making little subtle changes and then things around, and then all of a sudden weeks down the road, you notice so many things have changed around you.
It’s not just like you’re cleaning house and everything is abrupt and you’re, you’re, you’re starting now. It’s, and that kind of goes ties right into the daily, over decades. I’m not sure what section of it was in, but it just reminded me of that and daily over decades, something that I’ve always, always liked.
Um. And you, you didn’t necessarily invent that, that people have been talking about that for a long time or talk out like the 1% of rule or something like that to where you’re just fixing 1%, um, little by little, and then all of a sudden as time passes, you look around and it’s, you’re completely different, completely new.
Um, and the impact that has is, is, uh, pretty phenomenal. So that, that’s one of the really, really good ones I like to take away
Jerred Moon: with. Yeah. And I think, you know, I’ve, I actually [00:33:00] wrote that sentence and actually a very, very long time ago because a lot of people think that improving themselves in one shape or form is as like self centeredness and like, you know.
Uh, you know, especially when you have a family, when you have kids and stuff, it’s spending time on self development can seem like you’re taking time away from the family. And people say that often. And so they think when I’m, I’m pushing this, like, make yourself better. Get better, do these things. I’m not saying that to the detriment of your family, but you going into the gym and being without your family for an hour to work on yourself or waking up early, um, you know, to read a book or take a course and to make yourself better.
You’re not sitting around trying to like make your family life better. You’re not like, you know, focusing on your kid and be like, Hey, do these things to be better. Like trying to help your wife get better or trying to help your family members get better. You’re kind of just like leading by example, right?
You’re doing all these awesome things that are improving. It’s improving your life and thus it improves everyone’s life around you. And I think that’s the concept [00:34:00] that I want people to understand is that you have to have some sort of. Better human practice. You know, some way to make yourself better and don’t worry about what’s going to change.
Things will change the more you do it.
All right. Anything else from you, Joe?
Joe Courtney: Yeah, I mean, we can keep going around, but I also wanted to, a prosperity was also something that I liked to, to combine as well with the daily over decades, but I also liked it because you interviewed you, you pulled something from what Ben Dickman said, who was one of our.
More popular, um, guests on the better humanology podcasts. And he was, he was awesome. And he talks about the, the plagues of prosperity and how, um, just that concept is pretty interesting to, to, to highlight and how, like, we’ve gotten so comfortable and things have gotten so easy and so many easy buttons have actually.
Been a detriment to us, um, over time. And I think if you are looking for little ways to improve, you can combine your daily over decades with getting rid of it, rid of some of [00:35:00] these plagues of prosperity to make things a little bit harder, but a little bit better for you. And I mean, kind of an example was that is a, I think of nutrition and how, you know, a lot of people want to go on these fad diets, so they’re going to buy all these products with the title of said fan diet on these products.
But. It’s filled with so much other crap that you’re really not doing much of anything. You might be doing worse for yourself because you’re buying this, but you think, Oh, I’m doing good. Because it’s, you know, it says it’s paleo or says it’s vegan, but you’re really not. So one thing for that is just like, get rid of these, you know, marketing buzzwords, things that you’re at, you’re putting into your body and just actually, uh, do simple stuff.
So just one little example for how to combine some of these, uh, for an application wise.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, he inspired that. So I have an entire chapter on prosperity and how that makes us too comfortable in that entire chapter. It was inspired from my conversations with dr Ben Beckman. So if you guys want to go back and listen to those on the better humanology podcast, definitely do.
And he labeled them the plagues of prosperity. And I just [00:36:00] think it’s so true. Like we have all this stuff that makes us, makes our lives easier, but it’s also killing us at the same time. Kyle, what’d you think? Man?
Kyle Shrum: Well, I thought it was, I thought it was really good. Overall, actually something that you’re going with, I’m going with what you’re talking about there though.
The plagues of prosperity in the book. I think I remember you saying something about, um, how older generations, um, are able to, are more mentally tough because they didn’t have as much prosperity back in the day and they were just forced to. Um, make hard choices and kind of kill comfort because that’s really the only choice they had.
Um, and it just makes me think of like, like exactly what you’re talking about with older generations. Like my grandfather, um, before he passed away, he lived for the last several years of his life, I think like at least three or four years of his life with one lung. You know, and it’s because he had black lung from working in coal mines.
Um, and so he had to have a lung removed, but like, he [00:37:00] lived for several years, which was much longer than they expected him to live. But he lived for several years with one long, you know what I mean? And it was like, it’s because he was tough, you know what I mean? He was just. Tough, and he wasn’t used to, he wasn’t, you know, held down by these kinds of easy buttons, like you’re talking about this, this stuff, you know, the, the world that he grew up in was a lot tougher and he, you had to be tough to make it.
And I just think about those, those kinds of people, it’s just, they’re just there. They’re not hard to kill because they train that way. They’re hard to kill because they live that way. You know what I mean? That’s just the way that they came. And, um, he was, he was just tough. And that just made me think of that as well when I was reading about.
Reading that chapter on prosperity. But one thing that I think a lot of people might be, um, kind of taken aback by is, um, one of your chapters, a chapter nine in leadership where it’s talking about, um. Participation trophies and it’s a bit of a
Jerred Moon: controversial topic. I have a very [00:38:00] contrarian view to this.
Joe Courtney: I was debating myself in my mind, I was, as I was reading this, it was probably the slowest chapter because after coffee couple paragraphs, I was just like, I was going back and forth myself,
Kyle Shrum: but I liked, I liked the idea and I like, I like what you presented here about celebrating the effort.
You know, celebrating the work and being happy with that. Being happy with the work that you’re, that you’re putting in effort into doing something. And you know, you say something, I’m going to spoil it. For those of you who haven’t read it yet, but you know, it says, are you currently collecting a paycheck from somewhere and aren’t number one in sales, in production or whatever?
Um, aren’t you still showing up every day and putting in the work and providing value? So it’s like you’re not number one. At your company, at your job, you’re not the best at what you do, but you still go in and you do it.
Jerred Moon: And so, and you get a paycheck and you get a picture of your participation trophy every month for doing the work.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah. And it’s the same. You go on, you know, and say, are [00:39:00] you working out every day but not winning a gold medal in the Olympics, you know? Or are you running every day? But you’re not first place in a five K race. You know, when you, when you show up and do it and it’s like you’re still participating, you’re still putting in the work, you’re still putting in the effort.
You’re still not coming in first. Does that mean that you just give up? You know what I mean? And you just don’t do anything? No, that’s crazy. And no one would support that. No one would support. Well, you’re not number one in your company, so you should just quit and go find another company where you can be number one
Jerred Moon: or start your own.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah, start your own, start your own business where you can be the only one, so you can be number one. You know what I mean? It’s like, no, you, you have to work, you have to put in that effort. And so, um, it’s definitely, um, a challenge to my way of thinking on, you know, that participation trophy thing. Um.
Because that’s the point you make is like we say, participation trophies are bad because it doesn’t reflect real life. But you’re like, but you show up in art number one, and you [00:40:00] still get a paycheck. You know you’re not the best, but you still get a paycheck. So. Do you need to throw that paycheck in the trash, you know, because you’re not number
Jerred Moon: one, not number one.
No,
Kyle Shrum: that’s not what you’re going to do, you know? And no one would, Oh, well, I don’t know. Maybe some people would argue that you should, but that’s crazy. You know, you, you still need to show up and celebrate the effort and celebrate the work. Um, and that really challenged my, my way of thinking on that.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, so spoiler alert, I am pro in a sense, participation trophies, or let’s just say I’m not against them, and this is very contrary.
I would say most of the book, if you just like the title, killing comfort, you’ll, you’ll like a majority of the book. This is the only one that’ll probably push and challenge you because almost everyone, I don’t know anyone else who’s like. And I’m not just trying to take a contrarian view. If you go to the back of the better humanology podcasts, I think within the first 10 episodes we talk about participation trophies.
So we’re talking 2015 I had this idea of like if you’re complaining about people in participation trophies one. You lack leadership because if you have a bunch of [00:41:00] employees and you’re like, Oh, they’re all like, you know, they’ve been called by their parents and their, you know, all these things. It’s like you need to learn how to lead better.
If that’s your current staff, congratulations. Don’t complain about the problem. Like figure out how to fix it. So become a better leader and to, yeah, it’s just not reality. And so I’m glad I have this platform that is a book to express or, you know, vent. Make my argument, my case for these, these participation trophies.
But. I do think if someone just gets a participation trophy that it could be bad. So the, the, the, the big piece in that chapter is you have to explain what a participation trophy means to help a child perceive it the way it should be perceived. Because most people out there, I would say most everyone listening to this is not winning.
And by winning, I mean number one at whatever the hell you’re doing. Like I don’t have it. The, the business as big as I would like to, how do I win business? Do I have to beat Jeff Bezos? Amazon? Like, is that how I win business? Like I don’t know how you win businesses. The same with [00:42:00] work. Like I’m not number one.
Am I still okay with the size of this business and what we’re doing? Yeah. You know, it’s great, but I’m not winning. I’m not beating Jeff Bezos, so I guess I’m technically still a loser. I’m still okay with having the business though, you know? And, and I think the, I, I always see, and that’s when I started to get disgusted with actually seeing guys on, on Facebook and all these things like.
Their, their kid would get a participation trophy or metal for having played 19 games of soccer and showed up to all these practices, and then that at the end there’s this little ceremony, they get a participation trophy and the dad’s like ripped it right out of his hand and let them know there are no participation trophies in this house.
I’m like, yeah. Great work. I can’t wait to see what your kid thinks of you when he’s 25, you know? And he has those memories, you know, looking back, um, there’s nothing wrong with a participation trophy. The only thing that’s wrong with his perception. So if you did get a participation trophy and your perception is that everything should be handed to you in life, yeah, that’s a problem.
But if you put in the work, you showed up to every practice, you try hard. That’s about the only message there is for life, right? Like you don’t, that is life. [00:43:00] Show up and try hard, then die. That’s, that’s it. That’s, that’s the formula. But yeah, I can get real heated on that one, so I appreciate you bringing it up.
Absolutely. Actually, what was your favorite part.
Ashley Hicks: I don’t know if I should follow that. Um, I have a few chapters, so I’ll save the best for last because that’s been my favorite so far. But, uh, chapter five, prosperity, we, and we’ve all kind of talked about it. Um, you talked about depression and you talked about the use of devices and, um, how that has actually hindered.
The depression and people who are suffering with it. And I just immediately went back to my own depression, the few months that I had postpartum and how I had to disconnect. Like I just had to get off of social media because I would see other people that were thriving and doing well, and I would look at that.
And then. In turn, um, critique myself going, why am I not, why, why am I not being a good mom or why? Why am I not happy every day? Like all these people are, which again, social media is, [00:44:00] you’re getting the good parts of people’s lives. That’s not real life. Right. Um, so I really enjoyed that chapter. Um, and talking about to like, w ways of how to get out of depression.
You also talked about movement and, um, and training. And that is definitely when I noticed a huge. Difference as well in, you know, medicine helped. But I like to think all the other things that I did, um, definitely helped as well. And then chapter, let me see. Chapter eight, mine, your mindset. Um, we’ve been talking a lot about inner chatter, self chatter.
We talked about it a few weeks on the podcast and how. This, I think it was a team you used in your book and how they, every time they had a negative thought about themselves. So, you know, if they thought, Oh man, I didn’t do so great on that set, or that rep or whatever it was, they had to change it into a positive thought.
And I think that is huge, especially, um, with us training in our own space. Sometimes I feel like [00:45:00] I’m. You know, I’m speaking for myself here. I feel like I can get critical of myself. Like, Hm, you could have done that faster. You could have done that better, or, and so I think that if you can change that mindset, you change your whole perspective and that in turn flows down to the rest of your, the way you live your life.
And, um, so I really enjoyed that chapter as well. And then my favorite chapter of the whole book, and I’m almost done with it, I haven’t read. At all. Um, is chapter 13 live in balance? And I’m just going to read something from page one 34, if you don’t mind. I do, but I love this quote. Rather than aiming for perfection, aim for as many points as you can each day, and you’re talking about the of three elements here.
Over time, this game will transform into a habit. Once these habits become a part of who you are, your life will dramatically change. And I think that. That is a huge takeaway, not just for graduate athlete members and our EO three elements. I think it’s for everyone. Anyone that reads this [00:46:00] book, there’s going to be so many takeaways that you can just apply into your life.
Small, small chain that will be incremental exposure if you continue to stick with it, which is what I loved about this book. You didn’t just say, you know. The world is lazy and I don’t know, you didn’t just complain and, um, you gave people applicable things that they can use in their life. So for everyone who is listening, go get yourself a copy of this book.
You will not be disappointed.
Jerred Moon: And I will say caveat to that because I’ve read a lot of ’em. This would, this book would definitely fall in the category of, uh, you know, self-development, self-improvement, right? I’ve read a lot of those. And what they typically do is they have a big idea, and then. They just try and prove that point over and over.
Um, I mean, you could honestly get it after like two or three chapters. That’s not really what I did. And there’s, there’s almost too many tactical things for you [00:47:00] to do. Like I have a process and in a three step this and like for everything because that’s how my brain thinks. And so don’t get overwhelmed when you’re reading it.
Just dive into the parts that you know are, you feel like you can actually apply because there’s almost an application. Step two to every part. And if you don’t have to apply every part, just apply the parts where you, you feel that you need the most work. Um. And I think the, one of the biggest takeaways I want people to get from the book is not just getting uncomfortable, you know, is this, I talk about it multiple times to talk about towards the end of the book, the beginning of the book is just, and you talked about it a little bit actually with the internal chatter, but the mind is so powerful.
You know, I go over like scientific studies and like everything else, and everyone knows this, like everyone knows it. But no one does anything about it. And this is what blows my mind is like if I ask anybody, Hey, what’s your mental training program right now? I don’t think anybody would be like, [00:48:00] Oh yeah, here’s what I do on a daily basis to improve my mental state.
And I don’t know why. I don’t know why that that is the case. Like I could give you scientific studies and I, the only thing I can like. Come to the conclusion is that people think it’s weird, right? Like, it’s like, that’s weird. I’m gonna, you know, sit around and talk about how awesome I am. Or I think positive thoughts.
For some reason, in spite of mounds of scientific research and evidence, like the one study you’re talking about, not only were their physical performance markers better. They’re all of their blood markers were better from positive self-talk, like, are you kidding me? And none of us, none of us do it. Like none of us.
And, and I’m at fault too. Like I go on and off of like having some sort of mental practice where I’m like actually trying to improve my, my mentality. Like I’d do that a lot in the mornings. Like when I’m as part of my morning routine, like that’s something I’m trying to do, but it falls on and off of my, um, habit list and I just don’t know why that is.
We like feel like [00:49:00] it’s not important. Um, and I feel like some of the stuff you used to like, I don’t know, maybe in 1950s if I was like, yeah, sit around and do this, people would be like. Okay. That’s weird. Um, but now we have the science backing it up. It’s like you can actually lower your cortisol, lower your resting heart rate, and improve your strength.
Like improve your relationships through these, like proven, uh, you know, mindset work methods that you can do and people just still won’t do it. I know people will read the book and they still won’t do it. So I just, I wanna encourage everyone to just do it. It really can improve your life and, uh, don’t just.
Don’t just watch exciting YouTube videos that say, you know, the mind is powerful thing and you, yeah, yeah. It is like, no, do something like have a program like be different than everyone else. Um, does anybody have anything else about the, about the book in general? I think
Kyle Shrum: part of what you’re saying there is part of the reason that it’s hard for people to make that a habit is, um, people are not used to pausing.
Um, and we’re account of, you know, we got a lot [00:50:00] of gurus out there that are telling us, you know, you got to hustle. You know, you gotta go hard, all that kind of stuff. And, um, people are not used to like taking time, you know, and it’s like this whole, um, working on yourself business, you need to spend time with you.
And I think people, a lot of people are probably more scared to spend time by themselves than they are to spend time with anybody else. You know, they don’t want to look in that mirror, you know, they don’t want to spend time with just themselves and it just scares them. And so they would rather just distract themselves with a lot of other things that make them feel productive and make them feel, um.
You know, happy about what’s going on instead of actually really drilling down and doing what needs to be done to be successful. And I think that’s part of that. For me, that’s probably the biggest one of my biggest hangups is, um, eliminating distraction. And just. Being by myself.
Jerred Moon: So yeah, we were never by ourselves.
Right. Because [00:51:00] even if you’re alone, you’re like, Ooh, good, don’t time. You know? Uh, and, and something I wanted to, um, I want to challenge. So here’s, here’s a tactical thing. I started doing this, uh, I don’t know, maybe about 10 days ago, cause I just found out that you, uh, found out or remembered. I feel like I knew this.
Found out you could. So I’ll show you guys my phone right now.
Joe Courtney: Please. Not red red dots.
Jerred Moon: Nope.
Joe Courtney: I can’t see them. But
Jerred Moon: can you see the color of my phone? It’s black and white. It’s all black and white. So I have the iPhone. You can go into the settings and change it to where your whole phone is black and white.
So I pull up Instagram, like, here’s Instagram. It’s just like, it’s all black and white. Everything’s black and white. On my entire phone. There are no colors to anything. So red notifications, not a thing. They’re black and white. There’s a lot of them that are big counters, but they’re, they’re on there anyway.
Um, our phones. Stimulate the crap out of us. And so I would, I like to challenge anyone who, because most likely you’re not going to get rid of [00:52:00] your smartphone, like that’s probably not going to happen, but I would challenge you to do a seven day. You can look it up like how to, how to change my iPhone, black and white.
I’m sure Android phones can do this too. Um, seven day challenge. And what I found is my phone is so uninteresting, black and white. Like, it really is like, you open up Instagram and I’m like, this is dumb. Like, because these photos, those photos were not meant to be black and white, you know? And so, um, it’s, uh, it really changes the usage of your phone and you feel less stimulated and so you’re, you don’t want to use it as much.
So I would challenge everyone at the tactical thing to try, if you are having problems. Pausing like Kyle was talking about. Um, and you want to kind of get off the device, like Ashley was talking about, like, try that. That’s a small step that’s not in the book. Just something I decided to try. And, um, it’s pretty interesting.
Joe Courtney: eColors colors do. There are, I mean, I think there’s even in classes in college that are like psychology of colors and how they control now by colors chosen, but I don’t know if I’d want to feel like I’m living in a 1930s Newmar film.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And then, well, I mean, [00:53:00] app makers, no. Everything. You’re talking about four colors and they’re trying to make contrast in colors and notifications and all these things, so it gets your attention.
You’re not getting anybody’s like my, my, my phone is so boring right now. I don’t even like pick it up. It’s like this thing is dumb anyway.
Joe Courtney: You weren’t on it that much before anyway, as you read notifications for sure.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. I don’t know why I even keep it around. Yeah. Okay. Workout. Uh, yeah. The killing comfort book.
It’s out now. Go get it. Um, the best place it’s really going to be Amazon. Um, and then audible next week. Uh, if you’re, if you’re looking to do the audio book so you can get the digital copy that they were bad copy Hart back. I don’t know if it’s available right now, but, uh, should be soon. Um, and like I said, you can get the audio book later if you want to hear more of this voice.
Stumbling through an audio book. No, it’s not. It’s not bad. Not too bad. Uh, you can, you can do it. That
Joe Courtney: poultry sounds of,
Ashley Hicks: yeah.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. All right. The workout this week is Murph. We all know it, [00:54:00] um, because it is around Memorial day. Um, that’s why the workout is, is a lot of people are going to be doing Murph all around the world.
Um, so if you’re not familiar. Uh, it is in memory of Michael P. Murphy. He was a Navy seal. Don’t ever forget to say Navy seal or LP, or rip your fricking face off. Um, so yeah, and, uh, so anyway, he, Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy, um. Was a seal and he died in Afghanistan in 2005 he used to do this workout. It was called body armor, and then it was, it’s transitioned to being called a Murph named after him, CrossFit incorporated, named that specifically, I think his buddy, Dave Castro, who’s also a Navy seal, is the one who named it, and the workout is run one mile a 100.
Pull-ups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, run one mile, wear a vest. If you have it, and you can partition the reps, you can partition the reps, you can partition the reps. [00:55:00] Okay. Said it. You can participate in the reps. Um, however you want. Uh, things. I just want to get off my chest right away with this workout. Um, you can do it.
Strict work. Kipping um, and you can partition the reps. Did I say that yet? I don’t think so. Okay. A lot of people like to like the fluff out their chest about the hardest way to do Murph. And I’ve done Murph three times in a row with a vest on. I’ve done it twice with a 40 pound vest on. I know how hard Murph can be, and the hardest version of Murph is going to be the fastest version of Murph.
And the fastest version of Murph is running as fast as you can. Do 20 rounds of five, 10, 15 partitioned, and then run a mile as fast as you can. Every other way. I’ve done it, the UN partitioned, they’re strict, all these other things, they are great. They’re not as challenging cause they’re just not as fast.
It’s physics. The more work you can do in less time, the more work you’re going to produce. Uh, so that’s what I have to say about Murph. I could talk about some actual, um. Uh, tips, which I really only have one, but I’ll, I’ll throw you a [00:56:00] joke. I did not see your note in there. Did I already do it all for you?
Joe Courtney: You kind of took the wind out of my sail.
Jerred Moon: I’m so sorry that I’m, you and I are on the same boat cause I think you and I both in being that crap for so long on Murph. But um, if you have anything I missed, man, go ahead.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. Yeah. So if I’ll let you gotta do the tips, because if, if you haven’t heard us talk about Murph before then welcome.
You’ve probably only been here for two weeks. Um, yeah, we talked about so much, but I wanted to address the, uh, you can partition because we’ve actually had an athlete who has wrote a letter to Merce dad and he said that Murph partitioned it so it’s fine just because something takes longer. If you’re on partitioning, then that doesn’t make it harder.
Jerred Moon: And that athlete was Lisa Kelly, and you can listen to her garage Matthew interview on this podcast feed.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. And a lot of people will rebuttal with, well, that’s what they did. And across the games, like, yeah, well they did it once or twice, but in the years before that, they did it partitioned. And you also got to remember, these are elite athletes, so they’re trying to make everything much harder for them and doing it [00:57:00] on partition makes it a little bit lower intensity and they’re doing four high intensity workouts
Jerred Moon: in the games.
They partitioned it too. They just partitioned into five rounds.
Ashley Hicks: The second time. The first year, no, they did it all strict and all.
Jerred Moon: First year was all strict and then second year it was partitioned. Okay, got it. Yeah,
Joe Courtney: so that’s the main things.
Jerred Moon: That’s why those first year times are so shitty.
Kyle Shrum: Like
Jerred Moon: I remember when I, I didn’t watch the games.
I just remember seeing the times and I was like. I think, you know, like the top time was like 38 minutes and I was like, and lots of packages that on a bad day, like what
Ashley Hicks: they suffered from the heat. Something too, like people got like heatstroke and all sorts of stuff. Like they were, I think it was Carra Saunders, I forget who it was.
They had to like take her away and Annie Thor’s daughter and
Jerred Moon: off the 78 degrees in San Diego.
Joe Courtney: It was like the second or third day that we worked out of that day too.
Ashley Hicks: It was hot apparently.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. Yeah. It’s hot hot day in San Diego. Okay, cool. So, yeah, definitely address the haters there, [00:58:00] Joe. Um, anything else?
Joe Courtney: No, I, I’ll tips, I’ve already, we’ve already said a lot. I mean, you can just Google Murph and like industry fitness and you’ll get a bunch of articles and past episodes if you really want to deep dive. Yeah.
Jerred Moon: If you really want to deep dive, I’ve done it. Um, Kyle, what are your tips for this? I man,
Kyle Shrum: uh, really kind of only have one tip.
Like Joe said, we’ve talked about it a lot. We’ve covered it a lot. I would just say this workout is almost infinitely scalable. There’s, you know, a bunch of different ways to do it. And, um, you know, there’s different ways to do your pushups. There’s different ways to do your pull ups. You don’t have to wear a vest if you don’t want to.
You can wear a heavier vest if you want to. Um, just find a way to do it, find a way to get the work done. And, um, just have fun with it.
Jerred Moon: Ashley, I’m sorry. I could, I could go on like my brain just like running in circles on like the negative commenters and people who like, anyway, Ashley, what are your tips for the workout?
Ashley Hicks: Well, we’re going to change our, our talk here and we’re going to go positive.
[00:59:00] Jerred Moon: So I’ll go positive to,
Ashley Hicks: my tip is just remember why you’re doing this workout and you know, what Memorial day stands for and why we actually have a day off. You know, you see people post that all the time, but. Um, my thing is I always talk about when I am doing this and I’m starting to get tired or I’m stuck.
I always, you know, I actually pray a little bit and talk to God and just say, thank you for giving me the air in my lungs right now that I’m feeling pain. I’m not getting shot. That, you know, like, um. Yeah. Then I am alive. So, uh, just kind of put that into perspective. And then, um, for this, I agreed with Kyle grind this workout hearts, but keep going.
Um, this will be my first, first vested Murph since three years ago when I did it with Jared in Texas, which is crazy to think about. Okay. I gotta get the year after, so it definitely did not vested Murph then. Um, so my. Tip for tunes cause always tunes for me is I listen to [01:00:00] EDM cause it helps me. Um, just kind of keep a good pace and I will be partitioning and breaking up some reps.
So,
Joe Courtney: you know, it was kind of all the grim side of positive.
Ashley Hicks: I said, I pray, I talked to God. How is that even
Jerred Moon: negative?
So, uh, my only tip for the workout is typically in the squats. Cause if you haven’t been training the mile, you’re not, I can’t just say, Hey, run the mile faster. That’s how you get a faster time as you run the miles faster. But you can’t just tell someone to do that. It’s like telling someone to be taller.
Um, so what you really can do is squat faster. Uh, and I, Kyle gave me a weird look, but I’m saying like, if you haven’t prepared to improve that mile time, you’re not gonna improve it on Murph day. Like, that’s not where you get a faster mile time. Um, but the, the place that you could improve in the workout that you’re probably slacking or how fast you’re doing your squats, that is where it’s 300 squats, a lot of repetitions.
And if you are cycling through those [01:01:00] slowly, it’s going to add a lot of time. So go faster in the squats. Just make it uncomfortable until you feel like you absolutely have to stop. Maybe stop for a second. And then go back to that pace. But don’t get complacent and start thinking about what’s for lunch, what’s going on later.
Think about squats and how fast the squats need to be in that. That is the hardest place and it, you know, it’s taken me whatever, 200 workout, 200 Merv workouts to realize the fastest times I have are the ones we’re on the most focused. And I’m talking about 100% focused on every single repetition I’m doing.
My mind does not wander, and I’m just in it the entire time. That’s how you get subbed 30 times, and it’s painful just as much mentally as that is everything else to not let your mind to go anywhere else and only think about the workout and what you’re doing right this second. So go faster on the squats and then dial in, um, your mental fitness there.
This, uh, this year I’ll be going. Vested. Um, but I’m also going full uniform with a buddy. So stripped down uniform OTPs in boots and a long pants, long sleeves. [01:02:00] So that’d be the first time I’ve ever actually done it. And uniform with Ben and with Ben. Yeah. Ben and I will be doing it in uniform, so that’s gonna be painful.
It’s gonna be hot because I hurt and I, yeah, I’m gonna be running in boots, so liquid shock. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m not looking forward to it. I pay a good one.
Joe Courtney: One new thing that I’m going to, I have to tell myself actually that I realized what, cause I just did more of a couple of weeks ago for fun of it and I need to do it next time.
Not facet because I found out that right at the halfway Mark at about the 10 rounds, but halfway through the cows, um, I was talking to Jared about is that I started to get nauseous and I think because. Maybe my glycogen stores or something. It was depleted and my energy was trying to change over and those, those like halfway into, uh, to the cows I got, I was nauseous for a little bit and my times per round went down a good bit until things settled and switched over and then I started back up again.
So I need to do that because that made a huge impact online and it’s happened in the past as well.
Jerred Moon: You’d also like thinking about that if you want to start [01:03:00] facet and then. Those like little whatever those cliff cubes that we had during the Spartan race, if you like after the mile, take like two of those.
That might be enough to get you through the rest of the workout. You don’t need a ton of kind of fear, but just something to throw in there. Uh, my fastest times w it’s just funny, like all my PR times, cause I tracked, they were fasted. So I think I’ve only
Ashley Hicks: ever done more fasted
Joe Courtney: with what’s up with me recently.
Jerred Moon: I mean there was, there’s the old story of the chicken and waffles, Murph PR that we have. Like chicken and waffles. Murph. PR is like number seven now on the PR list. So it is not, that was a fluke. It is not something that, number one in our hearts, number one in our hearts. But, uh, I did have chicken and waffles and PR and Murph wants, but that, uh, that has fallen down the ladder of my PR is significantly so fast.
It has taken, taking the lead. All right guys. That’s it. Um, I’ll just leave you with. Really the book, like if you have been listening to the podcast, you enjoy kind of the mentality around here and things that we talk [01:04:00] about, uh, definitely goes snag a copy of killing comfort, uh, paperback, digital audio book next week, whatever it is, would greatly appreciate that.
And then if you do want to dive into our training, go to dot com and sign up for trial. We’d love to have you as a part of the community. But that is it. Thank you for listening. 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.
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