Well, hello ladies and gents. Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com
Today we got special guest Andy Triana on the line and we dive
into a little bit of everything. I'm pretty sure this guy is a
bona fide genius. He is way smarter than me.
We talk about protein metabolism.
We talk about what the correct amount of protein is.
He's working on a protein patent right now that improves the
absorption of the protein that we are consuming.
We talk at depth about different types of supplementation.
We talk about exercise Physiology, we talk about
different ways of maximizing muscle hypertrophy with a
training load. Very, very interesting
conversation. He's working on again the the
protein patent. He's also working on a
nonprofit. This guy's doing some awesome
things. I'm super excited for him.
I'm super excited to just keep diving deeper and learning more.
I'm going to get him on a for a follow up podcast at some point
in the not too distant future because there's just so much to
talk about. I've got no doubt that you'll
take something from this so that further delay, sit back, relax,
enjoy the conversation with Andy and we are live.
Andy, how are you, brother? Awesome.
I'm great. Definitely feeling better than I
did about an hour ago, which is always positive and I'm excited
to be on here. Hey man, I'm excited to have
you. I emailed about an hour ago
asking if we're still on and you said yeah, you're finishing up a
workout, so what'd you hit? So this is something kind of
novel. I did an unloaded creatine
session. So take a quick step back.
Even though I participate in strongman and lifting is
something that was a huge part of my career at one point, both
as a business and as an athlete, most of my work is in other
types of field sports. And over time I've just really
loved the variety of fitness you have access to as an adult when
we're killing it as specialized athletes, you feel like your
whole world is just your sport and that's probably a good thing
when you're killing it, you know what I mean?
But as an adult, like the rules of interference and stuff like
that kind of don't matter the same.
Like I'm really exercising for anti mortality and like maximum
enjoyment at this point, which, you know, I'm not doing stupid
stuff, but you know what I mean? Like I don't have to worry
about, you know, altering maximized adaptations because
it's not really in the ballpark. So an unloaded creatine session
is a lot of jumping, a lot of rotation sprints, and a lot of
sensory motor motion. So today I did some wrestling
stuff at one point when I was practicing some precision and
sensory motor work. I have a lot of skills.
I've done golf, wrestling, strongman.
So I like to kind of incorporate whatever I can when I can for
kind of that maximum enjoyment, like I said.
It's funny to hit man 'cause I was actually just thinking about
that very topic this past weekend.
I'm, I'm a natural competitive bodybuilder.
So my sport is bodybuilding. I compete, I, I train with a
bodybuilding style programming daily.
And I don't want to deviate too far from that because I want
that to be something that I quote UN quote master at least
the best of my ability. But that said, I don't want to
go through life not experiencing other things like I went.
I am not a golfer by any means, but my, my wife's parents were
in town this past weekend and he's a big golfer.
So we took him out and I played golf for the third time.
And I'm like, this is actually quite in trouble.
I'm walking outside, I'm riding around in a golf cart.
I'm having conversation. I understand and respect the
skill involved in the sport. Like, I could totally see myself
doing this on a somewhat regular basis.
Not the exclusion of bodybuilding, but in tandem
with. And I think I need to make more
of a concerted effort to do things like that.
I see the value for that versatility go up the better you
are at something, to be honest. You know, I'm lucky enough to
have had what is it like? I'm going to be 30 at the end of
the week. So roughly for seven years now
I've been travelling for professional sports full time
and I've gotten to see a lot of different types of athletes at
different points of their professional career.
From getting out of college and being a top dog or not a top dog
all the way to people retiring and wondering if they should
even retire in the 1st place. And the best athletes, it's so
natural to them, their sport success, that a lot of times
doing something outside of it has more value from an in
between the ears standpoint, motivation and heck, even like,
you know, bodybuilding, obviously, you know, the fat
loss, beta oxidation, oxidated phosphorylation thing is, you
know, kind of one of the most important parts.
And if you could do something like that, that's mentally free,
good for you. You catch some Rays and have a
good conversation while you're at it.
Like it would never replace cardio in prep, but something in
like an offseason or maybe a period of life where you're just
really not feeling it right now, it's something that'll give you
that psychological return. And in theory, you're really
getting a lot of the same energetic value, at least from a
low intensity cardio to golf standpoint.
Yeah, 100%. And like, for me, I've got a A2
year old now and I want to be able to just expose him to a
variety of different skill sets, different experiences.
Like I want to take him hunting, I want to take him hiking, I
want to take him fishing, I want to take him on all these
different things. So the better I am at
confidently doing those things, the better I can make that
experience for him. So I'm only doing myself a
disservice if I don't go out of my way to, you know, pursue them
to some degree. I think even the answer therein
lies when we look at age-related disease too, one of the first
thing that goes is your ability to have that spontaneous
dopaminergic randomized movement.
And what you really see is first you lose like that rotational
frontal plane and then you get stuck and you just get more and
more stuck. So I also kind of see it, you
know, in some of the elderly I work with every now and then,
that it's really that secret enjoyment to movement that
allows you to do it forever. Like, in theory, even if you
never, ever ventured off bodybuilding, that would still
be far, far better than doing nothing for the rest of your
life. And that would pay dividends in
your health later on. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely
biased, but I think that the sport of natural bodybuilding is
probably one of the single best sports 1 can pursue with regards
to, you know, stacking the the cards in their favor for aging
and longevity. Like you're prioritizing the
building and preservation of lean tissue.
You are not letting yourself get excessively high end body fat
adipose tissue. Like it just seems like it would
make the most sense from a longevity standpoint.
Now where it goes arise when people go the route of extreme
performance hensing drugs and they're dropping dead at, you
know, 38 and 40, which is not good.
But if you do it the right way and you're not, you know,
subjecting your your tendons and ligaments and skeletal structure
to excessive loads incorrectly, I feel like natural bodybuilding
is probably one of the best things people can do for overall
longevity. If you're looking for a
longevity based sport, I'd agree in a lot of senses.
And I think in general, whether it's bodybuilding or any of the
major sports, I think all the deal deleterious problems come
when you're rushing it and trying to choke it to death.
When you especially in natural bodybuilding, patience is of the
essence and so is planning and looking long term.
And there's, I mean, as you know, even in natural
bodybuilding, there's people that have some negative issues
that come from Russian dieting way too hard, way too fast,
doing things without the future in mind.
I think that's overarchingly the problem that a lot of people
experience when they're taking their fitness journey through
the wrong lens. Totally, completely green.
So you and I got in contact, I believe through Mark Bell.
Is that right? Yeah, he got me addicted to your
product. Well, I love hearing that man.
I'm not even sure how he framed it to me initially.
I think he's he sent me a text or something.
Like he said, you got to meet my friend Andy.
He's super smart and he's a genius and all things.
You got to get him on the podcast and here we are.
That sounds about right. That's how I meet a lot of
people these days. But so I go out to see Mark
probably once or twice a year for various work we do together.
And one day I forgot. I don't even remember how it
came up, but he tossed me a keto brick.
I think I was going somewhere else thereafter or had like a
red eye somewhere like that sounds appropriate for me.
And he's like, hey, super brain, just take this for food.
I had no idea what it was. And when I looked at the label,
I was like, man, that seems pretty sick.
And at the time, I was like, really, I mean, kind of always
really focused on good nutrition.
But at that time especially, I was leaning out.
And I was like, you know what, this is kind of perfect.
Even though it's a lot of fat and I wasn't unsure of my
ability to digest it at once. I was like, worst case scenario
it's a training stimulus and I'll be able to digest this in a
week or so. And not only did it go down
super smooth, it actually came in handy for me greatly with
just work. I am kind of swamped at the
moment with a lot of different types of projects and demands.
And there's a lot of periods of time where I'll just kind of
chop up a keto brick and munch on it throughout a two or three
hour span, somewhat slowly, which is only to be true like 80
percent of the time, at least 20% of the time I scarf it down.
But you know, same here or there.
And it's been so useful for like long bouts of energy and focus.
And honestly, I even I'm kind of sensitive and I swear I even
feel like the large amount of theobromine that must be in
there sometimes like almost kind of like a natural clenbuterol
like effect. It's it's a really, really
intricate and cool product. I appreciate that man.
That's the perfect use case scenario form I scar from down
pretty. I just had one about an hour ago
after I got done training. But yeah, the Theobroma in the
cacao butter, I mean the stearic acid concentrations, no joke.
I mean, cacao butter is the highest concentrated source of
stearic acid. I think there's a lot of
benefits there and doesn't seem to cause most people any GI
distress, which is a big bonus for that much fat in a sitting.
Yeah, and also because most people don't have hepatic usage
systems that can digest it really that that's a lot.
That's, you know, one of the things that I thought was really
cool about the keto brick. Excuse me, one of the things I
was really cool about the Keto Brick that I was talking to Mark
about when he first showed me, it's the opportunity to use it
as a gut training aid. And it I think when I talk about
longevity, not getting fat in your old age and preventing
decline. The secret is in your 30s and
40s, you need to have a metabolism that can handle a
large amount of food volume and not have negative fates.
It's not impressive to eat 1700 calories a day, let's say, and
have no digestive issues and nothing like that because it's
probably below what most people who are physically active need.
What I would love to see is you to be able to handle from a
digestive standpoint like 3 to 500 calories above what you
actually need through your 30s and 40s because that'll ensure
not just lifestyle changes and sarcopenia onset later on in
life won't hit you as hard. You have this buffer before some
of the negative body composition effects of old age onset, rather
than it happening when you're in your 30s in the first place.
Yeah, I think, you know, for me as a bodybuilder coming out of a
prep, like when I go to the reverse diet and I'm just a
ravenous, it's interesting because I can easily put down
8000 plus calories and I don't tend to notice any GI distress
as a result of that, which is kind of, you know, akin to what
you're talking about. Exactly.
And I think if people just simply up regulated their intake
in a strategic manner, they're obviously going to have the
intern benefit from a metabolic standpoint.
You got to kind of go through, you know, building and cutting
phases and be strategic in that. And you don't want to just, you
know, consistently eat 8000 calories.
That's going to backfire on you. But I feel like putting your
body through that load from time to time is key, yet so few
people do it because so many people are just chronically
under eating. And it's a planning aspect like
you said, and that's why I was kind of referencing about the
patients and not choking it to death.
For example, most people start on this rampage to drop food and
get it off as soon as possible, don't realize the 2nd and 3rd
order action repercussions of that.
And then it just actually makes it even that much harder to
continue doing so because when you do like what you reference,
the cutting and bulking back and forth, you're not just getting
the benefits of both, you're getting the synergistic
compounding benefits of going back and forth, which makes 1 +
1 equal 3 and the best coaches in all sports.
You know, cutting and bulking is obviously bodybuilding
terminology, but this concept of back and forth and synergy
occurs in all sports, in all the best athletes, training models
as well. So I've seen sprinters who
essentially just avoid glycolysis entirely.
They're either highly aerobic or highly phosphagenic and just
avoid glycolysis entirely. I've seen sprinters who also do
almost just glycolysis in the gym.
And I could tell you that the prior performed far, far better.
And I think one of the things that people miss out on is the
fact that we can adaptively do anything.
So it's far too easy, I believe, to have a good gut issue and be,
I have gut problems, I'm screwed.
But people don't view their waistline like that.
When your waistline gets big, you're like, I gotta do
something about this. But they don't view their gut
the same way. It's a training phenomenon.
Yeah, completely agree man. I want to get some back story on
you. So your brain go super brain.
I just want to know like I said, my extent of my knowledge of you
is basically what I learned from Mark in a quick text.
So give me some insight man. Like what is what is your
background? What got you into all this to
begin with? So I started my career
athletically at a high level and strong man really.
I enjoyed high school wrestling, but it wasn't really good enough
to take it to the next level and didn't really truthfully enjoy
it enough to take it to the next level.
And I just found my love for strong man and I wasn't very
good at it. And at the time, I was already a
bit academically ahead in the exercise Physiology field
relative to my age, and coaching came somewhat naturally for me.
I made a name and that was given an opportunity to take another
jump into pro sports, did that. Now, as much as I love pro
sports, I do want to make a greater impact on people.
So I have like two or three companies that will be in the
public eye very, very soon that I've been putting a lot of
effort into that will like really, really help other
people. But ultimately I'm just like an
exercise Physiology nerd. I was in grad school for a
little bit and had an experience that left a lot of disdain for
me in the school program and I was paying for it out of pocket,
so I decided to forego that. I went to Community College
afterwards because it's mega cheap and took a bunch of
courses at Community College after grad school just to keep
getting smarter. And I was kind of always had
this pursuit of knowing what I'm doing and being able to help
people, and it's kind of just taking me here.
I kind of stay confidential on purpose because it allows me to
cook in a lot of different pots. Like if I was exuberantly public
about some of the athletes and executives I work with, I would
never want that to, one, make it seem like my other business
ventures are at all connected or mooching off of their popularity
or to implicate either of us. I would never want my businesses
on, you know, the other fronts. Like one's a software business,
one's A5O1C3 to be implicated by an athlete's poor decision.
Nor would I want neither of my businesses to implicate or put
any connotation on an athlete. So it just works out better that
way. And I'm not subservient to
anyone. Like I don't have any weird
confidence or ego issues related to my work because no one really
knows about it. The athletes I service are happy
and we have a relationship and I'm compensated fairly and
that's that's where it needs to end for me and I'm quite happy
with that. Totally respect that man.
Are you at liberty to talk at all or tease at all about the
the companies that will be in the public eye before long, or
is that under wraps until then? No, I can.
I can definitely tease on that stuff because it's really close.
One of them will hit home for you.
It's a protein patent that is an algorithmic process of
optimizing food. So what I've realized is even
you know this for sure, if you look at like the My Plate
recommendations, we're actually what's technically called
protein malnourishment. If a full on adult consumes 50
grams of protein, really the line is 40, but most people are
a little heavier than they should be.
So it could bump up to 50. But realistically, anyone
consuming less than 50 grams of protein per day chronically or
whatever that adds up to across the week is statistically in
like a legitimate state of protein malnourishment.
It's really minimum triple digits that people need to not
be in there. And then between 50 and 100 is
kind of like a Gray area depending on amino acid
availability, who you are, what you do, blah, blah, blah.
But my patent looks at optimizing the natural amino
acid ratios in the foods we consume to make them function as
full grams of protein better rather than putting the
responsibility on the consumer because like what we've seen is,
how old are you, Robert, if you'd mind me asking?
I'll be 33 next month. Cool, so we're roughly the same
age. I'll be 30 at the end of the
week. When we were kids the socio
economic divide in food was much more predominant in protein
malnourishment. But what we see as we become
adults, and I know for sure without even knowing you that
you've seen this, is that how much money is in your pocket
makes less and less of a correlative decision on the food
people consume. I know people who are crazy
wealthy that are eating the same way some of the poorest
neighborhoods in the country who live off gas stations are in a
lot of manners. And that's a brand new paradox
to our culture. Even going back, you know, to
like the age of Christ, money always bought you health.
And nowadays that's not true. You could theoretically be quite
poor and still be healthy, especially if you happen to have
access to fasting or ketogenic knowledge.
And I for sure know plenty of wealthy people who have blood
work that looks like an 80 year old, you know, diseased patient.
So it's a different way of looking at things, but that's
what I'm looking at. And I'm hoping that my proof of
concept research shows positive. I have a couple of schools who
are interested in running human clinical trials once we get
done, and I think that could be a really cool thing for us as a
nation and hopefully a lot of people.
So let me make sure I'm following you correctly.
The the patent basically improves the absorption rate of
the proteins that people are already consuming.
Yeah. So think about it this way and
it's specific to muscle protein synthesis.
And I'll kind of end the teasing here.
If you drink 100 grams of protein from milk, and this
shocks me, the average rate limiting factor.
So again, 100 grams of protein. The rate limiting amino acid,
the amino acid you have the least of is cysteine typically,
and it's usually around 700 milligrams.
So like if you think about how big that disparity is from
significant figures off the top of your head, it's pretty crazy.
As you look at the other rate limiting amino acids in milk,
they're not that far off either. So let's say you were to consume
100 grams of protein from milk. Obviously that's crazy, but it
makes it easier. As an analogy, with one food
source, you would go through muscle protein synthesis at a
rate that might be quick. Because it's milk.
We know the protein gets into your blood relatively quick,
especially at being a liquid. Pepsin to pepsinogens, a little
easier in this scenario, blah blah blah.
That's great for muscle protein synthesis, but we need muscle
protein synthesis responses and what happens thereafter, so the
actual rebuilding of tissue to be sustained for longer periods
of time to get significant results.
And if the foods you're consuming have massive gaps,
like I mentioned in milk just now, you're going to have a
blunted amount of time spent in muscle protein synthesis.
And I think that's one of the problems that occurs where let's
say you were to get a salad from a random place, have a couple
slices of ham from a sandwich, blah, blah, blah, and barely get
80 grams of protein in on the day.
If we were to look at that on a piece of paper as your 21 amino
acids is the dietary amino acids, it's very likely that
you'd have gaps as well, even if it was a salad and a sandwich.
And it seems healthy. And obviously you're aware of
all this being a natural bodybuilder, but the
implications on Genpop and people, like I said, they're
waist lines even, and how they respond to the diets they
attempt to adhere to can be severely damaged by protein
malnourishment. It is, it is super interesting,
man. Like I in my world and the
people that I'm working with, like a lot of them are following
a ketogenic carnivore diet. So they're not typically
deficient in protein consumption throughout the day.
But then I take that for granted because I talk to people that
are not in that wheelhouse and it's like they will eat.
They'll eat like a, you know, quote, UN quote protein bar
that's marketed as having protein on the front of the
label. But then you look at the
nutrition statement, it's literally got like 5 or 6 grams
of protein. And it's like they'll eat that
and assume they've hit their protein requirements for the day
simply because it says protein on the front of the label.
So yeah, it's crazy how little protein the average person is
consuming, coupled with the fact that most of their other
calories are coming from, you know, heavily processed junk
food, carbohydrates and sugars. It's like it's no wonder we're
in such a health decline. Yeah, and the thing about it,
again, from the bodybuilding lens and like we can use
bodybuilding, powerlifting, strong.
I mean, just all the strength sports kind of as a whole
together. When we talk about eating bad,
it's usually in terms of days or weeks.
Realistically, it's like the worst you'll hear is like, dude,
I fell off for a couple months and like, sure, that seems like
a lot to us, but protein malnourishment is a lifespan
thing for a lot of people from the time they were a child.
Protein malnourishment while your mother has you in the room
in pregnancy has a strong correlation with crime later on
in life. In fact, Doctor Robert Sapolsky
made that quite famous. So it's one of those things that
it sneaks up on you as far as the implications.
And it's it's a relatively easy problem to solve as well.
The cool thing about what we think about when we're on a
carnivore diet or a ketogenic diet is the proteins you're
reaching for normally take care of that problem for you.
But when you're rushing, taking shortcuts, doing all these other
things, choking it to death, so to speak, is the term I use to a
lot of athletes who are in that state.
Not only are you not doing what you think you're doing, you're
also not going to get the intended outcome.
So I think that's where you can have little tips and tricks like
a keto brick come into play. But it's almost like you have to
recognize that it's different than a different tipper trick.
And that is where the problem lies for a lot of people.
The 30 grams of protein and the keto brick is different than you
getting 30 grams of protein from pea protein from and they look
and so on and so forth. Yeah, 100%.
So in my circles protein has definitely gained prevalence
over the past few years like within the ketogenic space for a
while people will were were fearful of too much protein, you
know, through gluconeogenesis is scared and big buzzword.
Now it's connect, the pendulum has swung so far the other
direction that people are just like not consuming ample dietary
fat because they're just really doubling down on protein.
There's kind of like a, you know, middle ground there that
we need to strive for. But like the the current theme
that I see kind of circulating it honestly is it kind of goes
back to the bodybuilding roots too, is like a good solid 1g of
protein per pound of lean tissue as a healthy minimum.
And then if you're consuming multiple meals a day, try and
aim for 30 to 40 grams in each sitting, at least that you're
able to get enough leucine to stimulate muscle protein
synthesis. That's generally regarded in
your mind as pretty solid advice, right?
Yeah, I think it scares a lot of people away, although that's
like what's accurate when we pull it from the literature.
You know, the kind of the one of the things I've learned in pro
sports is you got to meet people where they're at, not just
emotionally, but intellectually and goal wise.
And what I've recognized is I, I told a lot of people that as
well, and I just realized it didn't mean Jack to anybody who
didn't already know what it meant.
And even people think like getting 1g of protein per body
weight in, even though it's, it truly is mathematically simple,
it's a lot of times beyond what people are capable of.
So I think a way that I found some success in communicating
that to people is protein goes along with your damage.
When you're doing damage to your body, whether it's inadvertent
or on purpose, you should have that focus.
And I think outside of that, you could slowly let go of the
protein rope a little bit. And the reason that I like that
is because it develops kind of like this intuitive relationship
with the damage put on your body and also fosters a good food
relationship for example. I bet this pisses you off.
Like all the keto treats that aren't even anywhere near keto
anymore. It's kind of blown up as far as
a term that's accepted. When in reality the Gray area of
like almost just getting out of keto.
Like having the ample essential fatty acids and grows dietary
fats but slightly above protein of the original 20% that was
denoted. You can have some really cool
changes happen to your body, but the weird thing is anyone can do
that with almost any diet. If you set it up right.
It just ends up being quite easy to set up this carnivore S high
fat diet to most people's lifestyles.
And the fact is, most people truly don't train hard enough to
deserve a large bolus of carbohydrates.
Yeah, completely agree on all fronts there.
I know your typical client is, you know, professional athlete,
but have you worked with any that are elderly?
Because like, we're having this conversation, I'm automatically
thinking of my grandparents who without a doubt are not
consuming enough protein or simply enough calories.
And like their idea of how to get protein is just so it's so
skewed. Like I've tried to sit down and
have these conversations with them, but it's like it's falling
on deaf ears. Like you had any clients that
fit that demographic? And if so, how do you have that
conversation with them? For sure.
I'd probably say the second most popular demographic I work with
is successful executives who are on their way out and a little
bit older. I don't know how I get into this
stuff, but word of mouth eventually just does it for you.
I have a lot of experience with that.
I have one or two people that are not quite elderly per SE,
but over 50 that have some disease states that I've had a
lot of success with as well. I think the number one thing
about meeting these people where they're at is recognizing that
the generation they grew up in is vastly different on how they
perceive food and health. And they were largely told that
less food is just always better. And they're not even I realized
way to where of what protein and food sources exist.
So what I've kind of gravitated towards in those scenarios is
like, here's a packet of grass fed ground beef.
I want you to finish one of these every day.
And I don't care how you split it up.
I just want you to finish one of these every day and train
yourself to be able to do so and things will improve over time
and go from there. I've certainly learned from pro
sports. It's almost like playing tug of
war and you need to get a little bit of momentum on your side and
then you can get a little more and a little more.
So sure, it's just a packet of grass fed beef and whatever, but
that alone, you know, it's like the joke about Tribulus, right?
If you take Tribulus and you're like, wow, this stuff's crazy.
Your testosterone levels are probably in the dumps or near
there. It's shocking how much I've told
an athlete I'll never forget this.
I was like, hey man, I don't care what you do, just promise
me you'll eat one packet of grass fed ground beef 8515 every
single day. Just do that and I'll never
believe it. Like the guy, I didn't talk to
him for a while. He's a college athlete.
He ended up losing quite a bit of weight and that was really
the only thing we focused on. I gave him some slight other
nutrition parameters, but he lost quite a bit of weight with
essentially that as our starting point.
We did some changes after that, but I think it was like 40 or 50
lbs over the course of a season, a golf season of body fat he
dropped and it just started out with half a pound of grass fed
ground beef and we'll go from there.
Yeah, the the pound of the pound of ground beef, man, is like,
that's like the original keto brick right there.
Like I make that the staple foundation for all my food.
Ground beef and eggs is pretty much what I build everything
from. But like, if you're eating a
pound of 8515 as a minimum, you're you're getting pretty
close to 100 grams of protein right there.
And then if you throw in a couple eggs, whatever else you
eat throughout the day, you're likely pretty close to your
protein target. And it's just simple.
Like it comes in these nice little square packages.
You pull them from the fridge, cook them up, you can easily put
them in Tupperware, eat them throughout the day as needed,
add them to tacos, add them to chili.
Like it's literally the easiest way to foolproof nutrition.
Yeah, and it gives you so much other stuff as well.
And I think the most important thing when it comes to making
change for anyone in any demographic is having another
card left to play. Because again, like you just
said, it's really not that hard to get that pound of ground beef
in. Even if you just chip at it
throughout the day and like, toss it over some little foods,
take a scoop of it when you walk by.
It's really not that hard to get down and then that gives you
just enough confidence to do something else.
In reality, I was actually talking to an athlete earlier
about our glycolysis style training sessions.
I call them substrate sessions. They're all centered around
carbon dioxide manipulation and it's actually somewhat similar
to a really good solid style muscle building bodybuilding
workout in the sense of the beginning of the workout feels
like it's the hardest even, and no it's not.
And by the time you're doing the actual hardest stuff, it doesn't
feel that hard. So what does that look like?
Like if you were to map that out in just a program for a day,
what would that look like? So when I look at carbon dioxide
manipulation, and this was for a collegiate golf athlete.
In general though, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide
manipulation is all about looking at the local cell and
making sure it's depleted of oxygen.
And this isn't always just heavy breathing and sweating.
There's a lot of really cool growth factors like VEGF,
vascular endothelial growth factor that responds that heavy
sweat, heavy breathing, high heart rate, really short amount
of time doing that, that causes wonderful adaptations.
However, what I've noticed is everything as a whole is taken
care of. If we deplete a localized muscle
cell that might be targeted through the exercise or whatever
you do of carbon dioxide. So I'm a big fan of what I call
0 acceleration reps, meaning you're moving with 0
acceleration. So from a physics perspective,
you're never going slower or faster.
And you preset a cadence, whether the cadence is slow or
fast, you're not changing that cadence.
And the reason that's important is because you're specializing
muscle fibers and you're specializing the way in which we
handle respiratory gases. We know those are the most
important for work capacity. So as even as an elite level
bodybuilder like yourself, it takes so much mental effort to
make every Rep almost the same from a physics perspective and
to do that for many sets over many reps over the whole
working. And that's why the best
bodybuilders train that way. And that's kind of where I stole
it from. And then what I started doing
was applying different metronomes.
So whether they're fast or very, very slow or I challenge people
to move as slow as they possibly can for a period of time while
doing like maybe a conventional machine, for example, like a
hamstring curl, I'll say for 45 seconds, get as least reps as
you possibly can. After someone's been properly
warmed up and depleted of carbon dioxide and oxygen from like a
movement prep warm up cardiovascular standpoint, then
you throw them on this hamstring curl and move in the 0
acceleration manner. And the results are tremendous.
And the science to back it up is quite cool as well.
So basically, rather than trying to, you're not, you're not
putting any emphasis on, you know, Rep count or anything so
much as just having a consistent time under tension regardless of
the weight. And then I guess with
progressive overload you would increase either Rep or weight,
but it's just being 100% controllable in the sense that
your time under tension is pretty much the standardized
factor. Kind of.
So I actually don't apply progressive overload to the
protocols, I apply it to the exercise Physiology.
So let's say I just did 30 seconds of glycolytic work to my
hamstrings and I want to progress that instead of looking
at increasing the weight because at a certain point the weight
will get heavy enough I will no longer be able to do in
glycolysis. And if at a certain point I
progress the reps too high or too low, I will still no longer
be in the point of glycolysis. I want to be and non oxidative
glycolysis provides the best bang for your buck in
hypertrophy. So I view progressive overload
as like you said, time under tension, but in this glycolytic
range. So let's say you did three sets
of six on squat at a 45 BPM metronome cadence and you're
like, man, like I just can't handle much more of that.
It's like, OK, what we'll do is we might increase the total
amount of sets or we might lower the weight to increase how much
non oxidative glycolysis you can handle.
And of course it's only one style of training day.
But that in my opinion provides better hypertrophy because
hypertrophy as far as the size of your muscle is only
marginally manipulated by myofibals.
It takes a long time to build up your myofilaments to be big
enough to have enough nuclei to be bigger.
What really makes your muscle huge is obviously glycogen,
creatine in water, as well as other ions.
That's what really makes it big. Of course, you have to build up
your muscle to have glycogen, creatine, water, and ions in
your cells, but they're obviously far, far bigger.
So everything that has to do with the adaptations that come
from carbon dioxide manipulation, I believe impact
hypertrophy the most. And I do all of that on one day
and then I do all my muscle damage through heavy loading,
high force or any creatine stuff like that on a totally separate
training day. Gotcha.
So you're only doing this once a week and you just repeat that
weekly? Kind of depends on the goals.
So like for golf or sports that don't need a lot of glycolysis,
I'll probably do it once a week and have it be like a
nutritional metabolic training aid.
Like on that day I'll either purposely give someone a ton of
glucose and carbohydrates with it and maybe do like a quick
little easy double session of it just to have like this insane
metabolic response. Or I'll do the opposite.
I'll use it as a mode of depleting liver glycogen and
have them eat little or just no carbs on the day they do that
and use it as a metabolic amplifier.
So depending on their need for that, it's one to two times a
week. I recommend bodybuilding or like
800 meter running Nordic ski. Anything that's in the true
glycolysis world. I think you should do them more,
but yeah, it's a really, really cool aid.
Because I think the problem with traditional three sets of 1090
second dress progressive overload is unless you're
absolutely a stud at managing programming, which is why most
people buy a coach, it's actually gonna get harder to
keep going rather than like change things up.
You know what I mean? Like if you just did the three
by ten, eventually if it gets heavy enough, you're no longer
getting the same glycogen response.
And if you do enough reps, you're no longer getting the
muscle damage response. And if you do it perfectly, it's
just so darn taxing and you end up in this weird scenario from a
chess aspect where you either have to change it very often or
become mega monotonous and then start easy and progress that
way. And that was my issue because
you don't get that luxury in pro sports.
I've really, besides like an offseason or two, I've never
really been able to do a full program with any professional
athlete because that's not how their lives function because you
just get told when you have to participate.
And honestly, most of them have never done something like that
before to get to where they're at.
So it's a huge life change to instill that.
So it also wasn't really an option for me to recommend
traditional training in a lot of scenarios.
Gotcha. That makes total sense.
You have like AI know you've got a course.
Do you have a video lesson series or anything that really
goes into deep on that style of training that people could
watch? The course is pretty in depth.
My I'm in the process actually of starting something called
Super Brain TV with Mark to help teach people a little more about
some of these nuances and that'll be coming out relatively
soon. But other than the course,
that's all I have at the moment. I've always struggled with the
content thing because I'm not technologically gifted.
I don't really love social media personally and I honestly like
I'm just. Not obsessed but kind of with
helping people and I was like never satisfied with the amount
of people you could actually help on social media.
I don't love the communication aspect and the culture
communication wise that occurs on social media.
Like one day I realized like I had a bunch of friends who I
thought I was keeping in touch with but I wasn't.
I was just like liking their stories and like commenting on
their pictures and realized like, dude, I haven't talked to
this guy in like 9 months and he's one of my best friends.
And it was just because like we were doing like social media
stuff. And it was someone who I know in
person, really good friend known him for 10 plus years and
realized like I got caught in the trap.
Like I was only talking to him on like Instagram and like this
like messaging this and like here's a meme.
Here's a real, here's like a response to your story.
I shared your post. Like you, you don't know if
people are going through stuff, you're not having conversations.
And that's kind of what drew me off the social media path, to be
honest. No, I can totally get behind
that, man. Like I've got, you know,
multiple social media accounts for the different business legs
and I use them as tools, but I, I, they do not fill my cup.
Like I do not get a high from social media.
What I do love is like sitting around a campfire enjoying a
steak dinner with people out in the middle of nowhere.
Like that is my type of communication.
Same here. And I think it does a lot for
us, you know, because what you're able to do in that like
campfire scenario, what's funny is it does fill your cup.
The next day you do wake up feeling energized.
And I don't think it's a coincidence that the best sleep
in the world comes from that type of stuff, and that there's
a direct correlation with your phone poor sleep and not just
mentally feeling worse about yourself also physically feeling
worse. Yeah, 100%, man.
I mean, it's like with social media, it's just, it's so easy
to get trapped in this comparison game.
We're all guilty of it to some extent, but it just totally
takes away the innate form of communication that we as a
species have evolved to do. And I feel like we got to get
back to that in some form or fashion.
Like, I really try to make a point, especially since having a
kid, just really double down on local community, you know,
getting intertwined with people. Like we buy all of our food from
local farmers. We interact with people that are
in our, you know, local town. It's like we have forgotten how
to do that and that's what we should be built upon.
Yeah, not to mention from a business aspect, you know,
that's what gives you sovereignty as well.
It's really cool to see someone who's able to live the life they
want, and it's your life entirely.
You can't get cancelled, you can't get your Instagram account
banned, and you and you have no longer have an ability to
communicate or socialize. I think there's a lot to be said
for that. Yeah, 100%, ma'am.
So you are very well versed in all things training, nutrition
and supplementation. Is there like a specific leg of
those that you gravitate to or is it like a specific interest
that you hold in highest regard? My heart always in training
exercise Physiology and I think the exercise Physiology base is
the backbone for so much. And again, maybe that's my bias,
but that's kind of where I always gravitate towards.
But I, I, I'm a problem solver. I love being in a novel scenario
and having to figure out the answer.
And I think that's where consulting ends up being my kind
of, I mean, truly is my number one business thing.
Like there's only really two athletes who I am full time.
Everything, everything with and then I just have a ton of people
that I consult with and I think I really enjoy that.
And I think it's something that has given me more excitement in
my work because I realized that I do get joy out of doing a lot
of different projects. So I just kind of decided to
find the place and Mark Bell helped me with this ton in which
my skill set fit the best and in which I could help people the
best. And ended up kind of just being
like an amplifier, like a consultant, someone who comes in
here and there and is like, here's, you know, my idea.
I think this, this and this and it goes from there.
Like I love working with teams and I've been on a lot of
different roles for a lot of different types of teams.
So I think I just like, love being adaptable and solving
problems. But like exercise Physiology,
glycolysis, beta oxidation, oxidated phosphorylation are
definitely my home. With your experience in, you
know, consulting and working with a vast array of people,
where else do you think they've just as a, as a group totally
missed the boat? Like we talked about people's,
you know, protein, lack of protein consumption, but where
where are some other areas where there's just low hanging fruit
that people are just totally missing the mark?
Good old planning I think. I've seen people get fat loss
results doing the dumbest crap on the planet.
I've seen people get performance results doing some of the
dumbest crap on the planet. And the only caveats to those
people, the success I've seen a lot of other people, and so on
and so forth is twofold. The first is specific to that
planning note. Is second and 3rd order actions
the best? People who get results, money,
all that stuff, you know, whatever you want to talk about,
they're able to think in terms of 2nd, 3rd order actions.
I've seen people at golfers who are on the pro level and don't
know a whole lot about like their bodies and their swing and
everything, but can vehemently tell you if I do this, then this
will happen, then this will happen.
And that's one of my kind of checks.
When I talk to people, if they can think that manner, I
automatically have a better idea of how to coach them.
And if they can't think in that manner, I tackle that first.
So like for fat loss for example, the massive calorie
cutting restriction concept defines the laws of 2nd, 3rd
order action and that's why you can't get long term results for
it. Eventually you will not have
more hormone sensitive lipase, you will eventually actually
have less and like so on and so forth.
And the same goes for a business and whatever.
If you can think in terms of me doing this also does this and
this for me in the future, you're just far more likely to
make better decisions. Cuz it's really crazy.
I think especially as coaches, we would love to believe that
it's the protocol and not like the logic of life that does a
lot of it. But it really is the logic of
life. And I've seen a lot of people
who went really hard carnivore keto when they were pro athletes
and maybe shouldn't have for just like 2 weeks or a month and
then came off it and immediately got back to eating fruit and
eating healthy when they weren't prior.
And I was like, huh, that's actually a really good idea.
And I asked them, why did you do that?
And the response is, I don't know.
I just kind of thought of it. And then I realized it stopped
working really good. And then I stopped doing it.
And it's crazy, you know, how like the logic of life, the flow
of biology. Someone asked me a question the
other day of why does this taurine receptor interact with
creatine and do this every time? And I was like, well, I mean,
like, why do you wake up in the morning?
I mean, why does the sun come up?
It's not like the why of that. It's understanding the dynamic
of it. And it's crazy to me still that
you could have no idea what you're doing, but have this
level of body intuition that gets you the results.
I mean, I don't think anyone's ever left McDonald's and be
like, man, I'm like fatter and greasier.
Did you notice that? Like, isn't that weird?
Like you just eat certain foods and inherently you're just like,
oh, this is obviously good for me, you know?
And I think that's the huge thing people are missing out on.
Like, we know how to plan and organize things.
We're just so self involved that we can't see the bigger picture
that's occurring in our own head and bodies.
So just a classic example of planning your second, third and
4th continual shots going forward as opposed to living
just in the moment. Yeah, I've seen so many people,
like I said, like that have no idea what they're talking about.
But just because they sit there and think about those things and
can kind of open their mind to thinking that second third order
action manner end up doing better, even though they have no
idea what's going on. Just because they kind of see
the bigger picture of the future.
It's not just take one thing to the grave.
You're going to have to pass the baton a few times.
Why do you think we gravitate to just the, the here and now?
Like, do you feel like it's because we have created this
environment of just survivalism in which we're only focused on
the here and now, but for no apparent reason?
Like why do you think we as a as a species gravitate towards
that? Hilarious question, I was
actually. I was on a plane ride thinking
about this the other day. And what triggered the thought
originally was even back in the 1200s bubonic plague time, there
was a period of every year where you pretty much starve, where
you just, no matter how rich you were, there's pretty much a
period of every year. It really took until the
agricultural revolution and the invention of the cotton gin for
it to make certain changes in certain areas.
And even that took years to proliferate.
But up until realistically was not that long ago, you know, 800
years, maybe more, maybe less, rather, you always had a period
where regardless of what you had going on, life was hard.
There was nothing you could do about it.
And it just has obvious mental repercussions that are likely
positive. I think nowadays.
And, you know, my grandma's unfortunately having a real
battle with cancer. And she has her truthfully, a
huge portion of her life. And when I speak to her, she's
mind blown that she can't just take a pill or just do chemo and
it'll just disappear. And mind you, my grandmother and
grandfather, along with their son, my dad, immigrated from
Cuba in the 80s. So they went through some hard
stuff. And even she's been softened to
the point that that's her expectation.
I think truthfully not. So I kind of sound David Goggins
esque, things have gotten easy enough for us that we have an
expectation that there won't be strife and we need something now
and planning doesn't need to happen.
You know, nowadays, like you can even hire a coach and there's
even if he's a great coach and you do what he says, you could
be darn close to brainless. And I think that's a problem.
Yeah, no, I totally agree, man. I feel like we have.
We live in an era. I wrote about this in my book
like there was a chapter all about this.
Like we, we live in this era of just soft, plush ease in most
cases, especially in America where it's like we, we have to
create these self-imposed hardships in order to stay on
the razor's edge or else we just fall to our own demise and human
nature. And I feel like it's, it's so
easy to do, but we, This is why we have to find hard things.
And for me, you know, bodybuilding has been an outlet
for that business has been an outlet for that.
But for people that don't have those mediums, like you don't
have to do bodybuilding business, but you got to find
something that creates that vehicle for you or else you'll
become victim of this exact thing and your ability to
harness critical thinking and just have this 3-4 fifth step
ahead. You know protocol is just
totally non existent and you will suffer for it.
Yeah, You know, my nonprofit has to do with Visio motor function
and autism spectrum disorder children.
And one of the aspects of our developmental quality of life
model is obviously quality of life is far different than a lot
of other stuff. We have a model for just
improving the quality of life and of many things for ASD youth
and teens. And one of them has to do with
starting with a weekly challenge and progressing to daily
challenges. And one challenge I do with
myself is I live in Florida and I'll go run like a three, 3 1/2
mile loop around my house probably once to three times
tops a month. I don't train running ever, and
I just do that during the hottest time of day whenever it
feels appropriate to kind of give myself that little bit of
stripe and remind myself how hard you can work and supper.
Get on the other side of something.
And I can tell you every single time it sucks during it and I'm
never excited to do it, but I can tell you 100% of the time
after, it's not just something I enjoy and I'm glad I did.
It's like the next day. And for there, after a few days,
I'm like, you know what, man? That's really one of the most
fun things I do. And it's so stupid.
But it's the value of strife and overcoming that challenge that
makes us feel invigorated. Yeah, 100%, man.
I actually just got back from, this is a fourth year I've done
it, But there's a A50 mile March that I do from Lincoln, NE to
Omaha to raise awareness for homeless veterans.
It's like 22 hours long to represent 22 vets that take
their lives daily. And we've raised a bunch of
money for the vets, but it's like you're going through it.
You're marching through the night and you're just walking,
like you're walking on the shoulder of a highway and you're
just walking like anybody can walk.
And it doesn't really start sucking until you're like 20
miles in. And then like your feet hurt,
you got blisters. Like you start telling your mind
all these things about why you can't or shouldn't do this,
shouldn't take one step in front of the other, but then you just
keep doing it. And then you cross that 50 mile
line. You got all these vets, they're
welcoming at the finish line. You feel so fulfilled
afterwards, but it's just simply putting 1 foot in front of the
other and doing hard things. And we are so much more capable
than we give ourselves credit for.
But the more you do those hard things, the greater perspective
you you glean from it. And it just makes it that much
easier to do the next hard thing.
But like, if you never go down a path in life that provides that
hardship, then the same is true in reverse.
Like it becomes so much easier to say no to any challenge and
you just wind up living in this, this, you know, cloud of pity
and victimization of your own doing.
And it's just that's no way to live.
Yeah, the couch has no transfer to anything.
And it's crazy because think about it like I don't know how
well versed you are. Like the water subject,
Indonesia in the next maybe less than two decades will be
completely underwater and all those little islands will be
displaced. And what's crazy is I could
promise you that there's a lot of happy people somehow over
there. There are happy people in 3rd
world scenarios all over the world, to be honest.
Because my my favorite quote of all time is joy is not based on
the circumstances of our lives, but rather on the focus of our
lives. And it's one of those things
that it really does rain true. If you're constantly focused on
things that you are unable to do comparison all these other
inequities you have. Instead, you focus on something
where you're trying to go. It's a much, much easier path to
March and it gives you better perspective.
Yeah, I love that man. I love that.
Well, I'm super excited for you on all fronts, man.
When are some of these things going to become a delight?
So the the, the charity, the nonprofit, the the protein
patent, like, when is all this stuff going to be in the public
eye? The nonprofit will be first.
That'll most likely, unless I let it loose a little early,
it'll be the beginning of this upcoming year, 2025.
The protein patent will likely take a little more time.
I want to finish my proof of concept research and the study
I'm running for my proof of concept is going to take off top
of my head. I think like 36 weeks if I
remember correctly, right off the top of my head.
So that'll be a little bit because afterwards it will one
day be a software company and that will be after proof of
concept has been attained and I begin the process of human
clinical trials. Then I'll open that up as a
software company to work with any food providing industry on
optimizing the muscle protein synthesis response to their
foods. I love it.
Well, on the note of the
nonprofit, with that coming to light sooner, what was the
catalyst for starting that to begin with?
I mean, I really don't know in the sense of why.
It's just I saw the amount of Visio motor, sensory motor
adaptation skills, games and things I've created for pro
athletes. And as I was purveying some
autism research that was kind of a spinoff of some consulting
work I did for a nutraceutical company.
I just got like distracted and was in there.
I discovered this huge body of work.
This was probably 18 months ago roughly on like the visual
aspect and saw how much potential for improvement can
happen cognitively in the autism spectrum disorder brain when
targeting the eyes from an adaptive sense.
And I was just kind of impressed to do so.
And it just kind of happened. And the more time and obviously
there's a ton of money you got to dump into these things I put
into it, the more passionate about it I became.
And it's something I really look forward to doing every day and
bringing to the public very soon.
Very cool man. Well, I'm super excited for you.
Can't wait for that to go live. I know you don't, you're not
really active on the socials, but where do you want me to
point people to? I want, I want people to be able
to dive deeper into your world and follow along, man.
Yeah, a ghost super brain on Instagram will be like where you
could find me on Instagram. I don't really post too too
often, but once super brain TV comes out, that account and Mark
Bells accounts will be posting that content.
I believe it will be on YouTube as like the full episodes, but
I'm not totally positive. ghostsuperbrain@gmail.com is my
e-mail that my assistant Emily overseas as well.
And that's where I get most of my inquiries for like random
consultations, working for companies or anything like that.
And as a heads up, I don't do any sponsorships or affiliation
programs. I get a decent amount of people
reaching out about that. I do not participate in them.
That's just kind of that. But yeah, I'm not the easiest
person to get a hold of, to be honest.
Totally respect that man. The course?
You do have a course that is currently up for grabs, right?
The course is really cool. I spent about 13 months creating
it. That is essentially what it
would be like to go through a mentorship with me just on your
own time and two of my mentees, Anyone who's done like specific
learning with me for a specific span of time, usually over a
year, closer to 18 months. I kind of give the distinction
of like, you know, a mentee of mine, someone who's learned a
lot of my systems and like organized science.
The two of them will Proctor the course, and the course is my
perspective on exercise Physiology as a whole of sports.
Nice, nice. So any of the set that we were
talking about as far as training programming is all covered in
depth there and that's where people should go.
Quite in depth, yeah. Beautiful, beautiful, Andy.
It has been a pleasure. I am very grateful for Mark for
hooking us up. We'll definitely keep in touch.
If there's ever anything I can do to help move the needle
forward or anything you're working on, man, you just let me
know. Likewise, I appreciate that and
it goes both ways. Appreciate you, ma'am.
Take care. Likewise have a good one.