Self-Care Lessons and Insights from Dave Asprey

 In today’s episode of the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast, I share my personal journey of battling a cold and the critical lesson of practicing self-care. Struggling to put workouts on hold can be a challenge, but it's essential for a faster and more complete recovery. You'll hear about my experiences over the past few days, including how I’ve utilized my downtime by diving into Dave Asprey’s enlightening book, "Train Smarter, Not Harder."

Asprey, the brain behind Bulletproof Coffee and a pioneer in the biohacking community, offers invaluable insights into optimizing your workout regimen without pushing your body to the brink. From understanding the importance of proper exercise technique to recognizing your body's limits, this episode is full of practical advice for athletes dealing with chronic pain, recovering from injuries, or simply trying to avoid overtraining. Join me to explore how you can stay safe, effective, and pain-free in your fitness journey by training smarter, not harder.

2024 DJFE Triathlon Race Series

Podcast Disclaimer:

The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones. I am a certified personal trainer and I'm here to help you achieve your fitness goals without pain. In each episode, I'll share tips and strategies that will help you stay safe and pain-free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness and pain management. So if you're ready to learn how to stay active and pain-free, then subscribe to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast today.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Hey everyone and welcome to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones. As you could possibly, or probably, hear, I am not 100% Well, my voice isn't a hundred percent. I think I'm on my way to recovery, but you know, I just wanted to kind of catch up and see what you all been up to and all that kind of good stuff. I had an allergy thing that turned into a cold thing, and so I'm just practicing self-care, which feels extremely painful and awkward as hell.

Speaker 2: 1:10

But look at me, like you know, talking to you about self-care, and then I'm doing self-care. I have not worked out in four days and no five days, and I'm amazed that I haven't done that. No, five days, and I'm amazed that I haven't done that. But you know, this is me taking care. You know, before I would have pushed through, you know, and probably made myself sicker or made it hang on or whatever. But you know I'm taking care of me and so that's the most important thing.

Speaker 2: 1:41

But in my downtime what I've been doing is I've been reading, and so I started book number I think it's either 46 or 47. So go me kicking butt. Anyway, I, you know, still on my quest for my quick reading goal here. And so, yeah, so I'm reading and so, yeah, so I'm reading, uh, somewhere in the 40s, so I'm reading dave asprey's book, uh, called train smart, train smarter, not harder, and um, if you have ever read any of his stuff, he's like the founder of bulletproof coffee and um is I don't know, uh, I you know they want to say he's a prominent biohacker. I think it's. I think some of his stuff is kind of crazy that he does. But he also gets a lot of good information and he gets a lot of research for the things that he does do. But anyway, I like the concept of training smarter, not harder, because I've always kind of felt that and that goes back to the episode where I was talking about, like you know, the whole idea of that no pain, no gain kind of thing and how that's really ridiculous and that we're just thrusting our bodies into this pain state or stress state and that never works for us. And so I wanted to see what he had to say. And so he goes in. I'm not completely done with the book, so just to be honest, about halfway through.

Speaker 2: 3:07

But he talks about the mind and the body and the gut and all the kinds of things. Discuss this because I think that there are things that are significant for us and you know as athletes, and also you know as athletes that may be suffering from chronic pain or recovering from an injury or, you know, recovering from overtraining. So you know everything basically boils down to is like what are you doing, how are you doing it and what is the volume that would be acceptable for you to do it? Because you can do, you know, 5 million exercises, but if you're doing them incorrectly you're going to hurt yourself and there's no benefit to it. So his goal is really about making sure that you do exercises properly. You know where you're looking at how your mobility is actually tracking and whether or not you're doing your body good or doing damage to your body by how you're doing it and then, of course, increasing the volume that you're doing it. So you know if you're doing weights, you're doing it. You know heavy weights but less reps, and that cuts down on time. He also talks about hit training and then there was a re-hit, which I kind of like, and you know the Reader's Digest version of re-hit is that you go hard for a period of time and then you stop and you lay down for three minutes to recover, and of course I like the laying down for three minutes to recover piece, but it leans into this idea of you know shoving your body into this fight-or-flight situation that is optimal for your metabolism and everything your body needs, and then that like stop, you know right, like kind of like you know the caribou or whoever that gets attacked by the lion or tiger gets taken down and they manage to escape and then they run off and as soon as they know that they're out of danger, then they shake it off and they continue eating and living their life. And that's the kind of concept behind the RE-HIT which I again can work with.

Speaker 2: 5:34

There's really an emphasis on recovery and rest and what you should be doing for your recovery, like breathing and making sure you're getting proper sleep and your rest days and yoga, and you know whatever an active recovery looks like for you. You know sleep is just ridiculous and of course you know you know all the things that you should be doing for a sleep break, dark, cool room. You know, minimize distractions, leave your phone in the other room. You know, probably have good bedding. You know those kinds of things. We all know that sleep is important to us, you know.

Speaker 2: 6:12

And then he talks about, like wearables, like you know, the Oura Ring and other devices that kind of give you that information that you need to know, like about your heart rate variability, you know sleep patterns, other biometrics. You know sleep patterns, other biometrics you know he doesn't really talk about, shall we say. You know weight loss, but you know that's something that's in his arena of you know using this information for. But that obviously is never a goal for me. It's really about being mentally and physiologically fit so that I can acquire, you know, happiness. You know, not acquire it, but just be in a place of happy, right, like we all want to get to that piece where we just have enough energy to do what we need to do and have energy left over and not be completely spent. And that is sometimes a hard concept for athletes because we do things to push ourselves and a lot of times we push ourselves too far and then the recovery is ridiculous and we can't get back to it. So it's kind of keeping that in mind.

Speaker 2: 7:21

Some other things that he talked about is like cold exposure, right, like using cryotherapy or ice baths as part of your recovery, infrared saunas, the different types of supplements that we should be taking and how they should be taken together. I don't want to get into details because he goes deep and, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm sitting in a science class, but the things that I really enjoy about this, and where it's kind of going, is this idea of that. You know everybody's different. You have this ability to figure out what works for your body. You know he goes into a real deep a little bit about nutrition. Well, real deep a little bit. You like that About nutrition, because one of the things they talked about is how our nutrition kind of sucks and it's really a result of the food that we're eating, because it's a result of the fact that, as humans, we interfere with the earth and that our soil is not nutrient rich anymore. So the food that we're eating is not nutrient rich and I think I've talked about this before where you know the apple that you ate a hundred years ago had way more nutrients in it than the apple that you're eating today.

Speaker 2: 8:32

And even if you're an organic farmer, because of our practices of diverting water and you know soil, all the things right, you know we're not taking we don't have nutrient rich soil, and he talks about, you know, one aspect of you know like the idea of flooding and how flooding is a natural occurrence, but we have prevented that by you know diverting water. You know creating systems to kind of push it away, and so the lands that should be flooded on the regular, like farmlands or whatever the lands that should be flooded on the regular, like farmlands or whatever are not getting that type of you know nutrient change. Right, because you're getting soils. Or you know right, because the topsoil gets usually eroded off when water moves across it and it's not changing areas. Or you know getting rid of your crappy soil. So, anyway, hopefully you know what I mean, because I am not a biologist.

Speaker 2: 9:26

But the whole point is is really just about the fact that even if you're choosing to eat organic, it's always it's. We're going to need minerals and vitamins and as supplements because of the fact that, as nutrient dense as organic food is, it's not enough, because we're living in 2024. And we have to keep that in mind is that we're always going to have some kind of deficiency, and I think that's good information for us to have. You know, obviously, if you're making sure you're eating a well-balanced diet, you're going to take care of some of that. But when you start looking at the studies and realizing, like, even if you're, you know, vegetarian or whatever and you eat all of these things, you're still not eating enough to supplement your body properly.

Speaker 2: 10:14

So you know, I like it, I you know, like where it's heading, there's some stuff like I said that, like you know, there is a little dive in the nutrition diet aspect of it and the nutrition diet aspect of it, and I don't want to hear about that because you know, I'm a 55-year-old female and I don't want to hear what a guy has to say about me losing weight. And you know how my body should be. Or you know, if we just do more HIIT, we're going to lose weight. Like that's all bullshit. Right, because bodies are different and you have to choose what you need to do to get to where you want to be. But you know, I think that reading these types of books one as a trainer lets me know what's out in the world and so that I know what's.

Speaker 2: 11:02

You know, coming down the line technologically right, because there's so many different devices. You know, there's training aids like my, the best thing, which I was laughing I called my dad this morning and talked about it, because he does do a section on the whole vibrating plate workouts and how, like, doing a workout on a vibrating plate for 10 minutes is enough as a 30-minute workout, because your whole body has to do whatever you're doing on that plate and so it's not like, oh, you know, I'm only doing one arm or one leg. You know, it's like your whole body is participating and it's a really good full-body workout. And I had to laugh because that is so not my jam. But you know, I may have to try it, um, just for kicks and giggles, um, but anyway, yeah, so I mean it's.

Speaker 2: 11:54

It's definitely one of those things of you know, take what you want, leave the rest. Um, I like reading this kind of stuff because it does keep me in the know, um, and I think that a lot of times, you know, I have athletes that will come to me and ask me questions and I don't want to be ill-informed or I don't want to be in a situation where I think I know best, because I did this one thing, you know, 20 years ago and it's going to. You know, keep going that way, or whatever right we, the fitness world and our biological discoveries are changing I don't know hourly and so you have to be willing to learn. You have to be willing to adjust and adapt. People are going to come to you and they're going to give you different information, and so you know the way I see it is.

Speaker 2: 12:47

Reading and experiencing these things is the best way that I can keep growing as a trainer and keep bringing information to my clients, bringing information to you. So, anyway, I'm going to keep working on finishing the book and I will keep you up to date on any other new discoveries that I find within there. But you know, like I said, recovery is always key, right? You want to keep going. You got to know how your body is going to bounce back from the stress and the strain that we put it through. Anyway, that's all I got for you now. Thank you so much for those of you who are listening on the regular basis and for those of you finding me for the first time. I really appreciate you showing up and I will catch you next time.