What is going on guys? Happy Monday or Tuesday, depending on where you're tuning in from. Welcome back to Eat, Train, Prosper. This is episode 186 and we are asking the question, when is enough enough? And this comes from a DM from one of our listeners. Thank you for the support and listening and sending us a cool question that turned into an episode. around just like when is enough enough around goal setting. I think I'll read a little bit of the back context, which I think is important. And then Brian, I have, of course, a lot of thoughts about it after some updates. So. When is enough enough? Or along the lines of setting goals for more intermediate slash advanced trainees. I started lifting and running 2.5 years ago in my mid slash early 40s with the primary goal of health span. I've gone from technically obese to sub 18 % body fat on a Dexa for a female, which is very lean, not quite stage lean, but about as lean as you could realistically want to be as a female. in lifestyle. I mean, we are very, very, very beach ready sort of thing. And I've accomplished things with running and lifting that I could have never even dreamed of three years ago. But now I find myself wanting to get better, but not knowing how or what goal to have. Do I shave off a minute on my next 10 K? Do I get even leaner? My lifts keep improving and my consistency is very on point. What's next? So that is the question that we are posing in this episode, which I'm very excited to talk about, as I'm sure Brian is as well. But as always, Brian, what is going on with you? Yeah, we've been getting some fire questions on DMs these days. There's been like three of them in the past week that we may be able to extrapolate out into full episodes. And so that's been super cool. If you guys have any big questions like this that are more than just, you know, a Instagram Q and a three minute answer. I think these are really cool to be able to kind of, blow these out into complete questions and make episodes out of it. So, anyway, I have four quick updates here. first one is I have been. Listening to a dude named Joel Jameson, a bit recently, I'd heard of him a number of years ago and he's just kind of come back into my sphere of influence recently. He's a guy that started a product called Morpheus, which is the HRV system that Peter Atiyah uses. And I think that's when I was first introduced to him a number of years ago. He was on a Peter's podcast talking about this product. And I think he was on Mike Nelson's podcast as well. A couple of years ago. But anyway, Morpheus is just an HRV system that is supposed to be relatively advanced. uses RMSSD similar to the elite HRV band that I use. The benefit to Morpheus potentially is that it also curates your training zones for the day based on your HRV. So if you have a really good HRV one morning, it might have your zone two higher than it would if you had a poor HRV in the morning. So I just find that interesting. And I I'm hesitant to invest in it because I already have an HRV system that I like. But if any of you guys have any feedback, you personally use Morpheus, I would love to hear that. So feel free to comment in the YouTube comments or send me a DM. Would love to hear about your experience with Morpheus. Second update. So we went to Scottsdale for spring break, which I mentioned in the updates last week, which means it's now been a little over a week or so. Yeah, a little over a week since we got back. And I ate so much food in Scottsdale that I got back and my body weight was just, it was like 200. I haven't seen the 200 on the scale in the morning in a really long time. And this is on the heels of me just talking about, you know, a few episodes ago, how I was going to just let my body weight go down and see what happens at 180. And so, so we go to Scottsdale and like the opposite occurs. I just eat crap and don't exercise basically enough. for that time. Plus I was in the car for four days, two days driving to Scottsdale, two days driving back from Scottsdale. Anyway, my body weight hit this high of like 200, it was crazy. And since then I have had no appetite. And this is not just psychological, like I am just not hungry. And this is, I thought it would be like a couple of days and I'm like, okay, I just won't eat that much. I had a couple of days where... I would eat 125 grams of protein and that felt really hard. I was probably getting, you know, 1600 calories, maybe 2000 at most just couldn't really eat. This has continued now. We're now on day nine. Since I got back from this trip, maybe day 10 and I still can't eat. Like I legitimately am finding myself not even feeling the ability to eat until the early afternoon. And then by 5 PM, I feel like I'm done eating and I can't eat anymore. So I've been eating in a four hour window for about nine days now. you My body weight is plummeting. Um, I am now down to like the low one nineties. So in a matter of like nine days, I've gone from 200 to like 191 and I'm still not hungry. So anyway, I just thought that was interesting. Wondering if Aaron has any thoughts on that. My, my, my view is really just that I overate my body is in like kind of compensation mode, kind of getting back to homeostasis. And that's what's going on here. But if you have any thoughts, I'm curious. What were you approximately before leaving for Scottsdale? Probably about 194-ish. Yeah. Okay, yeah, it's definitely interesting. Especially like nine days is pretty significant. I would expect like four to six definitely but now you're back to sub where you were when you left. Which is or before you left I'm sorry which is pretty interesting. mean, I mean eventually it's going to come back it will normalize. And you didn't get sick or anything there on the way back or anything did you? have been off and on like semi-sick, but it wouldn't, it's not the type of sickness that usually inhibits appetite for me. And that's, guess, the additional variable here is it's kind of like stuffy nose, like a little bit of head cold, but usually it's, know, fevers and more severe sicknesses that tend to limit appetite for me. This is not the type of thing that would usually limit appetite. Yeah, it's very interesting. I'm interested to see like how far it really drops and then where it normalizes to like, let's say it continues for three more days, you're down to like a 188. Are you going to normalize it like a 191? Which, I mean, I would say is still enough to be considered statistically significant as a difference from like a delta from the 194. But it's not like earth shattering or anything. But it's mostly just interesting for sure. Yeah, for sure. Okay. next I updated you guys last week on kind of the new program structure I'm using where I went from the two times a week, full body to a bit more of a split. I'm really loving this. It's been really great. The, the ideas there, the rationalization was, one leg day allows me to put the lower intensity cardio around legs, kind of do some higher intensity stuff around upper body days. also have, Just a little bit more specific work for some of the upper body muscles as I'm doing more cardio, trying to keep some of the hypertrophy there and not lose my aesthetics over the summer. This has been great. Just really enjoying it. Also not going to failure on everything. So I've escalated my volume up from doing two sets to failure of everything. It's now five sets with three to five RIR. And so I'm also really loving the fact that not everything is being pushed to failure, that I'm being able to alternate between antagonistic muscle groups. without much rest. So I'll do like a set of pull downs at three RIR and then a set of chest press at three RIR and just kind of jump back and forth with short rest in between. It's been a nice change from everything to failure. So who knows? I'll probably eventually find my way back to going to failure on everything, but this has been great. In lieu of my leg day, which was meant to be this weekend a couple of days ago, I have been wanting to try my buddy's call it hit pseudo CrossFit class. It's a it's called Alpine. Basically, it trains people for outdoor activities to be kind of doing cool outdoor stuff in the winter and the summer or whatever. So there's a lot of like CrossFit component to it of just kind of being a well rounded generalist on everything. So I went in and took this class with him on Saturday, and it worked out really well because it was supposed to be my leg day and the main things they were doing was a whole shit ton of different hip hinging from you know, single leg rotational stuff to like super slow deadlift, liftoffs and stuff like that, combined with split squats and lunges and lateral lunges and, all sorts of stuff like that. So it fit really well. Really enjoyed it something different. Also, I think the main benefit that came out of it is me realizing how limited I am on certain aspects of mobility in my spine. so we did a lot of like lateral flexion and rotational stuff for the midline. And I, I've been realizing this more and more over the last few years, but in the CrossFit days, I never had to try to be mobile. It was just so ubiquitous in everything we did. It was included in the Olympic lifting movements. We did, it was part of our warmups every day as I lead class. would be stretching multiple times a day with the class. And I. in many ways assumed that a lot of that would stay simply by doing full range of motion training, being under load at length and positions and things like that. but the fact is that it, that that's just not the case. so I think this kind of lit a little bit of a fire under my ass and that if I want to continue to be agile and mobile as I age, there's a certain component of these types of things that I probably should be including more into my training and not just focusing on cardio and weights, but kind of filling this third bucket up of being agile and mobile and things like that. So overall, super positive experience. Really glad I did that and kind of needing to now figure out how I'm going to incorporate some of this stuff into my training. I feel perplexed because I don't think this is a topic where I have any kind of remote sufficient expertise other than my own human experience to talk about, but I've seen posts and stuff where people are like, you don't need mobility, you just need like range of motion training. And I'm like, I don't know, man, I do a lot pretty much exclusively full range of motion training and like I'm watching my mobility. literally like melt away. So it's interesting. you get mobility at the end ranges of the positions you're training, but the problem is that the majority of the stuff that you're training, even at end range, is still mostly in the sagittal plane, kind of forward and backward. And so we're really not doing a lot of rotational lateral flexion, lateral extension type stuff. And that's where I think I'm lacking a lot in my spinal mobility. yeah. And then the last update for me is just that this is a huge week. Kim leaves for Madrid tonight. today rather after I get off this podcast. I'm going to a concert tonight. I won't be home till like 2 a.m. and then I got to get up and take the kids to school at 6 a.m. So that will be interesting on Wednesday. And then I have another big birthday party on Saturday night. yeah, no, this is a doll. It's my buddy Greg, the one who I run the other podcast with. It's his 40th. And so we're actually doing like a college throwback party where like it's beer pong and drinking game central, you know, like Kings cup and flip cup and all that stuff. so I am going to be in shambles this week between the concert tonight till 2am and then that party on Saturday. It's not going to be the healthiest week for me. So, that is all I got and I'll toss it over to you. Yeah, so I would say that I'm in week two of prep. I'm in day eight, day nine, something like that. Really enjoying everything so far, but don't get me wrong, it's very easy, very, very easy. All we did was pull out all my honey and orange juice and literally just the silly things that go on at the peaks of a building phase. And I've had hunger returning to a normal, quote unquote healthy. range. I'm like ready for my for my next meal on my non training days so I don't have my like post workout meal or my my intro. I'm like wrapped up with eating by like 8 p.m. and that is unheard of. You know what I mean? Like even today it's I have one more meal to eat. We'll wrap up the podcast around 9 p.m. my time and then I have to eat again. But I mean it's it feels good and nice. I feel like just like a normal human and I I and I'm really enjoying it. Although I know in probably like eight weeks, I'm gonna be fucking eating my words and I'm gonna be miserable and really hungry and wishing I had honey and all this like bullshit. But for right now, I'm pretty pumped about that. And it's working. Scale's moving down. Now that I'm like posing and stuff every day, there's these like subjective cues of leanness, of veins and stuff are coming back and stuff. I'm really surprised. And I'm excited for something new. Like I'm really in a territory of unknown. I've never done fat loss enhanced. And I'm just like, it's just new experiences for the first time, because there's a lot of things where on paper, I'm like, shouldn't be happening. But it is. And I'm like, interesting. So I'm like, re formatting my kind of experience in real time as I go through it, which is it's cool to have a new learning curve of things. So I do enjoy that. Yeah, mean, you're almost back to the stage of newbie gains in the sense that like this is all unknown new territory where you're seeing your body appear in a way that's brand new to you. that is honestly super exciting as well. It really is. had a very and I guess this is a slightly tangential update. I do have a little bit of the I could I could even say a moderate amount of like the bigorexia kind of thing. I don't feel very large. I still to me, I still kind of see myself as like the 210 pound version of myself, like when I my last like build that I did naturally. But that's obviously not the case. But I was speaking with someone. on Instagram last week and he was asking me some questions. And this is someone like I've met, like this was someone who to me was just like a very large human and he was asking me some physique questions and stuff and he was sending me photos and he's like, well, these are photos of me at like 235. And I'm like looking at him and I'm like, he's taller than me. And I'm like, but I'm leaner than that at 235. And like, that's when it hit me and I was like, wow. Like I just have like some perception thing. Cause to me, this guy's a monster. And I'm like, I'm leaner at 235 than you are in these photos. But to me, you're much bigger than me. So that was very, very wild to me. And that's when I realized that, I'm probably never going to be happy with physique. And I'm glad I'm doing this. And then moving on to the kind of next thing. And then lastly, I head back to the USA for a little quick trip, see some family and stuff. It's under not great circumstances with a family funeral. But it's I'm fortunate to be able to like make the travel and I remember like all these years of like wanting to be able to travel and do all these things and now I'm here and I'm like, man, I am really not looking forward to this. But I always lose a bunch of weight when I travel and that should line up pretty well for what I need right now. So as long as that happens, this time I should be okay with everything that I need to have. Well, I'm sorry to hear that you have a family member passing, but yeah, such is life. get into that age. Yeah, now which is it's it's fucking blows actually. But let's move on to more uplifting things around setting goals, shall we? yep, yep. Cool. So what I wanted to do is pick out a couple things from that introduction that I read with the podcast intro. And there was one of the things that she asked about with setting goals for like more intermediate slash advanced athletes. And my initial thought was like, if we're in an intermediate athlete, I think the logical next step of a goal is to bridge into that advanced athlete stage. think in any, I shouldn't say any endeavor, but. But in many endeavors that you take on as a hobby or become part of your lifestyle or something, if you're dedicating enough time to it, it makes sense to try and make it to the top tier that you're willing to input. obviously, I think what's nice here is advanced is subjective. It's kind of nomenclature. I don't think you'll ever really know when you arrive. Brian, do you know when you became an advanced trainee? no, mean, not a specific moment, but I kind of think that if you just keep doing it long enough, you inevitably just run into it. It's like if you put your car in neutral and there was a wall like a mile ahead of you, it would take you a really long time to get there. But if you just stay in the car in neutral, it's eventually going to run into that wall. and I think of this kind of similarly where You just kind of keep doing the right things for long enough and you will ultimately get there. And so I guess that it's kind of defining like what is there and, maybe that's a, a product of how quickly you progress. I think would probably be the most reasonable way of, of describing that. think that's a very good way. Yeah, I would say as long as you keep the curiosity, I think the people who never make it to the advanced stage are the people who lose the curiosity, right? And they just still do the same three sets of 10 bicep, you know, thing that they were doing 10 years ago sort of thing. So like, if you lose that curiosity, you may not but as long as you keep having a strive for progression and like wanting more out of something, I think yeah, you will eventually get there regardless of like, genetics or anything like that. It's it's it's I don't think it being advanced is more of like a physique quality or anything like that. It's it's an understanding of a topic. It's being able to move and connect with like your own body and that sort of thing. So that I think is the logical step. Like if you're in an intermediate stage, you want to get to an advanced stage purely out of the general, like I said, curiosity, enjoyment of a hobby that you have. Yeah, I'd also say there's like a movement quality piece to it. So it's like, it's multifaceted. It's, it's how, how quickly you're able to progress, like how long you have to go before you notice progress occurring. But it's also being able to move on the movements that are in your program in a manner that optimizes what you're trying to get out of that movement, because you could think you're at a sticking point and be as strong as you could be. But if your movement is trash, there's still a lot of gains to kind of be eking out there. by cleaning up the movement, as well as a number of the other things that kind of go into the bucket of being advanced, such as shifting focuses, right? So like one of the notes that I have here is injury prevention. And as you get advanced, and as you get older, which tend to happen in unison with each other, you know, the the the need to remain injury free increases, and, or at least the the need to do some sort of maintenance on your body so that you don't get injured as you continue to progress and age simultaneously. I think that's like a vital component to it. And so I think the bucket of things that you should be focusing on expands as you become more advanced, even though for you to become more elite at one specific thing, like what Aaron's doing, you have to push all the other buckets to the side. and focus exclusively on the one bucket you're focusing on because you want to be as elite as possible at that one thing. In this person's situation, it's likely the opposite where the bucket expands and there's more things that she will need to do to kind of continue to improve across the broad spectrum of activities that she does. I love something that you that you said when you started talking and I think it really holds true. Very, very rarely will you see someone advanced like with poor movement quality, like just yanking on weights and like. Kind of like I don't want to say ego lifting, because like sometimes that even happens to me a little bit until I watch something, I'm like, oh, that's just literally too heavy, but you're never going to see someone like yanking on things and just moving. without control and stuff like that. So that's a really good point from you, Brian. And it's it kind of comes out of necessity. Pretty much like you said, like the injury prevention plays a role in it. And you realize like. I mean, at one point in all of our hit pasts, like we've been yanking on things in the gym and eventually learned that like it just doesn't work the way you think it's going to work and you and you learn either through someone giving you better information or like through tragedy. But one way or another, like you will learn. Yeah, like you and I talk a lot about how our low backs were always in shambles from all the deadlifting and pulling that we used to do in CrossFit. And I wouldn't even say that our form was necessarily bad, but maybe it wasn't like perfect in a bodybuilding hypertrophy sense, because ultimately you're moving load. You're trying to, to strive after performance objectives kind of with little regard for whether the muscle is being stimulated in any manner or not. And I think that that also becomes a little bit of a slippery slope when performance becomes the number one thing that you're looking to, to modify or change or improve, compared to the more kind of benign way in which hypertrophy work taxes your body. Mm Yeah, that's that's really, well put. Now, I think kind of Brian and I kind of set out our different thoughts around the episode and we'll kind of just, you know, float through those. I mean, for me, once you're reaching into that advanced athlete stage in goal setting there. I would the question to me comes to is like, interests you more in in full transparency? I think this can be temporary sort of things like there's someone that immediately came to my mind and they pick these like, I don't want to call them maybe like seasonal goals. I think that's probably a little bit too short, like, Brian, what was that thing that you and the friends do with the Miss Miss Ogie? Is that what it's called? Yeah. And like that's what she kind of does. And I remember I think like two years ago she competed in like a bodybuilding show and like that was her thing for that year that she like really put all her marbles in. And then the next year she did like a, like a 50 K trail run. or something like that and like put all our marbles and like training for that. And this is someone who has what would be considered like an advanced physique, has been training like a really long time and just like picks some new big ambitious thing, spends eight-ish months, you know, preparing and training for it and then like checks the box and moves on to like something else. I think that can be a wonderful thing because the lady who's asking this question is like, she has both like performance and physique. ambitions or desires. And the one thing that I do feel pretty confident about is in what I wrote here, especially with that that 18 % body fat figure that she had shared. I think she's potentially near the point where visual physique improvements may impair performance. So trying to like thread the needle on both simultaneously. works up into a certain point where it doesn't work and then it becomes either a I'm happy here doing my current capacity at both, which is obviously perfectly fine, or I may need to place one in a priority position and let the other on the back burner in optimal pursuit of one. Yeah, it goes back to exactly what I was saying about kind of what you're doing right now, where you're trying to optimize your physique kind of at the expense of any of the other goals that you could be having at the moment. And so this kind of speaks to one of the things that I wrote down in my thoughts in the document here, which was varied and dynamic goal setting. And so this is exactly it is. You know, I love what you said where you said, you know, one year you're focusing on the bodybuilding competition. Another year you're doing a 50 K trail run. And another year, maybe you're doing like a high rocks or I mean, there's, there's a number of different kinds of buckets that you can pull from here. But, I think in varied and dynamic goal setting, one of the keys is having both a short-term goal and a long-term goal. And so long-term goals are more like what Aaron said, like this year or this six month period, I'm going to focus on this. overriding kind of precedent that's going to define the majority of my training. And then within that long-term goal, there can be short-term goals. So those short-term goals can directly affect the long-term goal. So if we assume that the short-term goal is the bodybuilding competition, or the long-term goal is the bodybuilding competition, then the short-term goals could be, you know, manipulation of body weight, along with improvements in strength or hypertrophy metrics of whatever you choose, along with daily posing practice, along with all like Aaron could speak to this more than I, whereas, you know, if your goal is a 50k trail run, then there's shorter goals that probably go into like, Hey, first getting comfortable trail running, because that's pretty different than running on the road or running on a bike path or whatever. attacking different various topography that you may be exposed to during the event or something like that. And then also like the short term goals of just monitoring progress of saying, you know, I did this exact run a month ago in 57 minutes and 32 seconds. And this time I did it in 55 minutes and 49 seconds. So you got almost a two minute improvement like in a month. That's awesome. Great work short term goals. So I think having those kind of varying dynamic goal setting with the short term and the long term, it does kind of give you some perspective and a bit of a guiding light to kind of show you the steps to get where you want to be. Yeah, I really, really like what you said around the the returning to the previous trails, right? I think that is because it's like those are cool things that that is there's oftentimes, especially in some of the lifts, not the strength lifts or the Olympic lifts, but in hypertrophy, there's some level of ambiguity, you know, in terms of like, was my form as clean or like different things like that? what I really like with that, it's like I mean, hey, this is this mountain trail or whatever. It's A to B this time. I did it in A to B this time. Like there's so much less ambiguity. It's like I beat it or I didn't. So I do really like like how you presented that. Yep. What do got next? I kind of want to save this one for last or later in the episode. I feel like it would lose its punch if I use it so early on. But one of the things that I've already said this a few times, I... I feel conflicted in having people chase leanness as a goal, especially sub what she has already achieved. I can't confidently say there's anything positive to be gained at sub 18 % body fat unless you're getting on stage or something like that. Or if it's, I mean, who knows? Maybe you really do just like love, love looking shredded and there's some trip and you wanna have this short-term like eight week diet go for it, think is a perfectly sizable thing. But I mean, I think we have to be honest with ourselves. It's purely a visual aesthetic and will almost always require a temporary swap of priorities of things like dinner with friends, with family, with a partner. mean, getting that lean. make no mistake does require those sacrifices. And like I said, for if you were 30 % body fat, but you have health to be gained by getting leaner than that. But where you already are, I can pretty much confidently say, I feel pretty strongly there is nothing left to be gained from a positive standpoint, except that pure visual desire. What do you think about that? Yeah, 18 % is quite lean. I remember we used to do some body fat testing in the CrossFit gym when we would do those annual nutrition challenges. We would do like the whole before and after thing and kind of see where people end up with pictures with body fat percentage with how they're feeling all the different kind of variables that go into selecting a quote winner here. And I would say I could count on like one hand the number of women that would come in under 18 % body fat. in any given challenge any given year. Like my wife when she was in the heart of competing and she was doing like the OC throwdown and like some of these other competitions in the early 2000 teens. I measured her a few times at about like 17 to 18 % body fat and she was quite lean like she had abs she had like hamstring a little bit of hamstring separation like not not like extremely but you know under a flexed condition you could see it. and definitely like, you know, traps and upper back muscles. it was, was like, you could, you could see the separation between muscles, even though you didn't see it in the sense that you would see if someone was standing on stage with oil on their body, et cetera. And so, yeah, to, kind of validate your point, that is quite lean. And my kind of view of that is that I probably wouldn't pursue getting any leaner unless my goal became one that required me to become leaner, such as. standing on stage and doing a bodybuilding competition. If I'm going to pursue a more lifestyle type pursuit such as, shit, I don't even know if you can call running a 50K a lifestyle pursuit. So let's not even go there. Cause I think at that point you're actually benefited by having like slightly higher body fat. So you have more energy reserves, but something like a 10K. She mentioned a 10K in her thing and said, should I be trying to knock like a couple of minutes off my 10K or something? Like I think that's one where, you just wouldn't want to be any leaner than 18%. And in all likelihood, possibly even higher, just because when you're doing all of this cardio, like you want some energy reserves, you don't want to be running on on on empty. But I think 18 % like it like a pretty decent place to be like, I probably wouldn't tell her to change much up or down regardless of her goal unless they become extremely extreme. Yep. Yeah, yeah, very, very well put. I only had one more thought, I know you still have like a good chunk. Yeah, so let's let's have you. Yeah. in. So one of the other ones I had was a social or extrinsic motivation. So I don't know how much of her training at the moment is being done solo. know I do a lot of my training solo and I feel like if I really had a goal that I wanted to pursue at this point, it would be helpful to engage somebody else in my social circle that potentially would want to strive. for the same achievement with me. And I'm not just saying that we have to train together all the time or that we even need to have weekly training sessions together, even though I think that would be beneficial. That would be super cool to be able to get together every Saturday and do your long run with somebody or your long bike ride or whatever it is, maybe a training session at the gym, whatever. But it's more about just having somebody to hold you accountable and also to explore some of the more subtle context or nuance that goes into training for something at this level in that you're not just a Joe Schmo off the couch that's trying to run a 5k because not that that wouldn't be helpful to have somebody doing that with you as well. But as we get closer and closer to the genetic peak of our activity and our improvements become smaller and smaller, being able to have somebody to share that experience with you, think has increased value. I agree. I think I have personal kind of differences in that. But that's a, I think that's just a personal character flaw, not that my way is better. like, in that you tend to be like a solo flyer and you like to do things on your own? yeah, I mean, I just remember like I played team sports and stuff my entire life, you know, and I never played on a winning sports team. Like I was a loser my entire life, you know, and in that end, I wish I would have. Not done everything as a team sport, you know, and it's one of those things that I just operate better on my own, and I learned that and even with like business stuff like we're finding, you know, now it's been. quite frustrating because not everyone operates in the capacity that I operate. And I'm not trying to make myself sound special because I'm really not, but if it's just me, I only have to rely on me and I can control that. And again, I think everyone's a little bit different. I'm again, not trying to say mine's the best, but because I know that it is not, but I've just found it to be a little bit different because I don't want to rely on needing someone because I would. And then if they were there, or let's say like you, you know, you and I, right? We're planning this big race and it's really challenging this big ambitious goal. And then, you know, three quarters in a way you're, or let's, make me the asshole. I'm like, Oh, Hey Brian, I'm really stressed out. Like, I'm not going to do it anymore. You know, good luck to you. Like you would be like really let down by that, you know. I guess I'm thinking more along the lines of like, you know, Brandon Kempter doesn't live where you live. Sometimes he's in Bali. Sometimes he's not. But like, maybe that's the situation where I'm thinking you like call Brandon up a few months and go and you're like, bro, I'm doing this competition. I'm all in on it. And he's like, Yeah, I'm also competing this year. And you guys are like, Hey, let's plan to like do this show at the same time together. And it doesn't really matter if you guys are necessarily training in the same environment. Like maybe he flies to Bali once you fly to Australia once, whatever you guys have a training session or two together along the way. But really it's just this guy that's like super successful at what he does and you looking to become super successful at what you do. And you guys are kind of able to bounce ideas off of each other, kind of be confidants and keep each other motivated throughout the process. very well put because that's exactly what happens. I see Brandon almost every day. He's much leaner than I am. We're actually competing the same weekend in Taiwan. And that does happen in which, by the way, he's still significantly stronger than me on like stuff. Super, super natty, like literally the super daddy. a natural bodybuilder, he looks like he's enhanced. It's insane. Yeah. insane. And like I'm like kind of side eyeing stuff because like he's he's getting pretty lean now. I'm like, oh, what's he using on the chest press and stuff? I'm like the same fucking weights I'm using. What's his body weight at? I have no idea. Yeah. Okay, cool. All right, cool. Well, that was my version of having some like social enhancement there. I touched on the recovery prevention piece. I really think that this deserves its own bucket though, because like, especially as you're in your 40s, your body just requires more maintenance. And if you're going to pursue something with intensity, whether that's a 10K run that you're trying to PR, a 50k trail run, which would be a completely different ballgame or trying to get on stage for a bodybuilding competition. There's certain things that you probably need to take care of to ensure that you can reach that goal. With as little risk as possible, that you're like overtrained, that you're injured, that you're not mobile enough, that you have overuse, all these number of things like the longer the trail run or the more intense the experience, the more that maintenance I think is important. So finding a way to love mobility would probably be something I would try to include. And I struggle with that, as I said in the intro, like I am not good at doing this kind of recovery injury prevention type stuff. So I'm looking as well to try to find a way to almost gamify it and get it into my training on a regular basis. Yeah, agreed. It's just so beneficial. Like, but it's so I mean, it's hard for me, you know, and I assume you as well based off what you're saying. But there was one time in my life where I found like a yoga class that was like, not too hard, not too often to like outer space and was like pretty chill. And my body felt so nice. And I was like still doing some like powerlifting and stuff the time and but like it I just felt mobile and Lou, it was very, very nice. I really would love to get back to something that I just, the barrier to entry to going is low. Yeah, recently, I would say in the last few months, I had that really bad back injury in mid December that I've discussed on here. And I would say at this point, I'm probably like 90 to 95 % of where I was in December, which is crazy to think that it's been this long that we're in like April now. And I'm still saying I'm not a hundred percent from this thing. But one of the things I started doing a couple months ago in trying to recover from this, was 20 minutes of floor time every night. And I took this from Kelly Sturrett. He was like, is talking about how every single night he has mandatory 20 to 30 minutes of floor time. And he's like, it's just time for you to be on the floor and explore your body. And so it's like, you you could sit in a squat. You could just be sitting there, reaching for your toes. You could be dynamically moving your body. You could be doing inchworms. You could be doing the couch stretch, or I mean like, any number of things, but he's like, just being on the ground is so uncomfortable that it forces you to not just be on the ground that you're going to kind of move your body because you don't want to just be sitting there on the ground. So like for me, like I, I threw on my story a number of months ago, this test where you're supposed to be able to go from standing to sitting in a cross legged, like Indian style is the wrong term. Now, what do they call it? Crisscross applesauce. So, so I, I would go down from standing to crisscross applesauce and then back out of crisscross applesauce to standing. I actually can't do that. I can get about two inches above the ground before I fall and plop down. And then I can't get back up from the bottom without using momentum. But if I can get two inches up, like if I can use my hand to kind of push me up two inches, I I can get the rest of the way. And so this has been something that I've been diligently working on during my floor time every night is starting with two minutes of sitting. cross legged one way, then two minutes of sitting cross legged the opposite way. One way feels way more uncomfortable than the other way. And then doing a couple slow descents and slow ascents, where I'm helping myself for those last two inches where as I get close to the floor and away from the floor. And so things like that, like find finding small ways to try to gamify the thing and be like, am I going to be capable of doing this stupid crisscross applesauce thing? Like to me, that's something that tangibly would make me really happy if one day I nail it. And I'm like, holy shit, like I've been working for this for months and like I finally got it type thing. So I think figuring out ways to include mobility work that benefits your more athletic objectives is probably beneficial. wonderfully beneficial I could only imagine. Yeah. and then another one I have is, training for a competition. And we basically have alluded to this kind of all throughout, which is like, you know, choose an event, whether it's like a cardio or a weightlifting or what am I missing? Like what other kinds, like a high rocks is kind of like a mix of the two. some sort of triathlon type thing would be cool. Like that would be a really great way for this person to explore, to further explore. their athletic potential as you know, they've already gotten themselves lean. They're already running, maybe including some biking and swimming gives them something else to really focus on and not just as a way of improving their fitness, but the cool thing about adding in these different pursuits is that now you have new skills that you need to master biking. While there is some skill in biking, it's probably less skill than from running. So it's probably the least skillful of the three swimming, the most skillful, like the ability to be able, especially at 235, right? Yeah, so I used to swim, swim team in ninth grade. That was actually the thing that got me into weightlifting. My swim coach in the summer before ninth grade was jacked. And I was like, dude, did you get that jacked just from swimming? And he's like, no, like look at all these swimmers. They don't just swim like, come on, you know, he looked at me like, dude, I lift weights like four times a week. And I was like, okay. But like I used to be a good swimmer in swim practice for swim team. I would swim basically a mile every day throughout the entire summer. And even days we didn't have swim team, I remember going out and doing it on my own. And now I was in Mexico over Christmas and went to swim. and I literally did two lengths of the pool. So like there and back. And then I was like, you know, like, like I can't get enough air. Like all my swimming technique is gone. My body is falling to the bottom and I'm like struggling to, it's just crazy how quickly that goes. And so I think adding in another thing to pursue that involves some sort of skill element could be extremely beneficial for this person as well. I mean, I love the competition. think I don't know why, but I do really think it it provides like a moment in time that you have to prepare for sort of thing, you know, because there's if it's remotely important to you, you don't want to kind of embarrass yourself. So it forces you to prepare for it. And you have to like back, you know, reverse engineer your way into said date. So I really, really love that. For anyone out there, would also encourage, have to be realistic with your timelines. That's something that I'll talk really commonly with the new prospective clients and stuff about. I'll just be honest, I'll say, I think your timeline's really realistic or I'll be upfront, like this is a very unrealistic timeline for the ambition level of your goal. I think it's just a wonderful choice for it, especially as we get older and in... we kind of lose those sorts of like pursuits and stuff like that. So I do think it really helps take, you know, this, this kind of more looser idea of something that you want to do and put it into more of like a structured container or framework of making it happen. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I did after writing down kind of my thoughts on this topic, which we've been covering over the last 45 minutes and your thoughts is I queried chat GPT. This seems to be a theme of the show now. Just kind of see what chat GPT says. I actually think in this case, chat GPT more or less nailed all of the same topic heads that you and I had. So embracing the process, not just the outcome, setting goals. focusing on recovery and longevity, celebrating small wins, finding joy in cross training, focus on mental health and resilience, surround yourself with like-minded individuals, adapt to your body's needs, finding inspiration in others. And then one that I skipped over that I think is actually really important to this person's overall pursuit is emphasizing the bigger picture of health and longevity. And it seems like she is doing that. But I think that it's important not to lose that in the grand scheme of like, You could do a competition or you could pursue this goal or pursue that goal or whatever. Like in the grand scheme of things, this person has made an incredible positive change in their life. They went from being essentially obese, as they said in their question, to being essentially athletically lean, like as lean as you would want to be without standing on a bodybuilding stage, as well as continuing to lift weights, get stronger in the gym, which she noted. improving her 10k times, like all these things are super dope. But remembering that the big picture is health and longevity, I think is also important because for me, like I stay motivated to do what I do. And I don't have any competition on the horizon. My main objective is the bigger picture of health and longevity. And the pieces that I'm fitting into this pie are very much focusing on that goal. to the point that mobility is now becoming a concern for me because that's a piece of the health and longevity. We already know cardio is only something I've been doing for the last like four years or so and weights are ubiquitous. Like you can't change that. That's always been something that's a staple in my life. But the other one that I was gonna say is, man, I just blanked out. What am I missing here? Health, longevity, pursuit. Enjoyment, perhaps? No, it'll come back to me. Anyway, any thoughts you have on that as well? My final one that I do think is important because I just let me get to it. Eventually the goal may become just smelling the roses of your achievements, right? Having a lean physique that you enjoy, that's capable, you're able to go out and like do your runs like you may, there may be a point or I can't even say may, there is probably going to be a point where there's like no new muscle to be had, right? There's no new PRs to set. but you can enjoy the achievements you've accomplished and just smell the roses. We're lean, we're healthy, we're capable, we exercise because it makes us feel good. It's how we wanna show up in the world. It's how we want to live our lives as a human and just enjoying that. And I guess I can say, selfishly, I look forward very fondly to that point because it's always been a next pursuit for me, which... I enjoy but but I this the stress component of it is quite high and large and and I and I'd be lying if I I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't looking forward to like that stress of achievement component being tied to it. Not not having a place in my life anymore and just being like I did these things that I'm proud of. I do this because I want to feel good and be healthy and have a decent health span and just move to feel good and eat good food because it makes my body feel good sort of thing. And you're saying that you're looking forward to that goal or you think you're going to be missing out by not having a more tangible, like competition-based goal? No, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, interesting. So the thing that I was going to add to my cardio, my weights, mobility work is explosive. And so I think the explosive stuff really fits into athleticism and longevity in a sense that like the main way people get injured as they get older is inability to catch themselves when they're stepping off a curb or tripping on something and not being able to have the muscle coordination in their feet. and things like jumping, any kind of jumping, whether it's skipping, which I've been including into my training recently, it's been super cool. I've been skipping. I've been, trying to focus on jumping again. my son's gotten into jump rope. So that's gotten me back into thinking about how much I hate double unders and maybe I should start including those again. doing things like box jumps, doing things like, like hang high poles or Olympic lifting. Like you guys have heard me over the last year talk about how I. have this desire to incorporate more of that kind of explosive Olympic lifting esque type movement into my training again. So I think there's a number of buckets and things that you could include beyond just cardio and weights and then mobility and jumping and things like that. But I think you can even expand that pool out larger and you can do stability work like you can practice balancing, which is another piece of longevity. And so I just think there's a number of different pursuits you can do beyond just focusing on a specific competition, but including multiple different disciplines into that pursuit of kind of health and longevity. Well, there was one thing I thought about saying, but I didn't because I thought maybe it wasn't overly realistic, but I'm not sure. Playing in adult sports league. That's one that, you we talked about that like lateral movement and like the the twisting of the spine in that direction. Most sports that would be available to adults, let's call it what? Soccer, a basketball league, potentially volleyball. What else am I missing? Like a flag football. A lot will have some components of that, especially like the lateral movement and stuff. That's one that I think has its benefits in just moving your body in an athletic capacity and will force a lot of these like movement patterns and things like balance, you know, the triple hip extension and a lot of that just in sport. But like again, can containerize it in a way that's not, it's playing a game effectively. So. Yeah, I love that actually. There's just, there's so many different things that you can include to keep yourself excited and, and looking forward to your training with variation, which I think is, an important piece of this pursuit over a lifetime is not becoming so hyper-focused on just running and lifting, which not saying this person is, but those are the two things they listed in their, their question. I think it's just getting creative and expanding outside of that and including things that may not directly contribute. like practicing your jumping and your lateral movement likely isn't going to make you better at lifting or that much better at your 10k time. But I think that they have these kind of more intangible benefits that become tangible as you get older. Agreed. Yeah. I think that's all I got. Cool, I think that's all we have on the back end of this one. So thank you for submitting the question. I think it was a really, really cool and thoughtful episode. Next week, we might need to take a little break. I'm gonna be very overloaded with client work on the back end of my traveling back to Asia, probably very jet lag, so I might need to punt on the pod, but we'll see. So. Q &A the following week and then keep going from there. Perfect. So episode 187, potentially next week, second week of April, or potentially the third. All right. So as always, guys, thank you for listening. Brian and I will talk to you soon.