Mark Sisson on Walking vs. Running: Rethink Your Fitness Rules

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Sisson: So humans are born to walk. We're bipedal. It's bizarre that there are not many bipedal animals. (00:00):
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Mark Sisson: Like, name me five other bipedal animals that don't have feathers or a long (00:05):
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Mark Sisson: tail they're standing on. (00:09):
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Mark Sisson: And yet, and so that requires that we're always constantly moving. (00:11):
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Mark Sisson: And our digestive systems require that. (00:15):
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Mark Sisson: You know, they want us to be moving along. Our lymphatic system, (00:19):
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Mark Sisson: for sure, works on the basis of constant body movement. But our balance and (00:22):
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Mark Sisson: our overall just appropriate reception demands that we move a lot. (00:26):
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Mark Sisson: Again, we move through time and space and planes and ranges of motion. (00:30):
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Mark Sisson: And walking is the quintessential human movement. (00:33):
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Erin Power: Hi, I'm Erin Power. I'm a health coach, a health coaching educator and mentor, (00:37):
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Erin Power: and your host of Health Coach Radio. (00:42):
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Erin Power: This podcast delves into the art, science, and business of health coaching. (00:44):
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Erin Power: Whether you're aspiring to land a coaching dream job or to embark on your own (00:49):
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Erin Power: entrepreneurial adventure, we cover it all. (00:53):
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Erin Power: Our mission is to help you grow your career, elevate your income, (00:56):
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Erin Power: change the lives of the clients who need your help, and leave a lasting mark (00:59):
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Erin Power: in this rapidly growing field. (01:03):
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Erin Power: It's time for health coaches to make an impact. It's time for Health Coach Radio. (01:06):
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Erin Power: Well, I'm going to jump right in, not with a question, but with a statement. (01:13):
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Erin Power: And I want to preface this by saying when I delivered this statement to you, (01:18):
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Erin Power: that you know that i respect and admire you tremendously so that's (01:21):
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Mark Sisson: Oh here we go okay. (01:24):
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Erin Power: Um you are a freak okay you're an absolute freak okay i want to talk about your hip yeah (01:28):
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Erin Power: because i was astonished to see one week after hip replacement surgery you were (01:37):
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Erin Power: on instagram walking around without even a hitch in your step that's (01:43):
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Mark Sisson: Great yeah i mean it is crazy and and thank Thank you for calling me a freak. (01:47):
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Mark Sisson: I'll take that. I'll accept that. I'm three weeks now, three weeks and two days as of today. (01:52):
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Mark Sisson: And I could get up and dance for you. And, you know, the new hip has made me a better dancer. (01:56):
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Mark Sisson: But several things to keep in mind. Number one, you know, I needed a hip replacement. (02:04):
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Mark Sisson: I'm 71 and I needed a hip replacement because of the wear and tear I put on (02:10):
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Mark Sisson: it through decades of running, all of which has sort of been an evolution toward (02:13):
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Mark Sisson: this kinder, gentler life we call the primal blueprint. (02:17):
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Mark Sisson: And primal endurance and all of the things that we've talked about, (02:21):
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Mark Sisson: about slowing down and being mindful about how you work out. (02:23):
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Mark Sisson: So I had wear and tear on my hip that was finally causing issues. (02:28):
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Mark Sisson: So I had to have it replaced. (02:33):
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Mark Sisson: Knowing that I was having it (02:34):
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Mark Sisson: replaced, I went to the hospital with the intention of a quick recovery. (02:35):
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Mark Sisson: And in order to do that, you have to go into the operation, into the procedure (02:41):
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Mark Sisson: fit, which includes not just aerobically fit, but muscularly fit. (02:44):
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Mark Sisson: So even though I had not been able to walk for the last six months without a (02:48):
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Mark Sisson: hitch in my stride, without a severe compromise in my gait, without limping... (02:52):
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Mark Sisson: I could do elliptical. I could get on the elliptical machine and spend a half (02:58):
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Mark Sisson: an hour doing the elliptical. So I did that. (03:03):
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Mark Sisson: I could do some leg weights. I could do in or out of thigh. I could do leg extensions, (03:04):
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Mark Sisson: hamstring curls. So I did those. (03:08):
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Mark Sisson: And when I got to the time of the procedure, I was looking at the other side, (03:10):
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Mark Sisson: like how quickly can I rehab and get back to my normal life? (03:17):
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Mark Sisson: The doctors remarked after the operation was over, they said, (03:21):
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Mark Sisson: we could tell that you'll be a great candidate because you were so fit. (03:24):
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Mark Sisson: You were so muscularly fit going in. (03:27):
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Mark Sisson: Now, that's not necessarily the compliment you think it is. (03:30):
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Mark Sisson: What it is is an acknowledgement that most people who have a hip replacement (03:35):
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Mark Sisson: do so after years of inactivity, right? (03:38):
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Mark Sisson: The pain causes them to stop moving, causes them to allow their muscles and (03:42):
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Mark Sisson: their joints to atrophy and causes a sort of cascade, (03:46):
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Mark Sisson: a downward cascade, a worsening and worsening of the pain, the immobility and (03:50):
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Mark Sisson: all of the things that can be fixed. (03:54):
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Mark Sisson: With a new hip the problem is once you get your (03:57):
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Mark Sisson: new hip which you've had the procedure now you're starting (04:00):
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Mark Sisson: from zero in your rehab and so that's why it takes months and months and months (04:03):
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Mark Sisson: for people to come back so in my case you know they have you get up that afternoon (04:07):
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Mark Sisson: and walk and stand and bear weight on it they give you crutches of course and (04:12):
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Mark Sisson: and the physical therapist comes into the room and gives you the whole spiel (04:16):
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Mark Sisson: about okay where they use these crutches for the first two weeks. (04:20):
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Mark Sisson: I threw them away the first day. And the reason for the crutches is it's so (04:23):
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Mark Sisson: you don't fall. If you fall on a new hip, you're screwed. So you don't want to fall. (04:27):
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Mark Sisson: But, you know, I immediately started my rehab the next day. And I'm not being, (04:31):
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Mark Sisson: you know, overly aggressive. I'm doing what I can do. (04:36):
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Mark Sisson: And how they do this is they cut into the front side of your hip. (04:40):
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Mark Sisson: It's about a six-inch long scar. (04:45):
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Mark Sisson: They separate the muscles. They don't cut the muscles, but they pull them apart. (04:46):
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Mark Sisson: And they, you know, pull a femur out. and they saw it off and they put the thing (04:50):
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Mark Sisson: in and they drill out the middle of your hip socket and put a ceramic cup in (04:54):
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Mark Sisson: there and stick them back together again and sew you back up. (04:58):
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Mark Sisson: The real trauma is to the muscles that have been so stretched by the procedure. (05:01):
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Mark Sisson: So I still have, I still have some swelling there and my hip flexor is going (05:05):
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Mark Sisson: to take the longest to come around, but I, again, on three weeks and three days. (05:10):
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Mark Sisson: And, you know, yesterday I went to the gym and I did a half, (05:14):
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Mark Sisson: I did 10 minutes of backwards walking uphill on the treadmill, (05:17):
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Mark Sisson: which is, I do that as part of my routine anyway. (05:20):
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Mark Sisson: Turned around and walked half an hour uphill on the treadmill at a fairly brisk pace. (05:24):
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Mark Sisson: Got off, got on the Peloton and rode that for 30 minutes. (05:29):
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Mark Sisson: Did some stretching and that's been my routine. (05:33):
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Mark Sisson: I literally feel like I'm 90%, maybe 95% back already. (05:37):
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Mark Sisson: It's a long tail. I think the last 5% or 10% is going to take a while to come around. (05:44):
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Mark Sisson: But I'm so far ahead of where I thought I'd be in doing this. (05:51):
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Erin Power: I mean, I'm just curious because they sawed off part of your bone and then attached (05:55):
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Erin Power: something new to your bone. So that bone... (06:00):
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Erin Power: You know, trauma injury is still present. That's the least of it. (06:03):
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Mark Sisson: That's the least of it. It's bizarre. You know, it's like they're, (06:07):
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Mark Sisson: yeah, they, they cut the bone off and put a metal piece in there and it, (06:11):
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Mark Sisson: and it bonds and it's weight bearing. (06:14):
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Mark Sisson: And it's, it's really, I don't know whether the, you know, the, (06:17):
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Mark Sisson: the, the nerve and the innervation in that part of the body is, (06:21):
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Mark Sisson: but my, my pain was never more than a three on a scale of zero to 10. (06:25):
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Mark Sisson: I, I didn't, I never lost sleep as a result of pain. I mean, (06:29):
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Mark Sisson: it's, you know, it's rolling over. (06:32):
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Mark Sisson: And again, when the, with the muscle and the stitch, you know, (06:34):
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Mark Sisson: they, there's a, there's, it actually don't, they don't stitch you up anymore. (06:36):
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Mark Sisson: There's stitches inside, but then they glue, there's like six inches of glue (06:40):
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Mark Sisson: where they glue the skin together on the outside. Pretty amazing. (06:44):
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Erin Power: Yeah. So I guess you'd have less of a scar that way. Yeah. (06:48):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. Not that I care. It's sort of, you know, at this point in my age, (06:50):
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Mark Sisson: a scar like that's a battle wound. It's a badge of courage, you know? Yeah. (06:54):
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Erin Power: Interesting. So like, because I think in my mind, I was thinking, (06:58):
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Erin Power: well, obviously Mark sailed through this because (07:01):
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Erin Power: Mark's been devoted to really, you know, I'm going to use the word optimization, (07:04):
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Erin Power: even though I don't like that word because it just feels vague, (07:08):
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Erin Power: but like optimizing your health and, you know, being strong and fit and the (07:10):
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Erin Power: anti-inflammatory, you know, elements of your diet. (07:13):
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Erin Power: But what I'm hearing you say is that once you got the, I guess, (07:16):
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Erin Power: the go-ahead that you were doing this hip replacement, you doubled down and (07:19):
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Erin Power: you said, I'm going to do things as well in the short term. (07:22):
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Erin Power: But how much do you attribute, like if you had to weight it between like what (07:25):
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Erin Power: you did in the short term right before surgery versus your sort of lifestyle writ large? (07:28):
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Mark Sisson: You know, I'm going to write up probably a treatise on this for my doctors because (07:33):
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Mark Sisson: there are so many things that I think I did that could be incorporated into (07:37):
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Mark Sisson: sort of a standard lower limb recovery protocol. (07:42):
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Mark Sisson: Much of it is the prehab. Much of it is leading up to it. (07:47):
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Mark Sisson: Absolutely a low inflammatory diet, a diet that focuses on quality protein and (07:50):
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Mark Sisson: quality fats and minimizes carbs and seed oils and all of the things that we (07:56):
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Mark Sisson: talk about every day in the Primal Health Coach Institute. (08:00):
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Mark Sisson: Those are all very impactful, by the way. Those have an impact. (08:04):
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Mark Sisson: One of the things that they tell you about a hip surgery is the one thing you (08:09):
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Mark Sisson: want to avoid is an infection. (08:13):
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Mark Sisson: So I, I tripled down on vitamin D, right? I mean, that's my, (08:14):
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Mark Sisson: that's my immune support go-to. (08:18):
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Mark Sisson: So vitamin D, a little bit extra vitamin C, but mostly vitamin D. (08:21):
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Mark Sisson: I started, I upped my collagen. I want to repair that tissue. (08:25):
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Mark Sisson: So I upped my collagen intake. (08:29):
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Mark Sisson: And then I cannot overstate the importance of the shoes that I am rehabbing in. (08:31):
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Mark Sisson: And, you know, you know, I have this new company, Paluva, we make these five-toed shoes. (08:38):
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Mark Sisson: The importance of the entire kinetic chain, right? (08:43):
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Mark Sisson: And the posterior kinetic chain, which starts with the bottoms of the feet, (08:47):
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Mark Sisson: works its way all the way up through the legs, through the glutes, (08:51):
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Mark Sisson: lower back, and all the way up to the neck. (08:54):
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Mark Sisson: It requires that you have ground feel, that you feel the ground underneath you (08:56):
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Mark Sisson: so that the brain can orchestrate a stride, (09:00):
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Mark Sisson: a gait perfectly in how your foot informs the brain of the tilt and the texture (09:03):
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Mark Sisson: of the ground underneath so that it knows exactly how much to scrunch the arch, (09:11):
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Mark Sisson: how much to bend the toes a little bit, (09:15):
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Mark Sisson: how maybe to roll the ankle out a little bit, how deeply to bend the knee to absorb the shock, (09:16):
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Mark Sisson: how much to roll or tilt or whatever is necessary with the pelvis, with the hip. (09:20):
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Mark Sisson: And my ability to splay my toes day one, walking through Vail Town Square without crutches, (09:26):
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Mark Sisson: I mean, it wasn't pretty, but I was focusing on heel, (09:38):
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Mark Sisson: you know, land on the heel, roll off the big toe, land on the heel, roll off the big toe. (09:42):
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Mark Sisson: And you can't do that in sneakers or boots or, you know, any of the traditional (09:46):
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Mark Sisson: standard crappy footwear that we all wear. (09:52):
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Mark Sisson: So i'm part of this treatise that i'm writing for my doctors and the team because (09:55):
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Mark Sisson: they're they are very impressed with my recovery regardless of my age part of (10:00):
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Mark Sisson: it is that ability to reacquire, (10:05):
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Mark Sisson: a brow a balanced gait because you know (10:08):
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Mark Sisson: that once you have an injury like that the brain's tendency if you don't have (10:11):
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Mark Sisson: the input the brain is tending to to favor it and to you know cause another (10:15):
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Mark Sisson: form of a limp or another form of some adaptation that is not biomechanically symmetric, right? (10:20):
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Mark Sisson: So my idea was always, I'll even compromise the length of my stride in order (10:29):
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Mark Sisson: to maintain the balance and the symmetry. (10:35):
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Erin Power: Cool. It's so interesting, actually, how the, (10:38):
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Erin Power: maybe it's just the echo chamber that I'm in and like we're in, (10:42):
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Erin Power: but the narrative has really changed on like injury recovery lower like lower (10:45):
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Erin Power: limb specifically so now now i think that it's funny because it used to be rice (10:50):
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Erin Power: and now it's now it's meat have you heard this well (10:54):
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Mark Sisson: I know rice i mean i know rice was discredited by. (10:57):
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Erin Power: The guy who created it yeah exactly yeah but what i think is great is that the (11:01):
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Erin Power: new acronym is meat movement (11:05):
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Mark Sisson: Elevation oh exercise. (11:07):
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Erin Power: Exercise yeah analgesics for pain if you need it yeah yeah (11:09):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah that's right. (11:13):
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Erin Power: I love it i love that i went from rice to meat that's just great right but (11:13):
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Erin Power: actually so i was on a trail run and i mean you're trail running you have to (11:17):
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Erin Power: be really really conscious of where your footfall is because you know you can (11:20):
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Erin Power: roll ankle which i did i wasn't wearing my palovas on the trail run because (11:23):
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Erin Power: i'm not at that level yet but so it was a pretty good little sprain but i already (11:26):
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Erin Power: know i need to move it i need so i didn't stop walking i didn't you know rest (11:31):
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Erin Power: it i I didn't do any of the ricing. (11:34):
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Erin Power: We didn't do any of that. But it was like my feet were craving toe splay. (11:36):
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Erin Power: So I just walked around in my paluvas. It's like my body knew that my feet had (11:41):
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Erin Power: to get right before my ankle could recover. (11:45):
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Mark Sisson: I love it. That's 100%. It's a great, and obviously you have the awareness going (11:48):
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Mark Sisson: in. You were looking for that. (11:52):
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Mark Sisson: You were maybe not looking for it, but you're certainly open to that as an answer, (11:55):
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Mark Sisson: as a possibility, that your feet need display as part of their full functionality. (11:59):
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Mark Sisson: And if you can't allow the toes to splay (12:04):
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Mark Sisson: outwardly if you have to compress that big toe against the other (12:06):
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Mark Sisson: toes at the metatarsal head it compromises everything (12:09):
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Mark Sisson: and then again the body which wants to do the right thing the (12:12):
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Mark Sisson: body the brain has to guess okay how much do i roll that ankle how much do i (12:15):
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Mark Sisson: bend that knee how much do i you know bypass all of the haptic input because (12:19):
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Mark Sisson: of these thick thick cushioned cloudy shoes that i'm wearing that just drives (12:24):
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Mark Sisson: all of the all of forces further up the kinetic chain until the first link breaks yeah. (12:30):
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Erin Power: Well i mean my recovery was astonishingly fast (12:35):
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Erin Power: Mark's like Sisson-esque almost, but I think back to other, you know, (12:39):
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Erin Power: years gone by when I've sprained my ankle and what do I do? (12:42):
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Erin Power: I just bandage it up as tightly as possible in like an ACE bandage and rust (12:45):
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Erin Power: it and don't move. And then you're (12:49):
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Mark Sisson: Kind of like- Lots of ice, ice all the time. Even though you know intuitively, (12:51):
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Mark Sisson: cause it's so fricking uncomfortable. (12:56):
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Mark Sisson: You'd like this ice. It can't be, it can't be good for me, but the doctor says to do it. Right? Yeah. (12:58):
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Erin Power: Yeah. Well, it's so interesting because that ankle roll happened at the top (13:03):
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Erin Power: of the mountain, at the very top. So I'm like, well, I got to get back down to the car. (13:07):
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Erin Power: By the time I got back down to the car, I already felt better. (13:11):
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Erin Power: And then I got home, put my pullevers on, and within two or three days, (13:13):
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Erin Power: I was out trail running again. (13:17):
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Erin Power: Trail running. I'm not pounding the pavement. Don't worry. (13:18):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, exactly. No, no, no. But I mean, the thing about trail (13:21):
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Mark Sisson: running, as you know, is the beauty of it as you get into – do you have the ATRs yet? (13:24):
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Erin Power: No, I'm going to get some. (13:29):
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Mark Sisson: Okay. So the ATRs are the trail runners, a little bit more substantial sidewalls (13:30):
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Mark Sisson: and a little bit more substantial tread, still a great amount of ground field (13:34):
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Mark Sisson: because the beauty of trail running is that you want every step you take to (13:39):
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Mark Sisson: be a different position, right? (13:43):
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Mark Sisson: You want to feel it and you want to kind of go with it. (13:44):
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Mark Sisson: Let the, let the brain accommodate, let the feet accommodate the texture and (13:47):
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Mark Sisson: the tilt of that, of that ground. (13:51):
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Mark Sisson: Again, without, you know, you, it does force you to be very aware of every step (13:53):
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Mark Sisson: you take, right? Which is not a bad thing. (13:58):
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Erin Power: Trail running is like that anyway. Trail running, you have to be hyper aware of your footfall. (14:01):
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Erin Power: You can't be looking ahead of you. You have to be looking down at your feet. (14:04):
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Erin Power: But I couldn't help but wonder if I had been wearing palubas and hit that rock. (14:06):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. (14:11):
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Erin Power: You know, what would I have been fine? (14:13):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah, I, I, you know, who knows, but I would say yes, because, (14:15):
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Mark Sisson: because you would have stumbled in a different way. (14:19):
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Mark Sisson: You know, you would have immediately the brain, like the, like by the time you (14:22):
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Mark Sisson: waited the front foot and it recognized that the rock was uneven or that you (14:26):
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Mark Sisson: were going to, that it was, that (14:30):
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Mark Sisson: it wasn't flat, like you assumed it was going to be. And it was a roll. (14:31):
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Mark Sisson: The ankle would roll just enough, but then you would have bent the knee a little (14:35):
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Mark Sisson: bit more and then stumbled off. Which ankle was it to the right or left? (14:38):
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Erin Power: It was my left. (14:43):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. So you would have rolled off. You would have stumbled off to the left to accommodate that. (14:44):
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Mark Sisson: But, you know, we see that a lot with trail runners who are training in Palovas. (14:49):
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Mark Sisson: They mostly don't run. They mostly either walk, like hike, hike fast, (14:53):
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Mark Sisson: and then run the downhills of the flats. (14:57):
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Erin Power: That's how you do it. (14:59):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. Yeah. (15:00):
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Erin Power: Nice. Well, that's amazing. I was actually chatting with an acquaintance today (15:02):
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Erin Power: at the gym, and she showed up in the gym with this giant knee brace, (15:05):
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Erin Power: one of those immense knee braces. (15:08):
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Erin Power: And I said, oh, my gosh, what happened there? and she had come down weird in (15:10):
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Erin Power: a volleyball game and ruptured her ACL. (15:13):
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Erin Power: And that was just like two or three days ago. And she's at the gym and she was (15:16):
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Erin Power: doing some lunging and she was doing some like bodyweight squatting. (15:18):
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Erin Power: And it was interesting because what she said was like, I'm not getting, (15:22):
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Erin Power: because of the Canadian, the Canadian medical system is not exactly quick, but it's not fast. (15:25):
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Erin Power: She's looking at like maybe an eight month wait for her. (15:30):
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Mark Sisson: Oh my gosh. (15:32):
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Erin Power: Yeah. (15:33):
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Mark Sisson: So she'll be better by then. (15:34):
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Erin Power: Basically, but she's, what she said was kind of what you said was that I don't want to say, (15:36):
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Erin Power: oh ruptured acl better sit on the couch until my surgery she's like i want to (15:40):
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Erin Power: not only just move it so that i go in like biomechanically healthier but but (15:43):
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Erin Power: she said there she felt like there's something almost mental or psychological (15:48):
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Erin Power: about it like i'm still moving i'm still up yeah i'm (15:52):
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Mark Sisson: Still good so well and and so what we say is you do what you can do right with (15:55):
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Mark Sisson: up up to the point of you know mild discomfort you do what you can you are able to do right yeah. (15:59):
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Erin Power: Well mark it seems like it seems like running is pretty dumb. (16:06):
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Erin Power: I've been following you around on podcasts talking about your new book, Born to Walk. (16:12):
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Erin Power: And man, you really make the case that running is (16:17):
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Mark Sisson: Pretty ridiculous it's ridiculous it's not it's not bad for (16:21):
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Mark Sisson: you necessarily it is pretty ridiculous as a (16:24):
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Mark Sisson: as a pursuit for anyone other than (16:27):
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Mark Sisson: a competitive runner yeah so the thesis is this humans are born to walk we are (16:30):
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Mark Sisson: absolutely born to be mobile outside magazine just today posted a thing about (16:37):
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Mark Sisson: longevity and the number one marker for longevity is is is constant movement (16:41):
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Mark Sisson: throughout the day it's not running it's not lifting it's not it's not biohacking it's. (16:45):
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Erin Power: Almost like you've been saying that for 20 years you (16:49):
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Mark Sisson: Know it's it's by the way i don't know if you saw my so i did respond (16:51):
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Mark Sisson: i said i've been saying this for 20 years and but it it (16:54):
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Mark Sisson: is so so humans are born to walk it we're bipedal it's (16:57):
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Mark Sisson: bizarre that there are not many bipedal animals like name me five other bipedal (17:00):
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Mark Sisson: animals that don't have feathers or or a long tail that they're standing on (17:04):
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Mark Sisson: and yet and so that requires that we're always constantly moving and our digestive (17:08):
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Mark Sisson: systems require that you know they want us to be moving along. (17:14):
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Mark Sisson: Our lymphatic system, for sure, works on the basis of constant body movement. (17:18):
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Mark Sisson: Our balance and our overall just proprioception demands that we move a lot. (17:22):
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Mark Sisson: Again, we move through time and space and planes and ranges of motion. (17:28):
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Mark Sisson: And walking is the quintessential human movement. So a book came out 15 years (17:31):
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Mark Sisson: ago called Born to Run, and it posited that humans are are born runners, (17:36):
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Mark Sisson: that we have the genetics, (17:41):
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Mark Sisson: whether it's the ability to cool ourselves much better than most other animals (17:43):
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Mark Sisson: so we can track an animal and chase an animal on the savannas of Africa. (17:48):
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Mark Sisson: And when they're going to overheat and just have to stop, we can run up and jab a spear in them. (17:51):
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Mark Sisson: Or we have this nuchal ligament in the back of our neck that keeps our head (17:56):
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Mark Sisson: from bobbing like other animals don't have when they're running. (17:59):
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Mark Sisson: We're thin, we have narrow hips, all of these things that anthropologists have (18:04):
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Mark Sisson: somehow interpreted as meaning that we are born to run. (18:09):
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Mark Sisson: And my take and Brad's take on this is that we're born to walk. (18:14):
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Mark Sisson: We're born to be able to run and that's great. (18:18):
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Mark Sisson: We're born to be able to walk and sprint. And believe me, our ancestors sprinted (18:21):
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Mark Sisson: quite often to get away from something that was going to kill them or to sprint (18:25):
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Mark Sisson: towards something that they needed to eat. (18:29):
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Mark Sisson: But our ancestors did not in any stretch walk or they didn't run every day. (18:31):
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Mark Sisson: They didn't run metronomically seven, eight, nine minute miles every day as (18:38):
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Mark Sisson: some fun thing to do, or even as training for life. (18:42):
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Mark Sisson: It was antithetical to health for any of our ancestors to spend any amount of (18:46):
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Mark Sisson: energy doing this ridiculous thing like running. (18:50):
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Mark Sisson: Seven, eight, nine minute miles. Now, so we're born to walk, (18:54):
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Mark Sisson: we're born to be able to run. (18:57):
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Mark Sisson: And so the concept of the persistence hunt, that's the big anthropological evidence (18:59):
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Mark Sisson: they show is that our ancestors grew large brains, (19:03):
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Mark Sisson: partly because of their access to meat, which was partly a result of being able (19:06):
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Mark Sisson: to track large beasts and eat quality protein and quality fat. (19:10):
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Mark Sisson: But our ancestors, if you've ever seen even a modern day, you know, (19:15):
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Mark Sisson: sort of a ancestral hunt, it's not running, it's It's walking and tracking and (19:18):
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Mark Sisson: sniffing and crouching and stopping and sprinting and running and hiding and (19:23):
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Mark Sisson: all these things for two hours. (19:26):
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Mark Sisson: It's like a Spartan race to catch up to a beast and then to spirit or put an (19:29):
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Mark Sisson: arrow through it or whatever it is you're going to do once in a while. (19:34):
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Mark Sisson: So our ancestors were, by virtue of their lives, their lifestyle, (19:37):
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Mark Sisson: they walked a lot, did heavy things, and they sprinted once in a while. (19:41):
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Mark Sisson: Three primal blueprint laws. (19:44):
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Mark Sisson: We're able to then go do a persistence hunt every three, four, (19:46):
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Mark Sisson: five days, every week, whatever. (19:50):
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Mark Sisson: But after they'd done a hunt, they weren't like, oh, my belly's full. (19:52):
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Mark Sisson: I think I'll go on, run seven miles and run off this, you know, this big meal. (19:56):
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Mark Sisson: No, it was ridiculous. So we're not born to run. (20:01):
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Mark Sisson: Now cut to today's modern society where we have the running boom evolved from, (20:05):
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Mark Sisson: I think, a perfect storm of events. (20:13):
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Mark Sisson: Number one, there was an interest in cardiac fitness. There was reducing heart (20:15):
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Mark Sisson: attacks, which was a new big thing that only came on the scene in the 50s and (20:21):
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Mark Sisson: 60s after Eisenhower had his heart attack. (20:24):
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Mark Sisson: And it brought to light this idea that people needed to take care of their cardiovascular system. (20:26):
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Mark Sisson: So Ken Cooper wrote a book in 1968 called Aerobics. And it suggested that the (20:32):
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Mark Sisson: more high activity stuff that you did that raised your heart rate, (20:37):
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Mark Sisson: the stronger your heart would be and you'd live longer. (20:40):
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Mark Sisson: He actually recanted that about 10 or 12 years later saying, (20:43):
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Mark Sisson: wait, wait, wait, there's a point at which it's too much. (20:46):
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Mark Sisson: And then the big thing was in the early 70s when Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman (20:49):
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Mark Sisson: invented a thick cushioned running shoe. (20:55):
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Mark Sisson: But they invented these thick cushion running shoes so that great runners could (20:58):
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Mark Sisson: run more longer distance and compete on a world circuit. (21:03):
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Mark Sisson: Now, understand that in the 1970s, first of all, there weren't many overweight (21:07):
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Mark Sisson: people and no overweight people were running. (21:10):
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Mark Sisson: Like to think that a fat person will go out and start running to lose weight (21:14):
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Mark Sisson: was it just made no sense at all. And no one did it. (21:17):
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Mark Sisson: The only people who ran in the 1960s and 70s were runners. (21:20):
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Mark Sisson: They were skinny people like myself who had self-selected, because of genetics. (21:23):
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Mark Sisson: Ectomorphs with good lung capacity, with a high tolerance for pain and discomfort, (21:28):
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Mark Sisson: and who couldn't play other sports because of their ectomorphic bodies. (21:32):
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Mark Sisson: So we all gravitated toward, we were all good runners, right? We all ran well. (21:38):
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Mark Sisson: We all ran with good form. And then Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight create these (21:43):
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Mark Sisson: shoes that are thick and cushioned, and it allows these great runners to put in more miles. (21:46):
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Mark Sisson: I was one of them. I went from running 40 or 50 miles a week maximum, (21:52):
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Mark Sisson: because all we had was thin, thin, minimalist shoes, to being able to run 100, 120 miles a week. (21:55):
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Mark Sisson: Now, I got injured as a result of all those miles and a result of those thick (22:01):
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Mark Sisson: cushioned shoes, which is one of the reasons I created Paloova. (22:05):
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Mark Sisson: But what happened, and the real tipping point was when Jim Fix wrote a book (22:08):
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Mark Sisson: called The Book of Running, Complete Book of Running, and Frank Shorter wins (22:13):
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Mark Sisson: a gold medal in the marathon in the Olympics in 1972. And now the running boom starts to take shape. (22:17):
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Mark Sisson: And now between Ken Cooper's book on aerobics and these new shoes. (22:22):
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Mark Sisson: Everybody starts to take up jogging and running and it becomes this thing. (22:27):
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Mark Sisson: And then marathons become the sort of holy grail, like the life, (22:32):
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Mark Sisson: the bucket list item, like the New Year's resolution. (22:36):
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Mark Sisson: And a lot of people said, well, I'm going to, I want to lose 30 pounds or 40 pounds or 50 pounds. (22:40):
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Mark Sisson: I'm going to start training for a marathon and that'll be my goal. and (22:44):
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Mark Sisson: lo and behold we have now decades of people who (22:47):
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Mark Sisson: have taken up running in the name (22:51):
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Mark Sisson: of better health weight loss improved cardiovascular (22:53):
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Mark Sisson: fitness and have been um horribly disappointed by the results yes there are (22:57):
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Mark Sisson: some people who've done well some you know again runners who are self-selected (23:04):
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Mark Sisson: to run should be running but anybody looks 75 percent of the country in the (23:09):
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Mark Sisson: u.s is overweight or obese, should not be running. (23:13):
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Mark Sisson: Now, how do I define should not be running? Well, one of the biggest issues (23:17):
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Mark Sisson: with running day in and day out is most people run at a heart rate that's too (23:21):
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Mark Sisson: high for them. It's too stressful and too disruptive. (23:25):
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Mark Sisson: Now, they think because they're sweating and they're grunting and struggling (23:30):
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Mark Sisson: and suffering that it's valuable and that they're. (23:33):
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Mark Sisson: In fact, most people are running at a heart rate that's too high to be burning (23:37):
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Mark Sisson: fat, so they're mostly burning glycogen. (23:41):
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Mark Sisson: Now, the effect of that is they get home and they're wickedly hungry, (23:44):
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Mark Sisson: and the brain says we have to go eat more calories because we burn through all (23:47):
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Mark Sisson: of our glycogen, so they carb a load every day. (23:50):
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Mark Sisson: So it's too high a heart rate to be burning fat, and it's too low a heart rate (23:53):
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Mark Sisson: to be improving their times. (23:58):
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Mark Sisson: And so over the years, you see even people who would call themselves marathoners (24:00):
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Mark Sisson: who run a 330 or a 350 marathon, and they run four of them or five of them a year, (24:05):
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Mark Sisson: and their times never get better because they're training in this, (24:10):
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Mark Sisson: they're in this zone where they're not getting any better and they haven't learned (24:14):
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Mark Sisson: how to burn fat because they're training at too high a heart rate to burn fat. (24:18):
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Mark Sisson: What we call the no man's land. (24:21):
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Mark Sisson: And, you know, we talked about this in the original book, Primal Endurance. (24:23):
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Mark Sisson: Brad and I talked about it 10 years ago on Primal Endurance. (24:27):
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Mark Sisson: And it's a big part of the Primal Fitness Program at the Primal Health Coach (24:29):
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Mark Sisson: Institute, is how do you figure out a way to optimize your workout routine where (24:34):
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Mark Sisson: you're burning fat, you're building muscle, (24:40):
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Mark Sisson: you're sparing muscle tissue, and you're improving mitochondrial biogenesis. (24:42):
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Mark Sisson: You have more energy. You're not beat up and burned out and sick all the time (24:48):
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Mark Sisson: or injured because of your training. (24:53):
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Mark Sisson: And yet the running community is full of burned out, sick, tired, (24:55):
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Mark Sisson: injured people who can't wait to get over their injury to go back and do it again the same way. (24:59):
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Mark Sisson: And you know the saying about the definition of insanity is doing the same thing (25:05):
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Mark Sisson: over and over again, expecting a different result. (25:10):
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Mark Sisson: And yet people who run day in and day out for years and years trying to lose (25:12):
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Mark Sisson: that extra 10 pounds or 20 pounds or trying to improve their time or trying to... (25:17):
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Mark Sisson: It's just, it's antithetical to health for most people to run. (25:22):
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Mark Sisson: By the way, it's even antithetical to health for runners to run. (25:27):
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Mark Sisson: I'm just saying, if you're a good runner and you want to compete, go for it. (25:30):
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Mark Sisson: There's a cost attached. I pay the price. (25:34):
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Mark Sisson: A lot of runners that I know pay the price. A lot of triathletes pay the price. (25:37):
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Mark Sisson: That's fine. It's a choice you're making willingly and knowingly that in order (25:41):
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Mark Sisson: to win that gold medal or beat your age group, win your age group for whatever (25:46):
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Mark Sisson: local event it is, there's a price to pay. (25:52):
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Mark Sisson: But it is not a great choice for improving health, weight loss, (25:54):
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Mark Sisson: improving cardiorespiratory fitness. (25:58):
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Mark Sisson: There are so many other better ways to go about this that are kinder and gentler. (26:00):
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Mark Sisson: I mean, at the end of the day, here's one of the things that I say. (26:06):
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Mark Sisson: Running is catabolic. Yes. Full stop. (26:10):
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Mark Sisson: Walking is anabolic. And at the very least, it's anti-catabolic. (26:13):
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Mark Sisson: But running is catabolic. You have to understand that running is catabolic. (26:17):
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Mark Sisson: The reason that top runners are so freaking skinny is because it's catabolic. (26:20):
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Mark Sisson: And all those runners go to the gym and they all lift weights. (26:26):
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Mark Sisson: They're all trying to get stronger, but they can't keep muscle on because running is catabolic. (26:28):
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Mark Sisson: If you look at a bodybuilder who is trying to maintain every single ounce of (26:33):
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Mark Sisson: muscle they build or a weightlifter, every bit of strength and power that he (26:37):
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Mark Sisson: or she wants to maintain, they do not want to lose it, (26:44):
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Mark Sisson: they will still walk after a workout. (26:47):
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Mark Sisson: They won't run. They will walk after a workout because running helps improve circulation. (26:49):
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Mark Sisson: It burns fat, and all those guys want to burn fat too, and it's not catabolic. (26:55):
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Mark Sisson: It's not tearing down muscle tissue. Right. (27:00):
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Erin Power: Hi, it's Erin Power here, co-host of Health Coach Radio. (27:03):
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Erin Power: Fitness has always been a part of my life. I used to train clients one-on-one (27:07):
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Erin Power: and I still teach group exercise classes to this day. (27:11):
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Erin Power: Fitness is how I got started on my journey to health coaching. (27:14):
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Erin Power: Working as a fitness trainer, I always wanted to go deeper than the reps and (27:18):
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Erin Power: help my clients incorporate fitness and movement into every aspect of their lives. (27:22):
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Erin Power: I instinctively knew that reaching fitness goals depends on pulling the focus (27:26):
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Erin Power: from performance and putting it on holistic, sustainable change. (27:31):
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Erin Power: And that's exactly what the Primal Fitness Coach Certification shows coaches how to do. (27:35):
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Erin Power: Your clients deserve to move better, feel better, be pain-free, (27:40):
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Erin Power: enjoy exercise, and love their bodies. (27:45):
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Erin Power: The Primal Fitness Coach Certification teaches you how to train people to be (27:48):
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Erin Power: fit for life, to avoid injuries, increase mobility, develop lean muscle mass, (27:52):
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Erin Power: protect joints, and optimize metabolic health. (27:58):
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Erin Power: This well-rounded functional fitness certification (28:00):
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Erin Power: covers best practices for daily movement strength training (28:04):
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Erin Power: and conditioning hit exercises sprinting and more it also includes practical (28:07):
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Erin Power: hands-on coaching training and business development lessons to help you launch (28:14):
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Erin Power: and grow a profitable fitness coaching business visit primalhealthcoach.com (28:17):
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Erin Power: to learn more about the primal fitness coach certification. (28:22):
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Erin Power: Yeah, that's the walking being anabolic. Hell yeah, that's that that is so obvious (28:27):
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Erin Power: to me. It doesn't seem obvious. (28:34):
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Erin Power: And I want to get into it a little bit because walking is having a bit of a (28:36):
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Erin Power: boom, at least in my peer group, the, you know, the perimenopausal realm. (28:39):
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Erin Power: But but when we had the lockdowns, I mean, five years ago, remember lockdown? Yeah. (28:44):
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Erin Power: And my gym closed. I just walked. I just walked and walked and walked. (28:49):
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Erin Power: And then when the gyms would sporadically open again, I would get back up under (28:52):
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Erin Power: the bar and I didn't have any loss of strength. (28:55):
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Erin Power: I had no loss of strength on squats from walking. (28:58):
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Erin Power: And I think there's the, you know, that's what humans are built for, (29:02):
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Erin Power: as we know we're born for that. (29:05):
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Erin Power: Like all of our biomechanics and even like our DNA is expecting us to walk. (29:07):
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Erin Power: So it truly is like the most human building, one of the most human building (29:13):
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Erin Power: anabolic endeavors, truly. (29:18):
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Erin Power: And I remember going on my walks and feeling like whenever I do go for a walk, (29:20):
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Erin Power: it's like, this feels strong. (29:23):
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Erin Power: It's interesting because I don't even put it in the category of cardio anymore. (29:24):
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Erin Power: It's not even like a fat burning thing. It is I'm building out my body here. (29:28):
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Mark Sisson: Right. And cardio and fat burning are two different things anyways. (29:31):
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Mark Sisson: Right. So fat burning is, is what it is. You're, you're burning fat. (29:34):
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Mark Sisson: You and I are burning fat sitting here talking, isn't that? We're chewing the (29:37):
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Mark Sisson: fat and we're burning the fat. (29:41):
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Erin Power: That's right. Right. (29:42):
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Mark Sisson: And I, I almost guarantee you that if you, If you, like so many people, (29:43):
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Mark Sisson: had started running during COVID and then went to the gym, you would have lost (29:47):
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Mark Sisson: strength and power and speed. (29:52):
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Erin Power: One, so you mentioned this a second ago and I'd heard you say this on somebody (29:55):
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Erin Power: else's podcast that might've been Chalene Johnson. (29:58):
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Erin Power: I don't know. One of the, one of the ones you had done talking about your book (29:59):
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Erin Power: and I don't know why this had never occurred to me, but you know, (30:02):
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Erin Power: I'm a recovering cardio bunny, you know, from the nineties and two thousands. (30:05):
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Erin Power: Yep. And I would do these high intensity black hole fitness classes, (30:10):
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Erin Power: you know, two hours a day as a minute, at a minimum in that zone three, (30:13):
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Erin Power: zone four areas, sort of zone. (30:17):
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Mark Sisson: No man's land, black hole. (30:20):
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Erin Power: Yep. (30:21):
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Mark Sisson: Yep. (30:22):
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Erin Power: And I always, when I reflect back on it, I say, I was always tired, (30:22):
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Erin Power: I was always injured, and I was always hungry. (30:26):
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Erin Power: And what you said was, we've burned through our glycogen, and now the body is (30:28):
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Erin Power: in a hurry to replenish it. (30:34):
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Erin Power: And that makes absolute sense to me, like metabolically. Like whatever about (30:36):
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Erin Power: carbs, you know, carb burning, fat burning, the body needs to have its stores (30:40):
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Erin Power: of glycogen at all times. So if they're gone, the body's like, (30:44):
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Erin Power: we got to get that back immediately just in case we have to go run away from a bear, right? (30:47):
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Erin Power: The glycogen has to be there. You just spent it in an orange theory glass. You got to put it back in. (30:50):
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Erin Power: What I think is really interesting about that is like, it's a more intelligent (30:55):
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Erin Power: approach to like the metabolic aspect of exercise than the calorie burning. (30:59):
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Erin Power: Because we're sure we're burning, you know, I don't know, 700 calories on that (31:06):
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Erin Power: run, but the body doesn't even run on calories. (31:09):
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Erin Power: It runs on these fuel substrates and it has to keep the balance of fuel substrates. (31:11):
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Erin Power: So the hunger that you feel after the workout isn't like, oh, (31:15):
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Erin Power: I burned so many calories. (31:18):
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Erin Power: I just earned these nachos or whatever. (31:19):
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Erin Power: It's your body really, you know, like dramatically encouraging you to replenish (31:22):
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Erin Power: glycogen, which has to be just present in the muscles. (31:27):
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Mark Sisson: I think that's really helpful. Well, and so a couple of comments to that effect. (31:29):
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Mark Sisson: One is when you learn when you become metabolically efficient and metabolically flexible, (31:33):
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Mark Sisson: like we talk about all the time in the primal blueprint and on the, (31:39):
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Mark Sisson: in the Institute, when you've, when you've learned how to become metabolically (31:43):
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Mark Sisson: flexible, the body does very well on stored body fat. (31:46):
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Mark Sisson: And so it sort of, it, it, it obviates the need to tap into glycogen all day (31:51):
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Mark Sisson: long and to, and to draw down the liver stores and all the things that, that tend to happen. (31:56):
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Mark Sisson: And then the brain gets pretty good at we're running very good at running on (32:01):
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Mark Sisson: ketones and almost prefers ketones over glucose well (32:04):
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Mark Sisson: if you're not metabolically adapted if you're not metabolically flexible (32:07):
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Mark Sisson: if you haven't done the work train your body both through diet and through exercise (32:10):
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Mark Sisson: but primarily through diet to become metabolically flexible then when you go (32:14):
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Mark Sisson: out and do this hard workout and your watch says i burned 700 calories and you (32:18):
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Mark Sisson: go well and and then but what it is is it's all glycogen that's been depleted (32:22):
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Mark Sisson: from your muscles goals. (32:28):
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Mark Sisson: And then the brain, which you have not trained to run on ketones yet, (32:29):
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Mark Sisson: the brain is now low in glucose. Glucose, glycogen are the same thing. (32:34):
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Mark Sisson: The brain says, oh my God, we're like, we're blowing blood sugar. (32:37):
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Mark Sisson: We're going to, we have to, we have to compensate. (32:40):
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Mark Sisson: And so there is this automatic compensation that happens where you don't even (32:43):
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Mark Sisson: know what's going on. It's conscious, it's subconscious, it's unconscious. (32:46):
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Mark Sisson: You eat more calories than you just burned with the body trying to replenish the glycogen. (32:49):
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Mark Sisson: In addition, typically after a workout that is too stressful, (32:57):
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Mark Sisson: too strenuous for most people, you get back from that workout. (33:00):
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Mark Sisson: And again, the body has this survival mechanism that says, okay, (33:05):
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Mark Sisson: we're going to do less work throughout the day. We are not going to go rake the leaves. (33:09):
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Mark Sisson: We're not going to go play catch with the sun. (33:13):
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Mark Sisson: We're not going to go teach the daughter how to ride the bicycle. (33:16):
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Mark Sisson: We're not going to walk around and walk to the store. and we're just going to (33:19):
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Mark Sisson: sit on the sofa and, and, and rest and recover. (33:23):
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Mark Sisson: I was an athlete and that's, that's how my body reacted. After I do a hundred (33:27):
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Mark Sisson: mile ride, I probably would have been better off, (33:31):
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Mark Sisson: you know, walking around a little bit, but my body was saying, (33:33):
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Mark Sisson: and I didn't know any better, take a nap, take a nap, you know, (33:36):
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Mark Sisson: just, just compensate for all of the stuff that you just did, (33:38):
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Mark Sisson: all the work you just did, (33:41):
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Mark Sisson: especially tapping into glycogen stores and, you know, and, and then compensate (33:42):
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Mark Sisson: by overeating and under, under moving, if you will. (33:47):
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Mark Sisson: Meanwhile, if you are walking, walking stimulates lipase activity, (33:51):
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Mark Sisson: which stimulates the presence of fat as an energy substrate to be burned. (33:56):
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Mark Sisson: So a lot of people are on a diet who would otherwise go out and run three miles (34:02):
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Mark Sisson: and then come back and be hungry. (34:06):
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Mark Sisson: I would say if you're on a diet, a new way of eating and you're not used to (34:07):
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Mark Sisson: it yet, and you feel hunger pangs, go walk for 20 minutes. (34:12):
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Mark Sisson: And when you walk for 20 minutes, not only will you not be near the refrigerator, (34:16):
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Mark Sisson: but you'll also be stimulating a new source of energy in this very mild, (34:19):
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Mark Sisson: low-level aerobic activity that's causing your body to tap into fast doors and (34:26):
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Mark Sisson: create energy from that. (34:31):
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Mark Sisson: For the atp that you just mentioned and then you'll you'll come back from the walk energized. (34:32):
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Mark Sisson: Refreshed not hungry and ready to go on and do whatever you have to do until (34:39):
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Mark Sisson: the next meal time comes around and it's time for you to eat so walking is a great strategy for, (34:43):
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Mark Sisson: for getting rid of hunger and appetite and cravings running is the opposite (34:49):
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Mark Sisson: strategy of that you go run now you're even hungry after you've after you've done that that's. (34:53):
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Erin Power: Interesting because that's the whole idea of, well, if you feel hungry, just go take a walk. (34:58):
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Erin Power: I've heard that platitude over the years, but from an evolutionary, (35:02):
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Erin Power: I guess, biology standpoint, it kind of goes back to the persistence hunter. (35:06):
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Erin Power: This is how I like to think of it. (35:10):
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Erin Power: So if we're in our DNA, we're persistence hunters, we have to outwalk the animal ostensibly. (35:12):
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Erin Power: Well, as soon as you start walking, your body doesn't know that you're only going for 20 minutes. (35:18):
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Erin Power: It thinks you're trying to outwalk a wildebeest, right? So it's sort of like, (35:23):
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Erin Power: I feel like it triggers that sort of ancient genetic messaging. (35:27):
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Erin Power: Oh, we're going for a persistence hunt. We're going to be gone for seven hours. (35:31):
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Erin Power: And it just starts liberating that slow fuel from storage. (35:35):
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Erin Power: So you're essentially feeding yourself off of yourself. (35:38):
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Erin Power: And really, it truly does. It really does resolve hunger because you just start (35:40):
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Erin Power: sort of snacking off of your own. (35:44):
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Mark Sisson: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Now, in the book, in Border Walk, what we don't want (35:47):
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Mark Sisson: to do is we want to give runners permission to walk. (35:52):
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Mark Sisson: That's number one. But we also don't want to take away the joy of running for (35:54):
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Mark Sisson: people who claim to love running. (36:00):
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Mark Sisson: I would question that in many cases. Same. (36:03):
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Erin Power: I also would question that. (36:05):
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Mark Sisson: You know, it's like, okay, you tell me you love running, but I would suggest (36:06):
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Mark Sisson: that you love having run. (36:09):
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Mark Sisson: You love telling people you're a runner, but the act of running is probably not what you love. (36:11):
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Mark Sisson: And in fact, if you're wearing headphones and listening to Thrasher music to (36:17):
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Mark Sisson: get you through the workout, you probably don't love running. (36:20):
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Mark Sisson: You just love beating yourself up and then feeling better about having done (36:23):
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Mark Sisson: it at the end i mean we have a section of the book dedicated to what we call (36:26):
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Mark Sisson: the obligate runner the person who feels that their life is not complete unless (36:30):
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Mark Sisson: they run every day even if they're not that, (36:33):
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Mark Sisson: adapted to running if they're not that fast or not that good at this the fact (36:36):
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Mark Sisson: that they feel they their day is not complete without running all of this can (36:40):
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Mark Sisson: be addressed again in a much kinder, (36:44):
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Mark Sisson: gentler way with walking and lifting (36:47):
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Mark Sisson: weights in the gym and yes a little bit of sprinting i would love for people (36:50):
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Mark Sisson: to sprint you know me i'm a huge fan of sprinting right but it's (36:53):
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Mark Sisson: this idea that somehow you have to run three four (36:57):
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Mark Sisson: five seven times a week to call yourself a (37:00):
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Mark Sisson: runner i would say what if i got a program together where (37:03):
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Mark Sisson: you walked at a heart rate that was optimizing your fat burning we call it you (37:06):
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Mark Sisson: know max it's a math rate it's a fat we call it fat max rate in the book but (37:11):
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Mark Sisson: it's not it's the heart rate at which and below which you are only burning fat (37:17):
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Mark Sisson: or most you 98% of your energy is coming from fat, (37:21):
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Mark Sisson: but above which you stop burning fat and you start burning more and more glycogen. (37:24):
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Mark Sisson: So you don't wanna be in that realm. (37:28):
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Mark Sisson: Every day. You want to be in it once in a while. I'm okay with you being in it once in a while. (37:30):
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Mark Sisson: So the difference between somebody who says, well, I run five days a week, (37:33):
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Mark Sisson: so I call myself a runner. (37:40):
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Mark Sisson: And I run four miles a time, so that's 20 miles a week. (37:42):
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Mark Sisson: And my answer is, well, what if you only ran once a week, but you ran faster (37:45):
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Mark Sisson: as a result of the other work you did? (37:50):
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Mark Sisson: Would you not call yourself a runner anymore? Because now you're running even (37:52):
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Mark Sisson: better than you were before, and you're not beat up and you're running with (37:57):
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Mark Sisson: great form so you're not getting injured. (38:00):
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Mark Sisson: And again, I'll let you run, but I want you to run in a way that serves you (38:02):
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Mark Sisson: in the longer purpose of being cardiovascularly fit, stronger, (38:08):
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Mark Sisson: not getting sick, not getting injured and living longer. Does that sound like a good idea? (38:12):
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Erin Power: Yeah, it's interesting. It's that sort of punitive element that we apply to (38:18):
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Erin Power: these kinds of endeavors. (38:22):
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Mark Sisson: It hurts, so it must be good for me, right? (38:24):
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Erin Power: Yeah. But I like that you factored that into the book. (38:26):
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Erin Power: I was going to actually ask you this question because, you know, (38:29):
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Erin Power: I get this question a lot from my clients who are women my age who also are (38:31):
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Erin Power: recovering cardio bunnies. (38:34):
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Erin Power: And it's like, they'll say, but I like my body pump class. I like my orange (38:37):
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Erin Power: theory class, these black hole moments. (38:40):
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Erin Power: And I feel like, I wanted to get your take on this actually. (38:43):
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Erin Power: So yeah, sprinting, you know, we call that zone five, that's the pure glycolytic expression. (38:47):
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Erin Power: And then there's the, you know, zone two, which is the aerobic, (38:51):
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Erin Power: but then there's three and four which is the black hole but sometimes i think (38:53):
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Erin Power: you've said that your fat bike rides (38:56):
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Mark Sisson: Love it i don't yeah exactly i don't say stay away from those i just say, (38:58):
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Mark Sisson: train to be able to excel in those zones once in a while. (39:04):
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Mark Sisson: So just like, you know, our ancestors had long periods of boredom interrupted (39:11):
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Mark Sisson: by moments of sheer terror where their heart rate went, you know, (39:18):
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Mark Sisson: skyrocketed, a training should be that in many cases, (39:22):
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Mark Sisson: long periods of low level and low cardio output moving around a lot walking (39:26):
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Mark Sisson: easy cycling whatever you want to do 80 85 percent of your work during the week (39:31):
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Mark Sisson: twice a week in the gym intense high intensity weight lifting weight training (39:36):
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Mark Sisson: whatever you want to call it sprint once in a while and then my so i used to race, (39:40):
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Mark Sisson: every week every weekend i was going through (39:47):
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Mark Sisson: some old clippings newspaper clippings and old (39:49):
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Mark Sisson: magazines norcal running review and all these (39:52):
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Mark Sisson: when running was huge in the 70s i was in every freaking race (39:55):
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Mark Sisson: every weekend and it was amazing there were there were so many (39:58):
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Mark Sisson: races i don't have any i don't race anymore so once (40:01):
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Mark Sisson: a week my race is i get on (40:04):
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Mark Sisson: my fat bike and i go do try to do an hour between zones three four and five (40:07):
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Mark Sisson: i try to spend most of the time in zone four you know so say 70 in zone four (40:12):
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Mark Sisson: 30 in zone three and 10 in zone five that's my race okay so but i the rest of (40:18):
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Mark Sisson: the week, I trained for it. (40:24):
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Mark Sisson: I didn't beat myself up. I didn't, what runners do in a lot of endurance athletes, (40:26):
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Mark Sisson: they practice hurting every day. (40:31):
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Mark Sisson: There's no, there's no method to getting better at what you're doing. (40:33):
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Mark Sisson: They practice hurting every day. (40:37):
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Mark Sisson: My method is train my aerobic system on one or two days a week, (40:38):
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Mark Sisson: pure aerobics, train my strength, power, and speed two days a week. (40:43):
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Mark Sisson: And then one day a week (40:47):
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Mark Sisson: put them all together and do an hour and 20 (40:50):
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Mark Sisson: minute hard ride of which one hour is kind of (40:53):
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Mark Sisson: a within that warm up and cool down on either side (40:56):
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Mark Sisson: is a dedicated race for me now i'm (40:59):
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Mark Sisson: not racing anybody well i i sort of am if i ride with friends but but but that's (41:01):
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Mark Sisson: that that's once a week and that's how and then i i ratchet up my fitness doing (41:08):
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Mark Sisson: it once in a while I would say the same thing to any citizen runner who wants (41:13):
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Mark Sisson: to run in the turkey trot or the 5k, (41:17):
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Mark Sisson: whatever the, whatever the local race is, trained, trained, (41:20):
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Mark Sisson: precisely train your aerobic system, train your power and speed, (41:24):
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Mark Sisson: don't get injured, learn good form, and then once a week practice running. (41:28):
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Mark Sisson: But not every day. Don't just go beat yourself up in no man's land in the black (41:33):
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Mark Sisson: hole of training every single day because you won't get faster, (41:38):
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Mark Sisson: you will get injured, you won't lose weight. (41:44):
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Mark Sisson: I mean, all these things that you say you don't want to do you're actually creating (41:46):
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Mark Sisson: by choosing this type of training. (41:51):
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Erin Power: Yeah interesting yeah i think i think for the woman that i talked to and you (41:53):
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Erin Power: know even even your fat bike experience experience and you know my trail running (41:58):
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Erin Power: whatever is it's the exhilaration it's the soul food of it so as an occasional (42:02):
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Erin Power: thing it's not problematic it's it's problematic when (42:07):
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Erin Power: you're anchoring to that as your one and only method to get fit and lose weight (42:10):
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Erin Power: and maintain your health. (42:15):
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Erin Power: It's just, it's totally to your earlier point, counterintuitive or, or contrary to that. (42:17):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. The other thing that we came up with recently, and I, if you've read any (42:21):
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Mark Sisson: of Robert Lustig's work, you know, that the hacking of the American mind and (42:24):
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Mark Sisson: the concept of dopamine and serotonin, right? (42:29):
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Mark Sisson: Running is dopamine, walking is serotonin. Yeah. Full stop. Yeah. Mic drop. (42:32):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. You get what I'm saying though? (42:38):
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Erin Power: I do. Yeah. (42:39):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. So, so running is that quick kid it's that (42:40):
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Mark Sisson: it's that endorphin rush and people say well i i love the (42:43):
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Mark Sisson: runner's high well look the runner's high is a survival mechanism which (42:46):
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Mark Sisson: is basically telling you that you just survive the life (42:49):
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Mark Sisson: or death experience and what you're going to go do it again tomorrow and in (42:52):
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Mark Sisson: the next day and the next day just because you can just because you have access (42:55):
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Mark Sisson: to unlimited amounts of carbohydrates to go refill the glycogen stores and and (42:59):
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Mark Sisson: beat yourself up every single day it it It's a dangerous cycle that we put ourselves on. (43:04):
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Mark Sisson: And again, in the name of chasing this ephemeral runner's high, (43:10):
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Mark Sisson: that is, oh, it's certainly better than an addiction to drugs. (43:15):
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Mark Sisson: Well, not really. It's different. It's not better. It's different. (43:18):
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Erin Power: See, now I'm thinking about endorphins. I just want to pick your brain on this. (43:22):
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Erin Power: This just totally came out of thin air, but like the runner's high is typically (43:26):
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Erin Power: attributed to like endorphins or adrenaline. I don't know. Are those the same? I have no idea. (43:30):
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Mark Sisson: No, no. And endorphins are an encephalins. (43:34):
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Mark Sisson: They're a morphine-like substance produced by the brain in response to a huge (43:38):
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Mark Sisson: effort, the likes of which the body has not encountered on a regular basis for (43:42):
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Mark Sisson: some time. Endorphins are what... (43:47):
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Mark Sisson: So an example of the endorphin effect would be, we go on this persistence hunt. (43:50):
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Mark Sisson: We're out there two and a half, three hours chasing a wildebeest. (43:56):
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Mark Sisson: We're seven miles away from camp and we failed. We didn't get the beast. (44:00):
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Mark Sisson: Are we just going to curl up in a ball and cry and die? No. (44:06):
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Mark Sisson: Endorphins allow us to at least maintain this positive attitude to get us back (44:11):
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Mark Sisson: to camp and get us back to homeostasis. (44:17):
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Mark Sisson: Endorphins are secreted when a zebra is being eaten alive by a lion for 20 minutes (44:21):
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Mark Sisson: to allow for a peaceful death rather than a dramatic screaming fest. (44:27):
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Mark Sisson: So they have an evolutionary basis, but it's not necessarily a good thing in (44:35):
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Mark Sisson: the context of today's civilization. (44:45):
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Mark Sisson: Now, again, dopamine versus serotonin. (44:48):
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Mark Sisson: Serotonin is sort of a long-term feel-good hormone that we produce as a result (44:52):
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Mark Sisson: of an effort that satisfies and allows us to be content. (44:57):
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Mark Sisson: You know, dopamine is like this, a rush that we get from sugar and from sex (45:02):
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Mark Sisson: and from, you know, devices and things like that. (45:09):
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Mark Sisson: So we live in a society now where we're chasing a dopamine hit every 40 seconds, (45:11):
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Mark Sisson: whereas we should probably be, we would be better off chasing the serotonin, (45:18):
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Mark Sisson: the long-term effects of the serotonin, which result from more of a positive (45:24):
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Mark Sisson: type outcome and a positive type stress. (45:29):
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Erin Power: Yeah, it's just wild because, I mean, as you described endorphins and how this (45:31):
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Erin Power: sort of feel-good body chemical kicks in when you are in peril, (45:38):
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Erin Power: essentially, and you need to just muster up some last will to live or whatever, (45:43):
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Erin Power: it's not great. It actually doesn't have a positive origin. (45:49):
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Erin Power: It's wild that we have attributed the runner's high, the endorphins of whatever, (45:52):
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Erin Power: when it's like this is sort of like on the fringes of aliveness when you experience it. (45:57):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. No, no, no. I was one of the people that tapped into the runner's high to my detriment. (46:04):
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Mark Sisson: I mean, my career ended as a result of an endorphin high that lasted five days. (46:12):
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Mark Sisson: And I, I, I was at the peak of my career and felt that I could go out and run (46:17):
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Mark Sisson: five consecutive 20 mile runs in five days. (46:21):
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Mark Sisson: Now people do this, you know, all the time now that you'll hear people doing (46:24):
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Mark Sisson: running a marathon a day, but they're not running six minute miles like I was doing. (46:29):
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Mark Sisson: So I was running, I did 25 consecutive 20 mile runs, each one faster than the (46:34):
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Mark Sisson: previous one, because each one I felt, I felt invulnerable. I felt impervious. (46:41):
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Mark Sisson: I felt superhuman until, until I trashed my, my hip flexors on the last one. (46:45):
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Erin Power: Interesting. (46:51):
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Erin Power: Fascinating. Well, so what's interesting is that, again, massive respect to you, obviously. (46:54):
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Erin Power: I feel like you're always ahead of the zeitgeist. Somehow you transcend the (47:00):
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Erin Power: zeitgeist. I don't know how you do that. (47:05):
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Erin Power: Presumably, you and Brad were working on this book for a couple years. (47:08):
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Erin Power: I don't know how long it takes to write a book, but a couple years. (47:10):
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Mark Sisson: Two, pretty much, yeah. (47:12):
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Erin Power: Okay. I don't know, but in the last year, walking has now reached this fever (47:13):
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Erin Power: pitch, the benefits of walking, and people are talking about it like it's brand new. (47:20):
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Erin Power: It's like, did you know walking was good for you? And it's like, (47:24):
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Erin Power: yeah, Mark's been saying that for 20 years. (47:26):
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Erin Power: So the popularity of walking seems like it's really ramped up, (47:28):
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Erin Power: I feel. Obviously, this is great. (47:30):
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Erin Power: What do you think? I mean, I'm hearing this a lot from my perimenopausal, (47:33):
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Erin Power: like I said earlier, women, the women going through this ridiculous change of (47:37):
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Erin Power: life and how we need to do this for the meditative benefits and the cortisol (47:40):
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Erin Power: lowering benefits and all this other stuff i mean (47:44):
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Erin Power: how do you feel your book is going to contribute to this this new sort of (47:47):
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Mark Sisson: Well interesting because you know we you take a point of view when you write a book, (47:55):
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Mark Sisson: and my original point of view was to really i mean we spend 80 pages trashing (48:00):
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Mark Sisson: the running boom as having been pretty much inappropriate for all but a few (48:08):
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Mark Sisson: percentage of the population. (48:13):
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Erin Power: Just to interject, I love that you and Brad spent 80 pages trashing the running (48:15):
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Erin Power: boom because you're very qualified for the job, the both of you. (48:19):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. Brad was the number three ranked triathlete in the world when I coached him in 87, 88. (48:22):
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Mark Sisson: And he was suffering adrenal burnout at the time from overtraining. (48:28):
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Mark Sisson: And I was a top ranked marathoner in the late seventies and finished fourth in Iron Man in 82. (48:34):
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Mark Sisson: So we have, we have the pedigree, but we have the, you know, (48:40):
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Mark Sisson: That also the experience gives us a point of view that not many people can, (48:44):
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Mark Sisson: whatever, whatever be able to achieve. (48:50):
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Mark Sisson: And I think the people that are not going to necessarily agree with what we (48:53):
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Mark Sisson: say are the lifetime runners who are like, Mark, you were a runner. (48:57):
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Mark Sisson: What the hell? You're, you know, you're recanting everything you ever did. (48:59):
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Mark Sisson: I'm like, kind of, but I was, but I'm one of the people who was probably genetically, (49:02):
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Mark Sisson: gifted to run and was able to run and, and extracted the most I possibly could. out of my body. (49:08):
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Mark Sisson: So one of the things I learned from the past 30 years was, because people would (49:15):
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Mark Sisson: say, well, if you had to do it over again, would you do things differently? (49:19):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah, a little bit, but I'd still probably hammer myself because that's how (49:22):
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Mark Sisson: I was able to get the fast times. (49:25):
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Mark Sisson: Now I would do so in retrospect, knowing that it was not good for me, (49:28):
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Mark Sisson: knowing that I'm paying a price later on for something I'm doing right now, (49:32):
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Mark Sisson: that's going to give me some measure of, I don't know, self-confidence. (49:37):
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Mark Sisson: Street cred, bravado, going to overcome the insecurities of growing up bullied and whatever. (49:42):
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Mark Sisson: People do these things for a lot of reasons, most of which are probably deep-seated (49:49):
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Mark Sisson: childhood traumas of one kind or another, unless they know better. (49:54):
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Mark Sisson: And I feel like we were well-positioned. (49:59):
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Mark Sisson: Also, I grew up during this running boom. So I started running before the running (50:04):
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Mark Sisson: boom and watched it happen and participated in it and was an early adopter of (50:10):
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Mark Sisson: the thick cushion running shoes. (50:15):
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Mark Sisson: So it's not like I'm going back to the history books going, I wonder what happened (50:17):
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Mark Sisson: in 1972. And I wonder what I was there. (50:20):
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Mark Sisson: I was, I was, you know, on the starting line of some of these races. (50:22):
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Mark Sisson: And I was, I was a Nike athlete. I was being sent these ridiculously colored (50:25):
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Mark Sisson: shoes, you know, lime green with brown trim and weird stuff because I was on (50:31):
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Mark Sisson: their list of test athletes. (50:36):
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Mark Sisson: And, you know, I don't regret any of that, but I watched it all happen. (50:38):
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Mark Sisson: Brad and I kept a registry that goes back now 15 years of all the people we (50:43):
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Mark Sisson: know or knew who had a heart attack and lived, had a heart attack and died, had open heart surgery. (50:48):
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Mark Sisson: These are world-class athletes. These are people who won world championships, (50:55):
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Mark Sisson: won major races, set world records, and we stopped keeping track at about 60, (50:59):
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Mark Sisson: 6-0 individuals who had died or had pacemakers installed or open-heart surgeries. (51:04):
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Mark Sisson: And here we are thinking that the more you do, the better, you know, (51:11):
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Mark Sisson: the longer you're going to live and the better is for your heart. (51:15):
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Mark Sisson: No, full stop, no. Oh, you know, the greatest triathlete or one of the greatest (51:17):
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Mark Sisson: triathletes that ever lived, Dave Scott, just had massive open heart surgery a couple of months ago. (51:22):
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Mark Sisson: And it totally attributes it to his lifestyle of training, training, (51:26):
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Mark Sisson: training, training, training, right? (51:30):
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Mark Sisson: So there's a point at which the body can't handle this and, you know... (51:31):
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Mark Sisson: Accommodates it by either building up plaque in the arteries or scarring of the, in my own case, (51:38):
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Mark Sisson: I have PVCs, premature ventricular contractions as a result of all the scarring (51:45):
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Mark Sisson: in my heart as a result of, you know, for 30 years, (51:49):
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Mark Sisson: maxing my heart rate out four times a week, not once in a while, (51:54):
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Mark Sisson: but four times a week and not for 30 seconds in intervals, but for, you know, two hours. (51:58):
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Mark Sisson: So so you know do as i say not as i did. (52:05):
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Erin Power: I mean i can't imagine i can't imagine apart from the tiny subset of the population (52:08):
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Erin Power: which you mentioned which is successful current professional runners there would (52:14):
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Erin Power: be any detractors who could argue with with what everything you just said who (52:18):
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Erin Power: could argue by the way it doesn't seem to me like you i always think it's interesting how you don't (52:22):
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Erin Power: i'm trying to say you don't care to argue like bring it on like say what you (52:27):
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Erin Power: want to say do what you want to do. (52:31):
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Erin Power: I'm just here to tell you what I know and take it or leave it. (52:32):
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Mark Sisson: Well, that's been my, I would say that aspect of my personality, (52:35):
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Mark Sisson: I go back to having been a contrarian back the primal blueprint, right? (52:40):
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Mark Sisson: Fat isn't bad. Fat's not the enemy. Cholesterol is not the enemy. (52:46):
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Mark Sisson: Exercise is not a great way to lose weight. (52:50):
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Mark Sisson: Statins are the worst thing that ever happened. I go on and on (52:52):
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Mark Sisson: in sort of punching at the mainstream conventional wisdom And then this just (52:55):
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Mark Sisson: is another aspect of that with regard to the notion that people have thought (53:03):
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Mark Sisson: for the longest time that running is the single purest thing that a human being (53:09):
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Mark Sisson: can do. And the more you do, the better. (53:13):
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Mark Sisson: And I'm here to say, absolutely not. (53:15):
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Erin Power: By the way, did you hear, speaking of fat not being bad food, (53:19):
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Erin Power: did you hear the FDA declared eggs healthy again this week? (53:21):
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Mark Sisson: We're winning, slowly but surely. (53:24):
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Erin Power: Okay. I have five more rapid-fire questions for you, and then I'm going to let you. (53:27):
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Mark Sisson: All right. (53:31):
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Erin Power: Okay. These are in the realm of coaching, since we are in Health Coach Radio. Yes. (53:32):
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Erin Power: So now getting into walking, we're trying to encourage our clients to walk. (53:35):
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Erin Power: So for people who have never contemplated walking as a serious fitness practice, (53:39):
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Erin Power: how would you encourage coaches to encourage their clients to start incorporating (53:44):
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Erin Power: into their lives in a meaningful way? (53:50):
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Mark Sisson: First thing I'd say is that the amount of time you spend walking, (53:53):
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Mark Sisson: there's no extra credit for putting it all together at one time. (53:56):
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Mark Sisson: In other words, you're going to walk 60 minutes in a day. There's no extra credit (53:59):
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Mark Sisson: for doing all 60 minutes. (54:02):
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Mark Sisson: You can do five minutes, six minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes, (54:03):
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Mark Sisson: eight minutes. And so the best way to do this is in small chunks. (54:06):
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Mark Sisson: If you're starting, maybe it's walking the dog, maybe it's going out to get the mail. (54:09):
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Mark Sisson: Maybe it's having a phone call and pacing while you're on a phone, (54:13):
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Mark Sisson: but get into the habit of walking, certainly walking with good form. (54:16):
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Mark Sisson: So that's something I would advise coaches like day one, start thinking about (54:20):
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Mark Sisson: good form, which includes good footwear. (54:25):
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Mark Sisson: And, you know, well, that's a different subject, but, but all of these things, (54:28):
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Mark Sisson: you know, it's again, we've talked about micro workouts, right? (54:31):
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Mark Sisson: We've been talking about that for 10 years. Well, micro workouts works for walking as well. (54:34):
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Erin Power: Cool. (54:39):
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Mark Sisson: That wasn't rapid fire. Sorry. (54:40):
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Erin Power: That's okay. My second question is actually kind of similar. (54:42):
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Erin Power: It's somebody, for somebody skeptical about walking. So now we're getting into (54:44):
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Erin Power: the realm of coaching the client. (54:47):
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Erin Power: The client says, I don't think I'm going to hit my fitness goals or my weight loss goals walking. (54:48):
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Erin Power: What's an experiment or what's, what do you think is something that a coach (54:53):
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Erin Power: can say or do or encourage or nurture their client to? Yeah. (54:56):
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Mark Sisson: So, so walking is not about burning calories. Running is not about burning calories. (55:02):
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Mark Sisson: Aerobic activity is not about burning calories is about movement. (55:06):
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Mark Sisson: So if you are attached to the burning of calories, you're missing the point. (55:09):
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Mark Sisson: This whole thing about calories and weight loss, that happens as a result of the shifts in your diet. (55:14):
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Mark Sisson: Whether you're keto or carnivore or intermittent fasting or whatever choice (55:20):
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Mark Sisson: of way of eating you have, if you're mindful about it, (55:26):
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Mark Sisson: your weight loss, your fat loss will come as a result of mostly about how you (55:29):
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Mark Sisson: choose to eat and when you eat and the amount you eat. (55:35):
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Mark Sisson: When you're moving, do not think in terms of calories burned. (55:37):
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Mark Sisson: So don't even pay attention to watch. This is about movement. (55:40):
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Mark Sisson: So the more ways, look, if you look at most Asian civilizations that have Tai (55:42):
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Mark Sisson: Chi and Qigong and all these different, they're just slow moving. (55:46):
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Mark Sisson: They're not thinking, oh my God, I'm burning half a calorie doing this. (55:50):
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Mark Sisson: No, they're putting their bodies through different range of plays of motion (55:54):
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Mark Sisson: because at the end of the day, movement by itself is one of two major identifiers (55:57):
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Mark Sisson: for longevity and quality of life. (56:05):
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Mark Sisson: Movement, the ability to move around the world, and cognition, (56:06):
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Mark Sisson: the ability to have thoughts and memories and do that. (56:09):
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Mark Sisson: Those two things, movement and cognition, define quality of life at the back end of your life. (56:12):
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Mark Sisson: So whatever you can do now to enhance movement and walking is still the greatest (56:16):
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Mark Sisson: thing you can do, don't pay attention to calories. (56:21):
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Erin Power: You've inspired thousands and thousands, if not tens of thousands of health, (56:25):
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Erin Power: fitness, nutrition professionals, what do you think is the most important trait (56:29):
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Erin Power: for a coach who wants to make a lasting impact on their clients? (56:34):
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Mark Sisson: Empathy. I think the ability to understand where the client is coming from, (56:38):
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Mark Sisson: the motivation, whatever historical context, the goals. (56:45):
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Mark Sisson: I think the empathy part of that also involves the forgiveness for getting off (56:51):
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Mark Sisson: the program or going off the rails, but just being able to identify, (56:58):
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Mark Sisson: put yourself in their shoes and understand that individual has a unique set (57:04):
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Mark Sisson: of things that run their life. (57:09):
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Mark Sisson: And if you can understand and empathize with that, you'll be a much more effective (57:11):
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Mark Sisson: coach at helping the client and you arrive at a plan of action. (57:17):
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Erin Power: Perfect answer. You've often said your catchphrase has been, (57:23):
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Erin Power: I don't know if it still is, but live awesome. (57:27):
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Erin Power: What does that phrase mean to you now and how has your understanding of it evolved? (57:30):
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Mark Sisson: And it's evolved over the last 10 or 15 years as I've sensed my own mortality, (57:35):
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Mark Sisson: which in my case means a diminution, a slowing down of my running speed on the Frisbee pitch, (57:43):
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Mark Sisson: my ability to keep up with my grandchildren running a 50-yard dash on the football field. (57:53):
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Mark Sisson: I mean, all of these things are, they're metrics that I used to kind of live my life by. (58:00):
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Mark Sisson: And then there was also the business aspect of what I did. (58:06):
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Mark Sisson: Like, am I going to be successful as a business person? And am I going to have (58:10):
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Mark Sisson: the security that I want for myself and that I lie awake at night worrying about for myself? (58:13):
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Mark Sisson: Live awesome means whatever happens, (58:23):
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Mark Sisson: there is no tomorrow, there is no yesterday, there's just right now. (58:26):
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Mark Sisson: And so it really means extracting the greatest amount of enjoyment, (58:31):
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Mark Sisson: fulfillment, contentment, pleasure, hedonism, if you will, out of every possible moment. (58:34):
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Mark Sisson: And there are a lot of these moments (58:40):
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Mark Sisson: throughout the day. And if you look carefully, you'll identify them. (58:41):
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Mark Sisson: If you don't look carefully, they'll fly by you. (58:46):
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Mark Sisson: My daughter is here in Aspen. And she (58:49):
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Mark Sisson: just left this morning with my two grandchildren who are five and three. (58:52):
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Mark Sisson: And to have them come up and say, we love you, Poppy, you know, (58:55):
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Mark Sisson: over and over and over again. (58:59):
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Mark Sisson: Those are the kind of moments like you can't plan for those. (59:00):
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Mark Sisson: You can't buy them. You can't train for them. (59:05):
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Mark Sisson: But that's the thing that gives me contentment, joy, pleasure, whatever. (59:07):
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Mark Sisson: So live awesome in the context of where I am right now at 71 years old with a new hip. (59:11):
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Mark Sisson: Living awesome is those sorts of things. finding the opportunity to wake up (59:16):
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Mark Sisson: in the morning and feel energetic and feel good and be optimistic and be excited (59:21):
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Mark Sisson: about whatever it is I'm going to do that day. (59:26):
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Mark Sisson: Like living awesome also means getting out of bed in the morning with something to do, right? (59:29):
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Mark Sisson: And being excited about actually getting out of bed, not just lying there and, (59:32):
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Mark Sisson: oh, geez, I guess I better get up. So it has a lot of meaning. (59:37):
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Mark Sisson: It's a short phrase, live awesome, but it has a lot of sort of subtext meaning to it. (59:42):
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Erin Power: Amazing. Very human. Well, as you reflect on the arc of your life and work, (59:46):
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Erin Power: what are you most proud of? (59:51):
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Erin Power: And take us through what you hope is still ahead for you. (59:53):
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Mark Sisson: You know, I'm still, I'm most proud of my kids because that's, (59:58):
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Mark Sisson: to me, that, that was something that was never going to happen in my life until I met my wife. (01:00:03):
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Mark Sisson: And then now that my children are having children and it's a, (01:00:08):
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Mark Sisson: it's a big thing to have kids that are successful and, and thoughtful and kind (01:00:12):
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Mark Sisson: and, you know, smart and make contributions. (01:00:19):
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Mark Sisson: So there's that. I mean, I would, you know, I go back, I've had so many careers. (01:00:24):
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Mark Sisson: I was the secretary general of the International Triathlon Union for a bunch of years. (01:00:28):
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Mark Sisson: I helped create the anti-doping program there. I'm very proud of that. (01:00:33):
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Mark Sisson: This is long before I ever came to Primal Blueprint and wrote the Primal Blueprint, (01:00:36):
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Mark Sisson: of which I'm very proud, or started Primal Kitchen, of which I'm very proud, (01:00:41):
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Mark Sisson: or put together with you and with Brad, the Primal Health Coach Institute, and Laura, of course. (01:00:45):
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Mark Sisson: And we've had thousands and thousands of people go through that and the feedback (01:00:51):
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Mark Sisson: I get from the institute. So I have a lot of these proud moments. (01:00:55):
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Mark Sisson: And I think, you know, one of the problems in life is to assign value to them. (01:00:59):
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Mark Sisson: Like, what's the most proud? (01:01:04):
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Mark Sisson: Because I'm proud of all of them, you know? Yeah. Yeah. (01:01:06):
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Erin Power: It's funny. Even asking that question, I was thinking about during the Olympics (01:01:10):
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Erin Power: when somebody would win a gold medal and the reporter would be like, (01:01:13):
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Erin Power: what's next for you? And they'd be like, do you mind? I just won a gold medal. (01:01:15):
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Mark Sisson: Yeah. It's 100%. Exactly. And so what's next, you know, is Palluva is a big deal for me. (01:01:19):
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Mark Sisson: I think we're going to do with footwear what we did with food and really shake (01:01:26):
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Mark Sisson: up the status quo and get people thinking about foot health. (01:01:32):
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Mark Sisson: I mean, you know, I'm speaking at a couple of events coming up in the next few months. (01:01:35):
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Mark Sisson: And, I mean, my theme is, look, there's this whole arena of people out there (01:01:40):
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Mark Sisson: calling themselves biohackers. (01:01:44):
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Mark Sisson: And they're doing the red light therapy and the cold therapy and the compression (01:01:46):
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Mark Sisson: therapy. And they're taking the NMN and the NAD and they're doing all the infusions. (01:01:49):
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Mark Sisson: I'm like, dude, if you haven't addressed foot health, (01:01:53):
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Mark Sisson: you're, you're, you're, you're a hypocrite and you're an idiot because it's (01:01:57):
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Mark Sisson: the lowest hanging fruit possible. (01:02:01):
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Mark Sisson: And yet in, you know, I've had many biohackers go, oh yeah, but the five toes (01:02:03):
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Mark Sisson: mark, I can't get around that. I'm like, really? Seriously? (01:02:08):
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Mark Sisson: And you're walking around with an orange mask on your face all day. (01:02:11):
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Mark Sisson: So anyway, so I'm, I'm, so what's next for me is, is this, you know, (01:02:15):
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Mark Sisson: message to the world that foot health is the new sleep. (01:02:20):
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Mark Sisson: It really is. Like if, like foot health is so critical. It's our contact with the universe. (01:02:23):
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Mark Sisson: And we have seemed somehow to overlook it in the name of fashion and false comfort. (01:02:27):
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Erin Power: Yeah. I got to say, I know I'm a huge fan, but the Paloovas look good. (01:02:36):
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Erin Power: They look good. They're not a weird looking five-toe shoe. (01:02:40):
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Erin Power: So, I mean, anybody who's on the fence, you got to check out the Paloovas. (01:02:43):
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Erin Power: Is it wherepaloova.com? (01:02:46):
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Mark Sisson: Well, wherepaloova is the Instagram handle and it's just paloova.com. (01:02:49):
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Mark Sisson: All of our new styles, We have some amazing new styles on the site at paluva.com. (01:02:53):
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Erin Power: Yeah. Paluva.com. That's amazing. And one of the events you're going to is the (01:02:57):
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Erin Power: Health Optimization Summit, I saw. Yes. Got a ticket for that one. (01:03:00):
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Erin Power: So I'm excited to listen to you take the biohackers down. (01:03:03):
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Mark Sisson: Cool. (01:03:06):
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Erin Power: Amazing. Okay, well, Mark, thank you so much for this end of your chat. (01:03:08):
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Erin Power: It's our annual tradition, and I appreciate it so much. (01:03:11):
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Mark Sisson: Thanks, Erin. Great to talk to you. Yes. (01:03:14):
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Erin Power: This podcast was brought to you by Primal Health Coach Institute. (01:03:17):
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Erin Power: To learn more about how to become a successful health coach get in touch with us by visiting (01:03:20):
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Erin Power: primalhealthcoach.com forward slash call or if you're already a successful health (01:03:25):
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Erin Power: coach practitioner influencer or thought leader with a thriving business and (01:03:30):
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Erin Power: an interesting story we'd love to hear from you connect with us at hello at (01:03:34):
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Erin Power: primalhealthcoach.com and let us know why we need to interview you for health (01:03:38):
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Erin Power: coach radio thanks for listening (01:03:42):
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