September 8, 2025 • 45 mins
This week on Stronger Weekly (formerly Running Free), I break down my Fall 2025 muscle-building fitness plan, , plus we cover the most important health and fitness headlines of the week:
- RFK Jr.’s heated Senate testimony on vaccines and public trust.
- A viral Pentagon fitness challenge with Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. (100 pushups and 50 pullups in under five minutes).
- A new Cleveland Clinic survey on how exercise impacts men’s mental health and sex drive.
- groundbreaking research on how childhood fitness habits shape lifelong health outcomes.
- A decades-long study from Sweden showing that cardiovascular fitness may cut dementia risk by as much as 88%.Plus, Jesse shares his personal Fall/Winter 2026 blueprint — how he’s structuring training, nutrition, and lifestyle hacks to pack on lean muscle-mass, with takeaways you can apply in your own life.
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EPISODE RESOURCES/LINKS
- RFK Jr.’s Senate Showdown on Public Health and Vaccines
Live coverage of the Senate hearing
Source: New York Times, Live Senate Coverage- RFK Jr. & Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon Fitness Challenge
“Pete and Bobby challenge” — 100 pushups & 50 pullups in under 5 minutes
Source: Fox News- Cleveland Clinic Survey — Exercise Impacts Men’s Mental Health and Sex Drive
Cleveland Clinic’s MENtion It® campaign findings
Source: Cleveland Clinic Newsroom- Childhood Fitness Habits Shape Lifelong Health Outcomes
Study by University of Georgia and Finnish cohort
Source: Earth.com- Cardio (Cycling) Linked to Significantly Lower Dementia Risk
44-year Swedish study, published in Neurology – 88% lower dementia risk for highly fit
Source: Tom’s Guide (citing the study)The health and fitness news you actually need, delivered every Monday by Certified Health & Fitness Expert, USMC Veteran, and Healthcare Executive Jesse Carrajat. Get the facts first on the research, trends, and breakthroughs that matter — plus conversations with leading experts and thought leaders on how to build a stronger, longer, healthier life. Give us 45 minutes each week, and we’ll help you grow Stronger Weekly.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to Stronger Weekly.
I'm your host Jesse Carajet. This is the week of September
8th. This week's health and fitness
headlines include RFK Junior's Fury Senate debate around health
transparency and vaccines, as well as a powerful new study
linking childhood fitness habitsto long term health outcomes.
Plus, because it's nearly fall, I'm going to go into my own
(00:22):
personal fitness, nutrition and lifestyle plan to pack on lean
muscle mass. This fall.
You don't want to miss it. Let's go.
(00:48):
Well everybody, welcome to Stronger Weekly.
Thanks for being here. As I mentioned in the the intro,
fall is coming. I think it's September 22nd is
the official start of fall. At least that's what ChatGPT
told me. I mean, I love the summer, but I
love me some fall even more. And it kind of came fast.
I, I wasn't ready for it. We went to a coffee shop on
(01:12):
Saturday, one of those beautifulkind of like indoor outdoor big
place where you can go socialize.
When we showed up, I took the kids into this like green space
and my wife said, you know, whatdo you want?
And I said something cold, but surprise me.
And it surprised me. She came out with a a cold brew
with like a pumpkin foam Topper on it.
And I just said, oh, we're doingthis, huh?
(01:33):
Yep. They're selling pumpkin stuff.
So that's usually a telltale sign that fall is coming.
And of course, the NFL season kicked off.
My Cowboys went down versus the Eagles on Thursday.
Great game. But man, it's just great.
It's just great. Just the change and football
coming in the cool weather. So I'm really looking forward to
it. This week.
We got some great topics to discuss.
(01:55):
A lot happening in the world of health and fitness.
We've got some great health and fitness headlines that we're
going to cover here in this episode.
And then, of course, when when fall comes around, it's one of
those moments where a lot of us kind of pull up.
You know, it's a it's a different season.
You know, if you got kids, they're they're going back into
school just feels like a transition.
And a lot of us will just re evaluate and assess our habits
(02:18):
and our health and our fitness and kind of lean in to a new
goal. And for me, what I do seasonally
is when September rolls around, I.
Sort of pivot. My own training and exercise,
and I've got a really good program that works for me
specifically to put on lean muscle mass.
And later in the show, we're going to dive into exactly how I
do. That.
(02:39):
But first, before we get into that, we're going to hit our
health and fitness headlines of the week, the top headline out
of Washington this week. RFK Junior Robert F Kennedy
Junior returned to Capitol Hill this week, testifying before the
Senate in a highly publicized hearing on public health
(02:59):
transparency and vaccine safety,according to reporting from The
New York Times. Democrats pressed Kennedy on his
history of promoting vaccine, quote, misinformation, while
Republicans frame the session around free speech and
government transparency. RK Junior accused agencies like
the FDA and CDC of being too closely tied to pharmaceutical
(03:23):
companies, saying, quote, when the government controls the
science, the truth becomes a casualty.
Critics warn that his outspoken remarks could fuel vaccine
hesitancy just as updated COVID-19 boosters are being
rolled out. COVID-19.
I'm literally getting tired of hearing that word.
(03:47):
So, you know, take away here, you know, this hearing was less
about data and debates and more about trust and who Americans
believe these days when it comesto their health and
recommendations coming from the government.
And unfortunately or not, you know, now versus even pre COVID,
a lot of times we're skeptical when we get guidance from the
(04:08):
government, from our our trustedhealth leaders now, which is
sad. And that divide is only getting
worse. But you know, in my opinion, if
you're looking for health guidance, find a good reputable
primary care doctor or functional Dr. and follow their
guidance. And if you have issues,
questions, hesitancy, you know, go to people you trust.
(04:28):
And this could be online or otherwise, but a fury debate
this week with RFK Junior on theSenate floor.
Speaking of RFK Junior, RFK Junior and Pete Hegseth have
created a popular viral fitness challenge.
They made headlines over the last couple weeks with their
(04:48):
fitness challenge, which challenges people to do 100 push
ups and 50 pull ups in just 5 minutes, according to Fox News
Kennedy RFK Junior, aged 71, joined Fox former Fox News host
Pete Hegseth and now Secretary of Defense in a fitness showdown
at the Pentagon. And again the challenge. 100
(05:09):
push ups and 50 pulps in just under 5 minutes.
Both of them powered through it,drawing cheers from onlookers
and plenty of coverage online, and then challenged other
politicians and notable people to do the challenge as well.
You know, in in in my take away.I have to.
Whatever your politics. You know, anytime you have
people with really large platforms, encouraging people to
(05:31):
lean into fitness is a good thing, period.
And then my other take away justfrom watching it, you know, I
served in the Marine Corps and Ican remember being in Parris
Island and basic and doing pull ups, you know, and you're,
you're giving it your all. And you'd be sitting there and
if you didn't go all the way down and all the way up, you'd
hit your pull up and they would the general instructor just go
(05:53):
Nope, Nope, Nope. And I watched the video of these
gentlemen doing their push ups and let's just say Nope.
They were not. Full push ups, but if you
haven't tried a challenge like that, I encourage you to do it.
I've done it, it's hard, it's doable, and it's pretty awesome.
(06:13):
Another major health and fitnessheadline from this week.
Cleveland Clinic just published a men's health study.
It was a new national survey showing that men overwhelmingly
recognize the benefits of exercise, but one in three still
skip it. So the Mention It survey, now in
(06:33):
its 10th year, pulled over 1000 US men. 61% said exercise
improves their sex drive and their performance.
So wanting to do it and being better at it.
Nearly half reported benefits ofconfidence, energy and mental
health improvement. But yet nearly one in three men
(06:54):
admit that they don't exercise regularly.
The survey also uncovered widespread knowledge gaps. 72%
surveyed didn't know that erectile dysfunction can be an
indicator of heart disease. Say that again, Ed can be an
indicator of heart disease, 74% didn't know it can be a sign of
(07:16):
diabetes, and 59% were unaware that it can stem from
depression. Meanwhile, 86% reported
experience stress or anxiety on a weekly basis.
So it's self reported and more than half said they compare
themselves to other on social media in terms of how they look
(07:37):
in their physical body. So, you know, take away there.
The Cleveland Clinic's findings show there's obviously a
disconnect. Men know that exercise can help
them not just physically but mentally as well.
But still don't exercise regularly.
And then for me, if you're comparing yourself to these
people on social media who a lotof times it's their full time
(07:59):
job just to be fit, they're taking a bunch of ridiculous
supplements and ultimately they're probably selling you
something. You probably shouldn't be
comparing yourself to them. And it's certainly not good for
your confidence. So try to stay off social media
and stay away from. What I call the yellow book.
Of 2025, or should I say the Yellow Pages.
(08:19):
So here's a great health and fitness headline from this week
linking childhood fitness habitsto long term health outcomes.
So this is a decades long study showing that kids fitness habits
from early life are a strong predictor of long term health.
So researchers from the University of Georgia and the
(08:41):
University of can't say this Javitskala in Finland.
Apologize to the Finnish if you're listening tracked
thousands of children and adolescents, and they found that
roughly 25% of teens fall into an unhealthy fitness profile.
So that's poor cardiovascular fitness and endurance, low
strength, higher body mass or BMI and girls were
(09:04):
disproportionately represented in this group.
But what stood out was that kidswho started younger with higher
fitness habits or more frequent,stronger fitness habits often
maintained it well in into adulthood.
And conversely, those kids with poor fitness habits rarely
improved as they grow older without intervention.
(09:28):
And the consequences were significant.
And pay attention here so early.Inactivity in kids is linked to
a higher adult risk of all of the highest killers of
Americans, the most preventable diseases, and those are obesity,
diabetes, and. Cardiovascular disease so.
Obvious take away here. If you're a parent, teacher,
(09:51):
coach, whatever. If you have access and have
ability to influence children and their habits, the message is
clear that movement in childhoodand modeling fitness is going to
help them live longer, healthierlives.
And as a parent myself, sometimes it's not enough to
just sign your kiddo up for sports, right?
You think like, oh, I got my 5 1/2 year old in soccer.
(10:13):
Great. Well, at that age, most times
it's one practice and one game. You might be two or three hours
per week of overall movement. As parents, you got to model it,
you got to encourage it, you gotto talk about it.
You got to connect the dots between exercise and being a
happier, healthier person long term.
So great study there and our last health and fitness headline
(10:36):
of the week, this one a link between cardiovascular fitness
and dementia. So new research.
In a 44 year study led by doctorHelena Horder at the University
of Gothenburg in Sweden, 191 middle-aged women underwent A
maximal cycling test in 1968, way back in 1968.
(11:00):
And by 2009, those with the highest cardiovascular fitness
in 1968 had an 88% lower risk ofdementia than women with average
fitness at the beginning of the study, and they developed
symptoms nearly a decade later on average.
So in other words, even those women who were more fit, those
(11:22):
191, if they were going to develop dementia or some other
cognitive decline, it would happen 10 years later.
So a second study published thisyear by researchers at
University College london-based on nearly 500,000 participants,
found similar results. So regular cycling lower
(11:43):
dementia risk by 20% overall, 22% for Alzheimer's specifically
and 40% for early onset dementia.
So take away, what does that mean for you?
I mean, the evidence is pretty clear here that cardio, some
form of cardio, does not have tobe cycling protects your mind as
much as it does your body. So if cycling isn't your thing,
(12:07):
you can try jogging, brisk walk,rowing, swimming, whatever your
thing is. But the key is to do it
consistently, and it's never toolate to start so.
While. You may be thinking I need to
start running or cycling more because I want to look better
and feel better now. You should be thinking, how does
what I do now impact the qualityof my life and my health span
(12:29):
way down the road. So great study there.
And we all should be looking to put more cardiovascular fitness
into our weekly routines to be stronger weekly.
So that's it for this week's health and fitness headlines.
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alcohol. All right, folks, welcome back
to the show. Now we're going to do a deep
dive on what I mentioned earlier, which is my own
(13:35):
personal fitness, nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle
plan for my goals. Now my goals, typically what I
do as far as the seasons within each year, I'll spend about six
months where I'm focusing on maintaining strength, maybe
getting some incremental, you know, growth, some muscle growth
and cardiovascular improvements.But I'm mostly focused on being
(13:58):
lean, so strong and lean. And I typically do that between
March and September. I think that's six months.
March, April, May, June, July. OK, Yeah, six months and then I,
I. Flip it a little.
Bit and I make some modifications from September
through March where I'm not trying to get that, not trying
to get chubby, but I focus more on strength gains.
(14:22):
I've want to gain muscle. I want it to be as much lean
muscle mass, understanding that I may go up a little bit in body
fat percentage, but I want to maintain my cardiovascular
fitness. I'm not looking to, you know,
make speed performances or anything like that.
But I, I, I try to have a well structured program year round
and I make little adjustments. So it's September and I'm just
(14:43):
entering, I just actually finished my first week of
training and eating for this particular season for that goal
that by March I'll weigh a little bit more.
I should be significantly stronger and then I can start to
pull those other levers to lean out.
But you know, I could do 5 episodes on this.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to stay somewhat high
(15:05):
level and I'm going to break up the conversation into 3
sections. So the first section is going to
be all about the physical strength and training, exactly
what I'm doing. I'm not going to go into sets,
reps, rest, all those things, but the high level structure
week over week, right? Because we all want to get
stronger weekly and just kind of, you know, explain why I
(15:27):
approach it that way. The second section will be
around nutrition and supplementation.
Again, those tweaks that I'm making to how I eat, the
nutritional lifestyle that I choose, and also the
supplements. Now I'll just say with
supplements, I tend to take the same ones year round.
And then the last section is more about productivity and
(15:49):
recovery. You know, I have 3 little kids.
Most of them are in activities. I have a job as an executive in
healthcare. I'm a COOI have this show.
I hate to use the word, the B word busy.
Objectively speaking, I think I'm a pretty busy guy.
So when you have these ambitious, you know, training
(16:10):
goals, sometimes it can get difficult.
And I've just learned how to structure my days and my weeks
and my months to allow me to be able to hit these goals and
invest the time that I need to invest in order to, to do this.
So let's start with the the physical strength training.
So again, high level here, but four things that I am focusing
(16:32):
on One, and this is science backed.
It did the the bro split days where we used to all work out
like one muscle Group One time aweek and come back around the
next week. That's gone, right?
And if you're doing that, just just smarten up, right?
Stop it. Most modern research says that
it's not only healthy, but it's necessary to hit each muscle
(16:55):
group at least twice per week, right.
So that's something that I factor into my my straining, my
training structure. Next thing is I'm focusing both
on strength sets and reps and hypertrophy.
And each of my workouts has a lead movement that is geared
(17:17):
around strength, like a compoundmovement thing, bench press,
deadlift, squat, those types of things, lower reps, higher
weights, that's for your centralnervous system and your overall
strength. And then as the workout
progresses, I introduce more volume.
I trained in those hypertrophy Rep ranges that's your, your
eights, your 10s, your 12 reps, etcetera.
(17:38):
So every one of my workouts is structured that way.
And the idea there is if you're increasing strength, you're
moving more weights when you're working out for hypertrophy, and
those things can work together. Now some guys will just have
like a strength block. They call it.
When they're focusing just on strength and then they'll move
into more hypertrophy. I find for me that I get the
(18:00):
most results when I kind of build them into the same.
And a good rule of thumb for me is about 20% of my resistance
training is done in that strength world and then 80% is
more in the hypertrophy. So I don't neglect hypertrophy.
The third thing is VO2 Max training, right?
That's where you're working in those really, really upper heart
(18:20):
rate zones, Zone 4, Zone 5 in particular, I'm in doing more
like Max effort and my. Goal is to get 10 minutes of
Zone 5 heart rate per week, and I try to get those across 2
sessions. There's one particular workout
where I tend to see most of thatZone 5 working for me.
That's right around 180 beats per minute when I get my heart
(18:42):
to that level. And then lastly, Zone 2
training, right? Zone 2 training, we talked about
it earlier in the show about thelong term health benefits,
things like inflammation, cardiovascular fitness, what
not. Most recommendations from people
that I trust is to get at least 90 minutes per week of Zone 2
training and that's supposed to be intentional like steady state
(19:02):
cardio if anyone. Tracks their heart throughout
the week. I found that I'm getting like 3
1/2 hours of zone 2 because sometimes our heart gets up to
that zone 2 heart rate. Just doing daily life, picking
up groceries, walking up the stairs, like suddenly right
chasing your kids around. For me, if I'm just watching my
toddler, you know my 2 1/2 year.Old boy climb around on some
(19:22):
like, you know, playset and it'stoo high.
My heart rate. Starts.
To get up because I get stressed, right?
Point is you're getting zone 2 without knowing it.
But 90 minutes of intentional exercise with zone 2 is the
recommendations. I try to get that and fit that
in my training. So.
Those are the four things. So let's.
Just go kind of day by day and then we'll move into nutrition
and supplementation. But for me, I call Monday day
(19:44):
one. My Monday workout is an upper
body strength day. So that's things like a barbell
bench press, a weighted pull up and overhead dumbbell press, a
tricep move, a bicep move. I'm doing all my upper body in
one day, focusing more on those low Rep.
(20:05):
Strength movements. And then after that workout I do
a 30 minute incline treadmill walk and I monitor my heart and
I try to land it right in zone 2.
So upper body strength with zone2 at the end on a treadmill.
And that's day one day 2:00 Tuesday.
Is a lower. Body strength, focus.
So my lead move there is typically a safety bar squat.
(20:29):
So I'll lead with the squat. I'll do movements like a
Romanian deadlift, and you coulddo that with a dumbbell or a
barbell. I'll do some form of a lunge
type pattern. I like Bulgarian split squats.
Personally, but you could do a loaded walking lunge and then
I'll mix in some other hypertrophy type movements for
my hand strings, glutes and whatnot.
And then after my actual resistance training for my lower
(20:51):
body on Tuesdays, that's where Ido my first high intensity
interval training session. I love an assault bike and when
I say I love it, I freaking hateit.
But I love it because it's hard,it's fast, it gets my heart rate
up really fast. The point there is I, I.
Wrap up that workout with a. High intensity interval training
Wednesday. That's a lot of exercise the
first two days. Wednesday, day three for me,
(21:11):
I'll do a long steady state cardio session.
If I'm really banged up from Tuesday, that could be another
treadmill walk. I I, I could jump on a cycle if
the weather's nice and just kindof bicycle for 45 minutes.
Try to stay in zone 2. If I'm feeling good, I might do
a longer run. Not normally the case because I
usually work pretty hard on Tuesdays, but it's 45 minutes
(21:32):
for me. Of zone 2, that's where I get a
bulk of my weekly zone 2. And then I try to focus on
stretching, mobility. If you're watching a show at the
end of the day, instead of just sitting on the couch, you could
have do a hamstring stretch for both legs.
Do a, you know, front hip flexor, stretch calves, sit
down, roll a little bit, kind ofmultitask.
But mobility, stretching and cardio on day three, Thursday,
(21:56):
that's my day 4. The next thing I do is I move
into what I call an upper body pull day, right?
So I hit my pulling patterns on Monday.
I come back and I really focus on volume.
So think things like neutral grip, lat pull, bounds, seated
rows, you could do all sorts of different things for pulls, but
(22:17):
I focus on those 11:50 and sometimes even 14 Rep sets and
it's really focused on those pulling patterns.
And then I also do some. Core work that day.
And that brings me to Friday, which is day five in this weekly
cycle for me, just like how I did an upper body pull
hypertrophy on Thursday, on Friday it's an upper body push.
(22:41):
So that's things like incline dumbbell bench press.
I could do flies. I can come back to shoulders and
do a shoulder press, maybe even a front raise, all of those
pushing upper body muscles, right?
Your chest, your delts, your triceps and what not.
So I work in some arms there when I feel like I have the
volume I need. Friday is when I get my VO2 Max
(23:01):
training. I do a fart lick run after my
strength training on Fridays. That particular strength
training session, normally because I'm using super sets and
kind of moving fast and getting into it can run me about 40
minutes, which leaves me, based on my schedule and how early I
work out, about 25 minutes to really get after it with a fart
(23:21):
lick run. Now fart lick run is a speed
interval style training. I do it running and it's really
designed to get your heart rate up in that zone. 5.
Right, So what I'd. Love to do.
I've been doing it for a long time.
I actually learned this from Nick Bear, if you know who that
is. Founder of BPN Nutrition.
Just a fitness animal runner. He's like a hybrid athlete.
(23:42):
Anyways, he designed a fart lickrun.
I don't know if he designed it, but I've been doing it.
Some of my friends do it with me.
It's a 5 minute warm up and you just classify that as an easy
jog. So you're just jogging 5
minutes, Don't want to push yourself.
Heart rate might get up around like one 35140 for me, just kind
of going as soon as you hit 5 minutes, you do what's called a
(24:02):
hard run. So subjectively, what's hard for
you? If you think about like the rate
of perceived exertion scale of 1to 10, right?
One being like nothing I'm walking 10 being like I'm
sprinting. This is.
All out and this sucks. You want to be at like A8 or A9
for three straight minutes. So it's hard, you're running
hard. It sucks.
You get to that like minute and a half mark.
(24:23):
You can't believe you got another minute and a half to go
it. It improves your mental
resilience, but it really gets your heart pumping to respond to
the need. 3 minutes at the threeminute mark, 2 minutes of an
easy run back to what you did inthe warm up.
So RPE as far as how hard it is,you want that to be like a four,
maybe a three depending how you're feeling.
And that's one, right? So it takes 5 minutes, 3 minutes
(24:45):
hard, 2 minutes easy, 5 minutes.Do that five times back-to-back.
Now that's a little advanced andgrueling, but with a fart lick
run with that type of interval training, you, you might start
with, you know, 2 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy.
Do that three times. Work up to it where I'm at 3
minutes hard, 2 minutes easy, five times takes 25 minutes.
(25:06):
So you got a 5 minute warm up jog, 25 minutes of work.
And then if you're, if you got the time, if you're up for it,
you can do a 5 minute cool down jog or a walk.
So all in there 35 minutes if you do the warm up, right.
But I got to tell you when I do that style run and I track my
heart zone 5I mean by that second interval, right, that
(25:28):
second five minute interval, I'mup there.
And that's how I get my my zone 5.
And by the way, VO2 Max, look itup.
It's linked to longevity like noother metric or KPI around
fitness that I've seen. Peter or Tia talks about this.
Doctor Andrew Huberman talks about this.
So that's where I get my the bulk of my Zone 5.
So that's Friday again. That's day five, Day 6.
(25:52):
I come back to my lower body that Saturday is more of a hip
hinge type focus, hamstrings, glutes.
So my lead movement there typically a deadlift.
I like the trap bar deadlift because I feel like it's safer
and atomically speaking it's just smoother for me.
I have less lower back issues soI strongly recommend a trap bar
versus a conventional bar, but Itypically will leave with some
(26:13):
deadlift variation. I love to work in glute ham
raises, maybe even like a hip thruster from the floor, but
something specific. For my glutes.
I will do some quad movements. I come back to a lunge if I did
Bulgarian squats on Tuesday on my 2 lunges that day, but I tend
to kind of ease off the direct quad movements on that Saturday
and then I'll also work in some core work on that.
(26:35):
Day and then my. Favorite part of that day?
Six. That second lower day is that's
where I hit my jumps and my, andmy carries, my farmers carries.
So what do I mean by jumps? I love box jumps.
That explosive power movement. You're not trying to bang out 20
reps You can keep it lower, but I love doing box jumps for like
explosiveness and then also carry.
So I'll tend to structure those.Something like this.
(26:57):
I might do say 6 to 8 box jumps immediately pick up some some
heavy kettle bells, walk for 60 seconds.
Rinse and repeat. So you rest, jump back on.
Do that 4 * 5 times and that's how I.
Like to close it out? Farmers carries right holding a
heavyweight beneath you and justcarrying it and improves grip
(27:18):
strength core and I find that that improvement both of those
carry over to my my other strength training session.
So that is exactly what I'm focusing on in terms of my
strength training as I go into the season.
Look. Life can be hard and stressful
sometimes, we all know that. But when it comes to
supplements, why is it that nobody talks about stress and
(27:41):
resilience? For me, I take the Adaptogen
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(28:24):
So I think we all know by now, and if you don't, you should
know that training is, I wouldn't even say it's half the
battle. It's like 1/4 of the battle
because so much of the physical results come from your nutrition
and a little bit of supplementation.
We'll talk about that. But nutritionally, here's kind
of the four most important things that I like to focus on.
The first one, tried and true meat and potato, science backed,
(28:44):
calories in, calories out. It's almost like a cliche.
You don't like to hear it, but it matters, right?
So I am intentional in this season that I'm entering to make
sure that I'm eating more than I'm burning.
I'll leave it at that, right? I don't recommend getting a
fitness tracker like a My Fitness Pal and getting like OCD
over every single calorie that you eat.
(29:06):
But you do have to have a semblance and a plan of how many
calories you should be eating and whether or not you're doing
that. Now, what I love to do is I have
like these like go to meals. I basically if I'm eating four
times in a day, which most days I do, the first three meals are
near identical. It's easy, it's efficient, you
can buy things in bulk, and I eat the same thing.
I don't care, right? I'm not like a food savant.
(29:27):
I'm not like trying to have likethis freaking cooked, spicy,
well seasoned meal every single time.
I don't have time for that. What I like to do is just get my
nutrients, get my macros and just have it be easy.
But point there is have some idea of how many calories, break
them up over the day, have some go to meals that make it easy
and stick to it. And what should you be eating?
(29:48):
That goes into my next kind of pillar that I focus on.
That's macros. Now as far as a nutritional
lifestyle goes, you know, there's different things out
there now. Carnivore diets, plant based
diets, all that stuff. If that's what you're doing,
good for you. It's not for me.
I, I tend to recommend and say aMediterranean or a near
Mediterranean nutritional lifestyle is what's best.
(30:08):
I mean, it's got great fats, good carbohydrate sources, fish,
lean proteins. That's the best way I can
describe what I try to do. Although I do love eggs and
chicken. That's just is what it is.
That's not Mediterranean. Whatever, I like it.
But that said, as far as macros go, I'm one of those kind of
like even Steven guys, right? I don't have one particular
(30:29):
macro that's like off the chartspercentage wise.
So what I like to do is I stick to the, my goal body weight.
In this case it's £200. I take 200.
That's how many grams of proteinI'm getting that day.
And I spread them out through my4 meals, right?
Sometimes I might eat a little more.
I love jerky. It's like a little addiction of
mine. But then the other two macros,
most of us may know this, but that's your, your fats and your
(30:50):
carbs even percentage in terms of calories.
And then the next piece, and this is kind of the third pillar
for me, I'm a big proponent of carbohydrate timing.
Be intentional on when you eat your carbs and surround your
workout with that carbohydrate intake and kind of phase it out
after the workout. Now I'll say this works for me
(31:13):
because I work out in the morning and I work out fasted.
I'm not going to get into that. For me, I found psychologically,
performance wise, I can work outfasted and and move around heavy
weights just like I could if I worked out 3:00 PM after having
like a huge peanut butter sandwich.
So let's just say I'm trying to have 200 grams of carbohydrates
in a day and I'm focusing on carb timing.
(31:34):
That first meal post workout, I have 100 grams of those carbs.
I don't care. I don't care if it's, but that
sounds like a lot. I love it.
A cup of oatmeal with a banana. I've got 100 more grams of carbs
to work with and I've got the full day ahead of me.
That next meal I might have 75 grams of carbs.
I'm still hungry, I'm ready. I crushed the workout.
I want to eat those carbohydrates.
(31:55):
But if I eat 75 in that second meal, that third one, I got 25
left and then I don't eat them. For the rest of the day.
And I found that fuels my workouts and my recoveries.
But then I'm not having carbohydrates near the time
where I go to bed. And then the last real pillar
for me is time restricted eating.
You may have heard this acronym,It's Tre.
(32:17):
Some people call it fasting, whatever you want to call it.
But what it is, Simply put, it'sbeing intentional to have a fed
window the times that you're eating every day and a fasted
window the times that you're not, right.
That's time restricted eating ina nutshell.
An entry pointed to that is likea 12 and 12.
So let's just say you decide that you're not going to have
(32:38):
any calories until 8:00 AM and you're going to have your last
calorie at 8:00 PM. That was your fed window, 12
hours, right? And then you're not going to eat
from 8:00. To the time you go to bed.
To the time you wake up until 8:00 AM the next day.
That's a great starting point for time restricted eating as
you. Go.
I would recommend kind of tryingto shrink that window.
(32:59):
No, I've done it all. I've I've done 6 hour fed
windows, I've done eight, I've done 10, I've done 12 and I've
just ignored it. I found for me, especially
because I'm working out early inthe morning hard, a 10 hour
window works for me. So what do I do?
I'm up, I'm training, I'm done. I don't eat until 8:00 AM,
That's when I have that breakfast for me.
(33:19):
Carb timing, lots of carbs, lotsof protein, crush it.
And then I have my last meal, mylast calories.
Should I say 6? PM.
That's when I typically have dinner.
Look, sometimes we eat at 5:30, yes, sometimes 6:30 or seven,
yes. Don't sweat it, but just be
intentional about time restricted eating.
You can look up the benefits to it, inflammation, fat loss, all
(33:40):
the things, even energy, psychological benefits, but
that's the kind of long and short of my nutritional habits.
And let's talk and hit real quickly on supplements.
Everyone loves to talk about this.
There's lots of exciting supplements out there.
I am a. Bare bones guy and I don't want
to say I don't take supplements.I love them.
I take them, but I don't go overboard for me.
(34:01):
What do I take? Tried and true creatine
monohydrate unflavored. I put it in my pre workout in
the morning. Pre workout is the other thing I
take. More on that in a second.
Creatine. 10 grams for me. Most labels will say 5g.
Double click on that. Make sure you're taking an
amount that's appropriate for your body weight and your your
exercise output and your habits.10 milligrams for me.
(34:22):
I take it once daily. I do a pre workout.
Physical benefits, strength, it's a nootropic so it does help
with that some some cognitive benefits.
Well, so I do take creatine. I take a pre workout, ideally
unflavored, a lot of like artificial sweeteners and stuff
like that. I look for ones that are near 0
calories because again I'm fasting in the morning and
(34:43):
training fasted. I don't want to break fast.
I'm so I put my pre workout withmy creatine and I get after it.
If I run out of pre workout or sometimes I don't feel like
taking it, I'll just have a double espresso.
Make sure you hydrate around that because it does tend to,
you know, make you a little bit more dehydrated.
But those are my 2 primary kind of like more pure physical
performance supplements. And then I also take some other
(35:03):
things just to kind of aid with what my goals are.
So one of my goals is managing stress.
I mentioned earlier pretty, pretty busy guy.
I've got some kids who can, it'sjust stressed out pretty quick,
sometimes stressful job, all, all of life, right?
So I love mental health supplements and the ones that I
take, I take rhodiola rosea in the morning and then at night,
typically after my last meal, I'll take a couple different
(35:26):
things. But the ones that I love, I take
ashwagandha, I take Alpheanine and then closer to bed I take
magnesium and zinc, right? So those are the kind of more,
not all mental health, but thoseare some of the supplements that
I'll take and then the only other things I take.
I do take fish oil as a supplement and then the last
thing that I take, and this is maybe more particular for the
men listening to the show, I take Tongcat LA.
(35:49):
So again, creatine pre workout Rd.
Rhodiola rosea, ashwaganda L theanine, magnesium, zinc, fish.
Oil Tongcat, LA. So that's nutrition and
supplementation. And then this last section has
to do with productivity, but howdo I get all this done?
How do I make sure that I'm training essentially 6 * a week?
(36:11):
I'm eating well around the clock.
I'm focusing on these things. You got to be intentional on how
you structure your life, right? And I'll start with a quote.
I mean, I, I don't know how longago I read this book, but
Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,
absolutely life changing book for me.
But he's got this one quote and it's so simple, but it's it, it
(36:32):
hits everything. It's put First things first.
You got to put First things first and what are the, what are
the first things right? Your family, your health, your
fitness, your work, your faith, right?
If you don't make those things the priority, they won't be and
other things will be right. So you got to put First things
first. Now what does that look like for
(36:54):
me? First concept time blocks.
I'm such a calendar seen right? And I'm not addicted to
calendars, but they are so important in a time block is
having a personal calendar and blocking out time for
everything. And not just the things that
you're doing, like appointments with people and work and stuff
like that, but things that you want to do, your goals, right?
(37:16):
So if I were to pick up my phoneright now and show it to you on
Monday, that day one training session, I have a block in my
calendar that says Jesse training, right?
It's an appointment with myself that I can't miss.
I have to do it right. And then the rest of my day is
structured that way. I'll literally say Jesse
training time, and the next block is Jesse family time.
(37:37):
I'm done with training. I got to be done by this time.
I got to be present. I got to have my feet on the
floor in my kitchen with my kids, getting them off the bus,
spending time with my wife. What's my next block?
Work right? What's another block in there
like break? Walk around the block.
What's another block in there? Family time again, another one
podcast time, another one sleep right.
(37:58):
And, and I'm not saying that every minute has a block, but I
found that putting calendar blocks in my day.
And look, you can do this for work too.
You can put focus blocks so thatyou're uninterrupted and you're
working on deep work or projectsif you have that freedom.
But time blocks and putting First things first in there I
find is so important for me. So look into time blocks, get
(38:19):
more organized. It's only going to help you.
Another thing this has to do more with like actual recovery
and like mental resilience. But doing a cold plunge, right?
I don't know if anyone listeninghas has heard all the benefits
from it, but psychological, hormonal, mental resilience,
grit, inflammation, all the things.
I finally started doing it. So part of my routine on those
(38:41):
strength training days. I don't do it 6 * a week, but
four times a week and for me it's Monday, Tuesday, Thursday
and Friday. I'm up out of bed early 5:00 get
up right assuming you went to bed early enough whole another
conversation. I'm up, I'm down in that ice
bath within 10 minutes of wakingup and for me I'm around 48° for
2 1/2 minutes. I've heard different kind of
(39:03):
theories and ideas. You might want to do it colder
for longer. You don't have to do it as cold,
you can do it shorter. I found for me I love it.
I'm in that thing. Wake up kind of brings my focus
right in. I'm amped up, I'm motivated, and
then I'm right to my pre workoutand creatine and I'm in the gym,
right? But I found that doing an ice
bath in the morning has been amazing for me, you know, and
it's hard to measure some of theinternal benefits, but I believe
(39:24):
that they're true. And in time I believe that I'll
see those benefits. But I found that that's really
important. Another thing I'm, I'm working
on this, but I think finding time throughout the day to do 2
things for both your mental health and physical health.
But one is walking, right? We all think that we need to
kind of isolate our exercise andall that until like that one
(39:47):
training session. But I found that going for
walks, maybe one or two every day, it could be 1/2 mile a
mile. Whatever you got has been so
beneficial for me. Not just on the physical side,
getting more steps and the calories burned, but mentally,
right. If you're like me, you're
sometimes I have 9 meetings in aday.
Back-to-back to back-to-back. Like you're sitting inside,
indoors, outside of the sunlight, outside of vitamin D,
(40:10):
you're not moving. What if you?
Took one of those. Calls walking around the block
or walking somewhere or going downstairs.
Walk around your house, I don't care.
But just doing. Walks on a regular basis has
been so healthy for me, especially if it's multitasking
like I'm working and I'm doing it at the same time.
I think that's incredibly helpful.
The other one is finding little pockets for mindfulness or
(40:32):
meditation or whatever you want to call it.
You can find those spaces anywhere, but not going from one
thing to another to another to another.
Just kind of pulling up, even ifit's for 5 minutes, right?
You got to go somewhere. You got to walk to the water
cooler at work or downstairs to your fridge.
You got to refill your friggin Stanley or whatever you have.
Just take a couple deep breaths.You could do box breathing,
(40:53):
right? 4 seconds in, hold for 4/4
seconds out, hold for four. Do that a couple times,
Createspace and separation in your transition moments
throughout the day, right? That could be you got done with
work at whatever time it is for you.
Let's say it's 5:00 and you got to go right into parent mode or
right into something else. You got to get ready.
Just stop for 5 minutes and takea couple breaths and focus on
(41:17):
nothing and just clear your head.
What you're doing is you're reducing stress.
I mean, you're literally psychologically, you're changing
your neurochemistry in those moments through deep breathing,
right? But I found when you're having a
stressful day, stressful week, whatever it is, if you focus on
mindfulness and just kind of bringing yourself back to your
center, you're going to reduce your stress.
You're going to feel better. And then those days will go by
(41:40):
better and you'll be much more mentally equipped to do your
training and to eat right. You're not going to burn out and
you're not going to stress out. And then the last one around
just, you know, lifestyle, right?
Sleep. Do I have to say anything else?
Sleep. You want to talk about links to
longevity, stress reduction, less disease, overall mental
(42:01):
health. Now, what stops us from focus on
sleeping? For many of us, it's not
planning it and prioritizing it.It's not saying I'm going to go
to bed at this time and I'm going to wake up at this time.
There's a lot of study and momentum around the importance
of sleep consistency as it relates to sleep efficiency, as
that relates to deep sleep and R.E.M. and break those down,
(42:24):
right? What is sleep consistency?
It's going to bed at or around the same time and waking up at
around the same time every day. Why is it important?
Your circadian rhythm, You'll fall into sleep faster and sleep
deeper when you have sleep consistently.
Sleep efficiency is when you're actually sleeping.
How much are you awake versus tossing and turning?
(42:45):
And a lot can impact that stress, caffeine, you know, all
these different things. But if you start with sleep
consistency, you'll have better sleep efficiency because you're.
Training your body It's time to go to.
Bed time to wake up and you'll fall right into a deep sleep and
from there, right, you'll get more REM sleep and deep sleep.
And that's when your body is truly recovering, which is
(43:05):
especially important if you havea high stress life and like me,
putting a lot of stress on your body through training a lot,
right. So sleep is it's could be it's
whole episode, but be in tensionaround sleep.
Set a goal, be accountable to yourself to do it.
And then in the lead up to that sleep, it's really important and
I'll put my hand up and say this, I'm, I'm not the best at
(43:27):
this. I'm trying to get better.
It's really important to have a routine.
They call it sleep hygiene, a routine before you go to bed,
right? When are you putting down that
stupid smartphone for the last time for the day?
What are you doing in bed? Are you swiping and scrolling or
are you reading a? Book, which by the way, is
incredible for your focus, your mindset, and also to put you to
(43:48):
sleep. I don't know about you, if you
ever said, oh, I'm going to sit up tonight and I'm going to
read. A chapter and 2 pages in you're.
Out. There's a reason that's
happening, but a lot of people think reading before bed can
really enhance that sleep efficiency in the deep sleep,
but have like an intentional plan, put down social media, put
down technology, and start to kind of like slow down and Rev
down right up to the point when you go to bed.
(44:09):
But sleep is something you absolutely have to focus on.
So that's it for this week, folks.
We hope you enjoyed the the fiveheadlines and there's some good
takeaways there, as well as my own kind of personal training
philosophy there. I'll be so glad you joined us on
STRONGER Weekly this week and wewill see you next time.
(44:33):
Well, that's it for this week's episode.
Thanks for listening to The Stronger.
Weekly podcast for your health. News, fitness insights and
motivation. Wishing you a strong.
And healthy week ahead, see you next time.
Hey everyone, welcome to Stronger Weekly.
I'm your host Jesse Carajet. This is the week of September
8th. This week's health and fitness
headlines include RFK Junior's Fury Senate debate around health
transparency and vaccines, as well as a powerful new study
linking childhood fitness habitsto long term health outcomes.
Plus, because it's nearly fall, I'm going to go into my own
(00:22):
personal fitness, nutrition and lifestyle plan to pack on lean
muscle mass. This fall.
You don't want to miss it. Let's go.
(00:48):
Well everybody, welcome to Stronger Weekly.
Thanks for being here. As I mentioned in the the intro,
fall is coming. I think it's September 22nd is
the official start of fall. At least that's what ChatGPT
told me. I mean, I love the summer, but I
love me some fall even more. And it kind of came fast.
I, I wasn't ready for it. We went to a coffee shop on
(01:12):
Saturday, one of those beautifulkind of like indoor outdoor big
place where you can go socialize.
When we showed up, I took the kids into this like green space
and my wife said, you know, whatdo you want?
And I said something cold, but surprise me.
And it surprised me. She came out with a a cold brew
with like a pumpkin foam Topper on it.
And I just said, oh, we're doingthis, huh?
(01:33):
Yep. They're selling pumpkin stuff.
So that's usually a telltale sign that fall is coming.
And of course, the NFL season kicked off.
My Cowboys went down versus the Eagles on Thursday.
Great game. But man, it's just great.
It's just great. Just the change and football
coming in the cool weather. So I'm really looking forward to
it. This week.
We got some great topics to discuss.
(01:55):
A lot happening in the world of health and fitness.
We've got some great health and fitness headlines that we're
going to cover here in this episode.
And then, of course, when when fall comes around, it's one of
those moments where a lot of us kind of pull up.
You know, it's a it's a different season.
You know, if you got kids, they're they're going back into
school just feels like a transition.
And a lot of us will just re evaluate and assess our habits
(02:18):
and our health and our fitness and kind of lean in to a new
goal. And for me, what I do seasonally
is when September rolls around, I.
Sort of pivot. My own training and exercise,
and I've got a really good program that works for me
specifically to put on lean muscle mass.
And later in the show, we're going to dive into exactly how I
do. That.
(02:39):
But first, before we get into that, we're going to hit our
health and fitness headlines of the week, the top headline out
of Washington this week. RFK Junior Robert F Kennedy
Junior returned to Capitol Hill this week, testifying before the
Senate in a highly publicized hearing on public health
(02:59):
transparency and vaccine safety,according to reporting from The
New York Times. Democrats pressed Kennedy on his
history of promoting vaccine, quote, misinformation, while
Republicans frame the session around free speech and
government transparency. RK Junior accused agencies like
the FDA and CDC of being too closely tied to pharmaceutical
(03:23):
companies, saying, quote, when the government controls the
science, the truth becomes a casualty.
Critics warn that his outspoken remarks could fuel vaccine
hesitancy just as updated COVID-19 boosters are being
rolled out. COVID-19.
I'm literally getting tired of hearing that word.
(03:47):
So, you know, take away here, you know, this hearing was less
about data and debates and more about trust and who Americans
believe these days when it comesto their health and
recommendations coming from the government.
And unfortunately or not, you know, now versus even pre COVID,
a lot of times we're skeptical when we get guidance from the
(04:08):
government, from our our trustedhealth leaders now, which is
sad. And that divide is only getting
worse. But you know, in my opinion, if
you're looking for health guidance, find a good reputable
primary care doctor or functional Dr. and follow their
guidance. And if you have issues,
questions, hesitancy, you know, go to people you trust.
(04:28):
And this could be online or otherwise, but a fury debate
this week with RFK Junior on theSenate floor.
Speaking of RFK Junior, RFK Junior and Pete Hegseth have
created a popular viral fitness challenge.
They made headlines over the last couple weeks with their
(04:48):
fitness challenge, which challenges people to do 100 push
ups and 50 pull ups in just 5 minutes, according to Fox News
Kennedy RFK Junior, aged 71, joined Fox former Fox News host
Pete Hegseth and now Secretary of Defense in a fitness showdown
at the Pentagon. And again the challenge. 100
(05:09):
push ups and 50 pulps in just under 5 minutes.
Both of them powered through it,drawing cheers from onlookers
and plenty of coverage online, and then challenged other
politicians and notable people to do the challenge as well.
You know, in in in my take away.I have to.
Whatever your politics. You know, anytime you have
people with really large platforms, encouraging people to
(05:31):
lean into fitness is a good thing, period.
And then my other take away justfrom watching it, you know, I
served in the Marine Corps and Ican remember being in Parris
Island and basic and doing pull ups, you know, and you're,
you're giving it your all. And you'd be sitting there and
if you didn't go all the way down and all the way up, you'd
hit your pull up and they would the general instructor just go
(05:53):
Nope, Nope, Nope. And I watched the video of these
gentlemen doing their push ups and let's just say Nope.
They were not. Full push ups, but if you
haven't tried a challenge like that, I encourage you to do it.
I've done it, it's hard, it's doable, and it's pretty awesome.
(06:13):
Another major health and fitnessheadline from this week.
Cleveland Clinic just published a men's health study.
It was a new national survey showing that men overwhelmingly
recognize the benefits of exercise, but one in three still
skip it. So the Mention It survey, now in
(06:33):
its 10th year, pulled over 1000 US men. 61% said exercise
improves their sex drive and their performance.
So wanting to do it and being better at it.
Nearly half reported benefits ofconfidence, energy and mental
health improvement. But yet nearly one in three men
(06:54):
admit that they don't exercise regularly.
The survey also uncovered widespread knowledge gaps. 72%
surveyed didn't know that erectile dysfunction can be an
indicator of heart disease. Say that again, Ed can be an
indicator of heart disease, 74% didn't know it can be a sign of
(07:16):
diabetes, and 59% were unaware that it can stem from
depression. Meanwhile, 86% reported
experience stress or anxiety on a weekly basis.
So it's self reported and more than half said they compare
themselves to other on social media in terms of how they look
(07:37):
in their physical body. So, you know, take away there.
The Cleveland Clinic's findings show there's obviously a
disconnect. Men know that exercise can help
them not just physically but mentally as well.
But still don't exercise regularly.
And then for me, if you're comparing yourself to these
people on social media who a lotof times it's their full time
(07:59):
job just to be fit, they're taking a bunch of ridiculous
supplements and ultimately they're probably selling you
something. You probably shouldn't be
comparing yourself to them. And it's certainly not good for
your confidence. So try to stay off social media
and stay away from. What I call the yellow book.
Of 2025, or should I say the Yellow Pages.
(08:19):
So here's a great health and fitness headline from this week
linking childhood fitness habitsto long term health outcomes.
So this is a decades long study showing that kids fitness habits
from early life are a strong predictor of long term health.
So researchers from the University of Georgia and the
(08:41):
University of can't say this Javitskala in Finland.
Apologize to the Finnish if you're listening tracked
thousands of children and adolescents, and they found that
roughly 25% of teens fall into an unhealthy fitness profile.
So that's poor cardiovascular fitness and endurance, low
strength, higher body mass or BMI and girls were
(09:04):
disproportionately represented in this group.
But what stood out was that kidswho started younger with higher
fitness habits or more frequent,stronger fitness habits often
maintained it well in into adulthood.
And conversely, those kids with poor fitness habits rarely
improved as they grow older without intervention.
(09:28):
And the consequences were significant.
And pay attention here so early.Inactivity in kids is linked to
a higher adult risk of all of the highest killers of
Americans, the most preventable diseases, and those are obesity,
diabetes, and. Cardiovascular disease so.
Obvious take away here. If you're a parent, teacher,
(09:51):
coach, whatever. If you have access and have
ability to influence children and their habits, the message is
clear that movement in childhoodand modeling fitness is going to
help them live longer, healthierlives.
And as a parent myself, sometimes it's not enough to
just sign your kiddo up for sports, right?
You think like, oh, I got my 5 1/2 year old in soccer.
(10:13):
Great. Well, at that age, most times
it's one practice and one game. You might be two or three hours
per week of overall movement. As parents, you got to model it,
you got to encourage it, you gotto talk about it.
You got to connect the dots between exercise and being a
happier, healthier person long term.
So great study there and our last health and fitness headline
(10:36):
of the week, this one a link between cardiovascular fitness
and dementia. So new research.
In a 44 year study led by doctorHelena Horder at the University
of Gothenburg in Sweden, 191 middle-aged women underwent A
maximal cycling test in 1968, way back in 1968.
(11:00):
And by 2009, those with the highest cardiovascular fitness
in 1968 had an 88% lower risk ofdementia than women with average
fitness at the beginning of the study, and they developed
symptoms nearly a decade later on average.
So in other words, even those women who were more fit, those
(11:22):
191, if they were going to develop dementia or some other
cognitive decline, it would happen 10 years later.
So a second study published thisyear by researchers at
University College london-based on nearly 500,000 participants,
found similar results. So regular cycling lower
(11:43):
dementia risk by 20% overall, 22% for Alzheimer's specifically
and 40% for early onset dementia.
So take away, what does that mean for you?
I mean, the evidence is pretty clear here that cardio, some
form of cardio, does not have tobe cycling protects your mind as
much as it does your body. So if cycling isn't your thing,
(12:07):
you can try jogging, brisk walk,rowing, swimming, whatever your
thing is. But the key is to do it
consistently, and it's never toolate to start so.
While. You may be thinking I need to
start running or cycling more because I want to look better
and feel better now. You should be thinking, how does
what I do now impact the qualityof my life and my health span
(12:29):
way down the road. So great study there.
And we all should be looking to put more cardiovascular fitness
into our weekly routines to be stronger weekly.
So that's it for this week's health and fitness headlines.
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alcohol. All right, folks, welcome back
to the show. Now we're going to do a deep
dive on what I mentioned earlier, which is my own
(13:35):
personal fitness, nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle
plan for my goals. Now my goals, typically what I
do as far as the seasons within each year, I'll spend about six
months where I'm focusing on maintaining strength, maybe
getting some incremental, you know, growth, some muscle growth
and cardiovascular improvements.But I'm mostly focused on being
(13:58):
lean, so strong and lean. And I typically do that between
March and September. I think that's six months.
March, April, May, June, July. OK, Yeah, six months and then I,
I. Flip it a little.
Bit and I make some modifications from September
through March where I'm not trying to get that, not trying
to get chubby, but I focus more on strength gains.
(14:22):
I've want to gain muscle. I want it to be as much lean
muscle mass, understanding that I may go up a little bit in body
fat percentage, but I want to maintain my cardiovascular
fitness. I'm not looking to, you know,
make speed performances or anything like that.
But I, I, I try to have a well structured program year round
and I make little adjustments. So it's September and I'm just
(14:43):
entering, I just actually finished my first week of
training and eating for this particular season for that goal
that by March I'll weigh a little bit more.
I should be significantly stronger and then I can start to
pull those other levers to lean out.
But you know, I could do 5 episodes on this.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to stay somewhat high
(15:05):
level and I'm going to break up the conversation into 3
sections. So the first section is going to
be all about the physical strength and training, exactly
what I'm doing. I'm not going to go into sets,
reps, rest, all those things, but the high level structure
week over week, right? Because we all want to get
stronger weekly and just kind of, you know, explain why I
(15:27):
approach it that way. The second section will be
around nutrition and supplementation.
Again, those tweaks that I'm making to how I eat, the
nutritional lifestyle that I choose, and also the
supplements. Now I'll just say with
supplements, I tend to take the same ones year round.
And then the last section is more about productivity and
(15:49):
recovery. You know, I have 3 little kids.
Most of them are in activities. I have a job as an executive in
healthcare. I'm a COOI have this show.
I hate to use the word, the B word busy.
Objectively speaking, I think I'm a pretty busy guy.
So when you have these ambitious, you know, training
(16:10):
goals, sometimes it can get difficult.
And I've just learned how to structure my days and my weeks
and my months to allow me to be able to hit these goals and
invest the time that I need to invest in order to, to do this.
So let's start with the the physical strength training.
So again, high level here, but four things that I am focusing
(16:32):
on One, and this is science backed.
It did the the bro split days where we used to all work out
like one muscle Group One time aweek and come back around the
next week. That's gone, right?
And if you're doing that, just just smarten up, right?
Stop it. Most modern research says that
it's not only healthy, but it's necessary to hit each muscle
(16:55):
group at least twice per week, right.
So that's something that I factor into my my straining, my
training structure. Next thing is I'm focusing both
on strength sets and reps and hypertrophy.
And each of my workouts has a lead movement that is geared
(17:17):
around strength, like a compoundmovement thing, bench press,
deadlift, squat, those types of things, lower reps, higher
weights, that's for your centralnervous system and your overall
strength. And then as the workout
progresses, I introduce more volume.
I trained in those hypertrophy Rep ranges that's your, your
eights, your 10s, your 12 reps, etcetera.
(17:38):
So every one of my workouts is structured that way.
And the idea there is if you're increasing strength, you're
moving more weights when you're working out for hypertrophy, and
those things can work together. Now some guys will just have
like a strength block. They call it.
When they're focusing just on strength and then they'll move
into more hypertrophy. I find for me that I get the
(18:00):
most results when I kind of build them into the same.
And a good rule of thumb for me is about 20% of my resistance
training is done in that strength world and then 80% is
more in the hypertrophy. So I don't neglect hypertrophy.
The third thing is VO2 Max training, right?
That's where you're working in those really, really upper heart
(18:20):
rate zones, Zone 4, Zone 5 in particular, I'm in doing more
like Max effort and my. Goal is to get 10 minutes of
Zone 5 heart rate per week, and I try to get those across 2
sessions. There's one particular workout
where I tend to see most of thatZone 5 working for me.
That's right around 180 beats per minute when I get my heart
(18:42):
to that level. And then lastly, Zone 2
training, right? Zone 2 training, we talked about
it earlier in the show about thelong term health benefits,
things like inflammation, cardiovascular fitness, what
not. Most recommendations from people
that I trust is to get at least 90 minutes per week of Zone 2
training and that's supposed to be intentional like steady state
(19:02):
cardio if anyone. Tracks their heart throughout
the week. I found that I'm getting like 3
1/2 hours of zone 2 because sometimes our heart gets up to
that zone 2 heart rate. Just doing daily life, picking
up groceries, walking up the stairs, like suddenly right
chasing your kids around. For me, if I'm just watching my
toddler, you know my 2 1/2 year.Old boy climb around on some
(19:22):
like, you know, playset and it'stoo high.
My heart rate. Starts.
To get up because I get stressed, right?
Point is you're getting zone 2 without knowing it.
But 90 minutes of intentional exercise with zone 2 is the
recommendations. I try to get that and fit that
in my training. So.
Those are the four things. So let's.
Just go kind of day by day and then we'll move into nutrition
and supplementation. But for me, I call Monday day
(19:44):
one. My Monday workout is an upper
body strength day. So that's things like a barbell
bench press, a weighted pull up and overhead dumbbell press, a
tricep move, a bicep move. I'm doing all my upper body in
one day, focusing more on those low Rep.
(20:05):
Strength movements. And then after that workout I do
a 30 minute incline treadmill walk and I monitor my heart and
I try to land it right in zone 2.
So upper body strength with zone2 at the end on a treadmill.
And that's day one day 2:00 Tuesday.
Is a lower. Body strength, focus.
So my lead move there is typically a safety bar squat.
(20:29):
So I'll lead with the squat. I'll do movements like a
Romanian deadlift, and you coulddo that with a dumbbell or a
barbell. I'll do some form of a lunge
type pattern. I like Bulgarian split squats.
Personally, but you could do a loaded walking lunge and then
I'll mix in some other hypertrophy type movements for
my hand strings, glutes and whatnot.
And then after my actual resistance training for my lower
(20:51):
body on Tuesdays, that's where Ido my first high intensity
interval training session. I love an assault bike and when
I say I love it, I freaking hateit.
But I love it because it's hard,it's fast, it gets my heart rate
up really fast. The point there is I, I.
Wrap up that workout with a. High intensity interval training
Wednesday. That's a lot of exercise the
first two days. Wednesday, day three for me,
(21:11):
I'll do a long steady state cardio session.
If I'm really banged up from Tuesday, that could be another
treadmill walk. I I, I could jump on a cycle if
the weather's nice and just kindof bicycle for 45 minutes.
Try to stay in zone 2. If I'm feeling good, I might do
a longer run. Not normally the case because I
usually work pretty hard on Tuesdays, but it's 45 minutes
(21:32):
for me. Of zone 2, that's where I get a
bulk of my weekly zone 2. And then I try to focus on
stretching, mobility. If you're watching a show at the
end of the day, instead of just sitting on the couch, you could
have do a hamstring stretch for both legs.
Do a, you know, front hip flexor, stretch calves, sit
down, roll a little bit, kind ofmultitask.
But mobility, stretching and cardio on day three, Thursday,
(21:56):
that's my day 4. The next thing I do is I move
into what I call an upper body pull day, right?
So I hit my pulling patterns on Monday.
I come back and I really focus on volume.
So think things like neutral grip, lat pull, bounds, seated
rows, you could do all sorts of different things for pulls, but
(22:17):
I focus on those 11:50 and sometimes even 14 Rep sets and
it's really focused on those pulling patterns.
And then I also do some. Core work that day.
And that brings me to Friday, which is day five in this weekly
cycle for me, just like how I did an upper body pull
hypertrophy on Thursday, on Friday it's an upper body push.
(22:41):
So that's things like incline dumbbell bench press.
I could do flies. I can come back to shoulders and
do a shoulder press, maybe even a front raise, all of those
pushing upper body muscles, right?
Your chest, your delts, your triceps and what not.
So I work in some arms there when I feel like I have the
volume I need. Friday is when I get my VO2 Max
(23:01):
training. I do a fart lick run after my
strength training on Fridays. That particular strength
training session, normally because I'm using super sets and
kind of moving fast and getting into it can run me about 40
minutes, which leaves me, based on my schedule and how early I
work out, about 25 minutes to really get after it with a fart
(23:21):
lick run. Now fart lick run is a speed
interval style training. I do it running and it's really
designed to get your heart rate up in that zone. 5.
Right, So what I'd. Love to do.
I've been doing it for a long time.
I actually learned this from Nick Bear, if you know who that
is. Founder of BPN Nutrition.
Just a fitness animal runner. He's like a hybrid athlete.
(23:42):
Anyways, he designed a fart lickrun.
I don't know if he designed it, but I've been doing it.
Some of my friends do it with me.
It's a 5 minute warm up and you just classify that as an easy
jog. So you're just jogging 5
minutes, Don't want to push yourself.
Heart rate might get up around like one 35140 for me, just kind
of going as soon as you hit 5 minutes, you do what's called a
(24:02):
hard run. So subjectively, what's hard for
you? If you think about like the rate
of perceived exertion scale of 1to 10, right?
One being like nothing I'm walking 10 being like I'm
sprinting. This is.
All out and this sucks. You want to be at like A8 or A9
for three straight minutes. So it's hard, you're running
hard. It sucks.
You get to that like minute and a half mark.
(24:23):
You can't believe you got another minute and a half to go
it. It improves your mental
resilience, but it really gets your heart pumping to respond to
the need. 3 minutes at the threeminute mark, 2 minutes of an
easy run back to what you did inthe warm up.
So RPE as far as how hard it is,you want that to be like a four,
maybe a three depending how you're feeling.
And that's one, right? So it takes 5 minutes, 3 minutes
(24:45):
hard, 2 minutes easy, 5 minutes.Do that five times back-to-back.
Now that's a little advanced andgrueling, but with a fart lick
run with that type of interval training, you, you might start
with, you know, 2 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy.
Do that three times. Work up to it where I'm at 3
minutes hard, 2 minutes easy, five times takes 25 minutes.
(25:06):
So you got a 5 minute warm up jog, 25 minutes of work.
And then if you're, if you got the time, if you're up for it,
you can do a 5 minute cool down jog or a walk.
So all in there 35 minutes if you do the warm up, right.
But I got to tell you when I do that style run and I track my
heart zone 5I mean by that second interval, right, that
(25:28):
second five minute interval, I'mup there.
And that's how I get my my zone 5.
And by the way, VO2 Max, look itup.
It's linked to longevity like noother metric or KPI around
fitness that I've seen. Peter or Tia talks about this.
Doctor Andrew Huberman talks about this.
So that's where I get my the bulk of my Zone 5.
So that's Friday again. That's day five, Day 6.
(25:52):
I come back to my lower body that Saturday is more of a hip
hinge type focus, hamstrings, glutes.
So my lead movement there typically a deadlift.
I like the trap bar deadlift because I feel like it's safer
and atomically speaking it's just smoother for me.
I have less lower back issues soI strongly recommend a trap bar
versus a conventional bar, but Itypically will leave with some
(26:13):
deadlift variation. I love to work in glute ham
raises, maybe even like a hip thruster from the floor, but
something specific. For my glutes.
I will do some quad movements. I come back to a lunge if I did
Bulgarian squats on Tuesday on my 2 lunges that day, but I tend
to kind of ease off the direct quad movements on that Saturday
and then I'll also work in some core work on that.
(26:35):
Day and then my. Favorite part of that day?
Six. That second lower day is that's
where I hit my jumps and my, andmy carries, my farmers carries.
So what do I mean by jumps? I love box jumps.
That explosive power movement. You're not trying to bang out 20
reps You can keep it lower, but I love doing box jumps for like
explosiveness and then also carry.
So I'll tend to structure those.Something like this.
(26:57):
I might do say 6 to 8 box jumps immediately pick up some some
heavy kettle bells, walk for 60 seconds.
Rinse and repeat. So you rest, jump back on.
Do that 4 * 5 times and that's how I.
Like to close it out? Farmers carries right holding a
heavyweight beneath you and justcarrying it and improves grip
(27:18):
strength core and I find that that improvement both of those
carry over to my my other strength training session.
So that is exactly what I'm focusing on in terms of my
strength training as I go into the season.
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(27:41):
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(28:24):
So I think we all know by now, and if you don't, you should
know that training is, I wouldn't even say it's half the
battle. It's like 1/4 of the battle
because so much of the physical results come from your nutrition
and a little bit of supplementation.
We'll talk about that. But nutritionally, here's kind
of the four most important things that I like to focus on.
The first one, tried and true meat and potato, science backed,
(28:44):
calories in, calories out. It's almost like a cliche.
You don't like to hear it, but it matters, right?
So I am intentional in this season that I'm entering to make
sure that I'm eating more than I'm burning.
I'll leave it at that, right? I don't recommend getting a
fitness tracker like a My Fitness Pal and getting like OCD
over every single calorie that you eat.
(29:06):
But you do have to have a semblance and a plan of how many
calories you should be eating and whether or not you're doing
that. Now, what I love to do is I have
like these like go to meals. I basically if I'm eating four
times in a day, which most days I do, the first three meals are
near identical. It's easy, it's efficient, you
can buy things in bulk, and I eat the same thing.
I don't care, right? I'm not like a food savant.
(29:27):
I'm not like trying to have likethis freaking cooked, spicy,
well seasoned meal every single time.
I don't have time for that. What I like to do is just get my
nutrients, get my macros and just have it be easy.
But point there is have some idea of how many calories, break
them up over the day, have some go to meals that make it easy
and stick to it. And what should you be eating?
(29:48):
That goes into my next kind of pillar that I focus on.
That's macros. Now as far as a nutritional
lifestyle goes, you know, there's different things out
there now. Carnivore diets, plant based
diets, all that stuff. If that's what you're doing,
good for you. It's not for me.
I, I tend to recommend and say aMediterranean or a near
Mediterranean nutritional lifestyle is what's best.
(30:08):
I mean, it's got great fats, good carbohydrate sources, fish,
lean proteins. That's the best way I can
describe what I try to do. Although I do love eggs and
chicken. That's just is what it is.
That's not Mediterranean. Whatever, I like it.
But that said, as far as macros go, I'm one of those kind of
like even Steven guys, right? I don't have one particular
(30:29):
macro that's like off the chartspercentage wise.
So what I like to do is I stick to the, my goal body weight.
In this case it's £200. I take 200.
That's how many grams of proteinI'm getting that day.
And I spread them out through my4 meals, right?
Sometimes I might eat a little more.
I love jerky. It's like a little addiction of
mine. But then the other two macros,
most of us may know this, but that's your, your fats and your
(30:50):
carbs even percentage in terms of calories.
And then the next piece, and this is kind of the third pillar
for me, I'm a big proponent of carbohydrate timing.
Be intentional on when you eat your carbs and surround your
workout with that carbohydrate intake and kind of phase it out
after the workout. Now I'll say this works for me
(31:13):
because I work out in the morning and I work out fasted.
I'm not going to get into that. For me, I found psychologically,
performance wise, I can work outfasted and and move around heavy
weights just like I could if I worked out 3:00 PM after having
like a huge peanut butter sandwich.
So let's just say I'm trying to have 200 grams of carbohydrates
in a day and I'm focusing on carb timing.
(31:34):
That first meal post workout, I have 100 grams of those carbs.
I don't care. I don't care if it's, but that
sounds like a lot. I love it.
A cup of oatmeal with a banana. I've got 100 more grams of carbs
to work with and I've got the full day ahead of me.
That next meal I might have 75 grams of carbs.
I'm still hungry, I'm ready. I crushed the workout.
I want to eat those carbohydrates.
(31:55):
But if I eat 75 in that second meal, that third one, I got 25
left and then I don't eat them. For the rest of the day.
And I found that fuels my workouts and my recoveries.
But then I'm not having carbohydrates near the time
where I go to bed. And then the last real pillar
for me is time restricted eating.
You may have heard this acronym,It's Tre.
(32:17):
Some people call it fasting, whatever you want to call it.
But what it is, Simply put, it'sbeing intentional to have a fed
window the times that you're eating every day and a fasted
window the times that you're not, right.
That's time restricted eating ina nutshell.
An entry pointed to that is likea 12 and 12.
So let's just say you decide that you're not going to have
(32:38):
any calories until 8:00 AM and you're going to have your last
calorie at 8:00 PM. That was your fed window, 12
hours, right? And then you're not going to eat
from 8:00. To the time you go to bed.
To the time you wake up until 8:00 AM the next day.
That's a great starting point for time restricted eating as
you. Go.
I would recommend kind of tryingto shrink that window.
(32:59):
No, I've done it all. I've I've done 6 hour fed
windows, I've done eight, I've done 10, I've done 12 and I've
just ignored it. I found for me, especially
because I'm working out early inthe morning hard, a 10 hour
window works for me. So what do I do?
I'm up, I'm training, I'm done. I don't eat until 8:00 AM,
That's when I have that breakfast for me.
(33:19):
Carb timing, lots of carbs, lotsof protein, crush it.
And then I have my last meal, mylast calories.
Should I say 6? PM.
That's when I typically have dinner.
Look, sometimes we eat at 5:30, yes, sometimes 6:30 or seven,
yes. Don't sweat it, but just be
intentional about time restricted eating.
You can look up the benefits to it, inflammation, fat loss, all
(33:40):
the things, even energy, psychological benefits, but
that's the kind of long and short of my nutritional habits.
And let's talk and hit real quickly on supplements.
Everyone loves to talk about this.
There's lots of exciting supplements out there.
I am a. Bare bones guy and I don't want
to say I don't take supplements.I love them.
I take them, but I don't go overboard for me.
(34:01):
What do I take? Tried and true creatine
monohydrate unflavored. I put it in my pre workout in
the morning. Pre workout is the other thing I
take. More on that in a second.
Creatine. 10 grams for me. Most labels will say 5g.
Double click on that. Make sure you're taking an
amount that's appropriate for your body weight and your your
exercise output and your habits.10 milligrams for me.
(34:22):
I take it once daily. I do a pre workout.
Physical benefits, strength, it's a nootropic so it does help
with that some some cognitive benefits.
Well, so I do take creatine. I take a pre workout, ideally
unflavored, a lot of like artificial sweeteners and stuff
like that. I look for ones that are near 0
calories because again I'm fasting in the morning and
(34:43):
training fasted. I don't want to break fast.
I'm so I put my pre workout withmy creatine and I get after it.
If I run out of pre workout or sometimes I don't feel like
taking it, I'll just have a double espresso.
Make sure you hydrate around that because it does tend to,
you know, make you a little bit more dehydrated.
But those are my 2 primary kind of like more pure physical
performance supplements. And then I also take some other
(35:03):
things just to kind of aid with what my goals are.
So one of my goals is managing stress.
I mentioned earlier pretty, pretty busy guy.
I've got some kids who can, it'sjust stressed out pretty quick,
sometimes stressful job, all, all of life, right?
So I love mental health supplements and the ones that I
take, I take rhodiola rosea in the morning and then at night,
typically after my last meal, I'll take a couple different
(35:26):
things. But the ones that I love, I take
ashwagandha, I take Alpheanine and then closer to bed I take
magnesium and zinc, right? So those are the kind of more,
not all mental health, but thoseare some of the supplements that
I'll take and then the only other things I take.
I do take fish oil as a supplement and then the last
thing that I take, and this is maybe more particular for the
men listening to the show, I take Tongcat LA.
(35:49):
So again, creatine pre workout Rd.
Rhodiola rosea, ashwaganda L theanine, magnesium, zinc, fish.
Oil Tongcat, LA. So that's nutrition and
supplementation. And then this last section has
to do with productivity, but howdo I get all this done?
How do I make sure that I'm training essentially 6 * a week?
(36:11):
I'm eating well around the clock.
I'm focusing on these things. You got to be intentional on how
you structure your life, right? And I'll start with a quote.
I mean, I, I don't know how longago I read this book, but
Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,
absolutely life changing book for me.
But he's got this one quote and it's so simple, but it's it, it
(36:32):
hits everything. It's put First things first.
You got to put First things first and what are the, what are
the first things right? Your family, your health, your
fitness, your work, your faith, right?
If you don't make those things the priority, they won't be and
other things will be right. So you got to put First things
first. Now what does that look like for
(36:54):
me? First concept time blocks.
I'm such a calendar seen right? And I'm not addicted to
calendars, but they are so important in a time block is
having a personal calendar and blocking out time for
everything. And not just the things that
you're doing, like appointments with people and work and stuff
like that, but things that you want to do, your goals, right?
(37:16):
So if I were to pick up my phoneright now and show it to you on
Monday, that day one training session, I have a block in my
calendar that says Jesse training, right?
It's an appointment with myself that I can't miss.
I have to do it right. And then the rest of my day is
structured that way. I'll literally say Jesse
training time, and the next block is Jesse family time.
(37:37):
I'm done with training. I got to be done by this time.
I got to be present. I got to have my feet on the
floor in my kitchen with my kids, getting them off the bus,
spending time with my wife. What's my next block?
Work right? What's another block in there
like break? Walk around the block.
What's another block in there? Family time again, another one
podcast time, another one sleep right.
(37:58):
And, and I'm not saying that every minute has a block, but I
found that putting calendar blocks in my day.
And look, you can do this for work too.
You can put focus blocks so thatyou're uninterrupted and you're
working on deep work or projectsif you have that freedom.
But time blocks and putting First things first in there I
find is so important for me. So look into time blocks, get
(38:19):
more organized. It's only going to help you.
Another thing this has to do more with like actual recovery
and like mental resilience. But doing a cold plunge, right?
I don't know if anyone listeninghas has heard all the benefits
from it, but psychological, hormonal, mental resilience,
grit, inflammation, all the things.
I finally started doing it. So part of my routine on those
(38:41):
strength training days. I don't do it 6 * a week, but
four times a week and for me it's Monday, Tuesday, Thursday
and Friday. I'm up out of bed early 5:00 get
up right assuming you went to bed early enough whole another
conversation. I'm up, I'm down in that ice
bath within 10 minutes of wakingup and for me I'm around 48° for
2 1/2 minutes. I've heard different kind of
(39:03):
theories and ideas. You might want to do it colder
for longer. You don't have to do it as cold,
you can do it shorter. I found for me I love it.
I'm in that thing. Wake up kind of brings my focus
right in. I'm amped up, I'm motivated, and
then I'm right to my pre workoutand creatine and I'm in the gym,
right? But I found that doing an ice
bath in the morning has been amazing for me, you know, and
it's hard to measure some of theinternal benefits, but I believe
(39:24):
that they're true. And in time I believe that I'll
see those benefits. But I found that that's really
important. Another thing I'm, I'm working
on this, but I think finding time throughout the day to do 2
things for both your mental health and physical health.
But one is walking, right? We all think that we need to
kind of isolate our exercise andall that until like that one
(39:47):
training session. But I found that going for
walks, maybe one or two every day, it could be 1/2 mile a
mile. Whatever you got has been so
beneficial for me. Not just on the physical side,
getting more steps and the calories burned, but mentally,
right. If you're like me, you're
sometimes I have 9 meetings in aday.
Back-to-back to back-to-back. Like you're sitting inside,
indoors, outside of the sunlight, outside of vitamin D,
(40:10):
you're not moving. What if you?
Took one of those. Calls walking around the block
or walking somewhere or going downstairs.
Walk around your house, I don't care.
But just doing. Walks on a regular basis has
been so healthy for me, especially if it's multitasking
like I'm working and I'm doing it at the same time.
I think that's incredibly helpful.
The other one is finding little pockets for mindfulness or
(40:32):
meditation or whatever you want to call it.
You can find those spaces anywhere, but not going from one
thing to another to another to another.
Just kind of pulling up, even ifit's for 5 minutes, right?
You got to go somewhere. You got to walk to the water
cooler at work or downstairs to your fridge.
You got to refill your friggin Stanley or whatever you have.
Just take a couple deep breaths.You could do box breathing,
(40:53):
right? 4 seconds in, hold for 4/4
seconds out, hold for four. Do that a couple times,
Createspace and separation in your transition moments
throughout the day, right? That could be you got done with
work at whatever time it is for you.
Let's say it's 5:00 and you got to go right into parent mode or
right into something else. You got to get ready.
Just stop for 5 minutes and takea couple breaths and focus on
(41:17):
nothing and just clear your head.
What you're doing is you're reducing stress.
I mean, you're literally psychologically, you're changing
your neurochemistry in those moments through deep breathing,
right? But I found when you're having a
stressful day, stressful week, whatever it is, if you focus on
mindfulness and just kind of bringing yourself back to your
center, you're going to reduce your stress.
You're going to feel better. And then those days will go by
(41:40):
better and you'll be much more mentally equipped to do your
training and to eat right. You're not going to burn out and
you're not going to stress out. And then the last one around
just, you know, lifestyle, right?
Sleep. Do I have to say anything else?
Sleep. You want to talk about links to
longevity, stress reduction, less disease, overall mental
(42:01):
health. Now, what stops us from focus on
sleeping? For many of us, it's not
planning it and prioritizing it.It's not saying I'm going to go
to bed at this time and I'm going to wake up at this time.
There's a lot of study and momentum around the importance
of sleep consistency as it relates to sleep efficiency, as
that relates to deep sleep and R.E.M. and break those down,
(42:24):
right? What is sleep consistency?
It's going to bed at or around the same time and waking up at
around the same time every day. Why is it important?
Your circadian rhythm, You'll fall into sleep faster and sleep
deeper when you have sleep consistently.
Sleep efficiency is when you're actually sleeping.
How much are you awake versus tossing and turning?
(42:45):
And a lot can impact that stress, caffeine, you know, all
these different things. But if you start with sleep
consistency, you'll have better sleep efficiency because you're.
Training your body It's time to go to.
Bed time to wake up and you'll fall right into a deep sleep and
from there, right, you'll get more REM sleep and deep sleep.
And that's when your body is truly recovering, which is
(43:05):
especially important if you havea high stress life and like me,
putting a lot of stress on your body through training a lot,
right. So sleep is it's could be it's
whole episode, but be in tensionaround sleep.
Set a goal, be accountable to yourself to do it.
And then in the lead up to that sleep, it's really important and
I'll put my hand up and say this, I'm, I'm not the best at
(43:27):
this. I'm trying to get better.
It's really important to have a routine.
They call it sleep hygiene, a routine before you go to bed,
right? When are you putting down that
stupid smartphone for the last time for the day?
What are you doing in bed? Are you swiping and scrolling or
are you reading a? Book, which by the way, is
incredible for your focus, your mindset, and also to put you to
(43:48):
sleep. I don't know about you, if you
ever said, oh, I'm going to sit up tonight and I'm going to
read. A chapter and 2 pages in you're.
Out. There's a reason that's
happening, but a lot of people think reading before bed can
really enhance that sleep efficiency in the deep sleep,
but have like an intentional plan, put down social media, put
down technology, and start to kind of like slow down and Rev
down right up to the point when you go to bed.
(44:09):
But sleep is something you absolutely have to focus on.
So that's it for this week, folks.
We hope you enjoyed the the fiveheadlines and there's some good
takeaways there, as well as my own kind of personal training
philosophy there. I'll be so glad you joined us on
STRONGER Weekly this week and wewill see you next time.
(44:33):
Well, that's it for this week's episode.
Thanks for listening to The Stronger.
Weekly podcast for your health. News, fitness insights and
motivation. Wishing you a strong.
And healthy week ahead, see you next time.
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