Have a plan and be consistent.

We can adjust the playbook, but when the playbook is different every single time, we have no idea of knowing what worked, what didn't caused you to have the great day, terrible day, and so forth.

So pit kind of a routine even prior to going out.

Whether this is your training and nutrition, your recovery, all of it, be consistent and give it awack in the field and then come back and let's make adjustments next time.

But don't program hot.

I mean that I heard you talking about this about like, don't do it out of shit all the time.

We don't want them out here.

The stakes are real.

Effective preparation starts with fitness, but it requires so much more.

This show explores the tools, knowledge, resilience, and skills needed to be ready when it matters the most.

Join me Rich Browning as we apply the decades of wisdom I've gained through training and competition to hunting in the back country.

This is In Pursuit, brought to you by Mayhem Hunt.

All Right, today, on in Pursuit, we've got doctor Andy Gallpin Man.

I'm honestly the nerd in me is pretty fired up to talk to you about some human performance stuff at Parker University.

You've got I mean, you're doing all kind of cutting edge.

Bird will read off, you know, the true all of his accolades.

But meat Eater asked me to do this.

Yeah, well, I mean, heck, yeah, we want people to know, you know, your credentials and all that, so if we forget anything, let us know.

But they didn't like yours.

Yeah.

I usually am not the most in depth with that stuff.

So yeah, so I mean today, Andy is super great to have you on.

But Andy gaplan world class exercise physiologists, researcher and coach, work with top tier athletes, Olympians and really just your deep expertise training elite performers.

Uh.

But you're here hopefully that we can learn a little bit more about getting prepared for backcountry hunting, even what that looks like beforehand, during, and maybe even after.

Uh So we can get into nutrition, we can get into workouts, fitness, whatever you guys want from here.

Bird's biggest thing was he likes the fact that you say you don't need to eat before you work out, because it hurts his belly when he eats before he works out.

No, I have to eat, Oh, sorry, I thought you have he has to eat.

He says you shouldn't have to.

However, I get a little nauseous that you don't.

So I'm the opposite.

I came years.

I did intermittent fasting for shoot seven eight years, and I I don't intermittent fast anymore.

But I do work out pretty fasted in the mornings my first session.

But we can.

We can dive straight into that.

But Bird's biggest thing was like, supposed to eat.

I need I just said I need to.

Okay, So well we can dive into all that, and one of you is gonna leave happy in one of you my.

Heck yeah yeah.

So just man, start us.

You know, what sports do you play growing up?

What kind of led you down the path you are on currently?

Yeah, man, I grew up in the country.

I still live up in the country now.

And what that means is I played everything, yep.

So if there was a competitive sport around, it's not just me, but every kid I grew up with, like this is what we did.

So I played even soccer as a little kid, but all the way up into high school it was really baseball, basketball, and football, and then I played college football after that I competed in you know, weightlifting or Olympic weightlifting, and then combat sports and jiu jitsu and stuff like that after those things.

So I did readly all of it.

And what really led me down the field of becoming a human performance scientist was I had the perfect blend of I was good but not that good, and that gives you this perfect incentive right where not only the culture that I grew up with, right being country kids, it was always okay to lose like that, that happens.

You don't play sports if you can't handle losing, that's just part of it.

But it was never okay to lose because you were lazy or unprepared or because you didn't work hard.

And so everyone I grew up with, my parents ave been our coaches.

The kids around me were you know, cleaning horsetalls before school, they were compailing.

Hey, they were like always doing hustling on every aspect.

So it's just like an ethos I grew up with, which was do everything, work as hard as you can, be as prepared as possible.

So transitioning into being an athlete, you know, it was very good for my area, but I wasn't a five star going to walk on play at any Division I school kind of thing.

And so I knew that if I prepared well and trained right and outworked everybody, I could have more success than my skills would have allowed me to do.

At the same time, if I didn't do that right, that was I wasn't going to play.

That was a difference.

Between you know, playing college football or not.

That was the difference between you know, being all conference or like maybe playing some snaps when the game was kind of over.

That's how big of a deal this thing was for me.

And it wasn't out that was true.

It didn't matter because I knew that I could control that part of it.

And so initially getting the field was selfish, right, Like, I just wanted to.

Be a better athlete.

I wanted to beat these kids from Seattle, these kids from Portland, these kids from you know that had speed coaches and all this stuff growing up, and I'm like, like, we had nothing, Like we're just doing whatever.

So I just wanted to know more and learn more.

And you know, as a kid, my parents were super supportive and they always told us, you know, my sisters and my brother, we don't care what you guys do.

Professionally, you're just not doing.

What we do.

And they just wanted us to have a better life, an easier life, and so it wasn't about being better or or that those things are important jobs, but like, this is a hard life, and so they didn't care if we were you know again, whatever we wanted to do, just just find something that makes your life easier and you'll be physically healthier when you grow up.

So for me, that was like, Okay, I have a chance to play college football.

I'm going to figure out how to train and do everything as best as I possibly can so that I can actually play and like have some success, and at the same time then figure out how do I make that into a career.

Initially that was like, you know, be a football coach, be a baseball coach, and then I didn't want to do that, and then it turned into okay, maybe strength conditioning.

This is like this emerging field where you can kind of be a coach.

I did that for a while, and I was like, man, I don't for various reasons, this is not going to be at farn It's so hard, yep, lifestyle wise, especially when you get to that upper echelon.

I mean, you're there at five am, you're coming home at ten pm.

You're not getting you don't have days off your it's just a brutal travel.

You got to travel with the teams.

Yep, I did that for a while.

Your head coach gets fired, you're gone.

You're gone.

Yeah, no security, nothing to do with you.

You could be the best in the world.

The new a d comes in, you're.

Out on Yeah.

So I don't want to do any of that.

And then the personality management stuff like I just didn't want to be a babysitter for a bunch of cry babies, and like when you're really at the elite level, it can be like that, right, like oh yeah, for sure, starting quarterback comes in and practice fifty x.

When you're getting paid, you're out.

So I didn't want to deal with any of that.

So that was like, okay, can you figure out a way how to be something different but still kind of be in this field and let sports, hey make you a living.

So that's how I got.

That's what I did.

Heck care man, Yeah, that's awesome.

I mean sounds a lot like the way I grew up, where the way Bird grew up.

You know, we're in Cookeville were outside of Nashville.

If I didn't have anything to do or or said I was bored, my parents were going to find me something to do outside.

Usually no video games.

I think I was like two or three video game systems behind everybody that I still hate video games because I'm terrible at them.

But yeah, I was the same way.

I mean, I was a good athlete, not an amazing athlete, and just kind of had to had to work to get to where I was.

That's really how I found CrossFit as well.

So it sounds like very similar paths and in different areas, but very very similar and similar mindset.

Was strength coached for a little while too, and realized pretty quick, yeah five am ten pm is not the best.

And yeah, Tennessee Tech, I was not paying nearly what some of the higher schools are either, So yeah.

You actually got a paycheck.

Well it was a glorified ga.

You know.

I was an assistant.

I think I made like a right at a thousand bucks a month.

It was right around the time I started CrossFit, so I was, you know, competing.

I could still train quite a bit in between athletes or whatever, so it was awesome.

But yeah, definitely not the route.

You know, you think you wanted to go down, and then all of a sudden you're like, man, maybe not so yeah heck kiam.

So now day to day is what are you doing now?

Yeah, that's a great question because I considered like being a full time strength coach wasn't for me, not only because the hours, but I actually realized, like, I don't like just training people all day every day, and so then I dip my toe into science and I actually, really this is the same thing.

I don't want to just be a scientist in a lab all day every day, and so I kind of cultivated a career in which I do a little bit of everything.

So what my day to day looks like this morning before we got started, I'm working on our new human Performance center at Parker right So we're building a sixty four thousand square foot brand new human performance center in that Dallas area that's the most innovative technology and systems in human performance in the world.

At the same time, I also am working directly with a ton of professional athletes.

I got two UFC fires that'll be fighting in the next five weeks or so, so I'm working on one of the girls programs this morning, and then when we get done with this, I'll hop into working on some stuff with our sleep technology company and our blood work technology company.

So I'm bouncing in.

Between like directly coaching pro athletes and a bunch of different sports, to building these technologies and companies, to running our research in our lab, and then really everything in between.

So I'm doing a little bit of everything, which is exactly how I like.

It to be.

Are all those things your favorite?

Or do you have one that is a specific kind of above the others?

Man, that's a great question, but I actually I don't because for whatever reason personality wise, if I have to do the same thing all the time, like I don't like it.

There's some days when I'm like I.

Just like there's only so many more research papers I can read on a topic, right, and I'm just like so tired of science.

I want to be in the.

Gym, like coaching practical application.

And then there's sometimes and I'm just like I can't handle like watching more warm ups, like it's just like great, it was a good set, Like I'm just.

I'm done, Yeah, I'm done.

Yeah, man, it's.

Super dope, And like looking at the data science stuff we're building and getting really far into the this like new advanced stuff.

And then sometimes it's the opposite.

I'm like, all right, I just want to go try something and just like out, yeah, all right, black.

Bear in my trail cam this morning, So.

There you go.

Yeah, yeah, all right.

Selfishly, what's your what's your go to fitness?

You know, like you a little mix of everything?

You like, you know, more cardio, you like, more lifting, what's your what's your your favorite?

I guess are you similar to where it's like you like to change it up?

No, not really, man.

Actually that's the point where like strength training is for.

Sure my home days, Olympic lifting, powerlifting, all of it.

No, not really those anymore.

Really it's sort of hard to describe.

You guys will understand this, but I'll try to describe this way that the audience will get it.

Bird won't, but yeah I will.

It's it's more of.

Like, uh, very skill based technical challenge stuff.

So the way that that my coach program stuff for me, It'll be like a hand leg opposite row to a different position, right, And we're like I'm trying to get these really complicated movement patterns re established and really built so that things just feel great all the time.

So I'm training super hard, like I'll get to max heart rate, I'll get to max fatigue on things.

But it's like, I'm not powerlifting, I'm not waightlifting, I'm not doing conditioning circuits to max effort.

Like, well, that stuff will all be part of the program, but most of it is complicated, like classic squad to Spider Man position with some load stuff, right, and you're just like what is this?

Like, yeah, I'm trying to think that.

Those movements are You have no idea what I just said.

Yeah, it's these odd combinations of movement patterns I would never program for myself, right, Like.

Now, is that more of the M M A style like thinking or you just you just like to keep the brain guessing.

Yeah, man, it's this combination of physical therapy world kind of blended with more advanced I won't call more advanced, but just alternative strength conditioning kind of stuff.

That's that's advanced.

Though.

If you think about, you know what those two movements you just set out, how do you get from one of those positions to the other?

Yeah, it's super weird, right, And then how do you load.

That yeah, and how I progress that yeah.

And and like that.

That's where I like it a lot, because for years I was that, like I was justightlifting or just squatting downlifting bench whatever for for so many decades.

At some point you're just like, al right, like I still love that.

It's kind of nice to feel something different andhing.

You I said, not feeling as beat up with a bell crashing you at all times?

Yeah, is that?

And then it's just like it'd be kind of nice to feel my hips move in a different position.

Yeah.

Yeah, And I don't feel athletic when I do that other stuff all the time.

If that's like all I'm doing.

Yeah, it makes sense.

So yeah, that's where you sit here.

And if I'm doing jiu jitsu more or if I'm doing other stuff, then I feel like I'm moving in more planes, non specific things, which is great.

If that's not the picture, then I'm like, okay, I'm only doing these very sagital plane you know, symmetrical.

Maybe it's one leg or one arm, but you're still moving in really consistent patterns, you.

Know, front, back, up down sort of thing.

Yep.

And so now it's kind of like, Okay, well, let me mix in.

Like I live in up in the mountains, so like getting up and down verticals is pretty easy easy to find for me, So I'll mixing sprinting up and down in the hill.

Then I have this like odd strength training sort of thing I do, and then I have a bike and I can just do like ass in the pedal just like put in the hours on the bike.

We have this bran enhancement stuff that we do that combines physical exertion.

So I'll end up doing a bunch of stuff on the VR headset physically pretty high heart rate and then doing this with reaction brain training the stuff that we're doing.

So it's it's this weird like yeah, heck, yeah, yeah, man, that sounds cool.

You know, you get stuck down these rabbit holes on Instagram or whatever watching videos of just different movements like oh let me try that, you know, like I'd never really yesterday I did like a you know, it's as lame as it sounds, because you know, coming from the CrossFit world, it's you know, you're Olympic lifting, you're powerlifting, you're doing some of these things, but like just even kickstand deadlifts with the X bar I was like, oh, yeah, I should probably do some of that, you know, like the older I've gotten, I'm like, oh, I need to change up.

Some of these movement patterns got me in a hell.

I've been doing crossmit for fifteen years, like hard not just you know, recreationally would be.

Uh over, I'd probably call you recreation cross.

Yeah, yeah, recreational on that end, uh you know CrossFit now maybe a little bit recreational.

But yeah.

So you know, if you're getting ready for you know, say a hunt somewhere, are you do you do much like West out West backpacking style hunt or you know you just said you got off a black bearing Canada.

Yeah.

All my hunting ever in my life is West love it.

I've never done deer stands.

I've never done a white tail.

You know sit all either.

Until last year.

The first time ever actually was that that last black bear hunt.

We were we were on bait and in stands a little bit, and so like that was a whole new thing.

It's actually funny, man, because I came back and I was telling, uh, my, my wife and stuff.

I was like, dude, it's a different kind of hard to sit wait thirteen hours, like got every day like cam cam, and I would just like wake up and just be like God, like the thing er is and you all for five or six days.

Dude, You're just you're just wrecked bound up.

It's awful.

Yeah, I felt terrible.

So yeah, everything I've ever done is is West West.

Yeah, rock for the most part.

So if you're do you will you shift your training up, you know, six eight weeks out if you are going out west backpacking, I.

Will do it way earlier than that.

I'm probably closer to like sixteen weeks.

What does what does that look like?

Yeah?

Man?

The biggest thing for me is I'm a lowlander, right, Like I live at sea level.

Basically, yep, we're up, but we're talking a few hundred feet right, And then if I go to depending on where we're at in Idaho or Oregon or here in Washington, Montana, Wyoming, I could easily find myself at nine thousand feet right.

That's a pretty common thing for us to do, depending on what tags we drop.

So that's a big change.

Now ten thousand feet is like that clip where it starts to really matter.

But nine thousand and then nine thousand on a run like with a pack on and this happened to me a couple of years ago.

Opening morning, we're mual deer hunting, and it was a really as everyone in the West knows, mule deer have just got really crushed in the last like three years out here.

It's really really tough.

So we drew these tags.

I think we probably put in like fifteen preference points.

So we're like we And then then we talked to some people out there called the biologists, and they're just like, well, you know, we have ninety percent killed last winter eighty percent, and like the numbers are down, but not a lot of guys are coming out because of that.

So you'll probably have the mountain to yourself yep, yep.

So there's anything out there, like, you'll probably have first pick at it.

So I was like, okay, and just schedule wise, like I don't have I don't have months to hunt a year yep, yep.

Same like I might get ten to fourteen days total yep, Like that's my yearly a lot.

So I'm like, well, I'm gonna go all right.

So we went out there and we're at I think Bays Camp.

We're probably camping at nine thousand feet, but then we would we were actually on horses, so we would ride horses up start our day about ninety five ninety seven hundred feet elevation, which is not crazy, maybe a little higher.

And then yeah, first morning, boone, we see some across a ravine and I'm like, man, that's a shooter buck.

For sure.

It wasn't crazy, but just a nice mature four point dear, just like a good one probably again like one sixty, like nothing at all.

You cash in fifteen preference points for But bro.

You're talking to somebody that's gonna pull a trigger on anything if it's if it's legal, I'm gonna kill it.

So you don't have to.

You don't have to do that to me.

But we see this thing and it's a movement and it's gonna go up and down on over and I have to run the rim basically, and I have to get on top where I can shoot horizontal before it gets up and over.

I'm gonna lose it.

And it was probably I mean, I don't know, but probably fifteen hundred yards I had to go.

And that's like full pack on.

Just got off the horses and we're like BUGI.

Right, yep, And I mean, I'm run around that thing and I don't get six hundred yards and I'm for sure Max hartright like it's I know what Max is and.

I'm like, I don't feel.

Yep, this is not ending anytime soon.

Run the rim finally get over there and end up getting them, probably got one hundred and seventy yards away, which with the rifle is I don't need time to set up land on that, Like I don't need to breathe much to them.

I made a good shot and put him down.

But that was a case where like that was a max heart rate issue and then that was control your breath and like make a good, safe, ethical shot yep.

Where in other times like ELK last couple of years, same kind of area, a different area, but Elk are doing much better.

That was more of a tissue tolerance thing.

It was like, do you need to be moving for many, many many hours a day and you're gonna go up and down a bunch and you need to make sure that you don't wake up on day two mm hmmm, because this is gonna be five or six days of grind.

Totally so completely different things.

So like the max heartwy stuff, Nope, I can handle it, yep.

Doing my whole life right, like it's not as good as it used to be.

I can train for that, I can get better.

But I'm not like, I'm not uncomfortable.

I'm not freaking out mentally if if I can't breathe, right, but the ability to wake up and be like my achielees is not working today.

Yeah, it's blown up, like ye.

Yep.

I have to prepare for that, right yeah, good example.

That just two weeks ago.

And you know Doug Larson, right, Barbara Yell?

Yeah, yeah, he and I went to college together.

I don't know if you guys know that, Okay, I know, yeah, so he and I lived together, so I'm known him for over twenty years.

We just summoned Mount Saint Helen's Okay, it's like eighty five hundred feet.

It's like, it's not crazy.

But I did zero preparation for that at all because I'm not even preparing for hunting season and it's about forty five hundred feet the elevation game yep, and that probably ten miles.

That'll do it.

Brother, That was a week ago, and I'm.

Still messed up.

What's what?

What hurts the most besides your soul.

Probably the calves.

Oh yeah, calves achilles.

Yeah, and so that's what I mean of, like, it's the tissue tolerance.

It wasn't like I was out of breath, Like the elevation game was fine, Like I could have gone way fast around that yep.

But it was the next day I woke up my ankles and calves were so destroyed.

Yep.

So that's what I mean when I'm like, I mean, that's what I have to prepare for something like that, which I did nothing for the Mountain Helens thing.

Just it's here in my backyard.

Okay, I need to handle that so I can do a three or four five day one and not just be completely.

Wrecked because of the up and downs.

I can get everything else in my training, but how do you simulate three hours in boots up and down?

In this case, it was ten hours.

So it's that part that I have to train for and I can't do that in six weeks.

Yeah, I think you know a lot.

That's That's one of the things that I think is neglect.

Calves.

Man, calves get so blown up on me pretty quick, and so you know, we push a lot of sled and do that type of stuff.

But yeah, you have to start way out building up those tolerances because even now that I've added a bunch of sled the last couple of weeks, my achilles, my calves, I mean, I have no meniscus left in my knee, so uh, you know, I've got to work a lot on that, ye d cell and stepping down from things or just that's honestly, the thing that beats me up the most is the eccentric coming downhill and yeah, yeah, that's what's got.

Me halfway down the mountain.

My name is done and I'm like done.

So it's actually funny, is my right me is the one that's gone, And so of course I did everything.

On my left left after my halfway so my.

White quad wasn't sore at all, yep, and my left one is again yah, and it's so happy.

Man.

Yeah, we got opposite legs, I'll give you my Yeah, we're basically the same thing, but nothing on the left.

I'm looking at an ostiautomy right now.

So yeah, but biden time on that four.

What are some things that you do to make sure I know?

Of course, like Rich said, he pushed a sled, you starts that far out, but just practically leading up to make sure day two, day three, day four, you're still okay.

Yeah, okay, So you know what, I'm gonna skip past some of the obvious stuff and go to some stuff I didn't think about perfectly.

And because I asked Doug about this a couple of days ago, I'm like, man, at you're castle star and he's like, no at all, and I'm like damn.

And he's like, he had just done half Domee pretty recently, okay, and he prepared for that pretty hard.

And he's like, dude, I just did a bunch of caffes really, And I was like, boy, only takes thirty years in this field, not right.

Yeah, yeah, Well, I don't do calf raises.

Those are dumb.

I don't do bodybuilding stuff like it just I've never been interested in it.

Yep.

And it's like my excuse right to not do accessory work that I should do.

Yeah right, yep, yep, do as I say, not as I do.

So I didn't do any calf races and he's like, dude, it really helped.

And I was like, oh my god, So I.

Would recommend that, but like I would actually start with really really long angle calf raiss.

Yeah, so leaning out, leaning into the wall or into a rig something like that.

Yeah, as much as you can do, I will.

It's funny, man I do him with all of our athletes.

Yeah, like you do many chib raises.

Not really, No, we can.

I mean that's fine if we have those issues knee issues, maybe fine.

But for the most part we'll do barefoot yep a lot of times, like on a ball some ford and get like a aggressive toe foot contraction.

Yeah, all the way up and you can really hammer those things.

You can do them super frequently.

And to your point, Rachel, like you can do really aggressive angles, like really get as much flection.

Extension as you possibly can.

Yeah, because that's gonna be the problem you're in when you're in those shoes.

Yeah, when you're outside those those issues.

Yeap.

Honestly, a bunch of us have nerded up and we all wear Vivo's barefoot shoe and man, I train everything in them, and it helps my knee a ton, you know, strengthen everything below and above the knee, you know, I, you know, just I just because I'm talking about getting this osteotomy and getting the MRI back and basically you know, severe arthritis and all three compartments and uh, at some point my a cl my body just absorbed it.

No a cl Uh.

Yeah, there's no fibers left, and so you know I have and I couldn't tell you when that happened, and so you know you got to work around some of those things, right.

Yeah, for sure.

No.

I've had five surgeries on the same knee, and the last one is at ploratory and they're just like.

Yeah, we're done.

Yeah, we're done, We're done.

Yeah it's full replacement or yeah, we'll see you later.

Cool.

How old.

I had that at?

Thirty probably thirty five years old?

Okay, they're like you're done, and you're how old now?

Forty two?

All right, I'm thirty eight.

Yeah.

They were like, oh, we can try a nasty out of me, and I'm like maybe we'll see so yeah.

So I'm holding out for for higher.

Upson's right, right?

All right, So you know we've talked the exercise side of stuff, but like, all right, a guy gets in day one, day two and they've done a ton of volume.

At night, obviously your sleep's not going to be the greatest, right, you know, anybody asks me my highest you know, like what's the biggest thing for recovery?

I'm like, make sure you're eating enough and make sure you're sleeping enough for me, you know, like what's the goal?

You know, like should I should I cold punch that I saw it on.

I'm like, if you have those things, great, but best like best case is eating sleep, right, And so what do you you know?

Are you more procarb guy?

Are you more keto guy?

Like, let's we'll talk nutrition first.

Obviously hydration is a huge piece of that making sure you're getting those things.

But we'll talk nutrition first, and we'll talk I mean, sleep is gonna be hard in the mountains.

Yeah, so he's talking about in preparation for or when you're up there.

Let's just let's do both, just quick, maybe quick on both.

Yeah, so in preparation.

Uh.

The reason I asset is because the answers are almost pull their opposite Right, you want to maximize sleep and you want to maximize nutritional quality when you're here anhydration, but you want to be careful with over consuming fluids when you're out and packing.

Just the basic answer there is like you're packing too much load if you're not using bottles that you can filter and devices like that.

But anybody who's ever especially hunting, you don't want to be peeing every forty minutes.

Nope.

It's a in fact, a funny story.

We got back to camp recently and James Cam's like a camera guy.

I was like, bro, I just I think I broke a record, Like what He's like, I just held a p for twelve hours.

And I was like, well, there was this monster, this like eight foot plus black bear, and they had cam and almost got a shot at him and he didn't and so then they waited days for him to come back.

And James is like, I didn't want.

To go pete in the area at all and like potentially blow this hunt and who knows it actually matters this giant monster.

But he's like, I'm not even gonna risk it because this is like a record breaking black bear.

So you don't want to be like doing that.

It's just a pain do that.

So we actually be generally men like kind of do what's what's needed hydration wise when you're out there, but you want to prepare prior to going out in the optimal conditions so that you're as resilient as possible when you're in these suboptimal conditions.

Right, So when you're para like prior to going out, you want to be at great body composition, you want to be lean, right, we don't want to be doing all those things.

But when you're out there, it's the opposite, Like all that is irrelevant, and you want to smash calories all Yep, however you can, right, And I'll give you two like very similar examples we recently worked with.

And I actually just had data open this morning on Michael Easter.

I don't know if you know Michael, but he just did this cool thing where he went I forget the numbers he did, but I think he did nine hundred miles hike.

It took him like six weeks or something like that, so he just.

Just hyped all the way rup through.

Numbers may be off there, but it was something like really some mile here.

At the same time, I'm right in the middle of Ross Edgeley, and Ross is swimming around Iceland.

Okay, this is a thousand I think it's a thousand miles swim and it's going to take him probably five months, jeez, and he's two months in or something like this at this point, Wow, and it's freezing cold.

And I mean, yeah, there's so many factors, all these things.

They're talking about, like pretty extreme angles of this stuff.

And philosophically, it was the same approach in Ross's case.

He doesn't want to be lean.

He's literally an ice water for a little bit and needs to have a little bit of insulation.

Right, Michael's up store, like, let's be lean as possible.

But in the event, we're getting as many calories hammer case, like legit trying to get ten thousand a day, Michael, the most high calorically dense stuff.

Now you're you're literally talking candy bars.

You're talking because.

I mean it's it's in and out.

In and out right, you need everything there.

So when it comes to like fats carb sings like that's a game to play at home.

Right, see what everybody holds it out effects everybody's different, you know, like there's not one stop shop.

I mean we know quality obviously and in perfect world is best.

But yeah, it's sounds very similar to when we compete, right, you know, like we're trying to optimize when we're at home, and then as soon as you get on the you know, you you get off the plane to wherever you're at, it's like, all right, give me some gummies, some nerd clusters, whatever.

I got to get to get some sugar.

And now you know, I've done Leadville the last two years and you know, and it's it's what somebody said it to me was, you're basically when you're doing an endurance test, it's an eating competition, right.

You gotta you gotta stay ahead of that curve because if you fall behind, you're done.

Yeah.

We had I had a guy named Jordie Sullivan on my show, and Jordi was a dietitian for Ned Brockman when he did the thousand mile run.

Oh and it's dope.

Jordi went through everything Ned.

I think Ned did this on a track.

By the way, God, oh oh.

Add right there is that hurts me.

I think that's harder than the actual physical side of it.

Just on.

So Jordi had everything down in terms of everything from calories to macros to electrolyzed to sodium to fluid, all this stuff, and he goes through it in detail.

But the point of it is, yeah, man, like it's about like you have to stay ahead because if you fall behind, it's you're done.

You're not catching up when you're that physically active the whole time.

So yet no, I agree with one hundred percent.

So get ahead, you know, play with your your macros as you see fit.

I generally look the rub with fat is fat is great because it gives you more calories a pre density.

Right, And so when you pack it out there, and this is when the old trail mixed stuff falls in.

Right, you have a handful of nuts as an example, and it feels like a handful in your stomach.

But you could get five hundred calories.

Yep, Like a handful of that apple is like, it's.

Just not much.

It's mostly water.

You're gonna get you need to eat five apples.

Yeah, Like you're just not gonna get it there.

So from like a packing in your pack to sitting on your stomach, And depending on what kind of hunting you're doing.

If you're doing like September elk or something and it's hot out, sometimes it's.

Hard to eat a lot during the day.

And this is when some of these like quote unquote lowercality calorie foods or higher fat foods can help you just get a lot.

I mean it's hard to get a lot of calories with beef jerky.

Yeah, this is super hard to do it.

So you play a combination of those games.

And depending on how long your your trip is, things like protein matter or don't at all.

Right, if you're out there for four or five days, like protein content doesn't matter.

Yeah, if it makes your stomach set a little bit better or feel it fine, if you're out for thirteen, fifteen, twenty one day, then you can probably should start taking attention to protein a little bit.

But from those guys, get protein in as you feel good, as you you know, as you like it to taste and stuff.

But really this is a total calorie game.

You're split between carbs and fat.

I don't know how much difference at Actually, In fact, I was just with boy I'm name.

Dropping like crazy right now for it.

Love it.

I was at rich Rules three or four days ago and we were talking about this exact same thing, and he's like, man, like, I just don't know how big of a deal carbs are versus fat like in these events, yeah, all Like, I just because we don't have a lot of data on people doing stuff like this, so scientifically, I don't have a good answer.

This is now coming around in like empirical and practical stuff and what people are saying totally how you feel, how you feel?

Yeah, and you need to test that, you know, you need to test that regularly.

You know, we do throughout the year, We'll do a couple of twenty four hour events, you know, maybe a partner relay or something like that.

But man, I you know mentally they something to be said about it, but physically you're like, all right, hey, what happens.

You know, we did a twenty four hour mountain bike relay four people and yeah, man, you go for forty minutes and then you're off for hour forty hour, two hours and then you got to get right back on.

So man, it's it's you know, for me, somebody who loves this stuff is like you nerd out on it.

You're like, all right, let me try eating X and drinking X and how do I feel on that last ride?

How are my times?

And that type of thing.

Man, I you know, from you know, you're studying the whole time, and so yeah, I think you've got to do those things every once in a while in the off season to figure out how you're gonna respond in the season.

I mean, if you're talking about people that we directly work with and coach, we're.

Tracking every everything.

You have extensive data.

We run, really advanced sleep tracking technologies, really advanced blood work stuff like we know what's going on in physiology.

If you don't have any of that.

One really practical piece of advice I gave somebody is when you're out for multiple days, the biggest problem you're honestly going to run into outside of your joints to something sore is your gi And so when you go from eating you know this this way at home, and then you get up there and now you're eating candy bars all day, you're gonna get either diarrhea or tremendous constipation.

And so the advice there is saying like a lot of times there'll be just so much discomfort because you're just like, man, I haven't pooped in.

Three days, Like what is going on here?

This is awful.

If you're in one of these like events like leadbill or something like that, this is going to be just like constantly consuming carbohydrates for the most part, and in a form that you don't usually take them, in a volume way higher than.

You used to.

Yep, this is gonna be bubble guts, this is gonna be I just can't anything else anymore.

Like I can't drink and stuff anymore.

I'm losing palatability.

So when I say g I stuff, I think it's it's kind of all these combinations of things.

So the practical piece advice would be one, try to have a standard playbook, right, I take four of these and two of these and three of this, and then like, try to be consistent every day.

Give your gi a chance to go, Okay, this is what's happening at this time, yep, and give it.

Try to standardize it once you get.

There, standardize it and try to make it as close to your normal routine foods as you possibly can and normal times, like all that stuff.

That's going to give you the least You still may be in trouble, but that will give you the least amount of problems because you don't want to be stopping four times a day to you know, take your gear off, or again sitting there being like man, I need it stomach rock right now, because I can't be a business going there.

So that that will help a lot of people just like get a consistent plan.

I eat the same thing if you can, or over every day at the same times.

After a couple of your stomach will adjust a little bit and you'll feel cool all right.

And then as far as sleep goes, obviously it's not going to be optimal in the field.

So a couple tips leading up to optimizing is, you know, consistent sleep and wake times, dark room, cool room, anything else major.

Yeah, I mean sleep at home is all about precision.

I mean there's all the little basic stuff like you mentioned.

Sure, that's that's like basical sleep hygiene up.

But what we actually do is we have technology where we can run full clinical grade medical sleep studies from people in their own house, and so we can do that now it's actually more advanced technology than you would see any sleep possible.

We run that on people even if they don't you know, have huge sleep disorders or don't think they have one, because the vast majority of sleep disorders are undiagnosed.

If you're fact I do this all the time.

If you're that guy in hunting camp who's like scaring off all the bears at night because you're snoring, So yeah, you have a sleep disorder.

Like that is snoring, even like mile storing is not behind right, it's not a guarantee sleep disorder, but it is a problem.

And so we will run these sets on people.

It's pretty easy, and from there we can give really precise, simple fixes.

This could be something as simple as changing your pillow, could be way more advanced, like ten weeks of what's called cognitive behavioral therapy or six weeks of tongue exercises you have to do real or we might have something that we see in the environment in your bedroom dand or Paul and allergens like it could be big, too small, But the reality of it is when you have precision like that, we can get people really advanced sleep solutions and they sleep a whole lot better.

So then they go into those trips not just already trashed, because when you get out in the field, it's like, Okay, who knows.

What you're sleeping on or what you're doing.

You're probably not gonna sleep anyways, just because you're so excited and namped up.

And I mean, I remember a couple of years ago, I was on a cot and we were camping, was there was not a flat spot in the mountain I was, but I was like forty five sliding off.

There's no like.

Yep.

But you're fine because you didn't walk into it.

Sleep trap yep, yep.

And so manage the best you possibly can in the field.

And that's that's the different set of answers.

But really really spend the time to make sure you're sleeping.

Well, there's actually excellent research on what's called sleep enhancement stuff, and so sleep enhancement or getting ahead of sleep.

There's probably been thirty plus papers studies that have been published now, specifically in military groups looking at this stuff.

And so what we're talking about here is when you go into situations of known sleep deprivation.

Again, this mostly research comes out of military yep.

And the testing here is things like shooting accuracy, So very relevant toward to the people we're talking about now.

When you get in those sick deferation situations, we know you're going to shoot less accurately, your decision making will be worse, so on and so forth.

Great, but if you can batch or extend your sleep ahead of time, the amount of accuracy and decision making that you will lose during that sleep deprivation is significantly reduced.

By extending sleep prior to this event.

Now, in the case of the military, depending on the groups we're working with, they don't always get noticed, right, But in this case, you know you're hunting trek, you know yet you know your dates.

And this research has been done from as little as three days of extending sleep or sleep banking is what you hear.

This called extension of banking.

Yeah, only up to six to eight weeks.

And the amount of extra sleep you get per night can be as little as forty five minutes per night, up to ninety minutes extra per night.

And so what I'll say is, like, hey, the week before, give me an extra hour of sleep per night.

Yeah, like aim, that is our target.

And if you do that, you will not only probably feel a lot better, even if you don't feel any better, Because research is also clear with smiles short term sleep deprivation, your perception will not match your cognitive output.

That's what that means is you will perform cognitively, really poorly.

In fact, six hours a night of sleep will you'll have a cognitive performance equiebent to forty eight hours of consecutive awakening events, but you will have zero subjective awareness of.

That so you won't really and you will think I'm fine.

I'm actually not that bad, and if we put you on a sharp shooting test, you would perform.

There you go.

And so that's what I'm like, dude and invest in and but the problem is everybody like goes, I'm gonna be out of town for a week, so I gotta go all this stuff.

Done and ye stress, stress about whatever got up, family time, yep.

All of that right, So I get it.

I do the same thing.

Go into a sleeping hunting.

Trip is like surprise.

But if you can in the three days to as long as you possibly can, extending your sleep as much as you possibly can, I will make a big deal, a big difference.

Then you just you just get through it and be resilient, you know, on the trip.

Cool for me, it's just super hard to stay hydrated enough and get enough sleep good because I have to wake up like six times the night.

Yeah, by drink anything past seven o'clock at night.

I pissed three times a night.

You shouldn't actually be doing that, I trust me.

Yeah, we shouldn get there.

But it's actually sort of a funny point too, because when you're out and you get five hours asleep or something, and then you get up twice to take a leak.

You're like three hours, Yeah, you're three hours.

That's why I actually like generally kind of recommend being a little bit under hydrated.

Yeah on those so you can get a little better sleep and you know time.

Yeah, but yeah, getting back to camp and then shugging two liters of water.

Yeah not the not not the best probably, or the caffeine and beta that you're taking in at five six o'clock getting hyped up for that bull you know it's about to bugle.

That's not great either out there.

Yeah, I don't do that at all.

Oh really from that man?

Yeah?

Yeah we could.

Man, I could sit here pick your brain all day long, but we want to be uh respectful to your time.

If you had one blanket, I know there's we could give thousands a piece of advice, but one, one step, one actionable thing that people could take away.

What you got.

The kind of a theme we've had today, and I'll say it a little bit differently, is you will have more success when you minimize varias.

Right, So whether this is kind of try to eat the same thing, it's just like you do with your shot.

Right, you have your routine, your you do a B and C, your stock, your whatever.

Do the same thing with this type of preparation and just try to even if that playbook isn't perfect, have a plan, have a plan, and be consistent.

We can adjust the playbook, but when the playbook is different every single time, we have no idea of knowing what worked, what didn't, what caused you to have the great day, a terrible day.

So and forth.

So pick kind of a routine even prior to going out, whether this is your training and nutrition, your recovery, all of it.

Be consistent and give it a whack in the field and then come back and let's make adjustments next time.

But don't program hot.

I mean, I heard you talking about all the time.

We don't know what's going on.

We don't know what.

Yeah, if we can control as many amount of variables as we can, we can pinpoint one maybe change something that we feel like, oh, that wasn't it.

But if we don't have a baseline or have something to test, man, I love that.

That's awesome.

You got anything else, bird?

Yeah, Well, just listen to you in the past.

I know you have talked just about like kind of the trial and error of everything.

And that's kind of what you're talking about, because like things that we've said before is even adjusture training times, things like that, you know, leading up for I always work out late in the afternoon, so like in your if you're at camp, sometimes it's tough to get my bodies just up and then because the first thing, you're right up a mountain, you know what i mean.

So it's helped leading up to wake up during the dark, get to the gym, put on a pack, get on the StairMaster, put a push a sled during that time, just to lead up because when you're there and every things deprived and it just it's more second and Nate, you know, it's more kind of just it's in my brain more.

That's like this is just what I've always done type deal.

Then it's totally different.

My body's just in shock.

Yeah, physiology is tremendous at pattern recognition.

Pattern recognition foresure, and you know, we'll I'll give you guys a little bit of a bonus here, but going to your eating and before your workout or after your workout.

Thing, right we go here, we go.

Yeah, it's pattern recognition, right, like rich.

If your body figured out for a long time, we're not gonna fuel before we're going to train, it got fine with it.

If it's the opposite, it's fine with it.

Yep.

What was gonna throw you off is if you're used to eating and then you don't eat.

If you're not used to eating and then you eat, both of those are going to be bad.

Yep.

It can do.

You can do do the way.

We actually just published a study out of our lab on air emittent fasting and training and highly trained people who are progressively overloading, like training really hard.

It can go find it away five Yeah.

Yeah.

I did it for years, man, and I loved it.

And then it just got to the point where I couldn't get enough calories in that eight hour window.

So you know, I started adding a little small, you know, protein shake and a bagel or a protein shake and some fruit after you know, a little session, and then you know, I've kind of stuck with that.

So it's a quasi intermit in fasting.

But I just feel great, no food, working out first thing in the morning.

I just I like it.

Yep.

And I have we have some athletes who are the opposite world record holding athletes, and they either have different chronotypes so that they're just not going to get up in the morning, or even if they do, like they just want a huge breakfast and fuel for the day.

And I think we have enough empirical evidence and we definitely have enough signs of the evidence to say either of these approaches whatever works and work.

If you're like reasonably consistent, you just want to be the guy who, like you know, doesn't have breakfast today, breakfast tomorrow, and then like you wonder why you have these energy crashes and lulls.

You feel like your system doesn't know what's going on.

And we want to be resilient at all times for sure, if we don't want to be precious and a liability, and like you don't want to be like, oh, I didn't have my breakfast today.

I can't, I can't.

I can't climb that mountain, you know.

I don't want Yeah, I'm leaving you, like.

We'll do that, We'll leave you.

Yeah.

But if you know you got to get up at three and get.

Up the mountain, then you're not going to like some of your trambled legs and toast, you should be able to still perform yeah, but at the same time, you know, if your probody performs better my way, it's totally farm there.

There's you have options either way.

Love it.

Uh yeah, one just one last question, I guess, but really for both of you, just the importance or difference what's needed what's not needed.

Just I think one of the big tensions, even like people on the internet whatever, it's just like the importance of muscle size and doing something like this compared to maybe I don't need to do that, I just need to do Zone two training the whole time, compared to okay, well you need some kind of like explosiveness too to be able to do some of this stuff.

Just to me, you need it, you need it all right, But then some people are just like, ah, that's not me.

I'm just going to put on a pack Zone two for an hour.

But maybe it comes to that pack out or something else where you need that other stuff.

Just yeah, well, I mean I think I don't know.

Twenty years across it has made this answer pretty clear.

Yeah.

Yeah, you want to be pretty well rounded and lots of volume over multiple days.

I wouldn't do fifty hours of cycling.

I wouldn't do powerlifting.

Either yep, all of it.

I mean, it's a.

Pretty easy answer.

I guess a little bit less tongue in cheek would be, it depends on your own personal what I call defenders.

Right, So someone like me, I don't need any power or strength training prior to getting preparation for these things.

I will never be limited by my leg strength.

Right.

You don't have those holes.

Yep, you don't have those holes.

You have that background, your body knows you're that type of athlete.

Those are you muscle fibers.

And I've literally biops biopsy thousands of people.

I've been biopsied almost forty times personally.

Gosh literally no, right, I've never been biopsied.

So there we go.

Man, you know how many times people asked me to biopsy you over my career.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

I have no idea.

I have no idea.

I mean, I I've got the extra science background.

I would be interesting because everybody's like, are you more type one, type two, Type A, type B whatever.

I'm like, I would say A, but I'm not one hundred percent.

Sure you're You're definitely fast pitched, yeah, for sure, yeah you are.

For but you have other.

Yeah, I've got some weird skills to recover.

Pity some other crossfitters that are not that way, right, Yeah sure.

In general though, if you're doing decent acrossfit, you're very happy.

We've got to have some some type two for sure.

Yeah.

Cool.

So the opposite, it's like for me, I need to do almost exclusively.

It doesn't matter z own one zone two zone like that's almost all nonsense.

In general for health and for everything else.

Like it's I don't give a shit about your zone, but I need to do way more volume, way more tissue tolerance.

That's all I always do it, Like my joints and soft tissue need to just get used to pounding, pounding, so rucking and stuff like that.

It actually makes a big difference for me.

Other folks, if you're that other side, you ran across country as a kid, you're up in the mountains all the time, you're you're a cowboy, or you're a guide or something, you probably need zero more minutes of that stuff and would need to do exclusively powerlifting yep, or exclusively.

You know, I wouldn't necessarily argue tomic weightlifting, but you get the point.

Like, probably some plow metrics.

I don't even know if I would argue interval stuff.

You probably don't need that at all either.

You could certainly do it just benefit.

But if we're like saying, all your stuff in, give me three days a week, two days a week, lift low volume, really high quality, pure strength stuff, and you'll probably notice a significant difference getting up and.

Down scrambles and and.

They're because exactly like I said, Rich like, you're just not You're you're very deficient in that stuff.

Muscant endurance is high, and robo capacity is probably high enough so and so forth right there, but you just don't you don't have any horsepower in those So the answer could be a combination of both, depending on your background.

Great, man, I could sit here and nerd out on this all day, but we are at an hour, so man, I appreciate it.

And once again, if your schedule ever allows it, or if we were make it out to you, Man, I'd love to sit and talk and you know, throw out different ideas and try some of those Cossack squad to spider stretch, spider Man stretch.

I'm really intrigued.

Actually, I could do it on my right side, my left knee.

I don't think I could do it, you know.

It's I'm extremely limited in the flexion of that knee.

Yeah, no, I hear man.

I have whatever.

Man, I'm down to do anything.

I'd love to get together sometime.

Cool, let's do it, man.

I appreciate it again.

Thank you.