Ep. 41: Pete Nelson – The Hidden Benefits of the Sauna

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Speaker 1: To me, the number one facet to sauna therapy, it’s the relationships and it’s the community building.

00:00:06
Speaker 2: As much as in the United States.

00:00:08
Speaker 1: We’re obsessed with objective data and this study says this, and I should do this protocol.

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Speaker 2: To me, you strip all that away. The reason why people love son so much.

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Speaker 1: Is that you build community and it’s the one time, especially right now in twenty twenty six, where people don’t have their phones in there.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: People come together.

00:00:25
Speaker 1: A lot of times it’s with the stranger or their friends, and you get twenty five thirty minutes of uninterrupted conversation.

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Speaker 3: And low 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 Mouth Knops in collaboration with Mayhem Hunt. All Right. In Pursuit, we got Angelo and we got Pete Nelson, owner of ce Sue Saunas. It’s up man.

00:01:16
Speaker 2: We really good. Last time we hung out was what a year ago?

00:01:19
Speaker 1: Now it’s been a year. I think it’s been I think it’s been a year. But uh man, super grateful for you gonna pop on with y’all.

00:01:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely glad to have you, dude. Uh So we had Todd on here, Todd Anderson. He talked a little bit of sauna sleep recovery, that type of stuff. So we’ll get into all this sauna stuff again. Anything. Did you watch that podcast at all and see what he covered?

00:01:38
Speaker 2: I did not.

00:01:39
Speaker 3: Actually, he referenced a ton of the I guess the Swedish study where it’s four times a week. Oh yeah, and you know, twenty minutes basically, and just the effects of that and the benefits of that. So we can talk a little bit about that. But yeah, man, what’s new with you? Man? A lot.

00:01:58
Speaker 1: So we just had our third or third born, so we’ve got a four year old, three year old and a three month old.

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Speaker 2: So it’s chaos at home. Cease who’s been growing.

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Speaker 1: It’s been challenging is all get out too though, because as you as you try to grow something, you try to stay as lean as you can, and as we all know, there’s all sorts of great boutains trade offs that come out. And then I just got done running a Ultra out in Joshua Tree recently.

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Speaker 2: So that was what was a.

00:02:23
Speaker 1: Distance seventy five miles seventy five miles, so we did always there.

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Speaker 3: You know, people say seventy five fifty whatever. Yeah, you know, so miles. That dang, that’s that’s legit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:02:34
Speaker 1: So it was sweet. I got through my pops out. We’ve been running Ultras for the last twelve years together. And uh, but it was a hot day. It was one of those days we had, like it was ninety five degrees. Sun’s beating down on you. You got a hoodie on because you’re trying to do everything can to stay stay cool.

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Speaker 3: The loop is it an out back? Is it a what was it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s called the traverse.

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Speaker 1: So it’s thirty seven point five out, thirty seven point five back, the same course on the same trail.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, demoralizing. Yeah, And that was the first time in Leadville coming back, you’re just like, gosh, dang it.

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Speaker 1: Oh for sure, yeah, that that race exactly. I mean there’s no cloud coverage in Leadville either, but it was the first time ever did like a zen in the middle of a race just to keep me.

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Speaker 3: Going space a little bit.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah. But it was a great time.

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Speaker 1: And then it was a total time on that uh so it was sixteen hours, so we were pushing. What was sweet is it was twelve guys, none of us had met each other prior, and all of them have ran outside of me the Moab two forty Oh wow.

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Speaker 2: So I knew.

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Speaker 1: I was like I knew coming in, like I had good fifty mile one hundred mile experience, but never this in between one hundred percent. Yeah, and so I know it’s gonna learn a lot from these guys. And every single one of them was super cool. It’s just you guys just doing it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, that’s exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So we just all met up at this trail head at four am, got out and myself talked.

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Speaker 2: The first ten miles was so bad.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, like when you’re telling yourself like I’m gonna go do something and you start doing.

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Speaker 3: It and I immediately regret this, and.

00:04:01
Speaker 1: You’re trying to think of every excuse to stop, and you keep going like all right, I’m committed, I’m gonna here.

00:04:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, ten miles to get back in Yeah.

00:04:09
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, so we had a we had a great time. And since then, man, we’ve got a got there like a.

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Speaker 3: Man left behind rule? Was there a what was it?

00:04:18
Speaker 1: Kind of kind of? Yeah, it was, it was unspoken. Okay, you could tell. The first ten miles, I was definitely the slow man, and then I started finding my pace and then then we started to push. A couple of guys actually tapped out halfway just because the sun was so brutal that day, and that that kind of gave me some reassurance because these guys had completed races far longer than mine. So you know how it is once you’re around the guys that that have done it and you start picking uh picking things up that you’re learning from them, and you you apply it man, like you can’t beat it.

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Speaker 3: So so how many of the twelve finished?

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Speaker 2: Uh? Ten?

00:04:50
Speaker 3: Okay? I was finished? Uh?

00:04:52
Speaker 1: So he came to support and crew. Long story short of my pops. He ended up coming down with a cancer about and stroked about three years ago. So he up to that point had ran one hundred and twenty marathons a greater distance in ten years, and then he had to relearn how to walk and speak wow because of the tongue cancer and everything. So we ended up actually creating a nonprofit out of his scenario where we started doing a it’s called hell on Howks Back, where it’s twelve hours max distance and all the funds go to one fund that we hand delivered a check to a person in need. So what we ended up doing after that initial like first year race, this is year four. We try to include my dad and as much of our altars as we possibly can because it’s just you could tell it just makes him feel so damn.

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Speaker 3: Young, connected, cool.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it’s it’s it’s been great, and we got a couple of long races coming up here soon too. We’re doing a run from Cincinnati to Cleveland, four person team that’ll be also an effort for holland Howks Back, our charity that we have, and then the Cleveland half marathon. So goals to go sub one eight at that one. I feel confident, Yeah, but we’ll see, we’ll.

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Speaker 4: See hanging out with those guys that have done them all up to do you think you could do it? Or do you do you want to do it? Is that even something you’d want to train for?

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Speaker 1: Good question? I feel right now. I don’t want to train for it. It’s such a time movement and so many other things you have to say no to say yes to that.

00:06:13
Speaker 2: However, I do.

00:06:14
Speaker 1: Feel that I could do it after seeing how they approach their eight stations. I really think the lynchpin to ultra running is how you approach eight stations.

00:06:21
Speaker 3: So when you love eating contest it is.

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Speaker 1: But I in the past, I would just breeze through an eight station, I grab some food, and I would walk and eat and not change. These guys would actually sit and stop for five to ten minutes, kick their feet up, they throw music on and we’re having a blast. And I’m telling you, like that, just that paradigm shift. Yeah, I think you could apply it to so many other ultramarathons and events that you do. And it just made me realize, like you do need to stop, refuel and keep moving.

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Speaker 4: Oh okay, so yeah, yeah, that’s interesting that they I mean, that makes sense like if they’re used to going, like if they’ve done them all ap to forty, they’re used to going. Like I guess that’s what about three times is far little times, so like you can’t you can’t run the whole time like you can’t, you can you need you can’t even really walk the whole time, like you have to like plan big breaks to be able to continue it. Because I I saw they did the Arizona three hundred.

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Speaker 2: Like this past weekend.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that passed this past weekend. That’s crazy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there’s there’s no like, there’s zero shade.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it’s super hot, and I’m out out on the hot. I’ll do hard things, but hot, I’m out. I don’t want any part of that.

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Speaker 2: That’s crazy.

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Speaker 3: Three hundred miles is insane.

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Speaker 2: People are savage. I mean it’s unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like the one hundred mile race is now the marathon, like put the marathon.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s like one hundred miles is really really and we were.

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Speaker 3: Resting for one to one essentially.

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Speaker 1: How did that go for you? It was knowing knowing you have a limited running background, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Very limited, and even you know, I’ve been kind of preparing for that Iron Man, so you know, my longest run was probably six seven miles something like that. And since the Open had started, I’d gotten this weird like quad tendon type thing on my right knee, which is my good knee, and so I was like laid off of it just because I knew the open there was going to be squatting. Little do I know it is gonna be that much squatting, And so I hadn’t run at all previous to the fifty miles that we ran and walked a ton of it. But and these trailers are pretty aggressive. They’re not terrible, but there’s what three four hundred feet of elevation change on one side and then another three to four hundred feet on the other side, so you’re between the basically one hundred foot per mile you’re running. And so the first twelve hours was miserable because we started at six pm and it immediately got dark, and so man, you could have seen if you’ve seen people’s faces that I don’t know if Scott captures it well enough, we’ll see hopefully in the video. But there were a lot of people that were hurting and not not happy with where they were at that moment.

00:08:59
Speaker 2: I heard you guys had a scent that was like loose rock.

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Speaker 3: It wasn’t It’s not loose, it’s just super steep.

00:09:06
Speaker 2: This is from Wakins.

00:09:09
Speaker 3: I just took a nap for six hours it’s.

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Speaker 4: Not that it wasn’t that it was that loose. It was just that the pounding on my knees.

00:09:18
Speaker 3: It’s just super steep. It’s a quick descent. It’s painful on a mountain bike. Yeah, it’s it’s treacherous arm running it. It’s not that treacherous, it’s just treacherous on your knees because you’re, you know, ten miles in, even your knees are starting to be like, all right, I don’t want to do this anymore. And so luckily on this side it’s mostly a scent and then you have some short descents. This one is you know, a big flat for a while and then just a drop off and then you slowly work your way back up and uh. And so for the first twelve hours I did wear the Vivos and just doing that much time on your feet on these trails that are really rocky, my feet were hurting a little bit, so I switched to an Ultra.

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Speaker 1: But you guys, you guys also stacked benching.

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Speaker 3: We stacked benching. Yeah, so when you finished in that honestly proper way to go about it, well, yeah, we are a true hybrid test. You have to do some type of weightlifting in there. So basically, yeah, when you got back, every time where your partner took off, you got to do one set of max reps bench press at one fifty five. And so for every two hundred reps you got as a team, you got to add a lap to your score at the end of the race, and so that evened out. Honestly, there were some like really good runners that came that partnered up that got beat by Jake and Jake who are really good runners too, but also you know, CrossFit base and they I think the actually won because of the bench.

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Speaker 4: You know, So it’s it’s it played a factory.

00:10:42
Speaker 3: I think it was enough.

00:10:43
Speaker 4: I think enough. Not many people got jumped because of the bench, but a couple of people did. I think it played just enough.

00:10:49
Speaker 2: Factor, Yeah, diabolical though it was.

00:10:52
Speaker 3: It was good. It was like twenty twenty five range of reps. I did twenty the whole way through. I probably could have went twenty five, and now looking back, I would try to start off with a couple sets of twenty five because it would have given us a whole nother lap too. If I would have done that, I just didn’t, honestly.

00:11:07
Speaker 4: Just have twenties would be enough, Like I would do twenties every time. I did a couple of twenty fives. Towards the end, my partner was doing fifteen, so I had to do a couple of twenty five to keep up. And then I went back to twenties after that, and then because I realized we’re going to get six hundred, Are.

00:11:19
Speaker 3: You guys gonna do it again? Oh yeah, yeah, I think so. I think we’ll start a three. Do a three pm start this time versus a six. It gives everybody each trail in the daylight. Because a couple of people got I wouldn’t say turned around, but they just scared. Everybody was scared in the dark, which is awesome. I love that part of it had grown men on a trail light time. Yeah, greater the dark, you know, Like I always joked, that’s when the demons or the devil comes out, because maybe people come. I heard something out there, in which you do. There’s animals out there. I did see an armadillo, and then me and Angela one time did a lap together and there was a snake. It was just a little black snake and it or just you were like, whoa snake. You know, I stepped on it. It was it was a stick. I thought it was a stick. And but once the sun came up, honestly, I was surprised at how how good my body felt. And then about three o’clock I was like I was four or four or five o’clock I was, I was done. And so I think at a three pm start would be good, but it was. It was a ton of fun. It was a good learning curve. You know, you do have those big breaks. So as soon as you’d come in, you’d hammer some carbs, take in some a little bit of you know, maybe try to eat some solid food. But you couldn’t eat a ton. But it was just way different. You know, we do twelve hour mountain bikes up here, relays, and the intensity piece on a mountain bike there’s no like on a run, you just walk, you know, but on a mountain bike, you’ve got the intensity is always there. So it was way different.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you’re not you’re not walking with your bike unless if it’s that steep.

00:12:53
Speaker 3: No, exactly right, and so this you could be like all right, And granted, even when I was walking, I was trying to hold like a fifteen minute mile pace and just like a leisurely stroll and uh, you know, your heart rate’s still one twenty one, fifteen something like that, and so it just takes a cumulative toll. But honestly, body felt pretty good for as the little amount of running that I had done leading up to it.

00:13:15
Speaker 1: So it is amazing how much energy you get once the sun comes back up.

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Speaker 3: Crazy, it was almost like a recharge.

00:13:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s a switch that goes off.

00:13:21
Speaker 1: And I think that a lot of people and quitting Ultra or any ultra between four to six am for sure, and because you feel like it’s the never low, it’s never gonna and then the sun comes up and all of a sudden, yeah it’s back.

00:13:34
Speaker 4: I had I had a pretty good feeling that it was gonna be like that, and my partner was actually out as the sun was just coming up, and I went out, like the first one that I went the day, I didn’t even need my head lamp, Like it was light enough to even start without it, and it was just totally different. Like I ran that whole one, and I ran pretty good, like I mean ten or eleven minute miles, but I was like running the entire time pretty good and I’m like, that’s when Scott freaked out. He saw me running, yeah, because everyone was well, because everyone wasn’t that low, you know, the sun had just come up finally, and then everyone’s kind of catching that high. But he’s like, these guys that came up, all the camera guys are sleeping. They came out and they’re like, these guys are dead or they’re not running. Everyone’s quit well.

00:14:12
Speaker 3: So they went to bed at probably midnight because there’s not really a ton they can do at night. They got a couple laps of us and headlamps and then everything else looks the same after that, and so Scott wanted to get a ton of like hybrid content right during the day. And so he walks out at five or six and he’s like, everybody’s just dead. And I’m like, Scott, I’m gonna be probably be walking from here on out. Sorry, man, He’s like, what do you be? Like? But we don’t even know why we’re doing this, you know, Scott des spirals. And then all of a sudden we just back to it. Everybody starts running and we had some.

00:14:44
Speaker 4: Good around three four o’clock. It just starts tanking it.

00:14:48
Speaker 3: By three or four o’clock, I’m done. It was laps, which is pretty It didn’t matter what time we started. Even with Amarillo where we do the mountain bike, you through the same thing for just six am. You start to feel, hey, i’m gonna fall apart. A couple of people quit, and a couple of people miss their time. Maybe somebody’s like, i’ll do an extra whatever. Then sun comes up, you’re good. And then around ten o’clock, because it’s a noon start, you’re like, all right, I’m done. I don’t want to. Yeah, but it’s good to do a twenty four hour thing every once in a while.

00:15:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s a good reminder that you could do like hard things, especially beyond just the hour to two hour duration that most people trained for. Did you guys load up caffeine at all throughout the race?

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Speaker 3: I had caffeine pouches that I just I just rotated out the whole time.

00:15:46
Speaker 2: They’re amazing.

00:15:47
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:15:48
Speaker 1: I think that I started doing a caffeine pouch and it makes a huge difference.

00:15:53
Speaker 2: And I did one.

00:15:54
Speaker 1: I did a have you ever heard of run gum? I found it randomly, bought it and it it sent me unlike unlike anything. It felt like I had taken like a six milligrams in and I had it immediately split it up because I was getting nauseous. Oh no, there’s that much caffeine and yeah wow. And so I think that the last the last place you want to experiment with any sort of in a race is in a race, but oftentimes you end up doing it.

00:16:23
Speaker 2: Hit me whatever idea.

00:16:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I I did some mountain oops yetty or ignite at some point. Usually on an event like that, I would just hammer three or four of them throughout the time. I think I only did one because I did the caffeine pouches and it just kind of kept me at a I didn’t get a high and I didn’t get a low, Like I just kind of steady state right there.

00:16:43
Speaker 2: No, no YETI mode in the middle of.

00:16:45
Speaker 3: I didn’t want mode during the day. That was about it. So good. Yeah, I the beta. I needed that beta kick to let me know. I was still the.

00:16:52
Speaker 4: Only time I ever really got tired, Like obviously I was like my muscles were tired, my body was tired, but I wasn’t like sleepy tired until like four thirty. And at that point there’s like a coodn’t sore hour and a half of dark left, so like, yeah, I was having some caffeine, like not a ton. I really thought like I was going to be just downing it the whole time. But I was just getting worried about like if I drink more caffeine, I had to drink more electrolytes, and I really want to drink more, Like I just want to drink and eat the bare minimum, Like what do I have to eat and drink to continue to do the race? Like I don’t want to. I don’t want to feel like I don’t fill my stomach up with anything with fluid or food.

00:17:27
Speaker 1: Something I was thinking about, especially with Eastern just being a couple of days ago, was like how far Jesus carried the cross.

00:17:32
Speaker 2: But he didn’t have caffeine, He didn’t have he didn’t have cars.

00:17:37
Speaker 3: Less blood, less blood, yeah, less skin.

00:17:40
Speaker 1: It’s so funny, like how as much as we preach resilience and doing doing hard things, how little people.

00:17:47
Speaker 2: Had back in the day.

00:17:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, And how how I don’t want to say soft we’ve become, but we do have a lot of aid to our ability now sure, which is the reason why performance has gone to where it has gone. So you know, when you think about even I forget that the guy that broke the four minute mile, that was Roger Bannister, I think is his name.

00:18:07
Speaker 4: I don’t heard of his name, but I know you’re talking about.

00:18:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, seventy years ago broke except for and they said it was so scientifically impossible to do. Yeah, like that under it high school kids, Yeah, one hundred percent. And just how the evolution of it all in the training modality is the recovery, the fuel and how much of that’s changed well, and then the mindset of like, oh somebody did it right, that’s all it takes is one exactly, it changes everybody’s perspectivele then you know, backing up to what you’re talking about with Easter, we did a a We were going to do a Thursday Night of Holy Week fast from Thursday night to sunrise Sunday morning.

00:18:44
Speaker 3: And during that you had rock or walk in the morning, rock or walk in the evening while listening to all four of the Gospels. Wow, and dude, it was you talk about a mental It was. It was hard. It was not a not a pleasant experience. And I’ve never done you know, I intermittent fasted for years, so sixteen eight was pretty regular and easy. And once you hit that twenty.

00:19:06
Speaker 4: Four hour going to sleep hungry is hard.

00:19:09
Speaker 3: That honestly, it really wasn’t that bad. It was just man all day long. I honestly I welcomed bed because I wasn’t thinking about it. Yeah, dude, it messed me up, and I’m four or five days out of it, and i cannot stop just eating food and I’m now like, I see it, I eat it, you know, because like at the time you’re just looking at everything, you don’t realize how much food’s around in the kids. And it was definitely a different test for sure, you know.

00:19:35
Speaker 2: That’s the thing with fasting. For me.

00:19:36
Speaker 1: I’ll there was a good period of time where one day a week I would do a twenty four hour fast just because I was trying to lose weight and I wanted to know what the discipline felt like to hold myself back from eating, which again is a great Biblical principle, but again way easier said.

00:19:51
Speaker 3: Than done, way easier said than that.

00:19:52
Speaker 1: But just like you, once that fast was done, boom, I’m eating.

00:19:56
Speaker 2: Man, I’m going, I’m.

00:19:58
Speaker 3: Going it’s probably it’s probably horse fast.

00:20:01
Speaker 1: That’s my thing is I look back and I think, wait, was was that the whole point of the fastest lose practice, discipline and lose weight.

00:20:08
Speaker 3: Mine was not that way, but still, I just man, I’m telling you. And then everything that i’d been like, oh I’m gonna eat that when I get done I have, I’m like, nah, I’m taking that. It’s it was. It was way more difficult. We did sixty hours. Wow, it was Dodds did a what did you do a four days? Four days? Yeah, seventy two seventy two, that’s legit. Yeah.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: I was twelve hours short of that, so you were doing a lot of lower intensity.

00:20:36
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I started seven am on Thursday. So I one of a long story short, one of our buddies got it wrong and started Thursday, said he started Thursday. So I was like, you know what I eat breakfast that morning? I was like, I’ll start now, So seven am on Thursday. Turns out he ate at some point and didn’t tell me. So I eight. I swam twenty four hundred of intervals because we’re getting ready for that try on in November. I did a five k that afternoon. Kind of Thursday is like cardio aerobic stuff. And then Friday, four and a half five mile run, walk, hit the trail, hit the road or the driveway, just to like listen to the full book of Matthew. That afternoon loaded up, Oh midday, I did some deadlifts, some seated row just some like not super heavy, but like, you know, let my body know. Hey, we’re not We’re not gonna take away muscle. We’re just you know, so you know, you get into the science of all that we’re not that’s not the purpose of it. But then that afternoon a rock with thirty pounds, three miles, listening to Mark. Morning Saturday listen to Luke, ran another four and a half five miles, And then that afternoon I did the ruck again. And yeah, and that that evening I was like, I’m done. I’m curious.

00:21:54
Speaker 2: So you listened to the Gospels.

00:21:57
Speaker 3: I listened to him at like one point seventy five or two. Right around where I listen, I have well fast, Yeah, yeah, you’re not trying to rush. I’m not trying to rush through it, but my brain I have to keep it like listening. If I go slow, I’m checking out. Man. You could easily let anyway once you listen to it too, you notice they have slowed down whoever is reading it at a one right, so one point five is probably more like conversation pace. And then one point seven five is so I did one point seven five. I usually do too, but.

00:22:29
Speaker 1: I was like, I’m gonna be a little bit more intentional and go at one point seven five for these I’m curious. So when I what I’ve been doing a lot, when I’m driving around and dropping the kids off to daycare, going to the workout, whatever I’m doing, I’ll throw on a sermon and depending on what I’m doing or if I’m going to go and do a run, there’s certain activities that I’m doing and based off the sermon what I’m hearing, it’s almost I’m taking your speed, yes, which is so nice. But sometimes I’m also like, I’ll listen to the same sermon two and I’m pulling out different things curious for you. Yes, I know that, because I know that you’ve listened to the you’ve read the Bible multiple times.

00:23:04
Speaker 2: Was there anything within.

00:23:05
Speaker 1: That fast that stuck out to you from you listening, especially like in those moments where you’re on you’re on your drive, all you’re on your trail, and.

00:23:13
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean there were several during you know, just different stories, different of the parables that like hit different, and then you’d hear them repeat it in a different gospel, and then you’d like pick up something that was different. When I did the run, I listened to Covenant of War, which is a historical fiction about David and his men. It’s the second book in the Line of War series. And then I listened to a song of War. And then when the morning happened, I switched over to worship music and I had I didn’t have headphones on. I was just blaring it out of a fanny pack, And dude, that was probably one of the coolest, like Sunrise listening to worship music. Like I just I’m not a huge Like I feel the closest in worship when I’m in here in the barn blaring music if out in the woods doing that, versus in a building. You know, I’m of like, if transparent, we’re usually showing up, granted we’re trying to get three kids to go to church, We’re usually showing up about one song left in worship and then we’re listening to sermon, right, and so not not good, you know whatever, But I feel the closest in me and my kids. Man, we’ve we listened to worship music a lot, like it was awesome. We were coming home the other night, me and Lakeland are just like jamming, yelling, you know.

00:24:17
Speaker 2: So you know he’s got one of the best worship albums is Judah.

00:24:19
Speaker 3: Oh Judas. Stuff’s great.

00:24:23
Speaker 2: He’s crushed it. One of the coolest things.

00:24:24
Speaker 1: My my wife and I went to see him in our hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, at the House of Blues, and then we’ve listened to his music and then he ended up being.

00:24:32
Speaker 3: Uh Todd’s neighbor.

00:24:35
Speaker 2: We meet him.

00:24:35
Speaker 1: He’s a big sauna guy, and he we end up becoming friends and then they invited us out to a show and the show was so good. He’s and now my son and our and our daughter are all about Judah. Yeah, it’s it’s amazing. But I know he’s a cook feil guy.

00:24:52
Speaker 3: He’s in between us, older than you, but three or four years younger. Yeah, so goos family for a long time. But yeah, man, there’s just yeah, you just pick up on different things. Your brain is in a different spot. But it was honestly doing those rocks. Doing those runs. Listen, listen to the Gospels was the only time I didn’t think about food, you know, really, and so you’re like, you know, and I even tried in early on, I’m like, goll d every time you think about food, prey. But yeah, then you’re literally praying all and you know, with three young kids, every life is food. Man, they’ve got food all the time. And yeah, you just it’s crazy.

00:25:28
Speaker 4: Early that’s how good does water with electrolytes taste?

00:25:32
Speaker 3: It did bring me back. I did black coffee water and then electrolytes with no artificial sweeteners. So I had to, man, I think with with the activity we had in there. But I did not do anything other than I didn’t. Like. There was a couple of times there’d be a diet coke somebody would have out and I’d be like, I could do that, it has no calories. But I didn’t do it. And man, yeah it.

00:25:54
Speaker 4: Was Yeah, the water electrolytes, even with no sweetener, they is nice, like this is a tree.

00:26:00
Speaker 3: I usually do two to three of those a day. Yeah, I didn’t. I tried not to every time I drank water to have them in there, but man, I got a couple. Uh, no flavor topos. Oh, I put electrolytes in that just to give me a little like fizz. You know that’s good?

00:26:16
Speaker 2: So good?

00:26:17
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:26:17
Speaker 4: Would I am? Last time I did it fast, like when you wake up, it feels like you almost feel refreshed, like you you’re hungry in the morning, but you’re not any more hungry you normally are them.

00:26:27
Speaker 3: Honestly, from twenty four hours in through the sixty I honestly did not get any hungrier. Yeah. Just it just it’s just you’re just it’s almost like the same intensity, same pain. It’s like it never got worse just doing it longer. The twenty four hours after probably the second run. Yeah, you’re just in it. Twenty four hours.

00:26:49
Speaker 2: Did you guys get hungry at all?

00:26:52
Speaker 3: It’s more than I probably never have. It sounds just like stop, you know, and I’m like, what did I just do that for? Or you know the best is Hillary probably asked me five times each meal, what do you want to do for lunch? Oh? Sorry, what do you want to do for dinner? I really don’t think she was doing it on purpose, but then like one time, so Saturday morning are like family ritual, I guess for Easter is we do at my grandfather’s house. We go to his house and they do a little Easter rike hunt for the kids. But we do breakfast and we’re pulling in and when my oldest go finally, I’m finally we’re here, I’m starving. Specific were saying that, I’m just like, oh are you I’m from any I didn’t say, you know, you’re trying the whole time not to be like bring any attention to what you’re doing, and you’re just you know, trying to be in it. But man, there were times where you know, he’s like, I wish you’d just eat. I’m like, get behind me, Satan.

00:27:51
Speaker 1: Maybe that’s the point of fasting though, Yeah, the things that nobody talks about with fasting, it’s the emotional side. Oh man, just for you to be able to control your energy, control your personality, the things that you want to say that you.

00:28:04
Speaker 3: Know you should know you shouldn’t.

00:28:05
Speaker 4: I heard someone say this quote. One says, can I still be nice when I’m hungry? Like can you see it? And you ask yourself, like when you’re really hungry and you do, I mean like you don’t even notice it. For like normally when you’re hungry, you know, you just snap quicker, Like it just happens a lot quicker. And I tried to keep that like in the forefront of my mind of like, can you be nice when you’re this hungry, like you get I mean, yeah, you can, Like are you actually going to do it?

00:28:30
Speaker 3: Though?

00:28:30
Speaker 4: And it’s not easy. It’s not easy even if you start, even if you’re thinking about it all the time.

00:28:35
Speaker 5: So I did my seventy two hour fast when I first got here to Cookville, but my wife and kids weren’t here yet.

00:28:41
Speaker 3: Oh you’re lucky. So I did it as a bachelor. Yeah.

00:28:45
Speaker 5: But I did this three day fast with my kids and we traveled to Montana for Easter.

00:28:51
Speaker 3: Oh geez, dude, do you guys fly? Yeah? We flew.

00:28:54
Speaker 5: Oh okay, that by far was the hardest part of this fast, was trying to stay patient with my wife and kids.

00:29:00
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and then being on a plane when you’re bored. That was the hardest part. When you’re bored, for you, you don’t realize how many times you’re like, I’m just gonna go get something. I’m bored, right, yeah. Oh, And so I tried to fill our time with just anything that was the runs and walks luckily, in which is probably you know, a deflection on the whole thing.

00:29:15
Speaker 4: Oh no, that’s good, that’s good. But you used it to like listen to the gospels, listening to the worship music. Yeah, because I would I like you were saying, I would just like realistic sermons that I liked, or i’d watch other ones, and I just would like anytime, Yeah, like you said, anytime you’re hungry, you’re like, try to pray or I would try to fill it with, uh, fill it with something biblical, Like I don’t care what it is, I’m gonna do something biblical instead of just thinking about I’m hungry. And the times you actually do like you said, you you kind of zone out and you don’t think about it as much, and then you get back and you’re bored again. You’re like, now I’m hungry.

00:29:48
Speaker 5: Every time I got hungry, I would just talk to God about it. Yeah, And this the natural conversation that would come from that was legitimately the whole point of the fast was to talk to God.

00:29:58
Speaker 4: More.

00:29:58
Speaker 3: Did you ever just sniff food kid’s food when they would order something. There was a couple of times and I would just like we had a bunch of it really was. We had a couple, uh, we had family over and there’s a ton of kids, and I’m like, I’m not cooking, and so we ordered some pizzas and dude, I just sat there with the box and it’s crazy like a crackhead, and you’re like, okay, it gives you like a little hits. It was weird.

00:30:20
Speaker 2: I know a guy I didn’t.

00:30:21
Speaker 1: Actually eat, like chew his dessert but then spit it back out when he’s on the fast.

00:30:26
Speaker 3: Come on, body takes in.

00:30:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I’m not following for that.

00:30:31
Speaker 3: You want to know way I would have swallowed it.

00:30:36
Speaker 1: There’s no I appreciate the discipline to a certain extent, but there’s also so lack of discipline to well.

00:30:42
Speaker 3: The hardest part is got kids, because you know, food left over. You’re just like, I could eat the rest of that waffle.

00:30:48
Speaker 2: Right now, right now.

00:30:49
Speaker 1: We got our whole family in Gatlinburg, and they want One of our nieces just had her birthday, so she got a cookie cake.

00:30:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, cookie cake.

00:30:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:30:59
Speaker 1: And I was alone with our our three month old at the time, and the rest of the family got nothing else to do. Dude, looking at that cookie It was the I felt like the movie Heavyweights with Ben Stiller. I was like, man, do I need restraint right now? Or do I go all in on this cookie cake? Oh my gosh, it’s the greatest thing. And then I’m thinking, all right, well, if I eat this now, I’m gonna have to go run to go a little bit.

00:31:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh.

00:31:27
Speaker 3: Saturday night for the family breakfast of the next morning, I cooked three pounds of bacon’s.

00:31:35
Speaker 2: Amount of bacon thounds.

00:31:37
Speaker 3: I had to just sit there, flip the bacon and just getting popped with, you know, on the flat.

00:31:44
Speaker 2: Top, so good and your clothes Bacon’s time.

00:31:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was my low point in that point.

00:31:53
Speaker 5: You did that Saturday morning.

00:31:55
Speaker 3: I did that Friday afternoon. And then you know, since we were doing the sixty, you know, I’m like, do I do the full? Do I do seventy two? And like whatever, And so we went to watch Mario with the kids.

00:32:08
Speaker 2: It’s pretty galling.

00:32:10
Speaker 3: It’s a first one’s better Ridskin and I say that I gotta go back and watch it. I could not concentrate because at that point I’m like, all right, everybody else is doing sixty. I could be done at sixty Where could I go at seventy two? The movie was at four thirty, so it’s gonna be over about six thirty. I’m like, by the time I get home, I could start eating. So I’m grocking it. I’m like, all right, hey, what’s the difference between a sixty hour fast and a seventy and two hour fast. It’s like, well, blah blah blah, you can go. You know, you get this benefit, this benefit because at this point, I’m like, all right, the spiritual side of it’s done. Like I’ve done my, I did my I finished John. Now I’m like, all right, physiologically, what advantage am I gaining? So it’s like twelve hours it’s pretty there’s a you know, there could be a pretty good you know with deep ketosis and inflammation and all this other stuff and your cell regeneration. So I said, okay, cool, what if I did? And I wrote down all the fitness I did and at the different markers, and it was like, well, with this amount of fitness, the twelve hours is pretty negligible because you’ve gotten into deep eyes.

00:33:10
Speaker 4: I got it done.

00:33:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so in my mind, I’m not even watching this movie. I’m literally, I’m grocking all. I’m talking to gro justifying me quitting this fast at sixty hours, because that’s what I said I was gonna do. Like I was not gonna quit before that. You just need that one piece. And I was done. And so I got home and man, I there was like Tommy’s wife had brought sourdough, and sourdough had just been sitting on the counter all weekend, the rice crispy treats whatever, and I’m like soured. I made a I don’t know why we call them Egyptian eyes with the eggs in the basket, eggs and toast. Basically I made like three of those Hillary had made for the next day, some like balsamic vinaigrette, Penny pasta with chicken and sun dried tomatoes. Hammered that, and then we were stuffing eggs, so kit kats and recess were gone. Dude, I made.

00:33:55
Speaker 2: Myself sick, but I was just not that. Did you feel more miserable?

00:33:58
Speaker 3: No, I for a little bit. I did it, and then immediately like fifteen minutes, like I think my body was just like yep, give me that. And so I was like I’m going back you’re done. Wow. I was.

00:34:07
Speaker 4: I was nervous about breaking like I did my first longer fast, so I I ate, uh like, I ate. What I saw was like berries and like bone broth or something. So I had some broth and I had some berries, and I waited an hour like I had a lot of berries, the whole thing. And then I waited an hour because I had broken fast before and it made me more sick with like something greasy. And then I just like, and then I did what you said. I just ate and then I sat down, and then I ate again, and then I sat down.

00:34:37
Speaker 3: And then was okay. Minus the reeses and kit cat, I was not okay.

00:34:41
Speaker 2: I are you talking about the eggs?

00:34:43
Speaker 3: No, these were the eggs better eggs?

00:34:46
Speaker 4: Are they actually?

00:34:47
Speaker 3: Mid way better? Actually really good.

00:34:50
Speaker 4: I don’t know why the uh the the chocolate to peanut butter ratio that they do in the eggs and they do in the Yes.

00:34:57
Speaker 3: Yeah they do it.

00:34:58
Speaker 4: So they changed yeah the pump they change you, so you you have to know this. So they changed the ratio of the peanut butter and chocolate and the cups from what it used to be to something else now, and they’re not as good. But the eggs and the pumpkins are the same ratio, so that’s why they are better.

00:35:15
Speaker 1: So they’re doing that to get more people to buy seasonally. Yes, genies, Yeah, genius.

00:35:21
Speaker 5: I won’t touch the regular ones anymore.

00:35:23
Speaker 4: You won’t even touch it.

00:35:24
Speaker 5: No, if they don’t have the eggs or the Christmas trees or whatever, I won’t buy it.

00:35:28
Speaker 3: I like the ministtle small ones like usually in the tin Oh, I love those are good. That’s a ratio in those two.

00:35:34
Speaker 2: Did they have one with a chip in it?

00:35:36
Speaker 3: Now? Perfect?

00:35:42
Speaker 4: You want to ingredients are perfect?

00:35:45
Speaker 3: That gets you a little crunch in there? Maybe?

00:35:46
Speaker 2: Yeah? Man, did you saw on it all?

00:35:49
Speaker 3: Dude? I wanted to, but that was like the last thing you’ve probably not probably being double miserable or miserable. I don’t know if I could have. Yeah, yeah, man. My So I went for a good six month clip of i’d say six days a week going thirty minutes or twenty five minutes and then three minutes in the cold. And then the time changed, and so I’ve gone probably three times a week doing that same ratio. Not in the morning, I’m like middayish or at night because that that our time change Man, it messed me up with kids.

00:36:20
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. When you have kids that I mean just having the sun go down earlier or later when whatever it is. I mean our kids, especially with us having a newborn in the mix, that morning time that we used to cove it for training and just is thrown out.

00:36:34
Speaker 2: It’s gone, dude, completely gone because.

00:36:35
Speaker 3: They don’t go to bed till later now because the sun’s up there. Like I can’t go to bed right now. I’m still fired up for sure. And then now the sun doesn’t come up as early, or it didn’t. Now it’s starting to like now that I wake up, we wake up at six thirty ish. Usually I was getting up at six to go Sona and plunge, man, and I loved it. I’d listen to a sermon and I miss it. But man, and now we’re in softball season where Lakeland’s playing softball, and then Violet now is playing softball and the Tristles start baseball. So like last night, we didn’t get home till nine.

00:37:03
Speaker 2: That’s gotta be surreal for you being in baseball.

00:37:04
Speaker 3: Oh man, it’s so much fun, honestly. So I’ve coached Trice the last couple of years helped me and a buddy of coached are both our boys, and it’s been a ton of fun. I’ve helped a little bit with Lakeland, but she kind of started softball late, and now that she’s in middle school, you can’t really help other than here doing whatever. But Violet started last night, and honestly, I think nine you girls softball has been my favorite thing to coach. Dude, those girls they didn’t they just man, they were just getting it and they didn’t care. They’re just looking for the ball. They’re hitting and they’re running. You don’t like boys get all like try to act cool and whatever. The girls just man, it was. It was awesome. It was so cool. So yeah, last night Violet had her first game and I told the coach i’d help, and so I walked up and this if I didn’t even get to go to any practices. And I showed up. He’s like, hey, can you pitch? I’m like, because it’s coaching, yeah, And I’m like yeah, sure. Never been more stressed in my life. I’m finally throwing darts, you know, to eight and nine year olds. Coach pitch overhand, but underhand, I’m like, yeah, I don’t want to make a little girl cry. I’m the one that struck her out, man. But it was awesome. So they won last night and it was it was a cool Violet. Violet’s done a little bit of you know, she’s played basketball in flag football, but that was like the first time you could see her like out there to kind of like compete, not just be out there to have fun.

00:38:17
Speaker 4: So real.

00:38:18
Speaker 1: We were throwing a yesterday. We were actually throwing the baseball around with our son. He’s he’s gonna be five this year, and uh, and we had like we had the tennis ball and just the whiffleball bat and he hit it a couple of good times and you could tell a switch went off in his brain.

00:38:34
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, man, I’m gonna like this.

00:38:36
Speaker 2: This is what we’re gonna do.

00:38:38
Speaker 1: Just just that competitive itch that’s come out and the kid. You can’t beat that. And especially as a father who being being an athlete, you want nothing more than for your kid to experience the amazing and like the highs and lows of sports as you’re growing up.

00:38:51
Speaker 4: Man, I have my first one on the way right now, Congress, and I’ve I obviously I hang out family this this weekend. I I asked my dad. I said, hey, what did you do when we wanted to play basketball? And I’m like, were you like pissed? Because if my kid wants to play basketball, I’m not gonna be that please because I’m not good.

00:39:10
Speaker 3: I never played it.

00:39:11
Speaker 4: The one sport I cannot.

00:39:13
Speaker 3: I’ll give you, really, I’ll give you the opposite. It’s more fun probably to do that because then you don’t feel obligated to chach you don’t know enough to like critique them or give them help. Where You’re just like with lake because I never played basketball. I just it was one sport. My dad never pushed us to play. We had a basketball goal and stuff. I’m maybe have tried out in fifth.

00:39:34
Speaker 2: I can tell you didn’t play basketball just by saying basketball goal.

00:39:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so we just didn’t play yea. And so Lakeland, that’s something she’s she’s pretty darn good at. She played this year fifth grade and then she got garbage minutes for the sixth grade team. But she was it was cool for her to learn. But she’s pretty good and I can’t. I’m just like, hey, you should just maybe rebound, like rebounding I’m like, hey, back away from the goal. A little bit to get a better anger.

00:39:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can those types of things.

00:40:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like I can’t, you know, I can’t with baseball. I’m like, which is also fun. It’s a different perspective with softball. She knows she can come to me and say, hey, you know, how could I have done this better? Or I can like just jokingly critique, like, hey, why didn’t hit your cut off man or whatever, and she’s kind of like, you know, gives me a little smirk. And Hillary will be like, just tell her she did a good job, and Lakelan’s like, you don’t even know anything about And I’m not being hard on her, but I’m just like, hey, you know, when you’re instead of stepping out when you go to swing, step to the picture. Because she started doing and it’s been cool to see her kind of get more comfortable in softball. She was a little bit late to getting out there from basketball, and so she’s like opened up her stance and relaxed a little bit. But now she’s stepping out. So I’m like, hey, step to the picture. And then she’s like, yeah, the coach told me, And so it’s like cool that that stuff is getting doubled to her. So she’s like, Okay, dad knows what he’s talking about. But basketball the opposite is like, I don’t know, man, So it is it makes it more you’re more of a fan versus like it stresses me out when she gets on the mound or like not on the mound, but when she’s pitching, I’m a mess because she doesn’t practice it enough. And she’s like, yeah, I can do that, and I’m like, you don’t. She’s walking people and I’m just like this not you know, I can’t help her with pitching because I’m like, I don’t know what the different. It’s way different.

00:41:16
Speaker 1: So my mom was a pro softball pitcher, dude, so.

00:41:20
Speaker 2: She so I was.

00:41:21
Speaker 1: I was a pitcher growing up, and then she coming from a pro background of softball as a pitcher, she would I mean she was throwing seventy five mile an hour heaters.

00:41:30
Speaker 2: And I still like, we would try to replicate what my mom would do, and it’s impossible.

00:41:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable. So much I mean, so much skill, so much time. I mean, it’s unreal. I was a basketball player growing up, Okay, so that’s what I went into college to play, and that was that was our upbringing with basketball. I never played football. I never like actually went and played competitive baseball past past high school or anything. So that was that’s something I want my kids to play basketball, you know. I hope that they don’t sprain their ankles as much as I did, But I think that’s like, that’s part of it is that they have to learn that there’s some things that as a parent, you can’t teach your kids. They just have to go out and learn on the field. And as much as you want I give them as much to run with, they do have to kind of figure it out well.

00:42:12
Speaker 3: That And also it’s good for them to take coaching pushing from someone else because at some point, you know, your only mom and dad and they’re only going to listen to you to so much. But I see, like, I’ll say the same thing that her coach, coach Emma says, and you can see her like taking it, and I’m like, I just told you the same thing, you know. I’m like, hey, screwed up to the plate, step to the picture, and I see her pulling her aside, and Lakeland’s just like all them just told you, you know, And so it’s good and and also somebody to like hold your kid accountable and like. But she said both the basketball and softball coach are pretty I would say pretty strict, especially for middle school. I love it. Hillary hates it. She’s like, she can’t do that to the I’m like, how I heard you tell her fifty times to grab her socks. She didn’t do it. She’s got to run foul poles. There’s consequences. Oh, she wants the mispractice to go do X. She’s got to run foul polls. That’s fine, She’s got to learn that. There’s trade off.

00:43:05
Speaker 2: Coaching is so different now.

00:43:06
Speaker 1: I mean when I look at I would I graduated high school in twenty thirteen. Even the years from nine to twenty thirteen, when we would get in trouble, they were garbage cans wind up on the baselines and you would go until somebody would puke, and then somebody would get good enough at actually baking puking that you get out.

00:43:25
Speaker 2: We would get out of it.

00:43:27
Speaker 1: But you can’t do that now otherwise somebody’s gonna get canceled. Yeah, it’s unfortunate because.

00:43:31
Speaker 4: I feel like disbanded. Yeah.

00:43:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was another practice in middle school where we ran sixteen sixty. So sixteen sidelines and sidelines in sixty seconds and if you didn’t do it and you line back up.

00:43:42
Speaker 2: We did an entire practice of it.

00:43:44
Speaker 1: I remember the parents being so mad and then my dad sitting there at the very end.

00:43:48
Speaker 2: Of practice being like, hell.

00:43:49
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it awesome, man, I love it all for it.

00:43:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:43:52
Speaker 1: So I think that I hope that as our kids get older, the parents that are coaching, don’t, you know, become too soft with I think that the punishment or however you want to call it, the learning lessons behind it is.

00:44:04
Speaker 2: It’s an important part.

00:44:06
Speaker 3: It’s flipped a little bit too. I think we we went way too soft, and I think and now it’s coming backing being you know, trying to be tough and not. You know, there is a fine you know, all these things you’re hearing with kids back, you know, dying from from running and stuff. But it’s like, yeah, hey, punishment within reason, and so I’m all for it. Man. That’s where I’m like, hey, they got to learn and and team sports prepare you to work with your peers. They prepare you to work for work for somebody, somebody you agree with, somebody you disagree with. Uh, And so I think youth sports are incredible.

00:44:42
Speaker 1: I think the thing that youth sports taught me the most was how much I despised losing compared to how much I love winning. I love winning, but the feeling of losing, and that same feeling I feel in business when we lose, or that same feeling I have when I’m a husband and I know I did something I shouldn’t have done or as a fat man, that.

00:44:59
Speaker 2: Is the worst feeling. I never want to repeat that again.

00:45:01
Speaker 1: But I would have never had that head of not worked off the kinks as an athlete growing.

00:45:06
Speaker 3: Up, and hey, I don’t like this feeling. How can I change it? What do I need to do? And have some introspection of like, all right, how what am I going to do to make sure that doesn’t happen again?

00:45:15
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:45:16
Speaker 1: No, exactly. Yeah, never repeat the same mistake. It’s way way easier said than done, especially especially if it’s a habit man. But I think that, you know, bringing back the gospel part, Like for me, I think that’s been a huge part is when I find myself wanting to repeat the same mistake, I’ll go back and listen to the word and then all of a sudden I’ll realize, oh, you know, this is a good reminder. It’s that nudge and it’s the accountability side that’s been really huge for me in my transformation the last couple of years.

00:45:43
Speaker 3: Well even to the accountability side is having dudes that you you know Joby talked about and I sent you guys that clip Joby Martin. I don’t know if you know him much, but he was talking about the paralyzed man that Jesus healed and the guys that carried him in and have four you know, he says, Matt Carers dudes that, And we’re speaking on a podcast that are dudes predominantly. It’s like, have dudes that you trust that you can be like, hey, you know, give me a critique of what I’m doing, or hey, I need your help or whatever. Joby always says, the like worst thing a dude can ever say is I got this because you don’t know. And so I think it’s you know, that’s why you know with us hunting like to hunt a group, like to be on a team. I think it’s just started at a young age playing team sports and having that accountability. It’s exactly what you’re saying is like you know, you’ve got other dudes in your corner that hey, I can go to if I need something or one I need help, Hey I need you know, some critique on something, or just.

00:46:44
Speaker 1: We call those guys are three am guys back home. He’s the guys that’s gonna pick up the phone call at three am.

00:46:49
Speaker 3: I don’t keep my phone by me at three six six o’clock. I’m there because I would, just because I keep my phone off.

00:46:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, you should listen to after hearing him say that, go back and now listen to Brenton Lake Tear Off the Roof song. Like the lyrics are even better once you once you think about that. Uh, it’s so good. Yeah, Like the chorus of it is so good.

00:47:12
Speaker 1: There’s a pastor I love his name, Pastor Lyle Phillips. He’s out of Legacy Church in Nashville, and I’ve listened to a bunch of the sermons. He’s so good. He’s got he’s got a great podcast as well. But he does such a good job discerning the difference between the independent spirit and the spirit like that God’s calling us to do and that that independent spirit when you’re in isolation, it just becomes more apparent that we need relationships for sure, and it’s that the reason, Like the way that God blesses us is three people and four people. So if I’ve got a great relationship with you, if I have a great relationship with you, I could go so much farther versus the self made mentality is so so bad, so bad, Like that’s the last.

00:47:54
Speaker 2: Thing that we need.

00:47:55
Speaker 1: I think social media kind of exacerbates the shit a little bit.

00:48:00
Speaker 3: Way back to what we talked about in the beginning. You doing that with those twelve guys, you weren’t gonna quit because they were’t gonna quit. You maybe had two guys that dropped off, but the other ten kept going right. Yeah, And then here if it was if I was by myself doing that by myself and hadn’t told anybody I was gonna do it, but I knew that Austin wasn’t gonna quit, and I knew the other people in there. There were some that fell off, but the ones that kept doing it. I’m not gonna be the one that’s not. Yeah, I’m not gonna be the one that they’re making fun of because I slept for six hours. Maybe the one that you made fun of because I walked some. But I’m fine with that. And that’s why I told Austin one of the times, I said hey, because he was hurt. We were both hurting, like I could see in his eyes, and I’m like, hey, I won’t quit on you, but I’m I’m gonna go as fast as I can, but it ain’t gonna be fast. He’s like, yeah, saying man. And so that’s at no point. You know, there were a couple guys that would even like take twenty or thirty minutes and wait after they transitioned. At no point was one of us not on that course. Yeah, for less than a minute, you know, like we as as he was coming in, I was out, and we weren’t fast. We weren’t the fastest by any means, but I wasn’t at the point. That’s not the point that at some point, that’s not the point, like and it is hard at times for me to disconnect that just because that’s been my career, right, but that’s so far outside my comfort zone and what my body really should be able to handle at this point too. And so but it was it was a cool and those are the mental check ins that we always talk about that you need every once in a while.

00:49:16
Speaker 2: It’s accountability.

00:49:17
Speaker 3: Man. Where am I at? Yeah, well, we’ve talked a ton about a lot of things. What do you wanna what give us some sauna? Just like three things you would tell people how to start, you know, like we when I first got it. You know, kind of the protocol of like, you know, do you go one hundred and ninety degrees? You can tap it out at one ninety six and do that for How long? Do I do? Hot? Cold? Do I do before bed? Do I do in the morning? Do I do just whenever? You know, it’s like, give us, give us some tips so we can talk sauna stuff for sure. So, uh, sauna therapy has been going on for centuries and centuries over in Europe, Finland specifically, and they actually didn’t utilize sauna for the sauna purposes that we use it for. It was actually the infirm it was hospitals, it was places for people to go heal. They actually had a church performed out of sauna way back in the day through there, just because it was just the easiest way to get people to come to baseline together. But when you look at to me, the number one facet to sauna therapy. It’s the relationships and it’s the community building. As much as in the United States, we’re obsessed with objective data, and this study says this, and I should do this protocol to me, you strip all that away.

00:50:29
Speaker 2: The reason why people love sauna.

00:50:30
Speaker 1: So much is that you build community in it, and it’s the one time, especially right now in twenty twenty six, where people don’t have their phones in there. People come together. A lot of times it’s with the stranger or their friends, and you get twenty five thirty minutes of uninterrupted conversation and flow. And there’s a point in the sauna session around that fifteen to twenty minute mark where your body tells you to get out, especially if it’s hot enough, and you have to fight it. And all of a sudden, people’s heads going down and the conversation gets a little bit more urgent, And I don’t know if you’ve ever been in in a really good conversation flowing a sauna, and then all of a sudden, the full senses go to three words at a time and you start speaking way more direct with each other.

00:51:08
Speaker 3: Podcast. Yeah, you’re trying to collect your thoughts and you can get out true.

00:51:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I think I think the first tip I tell somebody is don’t do sauna therapy necessarily for all the data that’s coming out, and do it for the relationships in the community.

00:51:23
Speaker 2: You’re going to meet people.

00:51:24
Speaker 1: You’re going to meet and learn more about people and your family through the conversations. And that’s what’s going to make it a sticking point for you to actually want to get back in the sauna, is because of the conversations that you have the subjective side away the objective side. There’s so much great data that’s coming out. I know that the one that Todd was referring to is twenty eighteen from a researcher called Laucinan from Finland and Sweden’s huge because we were in Sweden and so yeah, yeah, I mean so in in Finland for every two people there’s one sauna. So when you look at it, the data shows that for the average household there’s two saunas, typically one in the or from Yeah, and so the word CSU means never give up in the Finish language, or perseverance, grit, tenacity, and it’s it’s really cool because the data from that twenty eighteen study showed, and this was also the largest group ever performed in a study for sauna therapy a minimum threshold of one hundred and seventy six degrees performed four times weekly had a all cause mortality rate decrease more than fifty percent compared to the people that were just doing a one time a week, And it showed you that the underlying principle to it is heat exposure with people and done consistently over time is what’s going to allow people to really garner the great effects from it. I love that study. However, there’s another study that I thought was really interesting that came out not long ago as well.

00:52:52
Speaker 2: One time weekly, two bouts. So if you were to go into.

00:52:56
Speaker 1: A sauna thirty minutes, minimum threshold one hundred and seventy six degrees, I believe they were doing this around one hundred ninety thirty minutes, five minute cooling period, go back and do another thirty minutes.

00:53:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, which if you’ve ever been in the sauna thirty.

00:53:09
Speaker 3: Already a long time, twenty five is like it’s hard, but a dual that was what I would do. Twenty five, take a minute to walk over and I have the cold creek se su cold plunch, Yes, at fifty degrees and I’d sit in there for three minutes, done going, and I’ve done a couple back and forth.

00:53:25
Speaker 2: But gosh, I mean you feel high from that? Yeah, just we go around.

00:53:29
Speaker 3: We call a little freebie. Yeah, you’re like, whoa.

00:53:32
Speaker 1: Right, So the kicker is you do it again the same exact protocol later in the day.

00:53:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, person, it’s crazy. You get your four times.

00:53:43
Speaker 1: That’s a sixteen x increasing natural growth hormone response. Yeah, so one side, right, but the kickers, you only do that one time a week because.

00:53:55
Speaker 3: It’s so intense. Dude, it’s so miss I don’t know.

00:54:00
Speaker 1: The only way that you would get me to do that protocol is if I did it with people that I love. Oh heck yeah, if I’m doing that solo sermon or something due.

00:54:07
Speaker 2: If I’m doing that solo, get me.

00:54:09
Speaker 4: Out of there so I better start seeing the effects of the growth hormone quick.

00:54:14
Speaker 3: I want that growth hormone gut yeah, yeah, yeah, I just want to feel yoked. Yeah.

00:54:21
Speaker 4: If I don’t feel yoked after the first time, I’m not doing any to try six weeks.

00:54:25
Speaker 3: I wish we could do like a blood test and yeah, yeah, for sure, I have heard that.

00:54:29
Speaker 4: I ever heard that protocol.

00:54:31
Speaker 1: So there’s diminishing returns after that though, So if you just do that one time a week, that’s ideal.

00:54:35
Speaker 3: This isn’t a group that does anything, so it doesn’t matter. Rich is going to figure out how many times you can do that six day cycle or seven days.

00:54:44
Speaker 2: To come back a month familiar. You look like a razor.

00:54:46
Speaker 1: Just it’s like what happened to my husband?

00:54:50
Speaker 3: You?

00:54:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that’s a really interesting protocol. You need to make sure that you’re getting electrolytes. And then the reason why the thirty minute mark is so key is that the heat shock protein response that people always tout for traditional sono therapy starts right around the twenty minute mark. And really that’s the cellular repair crew, if you will, that’ll go in and clean up any like proteins that were misfolded, any sort of cellular waste, and heatchock proteins ultimately create resilience for the cells. So anytime when it gets too hot, anytime when it’s too cold, heatchoc proteins are really responsible to make sure that the cells are resilient. And that’s that twenty to thirty minute mark. If you don’t get to twenty minutes, typically, unless if you’re very not acclimated to the heat, you’re not going to get that response. So I think that that is one of the main drivers for that study. There’s also other studies when you start pulling in the contrast side, when you’re starting to combine sauna cold plung.

00:55:43
Speaker 2: Shower as well. There’s less out there on that.

00:55:47
Speaker 1: I do believe that we’re going to find more and more, especially as the wearables start to get more streamlined. I think it’s important to know that all these different protocols, they’re basing the heat and the temperature off of where your head, the top of your head sits inside the sauna. It’s not at waste level and shoulder level. It’s off the top of your head. But the main contrast protocols that we’re starting to see that work the best two to three rounds again minimum thresholds, the one seventy six we’re talking about the hot hot rocks, coil seat, the rocks, not infrared. You’re talking fifteen to twenty minutes, and then you have a minute to come outside of the sauna and not go directly into the cold punch but a minute to acclimate, and then you get into the cold punch. You do two to three minutes in there, take a minute cool, then get back to the sauna.

00:56:33
Speaker 2: So there’s these minute buffers.

00:56:35
Speaker 1: That way your body doesn’t get into this crazy shock response where all of a sudden, your nervous system starts getting crazy baso construction basi dihilation happens way too quick, and then all of a sudden people start getting really lightheaded.

00:56:45
Speaker 2: That’s a problem. That high that you get is it’s a lively feeling.

00:56:50
Speaker 1: But it’s one of the reasons why I think the community setting is really good, especially if you’re doing sauna cold punch, keep an eye on each other. Yeah, so I think the one of the big to me, one of the best protocols I’ve done. I would say it’s more anecdotal based off of my recovery, my HRV and then my sleep recovery. Doing sauna, shower and then cold punch is the best. So I’ll do fifteen to twenty minutes around one hundred ninety degrees in the sauna, pouring water on the rocks every five minutes. That just adds the humidity aid steam. It gets real nasty then you do a one minute lukewarm shower. We have an outdoor shower that we just launched two days ago that we’re going to start like really putting out the marketing on here soon. That then keeps the water clean inside of your coal punch as well.

00:57:33
Speaker 3: That helps.

00:57:33
Speaker 1: So you got a minute, So you got a minute to cool off naturally from lukewarm water, and then you go into your coal punch for two to three minutes and you repeat that three times. That to me, an hour prior to bed is unlike anything. And you finish on the sauna because your body temp essentially, your body’s inducing a fever when you’re inside the sauna, so when you come outside the saunda, you’re in a shower, it naturally starts cooling itself off. The key is when you end on cold prior to bed, your body has to compensate the other direction. So now it’s harder for you to go to sleep versus if my body’s naturally cooling off, it goes below baseline because it’s compensated in the other direction. I get to go to you know, go to sleep quicker, feel better, I’m staying asleep. I recovery the next day, I feel like a million bucks. And I would say, like the main kicker to that too is making sure you’re staying hydrated through that electrolytes throughout.

00:58:21
Speaker 2: If you do.

00:58:22
Speaker 1: Sauna and then you don’t hydrate, you will wake up feeling pretty pretty oft. And I you know, for me speaking many times, uh, waking up early to train right after a sauna cold punch session and I have that dry mouth.

00:58:35
Speaker 2: That is the worst feeling.

00:58:37
Speaker 1: You have to hydrate, and I think like a really good sodium content electrolyte is really key there.

00:58:41
Speaker 3: You always take electrolytes, always have them pretty kind of loaded in the morning to where I scrab it out of the fridge and go straight down to it. But you have to I think electrolytes are key or key to it when I was doing it regularly in the mornings, but man, I I gotta get back to doing that the first thing in the morning. Now it’s just whenever I can get it in. Yeah, it was just a good rhythm for me. You to like kind of flush some soreness from the day before, get blood flowing, get kind of like where you’re like, h, train’s gonna be rough today, And then I’d get out and be like, oh, I’m good.

00:59:08
Speaker 1: And I think that you talk about the tips side. This is my third tip and it speaks directly on what you’re saying. When I was convenience, I think that sauna is meant to be convenient because when it’s not convenient, obviously, it becomes.

00:59:21
Speaker 2: Less of a habit.

00:59:21
Speaker 1: If I have it directly outside my door, I have one of the best vehicles to build family, community, conversation in my recovery as well as my aerobic foundation, just by literally turning on an app walk out, I get into it and then go back to my house and go to bed like that. That convenience is unlike anything else. I think it’s one of the reasons why people in Finland are so unbelievable, unbelievably fulfilled, even though it’s also the cloudiest country in the world and it’s arguably like one of the rainiest two. So many people say that in the United States we have all these excuses to not be fit, and it’s like, dude, do you look all around the United States or you look all around the world. So many variables. Uh, people are controlling just by doing things with community and are doing things that are hard, and I think that sauna is meant to be hard. In some cases, it’s also meant to be sometimes easier.

01:00:10
Speaker 3: As you’re yeah, I would say it’s easier getting in the sauna than it is getting in a cold point.

01:00:15
Speaker 2: A wuss when it comes to the cold punch.

01:00:17
Speaker 1: We sell cold punches, but it’s the reason why we start off in sauna. I love being hot, I love sweating.

01:00:23
Speaker 3: I hate I actually hate being hot, man, but it is good for you. And then also the cold in the morning just is daunting. I would I do that for like a year where it’s just like, all right, three minutes off the rip, dude, and then you’re the rest of the day or for the next two hours. It was yeah, but the sauna into the cold, I’m.

01:00:41
Speaker 2: Like, Okay’s introduction, Yeah, lower berry for entry at that point.

01:00:45
Speaker 1: But if I if you were to tell me, I’m I have a cold punch and I don’t have anything, I don’t have a sauna, that cold punch will never get ever used.

01:00:51
Speaker 3: Forget it did for a while and then all of a sudden, I’m like, you get out of the rhythm of that, and you’re like, nah, I’m out, dude. You can get back in a rhythm one under.

01:00:58
Speaker 1: So I think that to me, the cold plunge is really that dopamine hit, similar to like a double shot of espresso or something, but without the effects of a crash.

01:01:08
Speaker 3: Later.

01:01:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I know that I need to be on for something, if I’m gonna go speak, if I’m gonna be leading like a big important meeting or discussion, like, I need to make sure that I get in the cold punch prier because I know that that’s a variable I can control. I’m gonna feel twenty times better after that. So we actually started getting our our our oldest again about to be five. He is now starting to take to the cold punch because he sees us going in in the fact.

01:01:32
Speaker 3: That my kids love the I let him go in about it’s like a big playoffs. Ten minutes, Yeah, all right, ten minutes you’re out. If you start getting flushed and red, we’re getting out. You get to bring a spin drift or some water in with you and then we’re out. But they love it, man, It’s it’s like a big playoffs to the kids.

01:01:47
Speaker 1: We’ve got the cabins on in our backyard, so you’ve got like the different tiers and then they’ll go and hide underneath the benches and stuff. But they’ve been taken to the cold plunge randomly, which is so funny. And they’ll they’ll get in, then they’ll come back out and they’ll they’ll be slightly scared for a second, and yes, and they’ll.

01:02:03
Speaker 2: Be around the yard and they’re like a wind up toy at that point. It’s so fun.

01:02:08
Speaker 3: Okay, man, where where can people find you? Yeah?

01:02:10
Speaker 1: So you can find us CSU Lifestyle dot com. You can find me on Instagram, Peter Nelson. I I our Instagram also a CSU Underscore Sauna and you also find us on Youtubeerson going to put quite a bit of val YouTube content out there around the education of sauna therapy, the lifestyle, behind the scenes of us building the brand, and.

01:02:29
Speaker 3: This podcast Eat the Heat too. Yeah yeah, yeah.

01:02:32
Speaker 1: Beat the Heat Beat the Heats of the Sauna podcast staying for thirty minutes and get the Golden Ladle yep for that one. Yeah, same, I just I just got my That was great.

01:02:40
Speaker 2: That was alright.

01:02:41
Speaker 3: I saw ours the other day. It was just sitting in our like actual our utensiled drawer used on We’ve not used it for the sauna yet so that’s so funny cool Well heck yeah man, that was a fun discussion. Yeah.

01:02:53
Speaker 2: Thanks you wish for the opportunity to down with y’all. Dude, listening to this song a little bit