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- [00:01]
A
Woohoo. Welcome to the Sun Work All Play podcast. We are so happy to be with you today.
- [00:06]
B
We're finally sitting here right now with the sun shining in. We've had a few days of just total mountain fog. I turned to you this morning, I was like, oh my gosh, the mountains still exist. This is amazing, actually.
- [00:15]
A
Quote from you this weekend, I think nature is crying right now as, like, ice pellets flow down the windows.
- [00:22]
B
We've had a weekend of negative temps, but it's nice, actually. I feel like I get the context for my Minnesota athletes. So whenever it's minus six here, it'll be negative 26 in Minnesota. And I'm like, I can't complain.
- [00:32]
A
What I've learned is that anyone that lives in Minnesota must be a little bit bonkers, like, because it goes from being full icy, terrible weather to being like humid hellscape, and there's not that much in between. But everyone from there seems so delightful. I'm kind of confused what happened.
- [00:48]
B
I feel like in that environment, to survive, you have to be delightful and you have to be tough as nails. And my Minnesota athletes are confirmation of that through and through.
- [00:54]
A
Maybe that's something like positivity is the only way to get through these conditions. So nature is actually giving us like a, like, lifting us up through its terribleness.
- [01:01]
B
Well, it's funny because I've seen all these pictures on Instagram of people with these, like, really attractive eyelash, like, glistening in the frozen. It's like you go out for a run, you get this like, frozen eyelash cover. And for me, I went for a run and it really just accentuated my unibrow. So I feel like my eyebrows just froze in all the spots that I haven't been plucking. And I'm like, oh, great. This is my attractive thirst trap Ice day photo.
- [01:22]
A
Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's just the terrible ice storm outside. Yeah, it's actually done the reverse for me where, you know, you're very talented at the hair growing arts, but for me, it's shown that I'm not really good at growing an ice beard. All the, all the men on my timeline are just like, looking so regal and like, manly and like, outdoorsy and woodsman style. And meanwhile, my little. I get a couple of pellets on my chin.
- [01:45]
B
No, no, no, no. I think it's because you just get impatient. So every time you grow like a little bit of a stubble, which I love, it grows pretty fast. You're like, this is itchy. I can't deal with this.
- [01:55]
A
I have no idea how men do it. Why are they growing beards when they're so itchy? Is that a thing? Maybe it's just me. Maybe I have, like, an itchy.
- [02:01]
B
I think you get past. I imagine, for like, six days, it's. And then it gets fine from there.
- [02:04]
A
Oh, I don't know about that. To me, it feels like a badger is growing on my face and just, like, clawing at me the whole time.
- [02:09]
B
We should ask the people in Minnesota. I'm sure the people in Minnesota have great beards.
- [02:12]
A
What is. What is your eyebrow growing? If my beard is a badger? What. What animal is that?
- [02:17]
B
Oh, man. Probably an aardvark.
- [02:19]
A
Oh, I like that.
- [02:20]
B
An eyebrow aardvark.
- [02:21]
A
I was going to say a caterpillar.
- [02:22]
B
Thanks for giving me the mad lib on the spot, man.
- [02:25]
A
Yeah, I was going to say a caterpillar, but I love your. Your very hairy. My eyebrow.
- [02:28]
B
My eyebrow aardvark.
- [02:29]
A
Your very hairy caterpillar. So this is episode 36, which we're going to call the Shaquille O' Neal the Shaq episode. For the discerning listeners out there, you might know that he wasn't number 36 for most of his career. He was 36 when he came back to the Boston Celtics at age 39. So, Shaq, I was reading some stories about his return to the Celtics, and reporters said he could barely walk. So, like, he was just going through the hotel before the game and just limping and looking so rough.
- [02:57]
B
But he was so confident still. So I read this quote from him, and he was asked, how much do you look forward to the opportunity to go up against guys like Dwight Howard or Andrew Bynum in the playoffs? Shaq answered, excuse me, don't ask me a question like that. They won't dare play me one on one, even at the tender age of 39.
- [03:12]
A
What a boss. Yeah, especially because he's averaging just a few points per game, you know, a shell of his former, like, one of the greatest players ever. And I think he had to really come to terms with that, that this, like, return to glory that he was planning, where he's going to come back with the Celtics, chase a championship ring, win it all, and it's going to be amazing. Did not turn out that way. I mean, the ravages of time that we're all facing, you know, he ran into it headfirst.
- [03:35]
B
Well, it's funny because we talk a lot about the reality of aging in this household, and I feel like Shaq is just, like, an amazing example of that. Like, he just truly, like, weathered it. Like, I think about that all the time. I'm like, like, grappling with the fact of, like, wrinkles and potentially gray hair down the road, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. This is love and wisdom. This is my. My. Yeah, but, yeah, my meditation on love and wisdom. It's still, like. It's still something that's, like, kind of jarring to me. But I think it's interesting, though, because I think, like, over time, it's almost become this amazing, like, thing to grasp onto because I'm like, oh, well, you know, if I'm aging, then all these things that I'm stressing about or, like, all these accomplishments that seem so big in the moment, like, they actually don't really matter that much, and it's. It's kind of like. It's like this, like, interesting, like, helpful thing to grasp onto.
- [04:14]
A
Yeah. When we were listening to the meditation the other night, there was something that really resonated with me, is that these experiences you have are a passing show. And I think that, I mean, maybe aging is partially being attuned to the show. Actually, last night, we were watching a rap documentary on Netflix, and in it, they played the video Rump Shaker, which you can imagine what the video was all about.
- [04:35]
B
It was a lot of rump shaking.
- [04:36]
A
Going on, a lot of rumps. I was honestly a little overrumped. I had some overrump syndrome.
- [04:41]
B
This is from the 90s, too. I'm like, how do they have so many rumps in the 90s?
- [04:44]
A
1992 rumps are much more impressive than I assumed.
- [04:48]
B
But I was sitting there doing the math, and I was like, those rums in the 90s, they're 60 now. Like, how weird is that to think about.
- [04:53]
A
Yeah, yeah, those rumps. We should do a rump shaker retrospective where all the same people get up and shake their rumps. I feel like that would be a wonderful art installation.
- [05:02]
B
Ok, remember the Russian app that, like, oh, the face of your face. And then it aged it. You could do the same thing with butts. How funny would that be?
- [05:09]
A
Oh, my God, you look so beautiful when you're an old person in that app. And I looked fucking horrifying in that app. Everyone that saw the picture of me in that app were like, oh, my God, you are not going to age well. And I'm feeling that a little bit in my body.
- [05:20]
B
I don't think so. We should leave it up to the Russians. I think the Russians should vote on that one.
- [05:23]
A
Yeah, so, yeah. So to all of our Russian bot friends listening out there, you know, you can rate and rate and subscribe, but yeah, I mean, as an athlete, I think it's always magnified. So this is Shaq's quote when he was reflecting on that time, that ill fated return. I'm Shaq, but I'm not Shaq. I can still entertain and do stuff to make people giggle, but that's not Shaq. So what he's thinking about there is Shaq used to break freaking backboards. He used to be the most feared force maybe in the history of all professional sports. And at the end, you know, he was getting pushed around by people that were much lesser athletes than him at that top level. And I mean, it's such a small scale level, but we all feel that to a certain extent. I mean, I had to last week, I had to take four days off for the stupidest little muscle pool. Something that never would have happened when I was a kid. You know, just going a little bit too fast on a stride. For example, like in the old days, I could do whatever and never have that issue. And it's, you know, that's an acute thing.
- [06:18]
B
But.
- [06:18]
A
But then even after four days, I would go to the bathroom at night and wake up and still be a little bit creaky. And I, like, focus my whole life on recovery. Um, so, you know, it exemplifies a lot of what Shaq was probably going through.
- [06:30]
B
Well, it's funny because I feel that same creakiness in the morning coming down the stairs. And I devise this thing where I can hold onto the stairs, like the rails on the stairs, and use them as crutches as I go down the stairs. And this is fantastic because when I had hamstring surgery, I already knew how to go down the stairs. I'm like, I'm sore every day. I got this. I can do this.
- [06:46]
A
Our house has a built in walker. We should have known that this was made for athletes. And then, you know, I talked to my dad, who's like 70, almost 70, and like one of my, you know, he's my athletic idol, and dad, like, you know, he feels the same thing, but has a much different perspective on it. Probably because he's gone through that ringer already. And I'm starting to just, like, face it down fully. And I think it's really important to emphasize how much of a beast Shaq was. So Hakeem Olajuwon, hall of Famer said that Guarding him was like trying to hold onto a train writer. J A Adande guarded him for a story, just like a human interest story. Held onto his bicep as a joke. Just a Fallon, Shaq lifted him up off the ground and dunked. That's mind blowing.
- [07:28]
B
But we're gonna talk about strength training later. And I'm like, talk about, yeah, talk about like functional strength training. That is the definition of functional strength training, right? Yeah.
- [07:34]
A
Lift all the journalists in your life is going to be our strength training.
- [07:37]
B
What I think is fascinating though about Shaq is he's pretty terrible at free throws. And I love this quote from him. Me having a beautiful wife and great family and friends around me, all the money I've got, all the things that I've got. A Ferrari that I just ripped the top off of and turned into a convertible, the rings. I got the two mansions on the water, a master's in criminal justice. I'm a cop. Plus I look good. So to me, shooting 40% of the foul line is just God's way of saying that nobody perfect. If I shot 90% from the line, it just wouldn't be right. I love that mentality. He's just embracing the fact he's like, yeah, I got flaws. We all got flaws. But you know what? I've got a lot of great things in life, you know, that are to my name. And he sure did.
- [08:10]
A
Yeah. And I remember reading stories about him. He would practice free throws a ton. At one point he tried underhand, like so the old, I forget the old NBA player that did it, but you can do it to very high percentages. And so underhand he was a better free throw shooter, but he got to a point where he's just like, it's not worth it to go underhand. I'm just not, I'm not about that game.
- [08:28]
B
I've heard even tried stepping back from the free throw line.
- [08:30]
A
Yeah, Dwight Howard does that now. He steps back all the way to the three point line at times.
- [08:33]
B
But it's fascinating to think about, you know, the fact that like his size and his like physique actually probably don't. Like, they're probably tough for him when it comes to free throws, but those are the things that make him great. Like he just can't have everything in life. And he acknowledges that. And I love, I just love how he was.
- [08:46]
A
He says, yeah, and that's probably the big lesson. Aside from the fact that the ravages of time that we're all facing and accepting that, that we're taking away from Shaq is that sometimes we're going to be 40% free throw shooters at something in our lives, and that might actually be a little bit of a blessing, or at least the flip side of the things we really like.
- [09:02]
B
I was going to say might totally contribute to who you are.
- [09:04]
A
Yeah. And that goes with you, right? Like, with, like. I mean, we've talked about presentations in the past, but I keep coming back to that because I think people listening to this podcast would have no idea that you have public speaking fears.
- [09:14]
B
Oh, my gosh. For the longest time, I remember going back to kindergarten, and I was a narrator in a school play. Honestly, I was a narrator. Not because I tried out or anything. They're like, oh, you can read here. Go be a narrator in the school play. It was great. Zero fear. And then somewhere between kindergarten and sixth grade, when I had to stand up in front of the class and present the Gettysburg Address and just panic, panic the crap out of this presentation.
- [09:34]
A
Before the presentation or during. Do you remember when it was during?
- [09:36]
B
So I was like, totally fine, totally cool, and got up there and, like, had this, like, awful experience. And it's something that I've carried with me the rest of my life.
- [09:43]
A
It's almost like traumatic stress, I imagine, to a sixth grader.
- [09:45]
B
I mean, not huge traumatic stress, but I think, like, from that point on, every single presentation, I was aware. I, like, suddenly became aware of the audience, become aware of being watched, and, like, almost like, I don't know if you've ever watched someone at the Oscars and you're palpably nervous for them as they're going up to give a presentation, and I'm like, I don't want to ever put the onus on someone else to feel that way on my behalf.
- [10:05]
A
Wow, that's such an interesting thing that you're thinking about the listener or the person watching you and how they're consuming it. You want them to be comfortable.
- [10:11]
B
Yeah. So it has nothing to do with my own ego. I don't care. I have, like, very little ego. I'm like, I don't care if I come across as nervous, but I just care about the people in the audience. And I'm like, I don't want them to feel nervous on my behalf. How weird is that?
- [10:21]
A
Oh, no. I think that's probably pretty unusual, but I totally identify with it. I mean, you know, I've talked before about going into the pool as a kid with a shirt on because I didn't want people to have to be like, oh, that poor fat kid. And as a result, I probably made everyone feel so uncomfortable because I was so uncomfortable rather than just embracing who I was. But it's been super cool to see you go on that journey where you're coming to grips with this, that, like, this thing that you don't enjoy that's been there probably since sixth grade. It might have to become a friend because it's not perhaps going to go fully away.
- [10:55]
B
I think for sure it's going to have to become a friend. And that hasn't always been my first. Like, I haven't always embraced this. Like, I feel like there's a lot of times in my life I'm like, well, I could just do a career without presentations. I could go live in a cabin in the woods and be totally happy in life. But I've like, I really realized, like, that's not my reality.
- [11:09]
A
Megan read My side of the mountain and was like, that's the way if.
- [11:12]
B
I watch it, actually 100% did. I was like, that is great. I think this goes to show my personality. I even thought about for the longest time, I was like, you know how they talk about hiring assistants?
- [11:20]
A
Yeah.
- [11:20]
B
It's like, I want to hire an assistant to do my presentations. Like, I'll do all this stuff, like send emails, like, buy groceries, like, do all these things an assistant would do, but they can do my presentations.
- [11:28]
A
So instead of doing presentations, Megan is like, I want to be like Leonardo DiCaprio in the Revenant and fight a bear. Like, that sounds way better. You're like, fighting a literal grizzly bear is worse than the figurative grizzly bear of a presentation.
- [11:39]
B
But now I'm just, like, stepping up to it. I feel like I just have to. What I've learned actually is if I do a presentation, I just have to keep doing them and doing them doing them to keep that good momentum going.
- [11:47]
A
Exposure therapy.
- [11:48]
B
Yeah, exactly. Just like, to keep myself getting to that starting line. I had a really pivotal conversation with my mom a couple nights ago. I was doing dishes and she was like, megan, I don't understand. She's like, why does it matter if your voice shifts? Like, why does it matter if you're nervous up there? And honestly, I couldn't give a good answer. Besides the answer I give about giving to you earlier about other people feeling nervous on my behalf. And that was so game changing to me. It's just like, this is a part of who I am and not trying to fight that. Like trying to give that little girl who's scared a hug yeah. You know, this is not about fighting it. It's about, like, you know, just working.
- [12:18]
A
That's really interesting. I wonder how much of that stuff is tied to, like, our inner child almost. You know, not just the childlike experience we have, but when you're thinking about someone being nervous right before a race or whatever. Like, one thing that you always say sometimes before presentations is, I sometimes can't breathe. You know, like, I start to hyperventilate. Or what if I forget words? Or, you know, and I identify with that, too. I mean, I think talking is hard.
- [12:37]
B
So hard. The people I've seen, I've seen Twitter quotes before, like, oh, talking is easy. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. Like, if you're never nervous, talking is hard.
- [12:44]
A
Yeah. Breathing becomes very hard.
- [12:46]
B
Breathing is challenging.
- [12:47]
A
Living becomes hard. I will fight the grizzly bear as opposed to try to string some words. Oh, for sure.
- [12:51]
B
You would not believe. I have, like, set up these complicated schemes to get presentations. I'll be like, well, what if my car goes, like, in a tailspin? I can use this as an excuse to get, like, very, very complicated.
- [13:02]
A
You're watching Fast and Furious, Tokyo Drift and, like, taking notes, like, because I can control this.
- [13:06]
B
This can be like, what if I got Covid and didn't have to present for two weeks? Which is horrible. But I think, like, a lot of people are like, get that the idea of, like, you know, crafting these, like, really strange things to get out of.
- [13:16]
A
Things, like going to CVS and just start licking the surfaces, get out of that presentation.
- [13:20]
B
But I've tried a few things recently, and I feel like it's really helped me. So I think the first one being just embracing the audience as family. So really feeling like there's, like, love and kindness coming from the audience. Even these days, if I can't see them physically, like, if it's on a zoom presentation or, like, looking out on the audience and not knowing anyone. Oh, yeah. And just, like, feeling that radiating and warmth for me is something that's really powerful. I think the other thing, too, is like, latching on to that one person who's a vigorous head nodder. I've talked about that before in this podcast. It's like that, to me, is really helpful.
- [13:46]
A
That's probably me on the podcast. My constant little chuckles in the background that might be annoying for people. It's like almost that validation of your.
- [13:53]
B
Jokes and practicing, too. So I have recently, I used to have this thing with presentations. Like, I'm not going to practice. If I get up there and wing it, I'll be fine. Terrible strategy because I got up there and panicked and I was like, oh, my gosh. I have no idea what to say. But I find if I practice now, like, repeatedly, it just. It comes to the point that, like, my first, like, the first minute of the presentation can be mechanical, and then I kind of find my flow state from there.
- [14:13]
A
I mean, I love what you've been trying to do recently of, like, finding lightness. It actually reminds me, I was listening to Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and formerly of Nirvana on the Conan o' Brien podcast, and he said that with the Foo Fighters, they don't do any serious pre. Pre performance things. What they do is they try to get on stage right after. They laugh hysterically, even if they have to force.
- [14:33]
B
I love that.
- [14:34]
A
Yeah, like, that mindset of, like, finding lightness in these things we have to do anyway, whether that's a presentation or if you're listening to this erase or whatever that thing is to you, or sex or whatever, whatever something is to you that becomes this big thing in your mind where it might make you nervous or there's performance anxiety or whatever, you know, I think that that could be a thing, like a path forward.
- [14:54]
B
I've actually worked on that in terms of, like, carving out some humor into my presentations. Like, even, like, really serious presentations, like putting some jokes in there. Even things like, you know, if it's a classroom sett being like, okay, we really all need to take a break to, like, stand up, like, move our bodies. Like, we've been sitting here for a long period of time and, like, being like, oh, this is for you. But in reality, I'm like, yeah, this is for me right now. This is a break.
- [15:14]
A
You did a practice presentation that. I forget what your first joke was, but it made me laugh so hard because it just came out of nowhere, like, knocked me in the side of the face. And I was like, okay, that Megan's just figured it out. It's like that. That lightness you're bringing to this. This presentation process, and I love that. But I think, you know, if you're out there and you feel this about, you know, we're talking about presentations, but I think it really applies to racing or workouts or anything, know, might never fully go away. Like, Neil Brennan, comedian, talks about how he still gets so nervous and sometimes even has anxiety attacks before getting on stage. And he's one of the biggest in the world. I was just listening to Billie Eilish on the Smart List podcast. I sound like I listen to so many podcasts.
- [15:49]
B
You do. Oh, you listen to them on two Speed. So you have the chances to listen to podcasts.
- [15:52]
A
Don't do that on ours. That would be a little overwhelming. And she was talking about how she gets so nervous before them and she's like one of the most well adjusted superstars ever. So perhaps it's just something that is directly tied like Shaq and his free throws to our natures.
- [16:06]
B
You know, I think for me, something that I found really grounding in this process is the fact that knowing that life goes on. So I have had pretty terrible presentations and we still sit down that night and have dinner together. I've had great presentations and we still sit down at night and have dinner together. And just knowing like, no matter what happens in this presentation, in this race, in this life thing, whatever it may be, like life is going to go on. And I think that to me is something that's, that's grounding in this process.
- [16:28]
A
Experiences are a passing show. Right? And that, I mean, that's been liberating to me. For my own example, some of my.
- [16:33]
B
Shows have gotten negative for star reviews. But you know what? Those, those don't change anything.
- [16:37]
A
I've come to realize all movie stars have their shows that are 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. So in honor of Valentine's Day, we're going to finish this up, the intro with a little bit of love reflections. Right? So the. This was prompted by. I was coming into the living room the other day and Megan's just sitting there. There's no TV on, nothing else, there's no phone. She's just sitting there and she's gently kissing her knee.
- [17:01]
B
Okay, okay. You just. That is in overblown scenario. I pecked my knee once, totally inadvertently, had no idea what I was doing. It's just like happened. So sometimes my knees get sore when I do strengthening. And I think I was just giving it some love. And David was like, Megan, what are you doing?
- [17:17]
A
Yeah, I came in and she was deeply French kissing her knee is what I'm trying to say. But I actually loved that as a physical manifestation of this like self love, self talk stuff that we're talking about.
- [17:27]
B
You mean you're talking compassionate self completion. Brings us back to that was not what this was. But that was my very much word slip last podcast.
- [17:34]
A
Perhaps, perhaps it was foreplay. But yeah, like, you know, I think that you do that actually a lot with your words and actions, like when you're at your best Involuntarily. Involuntarily, but also voluntarily. I remember before last week's workout, you said, I'm nice and smelly this. This morning. That's a great sign for workouts. And I love that because you're. You're finding like, that, that humor in the process.
- [17:55]
B
There's physiology there. That means my testosterone's reaching.
- [17:57]
A
Oh, yeah, your hormones are going for it. Um, and then I was hearing an athlete that said, get it like Garfield gets lasagna. That's what they say to themselves before workouts. And I think this embodying this love and this connectedness with yourself can be so powerful. And it gets back to, like, one of my athletes in their log had this amazing comment about Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day might be my new favorite holiday because of the acceptance of wildly spreading as much love to everyone as possible. And then eight exclamation points.
- [18:25]
B
That's an amazing description of Valentine's Day. I also personally like Ron Swanson's description of Valentine's Day. So Ron Swanson said Valentine's Day is invented by Hallmark to sell cards, which I think is very ironic right now, because personally, if you ask me, I think these Hallmark cards are destined not to be a thing in 2030. Like, I think they're really going out of business. They're going to go the ways of, like, GameStop or Blockbuster coming up here. But I think, like, for me, I feel like we're in this. This chance to, like, return the idea of Valentine's Day and to, like, restructure how we think about Valentine's Day is not being this thing about, like, between partners or between, like, romantic couples, but to be about just, like, spreading love in general.
- [18:58]
A
And I think society as a whole is moving towards acceptance of that much more.
- [19:02]
B
Well, it's funny because I was scrolling Instagram yesterday and classically, I feel like on Instagram on Valentine's Day, you scroll through and, you know, they. How they have those AI readouts of what the picture is. It'd be like two people staring madly in love into each other's eyes, whether they're in love or not.
- [19:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's probably the subtext here is that the Valentine's Day posts bring out some of the most, like, you know, what is. What is forward facing and what is rear facing of, like, all human emotions.
- [19:27]
B
But yesterday I felt like I saw, as I was scrolling and doing my little, like, data compilation in my head, I just felt like I was seeing more people talk in loving ways. About, like, like, you know, friends or dogs or, God forbid, cats or, like, friends or like all these other. These, like, different situations. And I just thought. I thought it was really cool.
- [19:42]
A
Yeah. And I think that that's the next step, right, Is to be like, obviously, Megan, I love you so much. But I think it's also good to say, like, the athlete. He said I could say this. So Gordon, like, I love Gordon. Gordon's like the best. And Gordon lifts me up so much and being okay with spreading that type of feeling too.
- [20:02]
B
And I think it becomes a lot easier. Like, I think once one person starts that communication, it creates this, like, echo effect of, like, spreading these good vibes, this love, this, like, positive feelings. And Valentine's Day is a great day to just, like, to do that.
- [20:12]
A
And you see that in so many amazing leaders. I mean, I was. God, I was listening to a podcast with Tom Brady where he was talking about how much he loves his teammates. And, you know, I've totally turned on Tom Brady. I know I made some tough comments on him last week. I've actually come to the point that I love Tom Brady and respect him, and he sees.
- [20:26]
B
I never thought I'd hear those words come from your mouth.
- [20:28]
A
He was. He was so well adjusted. And for whatever health beats I might have with perhaps a 43 year old and Trump beats. Yeah, that's true. But who knows? He hasn't talked about that in five years. So I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that maybe he's so cloistered in his ideas that he doesn't even think about that. But the importance of communication, of these ideas is what it's all about. So Megan doing it to herself, that's the place to start. Like, try to turn around that self talk. That's what I'm trying to do.
- [20:53]
B
Well, it's funny. Okay, so I take your podcast and I see my podcast. So I was listening yesterday to the Dax Shepard podcast, Armchair Expert with Emily Morse. So she is a doctor of human sexuality. That is a boss title. I love that female boss right there. So I was painting in the. In our pain cave. Renovating our pain cave, listening to this.
- [21:10]
A
Podcast that sounds a little bit weird when you're talking about sex podcast. Are there harnesses there? Like, what are we doing in the pain cave?
- [21:16]
B
No, there's just treadmills, which, yeah, unfortunately not an ultra G. That's a combination of both of those. But I was listening to it as at 2x speed. And so I was like, painting and listening to this podcast and I Would like wander upstairs and put my brushes in the water. And basically the summary of the podcast, as I was coming upstairs, it was like, penises. Penises. Because it was on two times feet and you're like, what are you listening to?
- [21:39]
A
Then I had to listen to it too. And it was an amazing podcast.
- [21:41]
B
But I was gonna say, long story short, the summary of just of the podcast was just how important communication is with romantic partners. And I felt like it was a great way to like, talk about, you know, all these different things we've been highlighting on here on Valentine's Day is that communication is just grounding it all.
- [21:55]
A
And what she said was, communication is the best lubrication or something along those lines. And that really, I think is relevant not just for sex, but everything but with sex in this needs to be a full topic at some point. But I remember when I was in high school and even before we met, like, being like, well, it's this thing that's on like movies and stuff that is so like fireworks and everyone knows how to do it and they're just like born into it. And it's like so natural.
- [22:19]
B
It's like 40 minutes of just like banging each other. Yeah.
- [22:23]
A
And you know what she was talking about? What Dr. Morse was talking about was that actually it's kind of the exact opposite. It's like everything else in life that you need to learn together.
- [22:31]
B
So.
- [22:31]
A
I remember when Megan and I first started dating, I read literally every resource there was online to try to improve my knowledge base.
- [22:37]
B
I actually remember you citing journal articles. I was like, whoa, that's crazy. But this is also the guy for me.
- [22:43]
A
I think it's important because, like, what women want or what what boys are taught that women want or think that women want is not what women want. And probably the same goes true for the other. And then, you know, not to mention non binary and, you know, any other type of human and relationship there is. And it just. What she kept coming back to was, you know, learn. You need places to learn. But then communicate, communicate, communicate on everything. And it's something I've been trying to get way better at in general.
- [23:07]
B
But I mean, and I think using that love to ground this open environment where all communication is okay. Yeah, like, I think like in our relationship, I could tell you something and you'd be like, okay, I know that is coming from a place of like, good intention and vice versa. And I think like, because of that, like, there is no fear surrounding this communication and like no fear of messing up or no fear of Saying the wrong thing because, you know, when it's coming from my perspective, when it's coming out of your mouth, there is no wrong thing.
- [23:30]
A
That's what she said.
- [23:30]
B
Oh, God, David.
- [23:32]
A
But no, I mean, I think to everyone listening, this is one place that Megan has been so helpful. And, you know, listening to things like this, it's communicate those fears that you have about things like your relationship, about things like sex. They are so common. Every partner will and history will understand. But you have to let go of this, like, ego that I had in high school, where you should know.
- [23:52]
B
Well, I think the final point on this topic is I think that the communication is the ultimate intimacy. Like, I think that is what creates this, like, intimate environment. To have this, like, you know, amazing sexual relationship is that communication. It's the groundwork.
- [24:03]
A
I love that so much. You want to get to topic one.
- [24:05]
B
Well, how are we going to transition this one?
- [24:07]
A
Let's give you six minutes on something tangentially related to running.
- [24:11]
B
Let's do it. So topic one is on strength training. This question is from Ql. How do you incorporate strength training such as full body strength work, into a running routine?
- [24:19]
A
And so we've gotten this question a bunch of times. Next week we're going to have a full strength work cheat sheet on, on Intro Runner magazine. But we wanted to talk briefly back about where this is even coming from from and why we're talking about it at all is because I remember when I was in high school, I was a football player and I was thinking, we're talking a lot about high school me right now. That guy clearly needs a psychologist. He needs Dr. Morse. But, you know, I was lifting very heavy weights. And I see nowadays all the time people are like, lift heavy if you're a runner. And it's like what I was doing in high school was true heavy lifting and my intestines were about to come out of my body. That is not necessarily a beneficial thing.
- [24:56]
B
Thing. There needs to be about 12/ asterisks. The lift heavy exclamation point.
- [25:00]
A
And that's what we're trying to do is bring in the asterisk today. And Megan has a similar experience with field hockey where, you know, she actually got really strong and got really fast.
- [25:07]
B
Well, yeah, it's funny. So I was kind of this, like, scrawny field hockey player before going to college my senior year in high school. I was like, it's time to bulk up. It's time to, like, you know, really get strong. And it was great. And it actually gave me Great confidence. I remember stepping onto the Track Racing 800-1500 meter race and track was kind of like my ancillary thing.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah.
- [25:25]
B
And just having this like confidence out there and being like I am strong, like I am ready to embrace this race.
- [25:30]
A
You could like recycle those girls like, like day old aluminum cans. Um, yeah. But I think often in running we're thinking about strength in a totally different way than perhaps field hockey and football. And I think it's really important to, to you know, bring that together in a way that really helps people out. So with strength training we have three main goals for us and our athletes. Um, first goal that the we want to improve strength through a range of motion.
- [25:56]
B
I think the reason why you were thinking about this context here is because if you think about strength through the range of motion, you're working on actively improving your running economy and reducing injury rate at the same time.
- [26:04]
A
Yeah. So your ability to like reduce ground contact time, improve the amount of power generation you have off the ground, improve increases but you don't need to lift incredibly heavy weights to do.
- [26:14]
B
Actually I think one great question on this is how would you define strength through range of motion? Like so would you talk about athletes on that topic?
- [26:19]
A
You know, running's range of motion is actually pretty confined when you think about it. It's going slightly beyond that. A good example might be lunges where you go just a few degrees beyond, you know, what you'll ever do in running. So not exceeding that too much, just a little bit. Topic two is repeatable and fun. One, strength work can always fall away. But two, what is repeatable and fun will also be the thing that lifts up your running the most because you're not tearing your body down when something starts to cause this massive full body stress sort soreness long term it's also going to probably be causing too much stress to really improve unless you're a freak of nature.
- [26:50]
B
And I think the other point on this topic too is to avoid these like max wet, max weight reps or abnormal loading patterns unless you're working directly with a strength coach, unless you're having someone oversee that. I also think on this topic too, avoiding heavily weighted isolated joint movements outside of a true purpose. Like I see people doing these like you know, hooking their body up to a machine and doing these crazy movements that you would never get in sport. And it's like to me that's very.
- [27:09]
A
Confusing and it's risk without necessarily excessive reward. Like you don't need that to be successful but it can really cause damage. And then another thing is eccentric loading plyometrics. So you were talking about box jumps, right? Yeah.
- [27:22]
B
So I think it's like it's okay to jump up onto a box. But I've seen actually and specifically in female athletes, I've seen a lot of bone stress injuries from athletes doing things like jumping down off boxes repeatedly. So those eccentric loading patterns, if you think about like the vertical shear stress that's coming up through the body is something that a lot of athletes, especially runners, have not experienced in their lives.
- [27:38]
A
And it can be super good said unless you have bad form or you're a little low on fuel one day.
- [27:43]
B
Or you're just working into this for the first time and doing a high.
- [27:45]
A
Number of reps and all it takes is one time for something negative to happen. And the third really quick one is you work multiple muscle groups and compound movements. Main reason is for the hormonal benefit and then also the real world applicability, running, other things cleaning. It's all full body motion. You want to support that also other.
- [28:02]
B
Quick reason too is having this strong bone building effect from working these, these multiple muscle groups. If you think about it, these strong muscles are creating tension on bones that are allowing the bones to build and to turn over in a really productive way. That's good for bone metal density. Good research out there on this.
- [28:15]
A
Yeah. So let's get to the how to actually apply this. We're going to go over it really quickly. One stack the biggest stresses on days that running is harder. This is mainly for the endocrine and neuromuscular justifications of heavy strength based exercises. And your body only has so much stress it can adapt to. If you spread that out too much, you're probably going to get to a place where you might overtrain or get injured or just not adapt.
- [28:35]
B
So the way that we like to extra stress in our athletes is we have athletes do what we call speed legs. David has a great video on YouTube on this. Essentially speed legs involves weighted rear lunges, split squats, Romanian deadlifts, goblet squats, single leg step ups. We have athletes do this two times per week, usually on workout day, long run day.
- [28:51]
A
Similar that you know with running. Your more stressful days are usually two times per week. Um, two. The background stimuli for range of motion and core strength are much more consistent. So consistency reinforces the endurance adaptation. So here we're differentiating between strength strength work, like speed legs and then endurance strength work. Um, so these are talking about things like band work. The lunge matrix leg swings, myrtle upper body like push ups or chin ups. Um, doing those, you can do that almost every day and that's productive.
- [29:16]
B
And I think also things that you can do every day. Point number three is a constant focus on recovery and adaptation. I think this is so important for athletes. Thinking about things like rolling massage, stretching, if you're aging, or inflexible protein intake. You can even do this on a zoom call. It's very easy to work this into your day. It doesn't have to be this formal thing.
- [29:32]
A
Yeah. And perhaps the biggest, most important message of all, and we're going to this will all be in an article and that will link to next week, is treat yourself. You know, we're talking about strength work in a perfect world, but really what matters is adapting to the work you're doing. And so when you're talking about strength work, you really need to make sure that it's building you up and not tearing you down. And there's such a temptation to tear down and strength work like I did in football. Instead, you want something that makes you stronger and happier and more. More full as a person.
- [29:57]
B
Person. Woohoo. Cheers. To strength. Thanks everyone.
- [29:59]
A
We love you guys.
- [29:59]
B
Bye.