If you have adrenal dysfunction and chronic fatigue, exercise is probably the last thing you feel like doing. Your adrenal glands are responsible for keeping the well-being of your body in balance through hormones. These glands also produce the hormone cortisol, which is released during your fight-or-flight response. As you can imagine, cortisol is beneficial when you need to be alert and escape danger. For more on exercise with adrenal dysfunction and chronic fatigue, listen to the entire podcast!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
1:38 Exercise Movements, Use of Bands, Etc
9:06 Rowers
15:37 Hacks to Increase Exercise Performance
18:53 Post Recovery Stuff
29:39 Why Exercise is Important
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. It's Dr. J here in the house with Evan brand, Evan, how are we doing my friend?
Evan Brand: Doing really good, excited to dive into this topic, I've suffered tremendously with exercise intolerance for a while, and luckily have pulled myself out of it. And I can empathize with people that want to exercise, but they literally physically can't. Or if they do, they crash out, which is what was happening to me. So let me just share a story just for a minute, and then we'll dive in some to the details of it. But there are different things that can make people exercise intolerant. For me, I think it was a combination of factors like everything, but I was to the point where, if I did try to push myself, it would take an extremely long time to recover, you know, two, three, sometimes four days, I would still be recovering from the the workout and I thought, Okay, well, as you and I talked about, we got to adjust the levers, I got to lower the intensity, I got to lower the duration and the frequency. So I did, but it wasn't enough, I still felt like no matter if it's a 10 minute or 30 minute, I was still drained. So for me, I think it was detox, I think it was getting my mitochondria working better, definitely getting adrenals working better. I think neurotransmitters played a role too, because, you know, you could have low motivation and low drive if dopamine is effective. So we'll go into that. But that's, that was my story.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very important. I think anyone that's health conscious, right, like you're moving a couple of levers when you're health conscious, right, you're really working on drinking clean water, you're working on improving your food quality, maybe adjusting your macros, maybe you're taking some supplements. And of course, the The other thing you will be putting a lot of focus on will be movement, right. And I just call exercise movement. So like the first met, the three levers that we can move we already kind of highlighted is frequency, how many times per week we're exercising intensity, could be how intense the movement is a compound movement that uses multiple joints, like a front squat, or a single leg deadlift with a row kind of component, or something like a bicep curl, that's like, you know, just your elbow joint, that kind of a single joint movement, that's more bodybuilding based, and, and less kind of metabolism based, right full body bass. So we have frequency intensity, the type of movements and that also can include the rest time between sets, too, right. So you can also increase, you can do more intense stuff, and then just have more rest time to kind of be back to baseline in between. And the last is duration, how long your workout is, that's helpful, too. So some data by Charles poliquin, who talked about cortisol really starts to increase, you know, 45 to 50 minutes in. And again, that's gonna be for someone that's more on the healthy side. So I always tell people, like keep your workout, if you're more stressed, keep it under 20 minutes, that's a pretty good rule of thumb, you know, and just try to do more circuit movements, where you do movements back to back to back, that can be helpful. But then we kind of have to gauge and how your body is adapting to the exercise. It's all about adaptation. And so exercise is a stress, and we want our body to be able to adapt to that stress, so we grow stronger. Now, if that stress is too much, where our body is not able to adapt to it, meaning we're getting weaker, we're getting more tired, that defeats the purpose of exercise, we want our body to positively adapt to that stress. If it can't, then we have to move those three levers frequency, intensity, duration, and we may even have to switch out of certain movements, we may have to switch into more yoga or more walking or more, you know, Tai Chi types of movements in the beginning and just kind of go from there. So there's a couple different levers. And so there's three questions I always ask my patients, my patients that are listening, they know this, do you feel better after the workout than when you started, you want to always feel like your exercise is energizing you. That's a good place to know that you're adapting to your exercise you're able to adapt to it. Number two is you can emotionally repeat the exercise afterwards. Once your heart rates kind of brought back down to the baseline after you stopped your movement. Can you emotionally do it again? Are you like, wow, I'm done. Right? And then number three is going to be last question is how do you feel later on that day, if it's a morning workout, or that next morning, if it's an afternoon or nighttime workout? Do you feel overly tired hit by a bus overly sore? Now if you're adding in a front squat or a deadlift for the first time, you may feel a little sore. But in general, how do you feel? Do you feel overly tired overly sore hit by a bus? If so we want to adjust some of those movements for sure.
Evan Brand: Yep, good, good points. For me. I don't have to count or measure or anything like that or time to workouts. I just get to a certain point with lifting weights. I primarily lift weights. I mean, I do like to go on bike rides, I'll take the kids that's pretty hard work with the legs. I do like my roll machine. So I'll do that. But I don't really measure count or anything I get to the point in the workout where my pump goes into more of like you can just feel that you're becoming catabolic, you feel like your muscle tissue is now being used as an energy supply. Now, people that are new to it or if they haven't been exercising for a long time. They may not be that in tune with their body. But for me, it starts out with the heavy lifts, I'm getting the pump, I feel good, I feel the blood flow. And then it gets to the point where I feel like I don't want to say I'm hurting myself. But the dumbbell that used to feel pretty good and challenging now just feels like a frickin rock. And I'm like, oh, okay, I think that means I'm done now, and then I end the workout. If I go past that point, then it's too much.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, exactly. So that that's a really good place, you can also incorporate bands, what's nice about bands is the loading is the highest at your concentric phase, right? Imagine I'm doing a dumbbell curl, right? At the highest point, the The band has the most force in it, right the most intensity or force. And then as I lower right, this is the East centric face. I'm Ilan gating my muscle, so in a bicep curl, I'm moving the bar down to the dumbbell downward, the load is actually decreasing as I'm lowering it. So you have a decrease in force on that essentra curve, where like, if a dumbbell or barbell was there, it's the same the whole way, like, so the benefit of the decrease in load is most of your muscle, shredding, or depletion happens in the E centric. So what does that mean? That means you can focus on really light, really nice, slow lowering phases that those two things, it burns more muscle, right. And then number two, most injuries happen, because people are bouncing the weight, or in that lowering phase, they kind of have a jerky move where they kind of relaxed the weight, and they catch it at the bottom of that movement. And like what sofa benchpress, that's on your chest or military press that's on your shoulder. Or if it's a bicep curl, it's at the bottom right, and you're kind of bouncing that way, or a deadlift that's at the bottom right where you bounce. So when you do a nice lowering phase, you prevent that bounce from happening. And that's where almost always all the injuries happen. So if you do a nice lowering a nice slow lowering phase, maybe a three to four second, he centric think he centric he long gait. So have a nice, slowly centric, you're not going to hurt yourself as much. And then number two, you're still burning a bit of a bit of muscle. And number three, if you're still really sore excessively, one, you can switch to more bands, and the bands will give you that decreased load. As you as you kind of move, which is nice, it really helps the muscles give it a little more recovery, but still gives you that increased load at the top, so you have more concentric load, right? So when your muscles the shortest, right that benchpress at the top position, the loads the highest, and it's going to be even more than a weight would be right. And then it drops off on the lowering. So it's a little bit safer. And you're not going to overly kill your muscles in that lowering II centric phase.
Evan Brand: Yeah, that's safer, too, if you don't have a spotter, right? If you're trying to do all this stuff at home, I mean, I've been guilty before of wearing myself out getting past a point of fatigue, where I'm like, Oh, I could really use a spotter right now. But I don't have one. So the bands would be safer in that aspect too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, bands are safer and are of course, just using like a dumbbell is going to be helpful too. Because dumbbell obviously there's no bar across there. So you're not gonna expect to fixate yourself, your lower too much. And then you're going to get a lot of fatigue on the lowering. And that's what helps. But the bands do help for sure. And it gives you that really good ability to generate a lot of force. And also it's safer. So I do like that as a good option.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and someone's listening and they're gonna say, well, bands where the heck do I get them? What strength? Do I get them? They usually come in variety packs, don't they? Like there's going to be like a black one, a green one. And they're going to be different like intensities, right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, I like the X3 bar for some of the some of the the bigger bodybuilding movements because the band's really thick and it can generate hundreds and hundreds of pounds of force. So I like the x3 bar for that. So like for deadlift, that bar that that strap or that a cable is going to create a band. I'm sorry, that band will generate hundreds of pounds of force. Same thing on the bench, same thing on a tricep extension. And so it's very helpful. So I do like that.
Evan Brand: Cool. Any updates on your rower?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah, it's coming. I got the concept D rower. So I try to do a little bit more of the rolling for my aerobic stuff just because I like things that bring me into extension so much cardio is like your inflection, whether you're on elliptical or riding a bike or whatever. I like kind of bringing more extension into my body so… easy! Sorry. That's my dog. That's my dog. We're live here.
Evan Brand: I love it. I love the rower. I mean, to me, it's, it's, I feel so good on it. And I never really thought about what you're saying. But yeah, most exercises are you're kind of like going into monkey mode, you're not really pulling back and stretching. That is like one of the only things that and the seated row, like on an actual machine with weights. Those are probably two of the only things that really kind of pull you pull you out and stretch you out like that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, totally. Oh, by the way, I have my my natural pesticide guy here, which is kind of cool. So he's actually spraying essential oils around my perimeter. So he's spraying cedar, some citronella, some orange peel some olive leaf, just to keep some of the bugs down. So and then we found a bee's nest in the back on the ground. So we're putting a little bit of boric acid in diatomaceous earth in there to kind of to knock that out. So we try to, you know, just a little education here, we're trying to do some natural kind of insecticide solutions, because a lot of those toxins can be very harmful to kids and, and women and children, especially guys, too, because they're very estrogenic. So we try to use natural solutions here. So you guys see that live in the flesh here.
Evan Brand: Yep. And if you are exposed to all that crap, whether it's from you spraying it or hiring somebody else to spray and you're getting exposed to it, that's going to affect mitochondria. And that's going to affect energy. So when you get into this whole thing of chronic fatigue, adrenals exercise and tolerance, a lot of it has to do with toxicity, I will tell you 100% with confidence, when I'm doing binders, I'm stronger when I'm on detox support chlorella, whether it's charcoal, Clay zeolites. I'm always stronger with some binders in my system. So for me, the toxins and for everyone really, the toxins are kryptonite. And that's just a fact of the modern world. So wherever you can reduce those, reduce them, I mean, think about your kids, right? You go to a playground, my wife took my kids to a couple playgrounds over the summer, and the guy shows up with a huge tank of glyphosate on his back and just bombs the whole playground, because there were weeds growing up in the mulch and it goes up, well can't go to that playground anymore. So it's annoying that we have to be this observant, but it's kind of what it takes in the modern world. I mean, unfortunately, in the 21st century, everywhere you look in turn, whether it's the the air, or the water supply, or the ground, or the dirt or the soil you're eating food out of there are chemicals that are disrupting your mitochondria, they're disrupting cell membranes that are affecting your gut bacteria. And so I get annoyed with just the diet and exercise conversations that you see in the mainstream because they make it just like it's that like, you're not motivated enough. You just need to be strong pain is weakness, leaving the body push through, push through, it's you literally from a biochemical, mechanical, mitochondrial perspective, neurotransmitter perspective, you can't push through, you can't so you know, you got poor Jane Doe, at the at the fitness class. And you know, she's 50, or 100 pounds overweight, and she just thinks that she's just fat and lazy. And that's why that's her problem. But it's like, no, you're toxic. Let me show you on paper. And I'm going to explain why your personal trainer doesn't have a clue why you can't tolerate the exercise and why you're sore for a week. He just thinks you need to just quit being a sissy and drink another protein shake. No, that's not the answer. So I love that we can intertwine the functional medicine piece into the exercise piece. Because the mainstream fitness community, it's sad, it's all this boot camp, you know, military CrossFit mentality. But when someone doesn't perform like everyone else, those people get ostracized, and they don't have a clue what's underneath the hood.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, everyone, you got to treat everyone like an individual. And everyone's coming at this a little bit differently. So you want to meet people where they're at exercise, you know, and a lot of these things is going to be a stressor, so you want to apply the appropriate amount of stress. So you give your body the chance to adapt, it's never the the exercise, it's the ability for your body to adapt, and you have to kind of meet your body where it is. So if you're someone that's obese, it may just be walking a couple thousand, maybe 1000 steps or just squeezing your muscles doing an eccentric movement, you know, that may be enough based on where you're at. So you got to figure out where you're at and try to go maybe 10%, above where you're at, on a day in day out basis.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and I'm not trying to poopoo personal trainers, I used to do some personal training, I had some certifications in different movements, kettlebells and things and I helped a lot of people but so so you can tweak the exercises, meaning you can tone things down for those people. But there's at a certain point, you at a certain point, a personal trainer has a limit to what they can do for you. Meaning if you literally have so much toxicity that's affecting mitochondria, you literally can't build up your your weight, you can't go 10 minutes longer. You can't, you know, do three more planes, you just can't. So then that's where you got to come in. And we look at the labs to try to figure out what's under the hood with these people. Why can't they Why are they such a poor recovery. So like, well measure lactic acid on organic acids testing. And we know that when you have bacterial overgrowth, for example, that it produces lactic acid certain species do. And so if this person is sore without even working out, they're going to be really sore when they work out. So we'll focus on the gut, we'll get that the production of lactic acid down from the gut bugs, and then boom, now they can handle that lactic acid bucket is drained now they can handle the exercise and the production there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, exactly. You know, I've taken personal training sessions as a personal trainer for a long time and I've been trained by people where I feel too sore for a couple days afterwards. And usually if you feel too sore, it's you put too much intensity in it. The dose wasn't dialed in for you because you're Giving your body the chance to heal and recover because you get stronger on the rest time. And if you created so much damage for 234 days later, you're really excessively so you did too much you're creating scar tissue in the muscle. And that's not good. So you really want to individualize this. And I, you know, I see patients from all different walks of life from chronic fatigue autoimmune patients that are bedridden to people that are professional athletes trying to perform at the highest level, and you want to meet the demand where that person is at because it's all about getting their body to function just a little bit better every day, and everyone is at a different place on their journey. So I think the individualization is so important.
Evan Brand: Do you want to get into some of the hacks at all like some of the things we do to kind of increase exercise performance? Because I've got several ideas at the top of my tongue here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, sure. I did a video on this last week where I talked about some of the ideas in regards to movement stuff like exercise stuffs, I think the easiest first thing for is really good lowering or good eccentric movements, I think are a great way to burn a whole bunch of muscle and, and allow you to use more weight and not get hurt. Because I mentioned earlier, it's the lowering phase, the centric phase where people get hurt. And when you do a nice low, slow movement on the centric, you're less likely to get hurt. And number two, you're going to create more burning of that muscle, more depletion of that muscle. And as long as you don't overdo it, it's a good first step.
Evan Brand: I was into bodybuilding in high school. So I was doing a lot of those pre workout drinks. And they were just so bad for you. I mean, it was all just hundreds and hundreds of milligrams of caffeine, artificial colors. I'm sure there were sucralose and aspartame and potentially other garbage in there. And it just wasn't good. I tried to pick clean choices. But you know, at the time, there weren't that many good clean products on the market. So now there are there are some professional companies that you and I use that have some pre trained type nutrients, things that have some creatine, some tyrosine, some acetyl, l carnitine, can be very helpful. A little bit of like green coffee bean extract for caffeine can be good. There's actually a nutrient called peak ATP, it's a company and they've make so much like literally just straight ATP, and you can actually take it in powder form so that for me really, really helps. And then I like all the nitric oxide stuff. So I'll do like a teaspoon of beet powder. I'll do before the sauna, but also do before exercise, the beet powder is awesome. And then I like a lot of the adaptogen. So rhodiola makes me feel really good. As a as an endurance support. We use it for athletes, as you mentioned. And Holy basil's is good. B vitamins a course that's always low hanging fruit, there's some good really good forms of creatine that we use, those can be helpful. And I think that's about it. Are there any other like pre train nutrients that you like or that you use?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So you kind of hit a bunch of them. So off the bat, you know, creatine and branched chain amino acids are wonderful, and it gets great, a little bit of caffeine can be very helpful to kind of mobilize free fatty acids. So whether you're doing like a cold brew, coffee in your smoothie with the amino acids can be great. I do my Mito synergy support because it's got some extra carnitine, extra ribose, a little extra creatine in there, some HLA some B vitamins, just those low hanging fruits are wonderful before workout. But I'd say creatine, branched chain amino acids, maybe a little bit of caffeine, especially if it's a morning or afternoon workout, don't do that, if it's a nighttime workout. That's a good first step, I think, to really hit it out of the park. And then we talked about movement patterns, I like really focusing on the centric, I also like focusing on circuit. So doing two to three movements back to back to back can be very helpful, because you can get a lot of volume done meaning a lot of reps and sets in, you know, smaller amount of time. So that's great, because you can have a 15 to 20 minute workout that may have may have taken you 30 or 45 minutes if you did it one exercise at a time. So it gives you the ability to to make it more practical, which is great.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I think the next thing we should hit on is kind of the post recovery stuff. So what about the person who is getting into the exercise? Maybe they're not tolerating it? Well, maybe their recovery time is a bit too long the wanting to shorten that I think the bcaas could be great before and or after. And then I'm a huge fan of like a Grass Fed Whey Protein Shake, but make a smoothie out of it. So there's a couple grass fed ways that you and I use it are super good quality, and we'll throw in like a scoop of coconut butter. If you can tolerate nuts, maybe a scoop of almond butter may be good. And then I'm a big fan of some of the Oregon meats too. Whether it's actual Oregon meat or like some organ meat capsules, those can be really helpful for recovery and just making sure your body has the role nutrition it needs. And then good sleep. I mean, you can't forget about good sleep. I mean, I see so many people who are moms that are trying to hit the gym or do whatever, five times a week, but they're up too late. And they're up too early. You know, they're up at 430 in the morning to go hit the treadmill. It's like ah, I'd prefer you sleep in until 630 or seven. Do that workout later and not miss your cortisol peak because the problem is if you're up too early to exercise, you're really missing that cortisol peak. It's kind of like you took your iPhone off the charger when it was only at 50%. We've seen based on thousands of reviewing labs that the cortisol doesn't really peak until around sunrise or so. And if you're up at 430, the battery is not fully charged. So now that cortisol is going to just halfway peak, and then it's going to crash much sooner, so you're just not going to get the best bang for your buck, if you're doing those super, super early workouts now isn't better than nothing, probably. But I'm just giving you a couple details that we've, we've seen.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, when your nervous system is a little bit more fragile. When you have more adrenal issues, doing a later workout in the day is probably not the best, because that's going to get more of that sympathetic nervous system kind of stimulated. And it made the the more unhealthy or the more out of balance your adrenals are the harder it, it takes your adrenals to wind down and kind of downshift from that sympathetic adrenal stimulating workout. So there's going to be some adrenal stimulation, of course, right, which isn't bad thing. But the question is, Do you have enough time to adapt and come down from that workout before bed, and that's where it may affect your ability to repair before bed. So that's why doing a workout, let's say before two o'clock is ideal, you know, and again, the healthier you are on, the more you can downshift, the better, right, I typically recommend try to give yourself at least two to three hours to come down. So if you want to be in bed by 11, you want that workout to be done by eight for sure. That way you have at least three hours to come down from it, and try to do it more in the morning because you have that natural cortisol peak. And if that cortisol peak is going while you're stimulating cortisol, you're just more in harmony with your natural rhythm of cortisol going up. And adrenal stimulation going up, it's kind of like, hey, more light at night. And when when melatonin goes up, are they're not going to work because cortisol is going down at night. And light goes up at night, which can stimulate cortisol. So you kind of have the inverse thing happening with lights. And with cortisol at night, it's the same thing with exercise and cortisol. So you rather do it when you have more harmony going on. But I understand some people that may not be an option. And if that is just try to give yourself more time. And really try to make sure that it's not throwing off your sleep rhythm. And if it is adjust the frequency, the intensity and the duration, so you can recover from it and not mess up your sleep.
Evan Brand: And this is tough to do a podcast on because there's so many different people with different work schedules. And well, my, my kids are with me on these days. So I can't work out in the morning on these days. And I take my kids to school on this day, you know, so obviously, what we're saying these are generalities, I know you have to work it into your schedule. But yeah, if you could do like a morning workout, I think that's smart. But not an early morning workout. I don't think people should be setting an alarm to get up at 4am to go jump on the treadmill at 4:30am. I just don't think that's smart. But if you were up with the sun at seven, and you could do it, that would be good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, ideally, for sure. Now, if someone visits us their work schedule, and they can get to bed by between eight and nine o'clock, so they they're still getting at least seven hours of sleep. Sure, that's at least better than nothing. So you just got to make sure the sleep is is compensating for the time getting up early for sure. But I agree, you know, the more you're in harmony with the sun, the more your body likes that.
Evan Brand: Yeah, ashwagandha can be used in the evening, I remember I would do that if I had some late workouts that would kind of stimulate me. If I did like some ashwagandha at night, it would help help kind of calm it down you and I've talked about many times how it helps to regulate cortisol. So that's what adaptogens do. If you're too low, it kind of brings you back to balance if you're too high and can bring you back to balance. So let's say you did a eight o'clock workout tried to go to bed at 930 You're still kind of ramped up maybe capsule or two, I like to use some liquid gel caps of ashwagandha tincture, and that really settles you down pretty quick.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% agree. Yeah. 100%. Great. That makes a lot of sense. So I think we hit some of the exercise kind of options, right? We talked about amino acids and nutrients pre post during we talked about different styles of exercises. I would say one thing in there, if you don't have a lot of time to BOD or some kind of an interval on the cardio cardio side, whether it's like an elliptical or treadmill or or bike, we're a bigger fan of the rowers because you're getting more extension in your body and there's tends to be less extension with cardios and we tend to be more inflection throughout the day right at a keyboard right typing, all that stuff brings our body more into flexion. So using more extensions stuff can be really helpful. So I like more extension movements like we already chatted about. And I like a rower for that and you can do a 32nd 20-20 or 32nd high intensity movement followed by a Tabata which may be a 10 second rest period all the way up to a peak eight which may be a 92nd rest period. And you can just adjust the rest period and the exercise period to kind of suit your body so anywhere between a 10 to 32nd. High Intensity full out, you know as fast as you can go followed by a 10 second to 92nd rest period. That's very helpful for increasing your metabolism and putting on muscle too.
Evan Brand: I tell you on that rower, what I'll typically do is I'll do 500 meter sets, you know so typically with like weightlifting in regards to building muscle people, you're going to want to be looking for around three, maybe four sets of 10 to 15 Just depending on how you know what how you're feeling what your goal is, but with the rower, I'll do 500 meters as a set. And it's give or take around two minutes to do that, man, I'll tell you, you want a full body blood flow, that rower does it because you know your legs, you're pushing to kind of slide yourself back, and then you're pulling, and then hopefully, you're, you're fully pulling back, I think a lot of people stopped too soon. But if you're pulling that bar all the way back to the chest, and then you go back in, and man, I feel great on it. So it's-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it's using your hamstrings to kind of bring yourself back closer to the machine to so you're getting a little bit of extension on the quads, a little bit of flexion on the hamstrings, and then you're getting some bicep and some and some rhomboids and some upper back, which is really nice. So I agree, I think it's really good movement pattern.
Evan Brand: I put it on Max, I mean, you know, it's, it's kind of hard. Like if I was on a desert island, would it be the only piece of equipment No, I'd probably bring like a kettlebell maybe, or a dumbbell on the desert island. But it, rowers pretty dang close to the all in one solution, if you're somebody who's just looking to get your heart rate up, but also you could build some muscle, I put it on the max setting. So it is it's the most resistance. And then if you pull on that thing really hard or really quick, you increase the resistance more. So yeah, I mean, you can get a pump, you can build some, some good back muscles and arms and deltoids using that and some traps. I mean, you're gonna hit your traps a little bit on the road. So I'm a huge fan.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I like kettlebell swings as well. I mean, the only issue with the kettlebell swing is when you go into the East centric on the kettlebell swing, there is no low, slowly centric, it's gonna be fast. So you've got to make sure you're in a little bit better condition on the kettlebell. So you can go you know, have a really good explosive, ie sedgewick. And concentric because that eccentric when that kettlebell is coming down, you're not you can't lower that speed, it's coming down at full speed, which is great, because you have to absorb it and use those hips to kind of soak in and grab that momentum, which is great. People that are beginners, they tend to use their back more and they can get hurt. So kettlebells I think there's a really simple movement where you can kind of walk by it a couple times a day, and do you know some sets to failure on it, just make sure you know how to do it right. You have some good forum, find a trainer that can kind of walk you through the movement pattern, so you feel comfortable and confidence you don't get hurt.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I was gonna say I probably in a kettlebell situation, I'd probably pay for a couple hours of training on it, because I definitely hurt my back. When I first started. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I just looked at some videos, I thought, Oh, yeah, this seems about right. Now, there's some minor tweaks that can really affect how that load bearing hits your back. So for people, you know, that are not, you're not an athlete, I would not go straight to a kettlebell.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. Yeah. 100%. And then I'd like a lot of body weight stuff. So I have like the push up bars I like just because I can get a really good deep push up most people, man, they do have push ups, right? They do have push ups. I like the bar. So I can just get really in deep, get a good full range of motion. And I keep my wrist kind of in a neutral format holding the bar versus like this, which I don't I don't think it's the best thing. You know, it hurts the wrist. Yeah, it hurts. So you can kind of keep it nice and neutral. You can go nice and deep. And that can have a nice, good eccentric on there, which is wonderful.
Evan Brand: Yeah, so you're using the like, the handles, yeah, like here, we have each handle for the, for the push ups. Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, like that. And it goes really good. They have some that do a rotation thing, which is okay, too. I mean, you can hit the packs pretty good there too. But just to be able to go deep in there and be able to keep your wrist neutral, I think is wonderful.
Evan Brand: I love pull ups. I mean, I tell you, I got extremely strong doing pull ups. But for people that are beginners pull ups, you might not even be able to do one and that's okay, what you could even do is use like a little step stool, and just jump up there and just hold yourself up and the pull up position. That's how I started out was just holding at the peak of the pull up. And then eventually I just let myself down slowly, and then pull up again. And then I was to the point where I could do three sets of 10 on pull up, I swear to you, man, that's exhausting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If you go search online, like pull up assist, you can get bands, they kind of hook around and there's like three or four bands. And then you can add a band for the for the intensity on the assist. And so what I'll do is I'll go in, I'll do as many pull ups, which is you know, palms facing you or chin ups, palms facing away, right chin ups, more lat pull up more biceps, and I'll do as many as I can the failure. And then I'll go in and then put the bands on right after my knee and then I'll go do it again to failure. So that's a pretty good kind of a nice drop set where you go as much as you can bodyweight. And then you jump in with a little bit of help. And that can be super, super helpful. Just just people don't people aren't used to controlling their body weight like that. And it's really functional to be able to move your body in a way where you are, you know, in control of your body from a weight standpoint, like you're able to, to move and functionally manage your body in space and time without any extra stuff on there think it's really functional.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that people listening if you're like, I just don't like exercise. I hate exercise. I'm not into it. I'd rather go hiking Look, I hear you. But the benefits are not just in and out of the workout. The benefits apply to picking up your kids the benefits apply to playing with your grandchildren, the benefits apply to doing yard work. Bringing in heavy bags of groceries and you don't want to make multiple trips, you can grab all the groceries in one trip. And so it's just awesome to be able to to build muscle. If you're climbing ladders, if you're in construction, I mean just that, as you're mentioning, it's functional, this stuff applies. This is not just for vanity, this stuff really applies to everything if I weren't in decent shape. my four year old, she's heavy. When I go to pick up that kid, it's awesome to be able to have the muscles to just make her a dumbbell. I just pick her up like a dumbbell. You know, it's it's fun. If I were in bad shape, you know, I maybe hurt my back, just bending over to pick her up. So this stuff is the stuff is great. And especially as you get into 60s and 70s. I mean, we know that with bone density being a big issue, we have so many clients with osteopenia, osteoporosis issues, yeah, we can give you supplements for that. But the best free thing you can do is to do weight bearing exercises to really preserve your bone health as you age.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I always look for movements that translate to me living my life better. So anytime you can move your body, you know, in a way where you're managing the weight of your body, that translates to you managing the weight of your body when you're, for instance, roughhousing with your kids in the pool or something like or like I'm throwing my kids up in the air, like one handed like, you know, one handed, like, Where did that get shot, put kind of thing. It's like, I need really good shoulder stabilization and really good lat strength, and core stabilization to be able to make that happen. So it's nice to do movements that can translate to you being able to play with your family or friends or do your sport or do your hobby. So that's really important to think of like, what movements do I want to do in my workout that will translate to me living my life better. So always kind of think a little bit deeper. Most people just think like, hey, what movements to make myself look better naked. That's cool. I have to run with that. But now we got to think a little bit deeper now.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I think if someone's listening, and they're like, well, I'm pretty much disabled. In terms of my physical performance. I'm just super weak. I would try a plank. I mean, a plank is a game changer, where you're just getting on, you're kind of resting on your elbows and forearms. And you're just holding yourself even if you can only do a plank for 10 seconds. My Lord, I can't tell you core strength, you hear about this term core strength, it really does apply, I just got back into doing some planks pretty regularly. And even just sitting in a chair, I sit better in a chair now having more core strength. Yeah, I think it's great. You just don't fold in, you know, if you have no core strength, you just like you said you fold in, you get into the turtle the turtle position on the computer, and it's just not good. The next forward and get the core strength, you're more just confident with the way you sit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, also just just get a stand desk that allows you to stand throughout the day, like I'm standing right now, I'm using core strength just being able to stand right, that's super helpful. Or let's say you sit a lot and you don't have the money to invest in a state that's well, let's just try to invest maybe in a Swiss ball, a physio ball or Swiss ball that will allow you to sit but now you have to engage your core a little bit so you don't fall right. That's a good first step. And then you can move to a stand desk where you're upright, and you can kind of move and like look at my body posture throughout the day, I'm pretty upright, I have to pull my backpack, pull my arms back. So I'm in a much better position to be more athletic. And to get my my cold body activated versus in this like sitting down position, which is totally unhealthy.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I kind of bend my legs a little too, I'm standing down too. And so you know, I mean, my hamstrings are pretty flexed right now just standing here talking. So that's pretty cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you can buy an anti fatigue mat, which is fine, you can do that too. I'm kind of moving a lot. When I'm standing I'm on a treadmill, so it's not necessary. For me I like to move a little bit. So that's helpful. And then it kind of have a slight bend my knees, take the stress off my my lower back so that I think those are really good first steps. And I also have some QB pedals when I sit down, I can also pedal a little bit. So it's good to have a lot of unstructured exercise that you're doing throughout the day where you're getting some movement and it's not yourself being in the gym doing this workout, you're kind of adding some movement here adding some movement there. And it's it's nice to be able to get that 10,000 steps or so a day, just to make sure your body's moving. You're not overly sedentary. Because if you're getting 2000 steps a day, but you're in the gym for 30 minutes. Is that really healthy. I mean, you definitely want some steps, you definitely want some movements as well.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Now, if you just want to opt out of the whole thing and just become a farmer, then that's an option too. But if you're like a farmer that's just sitting on a tractor, you're not getting much exercise, but think of our ancestors, right? I mean, they didn't have to think about exercise the way we do. It just happened. It was a byproduct of surviving. And now it's optional. So it's funny, we have to have this conversation versus even just a couple hundred years ago, my grandparents, grandparents, you know, they're out in the field. They didn't even have mechanical equipment. They had horses and plows. Oh, my God, I bet you those people were getting 10,000 steps at least per day and sunshine and fresh air. They didn't have to think about it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I 100% agree, you know, but we got to adapt and we got to create artificial stress through our workouts to keep our muscles and our body strong. So I think that's great. Is there anything else you want to add today and I think we hit all the really good stuff. Maybe people that are really having a hard time adapting and figuring out the next step they can they can reach out to us here below EvanBrand.com to reach out to for you worldwide. JustinHealth.com for Dr. J myself. And also we may have to dive in deeper and test your adrenals test your hormones, get your gut, maybe give you more nutritional support, hormone support adaptogenic stress support to get you all to the next level. And that's going to be a thing for most people, depending on how good or bad they you know where they're at, and how much they want to improve. That could be something that we consider to be an accelerator to get you to the next level. So that's always an option for y'all as well. Anything else you want to add, Evan?
Evan Brand: No, that's it. You mentioned the links JustinHealth.com EvanBrand.com we're happy to help people. We love this stuff. I mean, it's, it's such a great thing to be able to take a woman who's exhausted trying to keep up with the kids, we get her mitochondria working better, we get her gut working better, she's able to exercise and perform and then boom, it in turn makes her a better parent. She's able to keep up with the kids now or the grandparents are able to run around with the grandkids. So you know, remember what this is all for. At the end of the day, it's for you to be able to function through you know, on planet earth through your body in a better way without being injured. So it's awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it Evan, excellent point today. It was a great podcast. Hope you guys enjoyed. Thumbs up really appreciate it. Comment down below. We really appreciate it. There'll be a link below if you guys enjoyed it. Shoot us over a review. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Evan, you have an awesome day, man. You take care.
Evan Brand: Take care now. Thanks bye bye.
speak pipe
Rumble
Youtube
Apple
LIBSYN
Bitchute