Cardio Myths on Trial

Philip Pape 0:01

You've been told that adding cardio will kill your gains. Today's episode is about to prove otherwise. The conventional wisdom says you can't build muscle and train for endurance at the same time. The fitness industry has convinced millions of lifters that cardio is the enemy of muscle. But what if the research and real-world evidence shows that that's completely

Chris Gethin’s Hybrid Experiment

Philip Pape 0:21

wrong? My guest today performed one of the most compelling experiments in fitness history, transforming from competitive bodybuilder to Iron Man finisher in just six months while maintaining his physique. You'll discover why you can hold on to and build muscle as a hybrid athlete and learn the exact framework for building strength and endurance simultaneously.

Framing the Big Question

Philip Pape 0:49

Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering, and efficiency. I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today we're going to answer the question: can you build and preserve muscle while training for endurance?

Guest Background and Credibility

Philip Pape 1:03

My guest today is Chris Gethin, a drug-free pro bodybuilder who has also competed as an Ironman triathlete, ultra-marathon runner, Spartan competitor. At 50 years old, he's publicly documented his physique through multiple transformations between competitive bodybuilding and extreme endurance events. As the former editor-in-chief of bodybuilding.com and co-founder of Unmatched Chris Getham Gyms and Chris Gethan Coaching, plus his huge online following, he's impacted millions. And the reason I invited him on Wits and Weights is because of his evidence-informed approach to hybrid training and his willingness to test and experiment with his

Why Cardio Can Help Muscle

Philip Pape 1:40

own body. Today you're going to learn why cardio doesn't kill your gains, how to structure training when you want both muscle and endurance adaptations, and strategies that allow lifters of any age to build resilience without losing their physique. Chris, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to Wits and Weights.

Kris Gethin 1:56

Thank you very much for having me on. Really appreciate it, Philip.

Philip Pape 1:59

So let's get right into the heart of the topic here, right? Most people think you have to pick a lane, strength and muscle or endurance type sports, cardio. And a lot of the lifters I hear from, the older guys, they're often worried about doing too much cardio, especially in terms of their recovery, their adaptation. So what's the reality when it comes to how our body can handle these different types of uh modalities and even doing them at the same time?

Kris Gethin 2:24

Yeah, so uh good question. I've always like I've come from like more of a sporting background, as a lot of people that got into bodybuilding have. You know, I was into uh a lot of extreme sports, motocross, downhill mountain biking, and uh, you know, I had to do a lot of cardio

Turning to Triathlon and Ironman

Kris Gethin 2:41

for that. And I I was one of these people that at the time when I was doing the cardio, I didn't really enjoy it so much because I was dealing with chronic asthma. I had croup as a child almost died, and uh asthma was just something that I just couldn't get on top of. And it wasn't until I was in my mid-20s and I've just started bodybuilding at this time that I was able to eliminate myself of uh asthma, you know, and I was on serotide, becatide, and you know, ventlin, or all these different drugs to try to stay on top of um their asthma. And uh, you know, I removed a lot of like gluten from my diet, uh, the traditional dairy, you know, I obviously had an allergen and inflammatory response to these things. And uh I think because now I was actually transitioning into bodybuilding, I'm starting to study nutrition. I went to college to study international health and sports therapy, that I'm actually looking at what I'm putting into my body. So when I was actually able to get rid of the asthma, the cardia that I was doing, I'm actually starting to enjoy now, you know, where it was such a task before, it was a challenge and now it was kind of a blessing. I really, really enjoyed it because now I can actually see the improvements and I can feel more comfortable out there as opposed to struggle and hating it, not because of the cardio of itself, but because of the asthma. So then when I actually started doing a little bit more cardio with the weight training, I found my ability to recover was much faster. Now I'm not, I wasn't doing extensive amount of cardio, I wasn't going on eight mile runs or anything like that. But that cardia was definitely carrying oxygen and nutrient rich blood to the localized areas where I of what I was training. So, for instance, if I trained back, I trained legs, chest, whatever it may be, now the blood flow is taking those nutrients that I'm consuming to those localized areas. So I found I was able to hit those muscle groups with more frequency, uh, more ferocity, and my ability to recover. And I always say your recovery kind of dictates your performance. My performance was improving in doing so. So it's always kind of been a part of my bodybuilding heritage. And then I think it was in 2016, you know, I was really tie in with the idea because I'd retired from natural bodybuilding in 2009. I was doing these kind of various video trainers that was, you know, I was publishing on bodybuilding.com, so they were daily video trainers. People would follow me getting ripped or follow me putting on size, and I thought, well, what else could I do? I thought, well, I love cardio, maybe I'll do a performance-based one, maybe I'll do a marathon or something like that. But then I liked cycling. I do a lot of mountain biking. Uh, I liked running, perfect. I suck at swimming, but I knew that that would be something that wouldn't have a compound effect on my joints. It would actually alleviate my joints and allow my cardiovascular engine to still transition into my run and into my cycle. So I thought, well, maybe we should give uh triathlon a go, and maybe that could be the next video trainers. And, you know, when I started talking to people about that, people said, Oh, you're gonna suck at that. And I had that mentality, well, if I'm gonna suck at it, sign me up. Let's see what can be done and if it can be achieved.

Hybrid Success and Its Caveats

Kris Gethin 6:02

Then you know what it's like when somebody, you know, first does, you know, what is it, like the, you know, they'll break a record in something, whether it be a deadlift, whether it be a marathon time, whatever, then all of a sudden, other people start breaking that record. It's like you've blown off the impossibility or that lower ceiling that people live under, and then all of a sudden other people to are able to achieve it. So that's what I was kind of hoping that would be done if I was able to achieve this goal of doing an Iron Man in a space of six months, a full Iron Man, then other people would follow, and that's exactly what happened. So then that's where I started kind of teaching other people who are bigger, because I was I'm about 214 pounds now, I was about 220 pounds doing the Iron Man's and the other endurance sports, just to show people, like you've so rightly said, you don't have to give one up for the other. Because a lot of people got into bodybuilding from a cardiovascular sport, maybe triathlon or maybe running or whatever it is, but they gave it up knowing that they were stepping into the bodybuilding world. But now they had the opportunity to do both. And since then, you know, a lot of people have come up to me at expos with their medals, whether it be for a you know, a half marathon or uh an Iron Man, and said, I was able to achieve this now because I didn't believe that I could before. So, you know, what I'd set out to do, I definitely accomplished in that world. But, you know, and we can talk about this in the show, you know, it comes with several caveats, you know, when you're trying to maintain and build muscle, being a bigger person, you know, that you have to think about in regards to your training recovery and frequency of the training.

Philip Pape 7:45

Yeah, I definitely want to get into that in a second. But a lot of what you said, I personally can relate to, and I know folks listening have gone through that journey of, you know, either they were in sport at one point or cardiovascular activity. Like for me, it was CrossFit for like eight years, and then got into lifting. And I thought, okay, this is completely different. So of course, you know, one doesn't follow from the other or blend with the other. But then I started doing obstacle course races. I'm like, man, this strength is really helping, but so is the conditioning. And I, you know, I could see the beauty of putting them together from a fitness perspective, which is, I think, a really good word here. Sometimes that word's overused, but in this case it makes a lot of sense. And you also talked about the benefits we can gain from cardio for things like blood flow. Even just you walking on your treadmill right now, right, has a big positive impact on health. And people who sit all day for desk jobs, who's a lot of my clients right there, you know, busy people just getting up occasionally, even uh has a big impact. So, you know, you said you hated swimming and then took the challenge. I love that attitude because that's where I think uh a lot of people can lean into the thing they don't really like, is the thing they need to improve and can see a big step change, right? So, all

Where The “Interference” Myth Began

Philip Pape 8:56

right. So when we look at then the misinformation about concurrent training or about this interference effect, where did that come from? Because I've only been in the industry like five years and it was starting to turn around then, but at one point it was a big deal to say, like, okay, cardio is gonna kill your gains. Let's understand where that comes from, and then it the rest will make sense.

Kris Gethin 9:16

Yeah, so I think it just came from the old age, you know, you know you'd see bodybuilders basically eating and sleeping. You know, you think of a baby, a baby's always sleeping, and they're growing because now they're you know basically hibernating and allowing the nutrients that they're consuming to grow, you know, grow the muscle. And the more that they move, the more that they're going to expend. And you reserve that time and energy and a calorific surplus for your workouts, and that is, that is it. But I think we've transitioned more now into a health-oriented society where, okay, maybe that did feed the bodybuilder, but now we want to feed our health span. And you see it in supermarkets, like you know, when we were younger, there was no Whole Foods, there was uh no co-ops, and now you see in your general supermarket store more protein-fortified foods, some of them maybe not so good, but we're going in that direction. And I think that's where it's come from. And obviously, CrossFit was a big uh proponent of this, because you'd see a lot of those pro-athletes looking like bodybuilders, built jet, but they can swim, they can walk on their hands, they can do clean and jerks, they can run, you know, they can they can do all sorts. And I think a lot of it came from that as well, that hybrid athleticism. And what I feel, and this is what I've tried to, you know, tell people, is that it shouldn't be a static ornament. You know, I have a desk job, but I'm always moving. But if not everybody is gonna have a treadmill desk, I get that. But I'll ask people, you know, every 30 minutes, maybe do some squats on your chair. And maybe if you're embarrassed because you're in front of other coworkers, do some toilet squats, just some sort of movement every 30 minutes or so. I'll always do that when I'm on a plane. I I travel a lot. I'm not gonna be there on a 16-hour flight the entire time and just staying still. No, I'm gonna move, you know, and I think it's very important that we focus on the most important muscle that there is, and it's not the pecs, it's the delts, it's the heart. That is what is gonna carry us into our adventurous years past retirement. And then, of course, the brain, the organ that requires blood flow. And you know what it's like when you move in the morning, all of a sudden you can think clearer, you have more cognitive function if you're eating well. So the importance of cardio in both of those realms, I think, have come to a little bit more of a forefront, especially with the inclusion of biohacking now. Since over the past, say 15 years, people are understanding, okay, we do need squat strength, we do need grip strength, we need that bone density and muscle density to be more metabolically active, have stable blood sugar levels, but we also need to have good VO2 max. We've got to have that cardiovascular function. It's not just one thing. We know that the blue zones where people live to a disproportionate age, you know, centenarians around the world, yes, they have connection with family. They don't really train in CrossFit boxes or the gyms, but it's not just this one thing. It's the movement, it's the feeling of belonging, it's purpose, it's all

Cardio’s Role in Healthspan

Kris Gethin 12:25

of these things combined. But we know the heart and the brain is a big proportion of that, and bone density and balance. Because if they look at the bone density of people, for instance, in Sardinia, where they have a big proportion of people that are living to centenarians, they have perfect bone density. Same if you go to Okinawa. Now, those people in Okinawa may not be squatting in a gym, but you see these people over 100 years old standing and sitting from the floor about 40 times a day. That's their resistance training, and they've got great balance. And of course, you know, they may be eating a little bit different to what we do in a westernized world. So I think we're learning a lot of these things and we're including them into that lifestyle, whether we're an endurance athlete, bodybuilder, crossfitter, whatever it is, it's just having that subconscious voice that's telling us, okay, we got to do something a little bit different further than what you know I was taught when I was a kid looking up to Arnold Schwarzenegger or whatever.

Philip Pape 13:25

Yeah, for sure. So we're originally I was gonna, the hook of this episode was hybrid athleticism, but really I think we're talking about that being uh the desire of anybody who wants to be healthier, live a long time, have cognitive health. Everything you just said, I think there's confusion as to like what is the purpose of cardio, and even the word cardio has become kind of a bad word for some people. And really what you're talking about is using your body in for your everyday movement patterns and what it was designed for, right? Whether you're doing it to a more intense, ferocious level, like you mentioned with slinging around iron, or it's just a natural part of your lifestyle, which in the Western world, for many of us, if you're not lifting weights, you're practically not doing anything probably beyond that.

Getting Started: Lifestyle and Recovery First

Philip Pape 14:06

So why don't we create a spectrum here and start with, okay, people are listening here, they know the value of lifting weights. Now they want to become more active and move toward that hybrid approach. And then after that, we can say, okay, what about more extreme? Like if you want to do endurance events or competition. So maybe let's start with the general what's next for somebody who's lifting weights and maybe walking, but not much else.

Kris Gethin 14:28

Sure. Now I'd always look at the lifestyle first. If I've got a client come to me and they want to participate in endurance events, but they want to work out or whatever, you know, but yeah, hybrid athletes, I'll look at their lifestyle. What is their ability to recover? Are they looking at have they got four kids and they're taking some different sporting events? They got a very stressful but sedentary job, uh, they're not able to sleep much. Well, that tells me that they're probably gonna be in a more sympathetic, dominant state. Their ability to recover is gonna be lessened. So I'm gonna give them probably less to do because if they're not recovering, they're not gonna perform. And, you know, we could possibly see a decline in their testosterone, their heart rate variability, and it's not gonna be good for them. So always look at those things first, their ability to recover, and that will dictate a lot of things from there. And then we have that transition in. So let's say, you know, we were talking about swimming, you know, being that weakness, focus on that challenge. So I'll always say, let's focus on turning your weaknesses into your weapons. You know, what why can't you swim? Because if anybody comes to me and says, hey, I want to do a triathlon, nine times out of ten, they'll always say, but I suck at swimming. I can't swim. You know, it it's everybody, it's the majority of people. So that's what we're gonna focus the majority of our time doing. The frequency is gonna be there. Now, it isn't so much difficult, it's not difficult on the joints. You know, if anybody's listening here, you'll know it all comes down not so much even to fitness, it just comes down to technique. So once you've actually got that technique down, okay, then we can work on speed. And I like to do that with everything. If we're talking about running, which a majority of people are, the majority of injuries from, you know, if you have a comparison model of people that work out with weights, strength-trained athletes, and then endurance athletes, there are much more injuries that are prevalent with endurance athletes specifically running because of that constant repetitive nature. And it's not something that kind of pulls and snaps straight away. It's over time, and we ignore it, we're in denial of it until it's too late. So we'll always focus on that technique specific to that person, making sure that they've got the right footwear. You know, I love hokers like the Cliftons or the Bondy's in Hokers are perfect for me, my structure and my size. I got very skinny ankles, my feet avert a little bit, so they're perfect for my gait and my run. You know, that technique could be making sure that your eyes are as smooth as possible on the eye line. They're not jumping up too much. So we're trying to use our posterior chain, our glutes and our hamstrings. If that person has access to like a woodway or like a you know a curved treadmill where you see a lot of the crossfitters use, they're going to work their posterior chain much more.

Technique Before Volume

Kris Gethin 17:20

Activate your glutes, activate your hamstrings, perfect. Okay, now we've got that technique down. Now we start working on building up the time, the speed, the frequency, and alternating that with the workouts. So to begin with, the workouts are generally the weight training workouts, are generally on a non-cardio day to begin with. Okay, so we alternate between the two. As we get a little bit better, and I can see that person's HRV is good, their ability to recover is good. Now we start combining them both on the same days. Because what I like to do, and not everybody would agree with this, I like to pre-fatigue. So let's say I go into the gym and I train legs. As soon as I finish my leg workout, now I'm going for my run. Because I want to get used to getting my technique down and allow myself to be prepared or to run on tired legs. Because if I can run on tired legs and have my technique perfect, then when I go on fresh legs, perfection is going to be there even at the end of the run, where that's where the injuries usually happen. As you fatigue, your posture goes, you start to slouch, you don't use your posterior chain. Now it's more of a compounding exercise that you know leads to injury over time. So that's kind

Combining Lifting and Cardio Intelligently

Kris Gethin 18:39

of how I transition it over time. It's kind of separated, technique, we focus on and then we pull it over together. And it's the same with the with the weights workouts. You know, we're just focusing mostly compound movements and uh the auxiliaries are there, just you know, like on your arms, your shoulders, not so much because you're going to get it on the compound, such as your bench press or like your uh bent over row or whatever it is. And then we start increasing and including like the arms, the shoulders, the auxiliaries as we get a little bit better with our recovery. Because a lot of people fall short on a recovery as we've got into this entrepreneurship space and you know we're more dopamine dominant, we don't release as much oxytocin and serotonin because we just don't sit down and be and relax. I like to focus on that first, the HRV. And once we're able to get out of that, you know, uh sympathetic dominant state and that dopamine dominant dominant state, then we start increasing the frequency from there. Because most people just don't sleep enough. They really don't. Because in as I that's what I was getting to, in this entrepreneurship space, we're like, okay, we don't have any time left. What can we tap into? It's usually sleep. And um, you know, the one thing that I have found has been the best biohack for most people out of all the technology, then thousands of dollars that you could spend out there on stem cells and stuff is sleep.

Philip Pape 20:03

100%. I I thought you were gonna say thousands of dollars you could spend on things to improve your sleep, because you could do that too.

Kris Gethin 20:10

Yeah.

Philip Pape 20:10

No, that's but you're right, sleep is free. So, okay, what I was thinking of when as you pulled that whole story together was the idea of specificity as a hybrid athlete. In other words, we think we always try to separate these things into okay, specificity to strength, specificity to endurance. And what you're saying is you're building them both together based on those metrics, including recovery being the big one. And when you start, just like any newbie, you know, there's newbie gains to be had, but at the same time, you can't, you know, overshoot, or it sounds like you're going to hit that fatigue wall or that over-training wall and maybe backslide or get injured. So that's one thing that came to mind. When we talk about recovery, you said that's the first step is to assess their ability to recover. We're in a very high-wired world, sympathetic, dopamine, I mean dominant is what you said. You say we want to get their HRV to a better place. What's kind of a progression that occurs to do that early on?

Kris Gethin 21:02

So, you know, it's some

From Myth to Practice: Movement and Mindset

Kris Gethin 21:05

of this sounds a little bit woo-woo and hippie, but a lot of the time I'm asking that person, what are you doing your cardio? Okay, it's indoors. Let's get outside a little bit, make sure that we're including our hormones into this equation. So, vitamin D, as we know, is basically a hormone, it's like a precursor to testosterone. So, get out in the nature, get out in the sun. Again, we're releasing too much dopamine, so don't take your headphones out. You know, we're gonna just listen to the sound of our footsteps, maybe the wind or whatever it is, but you get in that sunlight as well at the same time. I will go as far as sometimes having that client, dependent on their gate, actually wear grinding shoes or grinding trainers. So there's a company, I'm not I'm not sponsored by this company by any means. They're called Bahi. They're out of the UK and they have grinding trainers, and some of them uh are very, very comfortable. Like if I'm traveling and I want to travel lights, I'm wearing those trainers because I don't want to take a load with me, and uh they're great to run in because we know if we're absorbing the negative eons from the earth that's gonna be anti-inflammatory as well, could possibly help with our ability to recover and HRV, etc. You know, if I and some people are electrosensitive, if I hold a phone here and I've got my EMF reader here, then that number goes all the way up. You know, everybody at home can try this if they've got an EMF reader. But now, if I take my shoes and socks off and stand out on the grass, that number goes down because that EMF is penetrating through me and not into me and kind of stabilizing itself there and causing inflammation. So there's the technology mixed with the ancestral wisdom side of things, there's that aspect first, and then I look at their ability to absorb the foods that they're consuming. So when they're eating food, because this is our fuel, this is gonna give us our fuel to perform and our ability to recover, you know, this is everything. But is the concentration of

Quick Wins: Running, Cycling, Swimming Technique

Kris Gethin 23:03

that food, number one, perfect? And are we absorbing that food? A lot of people will consume their meals while they're distracted. They could be driving, they could be scrolling, they could be in the middle of a meeting. So they're not allowing their body to understand and be cognizant of the fact that they're eating food and now they're full. Okay, it's much like you training in the gym and having a full-on conversation or a meeting with someone while you're doing bicep curls. You're not gonna have that neuropathway connection to adequately contract that muscle. It's the same when you're consuming food. You cannot be distracted and expect to absorb all the food. And this isn't just me talking, this is science. You can look at the scientific literature out there. There's a great book out there called The Slow Down Diet that people can read on this subject as well. So it's very important that you are cognizant, you haven't got distraction, you're putting your fork down between bites. Maybe you're thinking of your senses, your smell, your taste, the you know, the look of the food, the texture, etc. So now once you consume it, you're actually absorbing it. Because a lot of people, you know, um miss that passive digestion. So there's that aspect of things as well. And then, you know, hydration is a big proportion of it, dependent on the climate that they're living in and how much that person sweats. So, you know, you can't just consume water and then dilute yourself of all the essential minerals and and uh you know electrolytes that the body is needed and the heart is needing just to relax and contract so you can adequately recover while you're actually moving as well. And then dependent on that size of that person. Again, if they want to be a hybrid athlete, the person that they're training with, who is an endurance athlete and that is it, you can't expect to consume the same amount of food or supplements as that person. You're gonna require a lot, lot more. It's basically like a rolling buffet when you're out there cycling. You're gonna have to have a backpack. You cannot go out there with a couple of gel packs and a couple of bars and expect to reach the end of that ride. That muscle that you have is requires so many more calories just to maintain itself, let alone continue to repair itself to build.

Philip Pape 25:24

Yeah, we was just talking to somebody earlier today about hunger during a bulking phase, because it's one thing that surprises a lot of guys, right, when they start bulking for the first time. And it's just so resource intensive when you layer the cardio on top of that. Um, I know what you mean, right? Because I've spoken to guys and they're like, yeah, 4,000 is the bare minimum calories on like a slow day, a non-training day, and then it goes up from there. So these are really good tips because I think a lot of folks jump right into the I'll call it the well-known fundamentals of okay, train, eat, sleep, this and that. And what you're you're saying is there's this other aspect of slowing down of mindfulness, of physically interacting with what we're meant to, which is I'm looking at a warm sunny day here in Connecticut. I feel like going out in my bare feet right now after talking to you, just going in the grass. And I'm gonna look up those grounding trainers too. That's interesting. And then just hydration and food and how all of that impacts your ability to be successful here and become more parasympathetic dominant. I guess it'd be the opposite, right? Of sympathetic dominant. Okay, so those are great tips. And then you mentioned technique, um, and you alluded to a few things like, and I know running is a big deal. We had Brad Kearns on the show, you know, co-author of Born to Walk, and he loves talking about how most people don't know how to run properly and they get injured and footwear, have big cushion footwear and all that. Thinking about all the people you work with who are trying to improve their cardiovascular fitness and their hybrid athleticism, what would you say are like the big two or three technique, like low-hanging fruit for most people listening to the show?

Kris Gethin 26:58

Yeah, good question. So, you know, knowing that this could potentially be a big part of your life and you don't want to wear down your cartilage, you know, in your knees

The Sprint Advantage for Big Lifters

Kris Gethin 27:08

anytime soon, because now you're running, you're also squatting, you're leg pressing, your leg extending, that's a lot of wear in tear. And there's thankfully today, there's peptides that can actually help regrow cartilage, but we don't want to rely upon it, obviously. We want to just kind of prevent that need. So I always suggest if you have the ability that you run off-road whenever possible. You know, if you're doing an ultra marathon, which is why I chose uh ultra marathon over conventional marathons, a lot of them are off-road. You know, they can be unforgiving because of the inclines and the declines, but at least you're not dealing with that hard surface uh, you know, the whole time that you're doing a lot of running. So I always suggest people to do off-road as much as possible because you are actually going to strengthen the stabilizing muscles around your ankles, around your knees, around your hips, and of course your torso at the same time if you're on an uneven surface. And it's going to be more forgiving on your knees. So that's that's the one. And again, if you don't have access to that, try to find a facility that has something that is a self-propelled treadmill, like a like a curve, like a woodway curve or a rogue, where you're actually pulling it yourself and you're not using the momentum of the treadmill, because that will really help take a lot of the strain from your knees and put it onto that posterior chain. So you're going to be able to get so many more miles out of your knees and more reps out of your knees if you do so. Okay, so that's one big aspect. The other thing when it comes to uh technique is let's talk about cycling for instance. Again, a lot of us not using a posterior chain, we're usually quad dominant, but there's a lot that you can do with the propel of that bike when you're using a posterior chain. But not only that, if you're a bigger person, you're probably not very well hydrodynamic. So you want to do whatever you can to tuck it, get used to tucking yourself into a smaller position. Now, most people that are on a on a larger side, they're not flexible. So you have to really work on your flexibility and your mobility to be able to tuck yourself. Because, like, if you're on aerobars, like I had to have aerobars made for me to begin with, because I just couldn't bring my elbows in, you know, from just from being too big. So I got used to just really closing that distance and using a lot of mobility techniques and doing yoga in order to do so. Because if you're out there doing like a 115-mile bike ride, over time that adds up, especially when you've got the wind coming towards you. You know, it really increases your calorie expenditure. So there's a ride that I used to do here in Boise that is just over 100 miles. Uh, and there's another one that I'd do that's 88 miles, but I'd measure the calories that I'm burning. During that time, so I could kind of estimate how much food that is needed. If the wind is against me, as opposed to just no wind or behind me, the difference in calories is huge, absolutely massive. So if you're really focusing on being an aerodynamic, you're not gonna have to have as many calories, or you could just be hitting a wall and not have enough calories with you. And the same with hydration, of course, you know, you're gonna go through a lot more hydration water and uh volume of fluid if you've got weather patterns that you're not kind of used to. So that's why it's very, very important. And then a big mistake that I notice when it comes to swimming, if you're even thinking of doing like a triathlon, is a lot of people will just get used to swimming in the pool, uh following that black line and not getting used to sighting, even if they are swimming in the pool. So I always tell people you need a sight like maybe every four to six strokes, because you'd be surprised if you do not have a black line to follow and you're used to following it, you'll be all over the place, you know, and you can lose so much time just going off track a little bit and get used to sighting directly in the sun, because the chances are you will be, you know, facing face those challenges when you're out in the open waters, whether that's when you're breathing to one side, you're gonna be facing the sun, or you're gonna be facing the sun in front of you, because a lot of the time it's a circle.

Event Prep: Fueling, Fasting, and Supplements

Kris Gethin 31:28

So at some point, and it's you know, the triathlons are usually in the morning at sunrise, you're gonna be facing the sun. So you've got to get used to all these kinds of dynamics that you wouldn't necessarily prepare yourself for. So you have to think of the unexpected. When I start the swim with another thousand people, what are the chances of my goggles getting kicked off? You know, I've got to be prepared for these scenarios.

Philip Pape 31:50

Interesting. Yeah. Things many of us don't think about. Not to mention the current, I suspect, right? Which can point I grew up in Florida and uh some pretty strong currents there in the ocean. Before you know it, you're, you know, wondering where your family is. But uh, no, that's great. So you gave us a technique for each of the three sports, and that raised the question to me, what where does sprinting come into this? Because I know sprinting can be an important part of training when it comes to running, and they're not the same thing by any chance. There, there's there's a lot of differences. Just in general, what are your thoughts on sprinting for training itself and as a specific, I guess, sport that you have to train for?

Kris Gethin 32:26

Yeah, so that's a very good question. So the bigger that person is, the more muscle that they're holding, the more they should actually focus on more sprint work. And there's several reasons why I say this. So when I first started getting into hybrid athleticism, anybody that's followed me knows that I'm a big volume trainer. I like to train with like 30, 40, 50 reps. You know, I like the challenge, I like the pain associated with it because I feel that I've got more of a reward after dealing with that sacrifice. I've got more success over here. And I figured, okay, with all this repetition that I've done, especially on my legs and on my back, I'd be better prepared for like the cycle, the swim, the run. And it worked the opposite because I found that I overtrained so easy, hitting all the volume in the gym and then hidden all the volume outside of the gym. So what I figured out over time by the mistakes is that I needed to bring down the volume. So my repetitions went from very high to very, very low. And I'm talking about like eight to ten repetitions. And then the frequency of my workouts went from like five to six times a week, the weight training workouts, down to like four days a week. Evidently the same with the endurance aspect. I'm thinking, okay, I've got to run for eight miles, I've got to do this hundred-mile bike ride or whatever it is. During the week, I'm gonna focus on just long, long, long, long, and that's it, because that's what I've got to do when I compete in the Iron Man. But again, my ability to recover was so bad that my performance in the gym was now useless. There was too much of a crossover. So then I started bringing down the volume and the duration and the miles of that endurance down into more VO2 max and sprints. So those sprints would be in the water. Let's say if I'm swimming usually for 45 minutes on a Thursday, now I'm bringing it down to 25 minutes, but with a lot more sprints in there. There's the warm-up. I'm using more paddles, so I'm using more resistance and using sprints as my purpose to improve my endurance. And then the same with the runs, I'm finding like on the on the treadmill, I'm hitting more sprints, or I'm finding hills and I'm doing repeat sprints just to help propel my cardiovascular fitness without over-training my physical aspect or causing central nervous system fatigue. Same with the cycle as well. I'm putting it up the gears as opposed to just keeping it in a low gear and spinning high. And I'm standing, I'm finding a hill. There's, you know, where I live actually is the hill that I used to train on. I've just moved to this house, but right behind me is

What to Track (And What Not To)

Kris Gethin 35:05

a hill that I used to do a lot of training on. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be standing for a lot of this training session, really working on those sprints as well. And what I found again over time, my HRV improved, my testosterone markers improved because I found just with all this endurance and all this overtraining, my testosterone was coming down. I just wasn't feeling good, I wasn't feeling vibrant, I wasn't, I didn't have the strength, I felt fatigued. But athletes and entrepreneurs have this very strong mental strength and we'll just pursue and go, it's okay, I'm living in denial, I'll be fine, I've got this. When we're actually doing a lot more harm and our ability to uh recover has obviously just gone through the hole. We don't acknowledge that, and then we get injured, testosterone keeps coming down, and we're just digging self into a hole. And a lot of endurance athletes that have signed up with me, you know, we'll always do the blood work first. Usually their testosterone is in the tank because a lot of athletes just want more, more, more, and they don't understand the ability to recover because they think more is better, you know. So a lot of the time, if we've got beginners, we need to do more. A lot of the time, if we've got athletes, we have to do less.

Philip Pape 36:22

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I'm a huge fan of spermining it, which is why I ask, because when I finally got into it, it reminded me of back in my CrossFit days, how you know you had the metabolic conditioning. Effectively, we were we were sprinting a lot, right, with your wads. And I realized how that carried over very well into some of the endurance, you know, just weekend stuff that I would do occasionally where I had to run five miles and I hadn't run five miles in, you know, years, but I was capable of doing it where I feel like it wouldn't have been possible without that, all that um conditioning. So there, like you said, there's a crossover and there's also a fatigue to work ratio that we have to be careful of. I've spoken to guys on the show that, you know, used to put in a lot of miles, they get get injured, and then now that they're older, they do just what you're saying. They actually have very few long runs during the week, you know, maybe not even any for weeks at a time, and they're actually focused much more on this kind of very efficient mode of improving your fitness. So let me ask you this. Let's say someone doesn't care about competing in an event or triathlon or anything like that, and they just want peak cardiovascular fitness for its own sake, could sprinting be the dominant form of cardiovascular conditioning?

Kris Gethin 37:28

If that person wants to be in hybrid athlete and hold a decent amount of muscle and continue to build muscle or maintain it, for sure. For sure. If they're focused on just endurance, endurance only, then it needs to be a part of it, doesn't, but it doesn't have to be a bigger ratio of that proportion. So my five days a week or four to five days a week would be that. And then my one day a week would be the long and slow. So that is okay, now I'm going out for my hundred-mile bike ride because I've got to get used to time in a saddle, or now I'm gonna go for that uh, you know, 12-mile run because I just got to get used to being out there and fueling and understanding where my fuel and hydration uh you know measurements are. So you understand that. So I would always do that like on a weekends, and then during a week, knowing I'm gonna be busier anyway, I'll just keep it short and sweet to those sprints.

Tony 38:20

My name is Tony. I'm a strength lifter in my 40s. Thank you to Phil and his wits and weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training. Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros and chemical compounds and hormones and all that. And he's continuously learning. That's what I like about Phil. He's got a great sense of humor, he's very relaxed, very easy to talk to. One of the greatest things about Phil, in my view, is that he practices what he preaches. He also works out with our bells. He trains heavy, not as heavy as me, but he trains heavy. So if you talk with him about getting a better shape, eating better, he's probably gonna give you some good advice. And I would strongly recommend you talk with him and it'll help you out.

Philip Pape 39:03

Yeah, that's great. And then I presume as you if you are going to compete in an event, even if it's not a big event, but something, you're gonna have to change the ratio of your conditioning more toward the specific maybe distance

Leg Strength, Compounds, and Stability

Philip Pape 39:16

as you get closer to the event, right? Just for the conditioning aspect, I suppose. Yeah. And then the nutrition has to change. Do you do you know carbloading or you know, do you start switching up the ratios of macros as you get closer to that event?

Kris Gethin 39:28

Yeah, so that this is what I would, this is, and I did this for my second uh iron man, actually. I uh really tried to challenge myself to see how far I could go fasting before I actually got, you know, and then when I knew where that number where that level was roughly, that's when I would consume my calories because I'd always try to find a way to make my training a lot harder than what I actually would on training on actually the event day, for instance. So as I mentioned before, I'd go and like train legs and then go for my run. I'd train back and then go for my swim. So I'd make it harder. And the same thing from the nutrition, not from the hydration, but I would fast. So I'd go, you know, I'd train in the morning, uh, fasted, but I would take supplements. I'd take essential amino acids to prevent that catabolism. I'd have glutamin as well to prevent a lot of that catabolism. Uh, but that was something that I kind of experimented with just to see if it would actually help on the day. And I found like a balance between both. It wasn't necessarily just amino acids and it wasn't necessarily a huge load. It was a proportion between where I just found like having some carb powder and protein powder would suffice. You know, so a lot of the a lot of my nutrition, I guess, came from supplementation during these times. And it's not because I owned a own a supplement company, it's just I found it so much easier to consume, especially for the endurance aspect, without it just taking a lot of blood into my stomach to digest it where I feel nauseous, or I feel fatigued. If I've got that blood in the muscles and in my brain as opposed to in my stomach trying to digest, I just felt so much better for it. So I did rely on supplements a lot more and I was able to condense a lot of calories into fluid. And my my uh wife would make like these protein balls as well that I'd have in my bag on the on the front of the bike, and I'd just be consuming them as I'm going along as well.

Philip Pape 41:29

Yeah, it's it's it's amazing how impactful digestion and gut content is and like the timing of food, right? We talk about it even just in the lifting context with pre and post-workouts, and everyone's a little bit different, right? Their response. Like you said, you had to find where that limit was. Some people really thrive on, say, fasted strength training, and some people don't, or they just need something, like you said, uh calorie dense but not voluminous, right? Yeah. So what was I gonna? Oh, you so you mentioned this is good. You've mentioned some of the things you've tracked as well along the way as you're training. You mentioned blood work for testosterone, I'm sure other markers as well. You mentioned HRV. Sometimes we get into the weeds with this stuff and people shouldn't even care until they get to a certain point. But what are the big things that are important for just about anybody to track in this space?

Kris Gethin 42:14

Yeah, well, number one, just how you feel, because a lot of people, especially insurance, kind of look at quantification too much. And you know, they focus on on that, that, their, their wattage and their heart rate, and and they become consumed by it. Even if they feel okay, now all of a sudden they see their readings not looking okay, you know, that now they've convinced themselves they're not. It's much like if I have clients measuring their sleep. If they measure their sleep and they look and they they wake up in the morning, they feel strong. I'm gonna hit my personal best today, and then they look at their numbers and go, oh my God, I didn't get that much sleep. Now all of a sudden they're not even considering that. I think you have to take it with a grain of salt and just go by your instincts to a certain degree. But the quantification that I really do like is what I meant, what I said before, is heart rate variability along with sleep, uh, just to ensure that you are getting good quality uh sleep there because a lot of people are using devices before bed or they're watching TV, and now that artificial blue light is penetrating their retina, so they're not able to release the melatonin to keep them calm and allow them to sleep. And you know, again, it's

The Non‑Negotiables: Hydration and Sleep

Kris Gethin 43:26

coming down to adrenaline and dopamine, uh, which can raise cortisol if that person's not sleeping. And cortisol is going to be catabolic. So always kind of measuring these things. The other thing that I always like to measure, as I mentioned, is you know, like the heart rate, making sure that we are pushing ourselves, but not to the limit where we feel that we just cannot recover. What is that heart rate after you've finished your workout session? How long is it taking to come back to baseline? So I kind of like to look at look at those numbers as well. And the other thing, intermittently, is always the blood work. Just see where the hormonal response is amongst all of this. You know, how is their body ability to recover? Are they depleted in any vitamins? A lot of people, they will take us, let's say they take a certain supplement. So let's take, you know, we're talking now in the world of peptides in endurance aspect. People are taking something called sloop, S-L-U-P 3-3-2. I don't know if you or your listeners have heard of it, but a lot of people will take that and it depletes them of their vitamin B levels. And they're wondering, why am I feeling so fatigued? Well, number one, it's an exercise mnemic. So you're actually utilizing more calories at rest. And number two, you're depleting yourself of B vitamins. So now you're wondering, oh, maybe I'm just over-trained. No, you're depleted. So I think it's very important that you have your blood work done as well, just to see if there are any depletions. And we kind of use that as our gamifications to improve. Now, there's a lot of other things that we can quantify out there as well. VO2 Max, I like to do that. But I don't like to go that too far into the weeds because I think people can take technology a little bit too far and rely on it a little bit too much. And if we look at some of the amazing triathletes from years ago, and I'm talking about like the 80s when they had no quantification, a lot of those still hold records today. So it goes for sure that if we were able to do it on the trainers that they were wearing, on the heavier bikes that they were riding, and still hold records, then you know, maybe the quantification can be taken a little too far.

Philip Pape 45:32

Yeah, I totally agree because we could confound the number with the results sometimes, even just in the physique world where you're like, well, my numbers suggest I didn't put on much lean mask, but you know what? I'm happy with what I see in the mirror. It's like, okay, which do you want to care more about right now? I love data as well, but I also know the world of biohacking is so big now in the podcasting space, and and it can go overboard where like that's all you're caring about. Something like VO2 Max, you know, I've had it tested once or twice, which that's a torturous test I don't like to do, but you know, even that number is highly dependent on your condition that day, but also your weight and same things like that that are happening, that we have to not read too much into it. And then as far as blood work, I'm I'm really getting into that now, Chris. Actually, I'm kind of a late comer probably, but uh, and understanding that there are so many system level effects, right? Where there, you know, if you look at vitamin B, like you mentioned, there could be 12 blood markers or mechanisms that are tied to vitamin B in some other way, and and it's all kind of linked together. So you gotta be careful, right, to not overread that. Um, you mentioned training a little bit. You mentioned the pre-fatigue and kind of mixing the modalities to make it harder on yourself so it's easier when you compete. Where do uh squats and lower body training come in? Uh, because you know, I've I've met a lot of runners who never lifted before and then they're shocked at how much better their running becomes, you know, when their legs get a little stronger. So just kind of dig into that topic a little bit: leg strength, squatting, recovery, all that.

Kris Gethin 47:02

Yeah. So, you know, what I used to do a lot of was like a lot of the isolation movements, you know, your leg extensions, your hamstring kills, because I came from, you know, a bodybuilding background where you have to look at not only the function of the physique, but the the aesthetics of the physique, the sculpting of the physique and certain muscles. So they would come from a lot of these isolation movements. But then as I started going down the rabbit hole of actually trying and testing, I found that the compounds is where it really helped, as opposed to just that. Because he was able to, you know, you think about it, the cycling is like a leg extension and hamstring curl. So I found that I was able to continue to have the shape of the legs and the size of the legs just by that alone. So I think the compounds make a good cause for you to continue. Now that could be in the form of a squat, it could be in the form of a leg press. Whatever your physique or your structure allows is what you're gonna do. So some people with very, very narrow hips and very tight Achilles tendons don't do well on squat. They start to bend forward because they're attendons, they feel pain and tightness in their flexes because they're narrow, narrow hips. So maybe a squat isn't for them. It's gonna be more of a leg press. That's gonna be the movement. But you know, you kind of have to try before you bite. What I actually did myself based on my structure, and I've torn attendons in my ankles like seven times, so I've got very, very skinny ankles on a larger upper body and larger legs. So I would do my squats a lot of the time on a bosom ball, as weird as that sounds, because I could really help strengthen the stability muscles around my tendons, around the ankles, being on a boso ball. Now that may be a forward lunge squat onto the bosob ball, or a squat in a conventional way itself, with a bar on my back. I'm not saying everybody should do this, especially not unsupervised, but it worked for me because touch wood, after doing that, and of course I do the rotations on my ankle in the morning, like 30 to the left, 30 to the right, and then plant a flexion, 30 of them. And touch wood, I've never had any problems with my ankle since then. But that's how it kind of helped me for my runs because the last time I tore the tendons in my ankle was during a run, you know, because my feet would advert. So that's kind of what helped me in that regard. Now, of course, if you are activating muscles by doing a squat, you've got now these new neuropathways that are reaching your legs. You're gonna use those same neuropathways now when you're running. Because a lot of us run unconsciously, much like Brad said, you know, a lot of people don't do don't know how to run correctly, and they don't because we're unconscious when you're doing it. But when you're squatting, you're more conscious of your balance if you're pushing more through your left or your right, and you'll transition that into your run now. You'll be more conscious of that run as long as you're not distracted. So, you know, don't be on your phone. Maybe don't take the music out there, just focus on your ability to activate each fiber and each muscle group accordingly.

Philip Pape 50:12

Yeah, and so you brought it back to that mindfulness you mentioned earlier, which I know I always tell people when I when I lift, every time I do a rep, I don't listen to anything like, oh, you don't listen to rock music, get yourself pumped up. I'm like, no, I want to focus on my form because I know something's going on. And I want to hear my knees cracking too, you know? So pay attention to that as we get older. Exactly. You know, you can find the problem spots that way. But uh, yeah, so mindfulness is the name of the game, and it and definitely I like that proprioception or whatever you want to call it. We we like to throw away and throw out nerdy words, but you know, mind muscle connection, being in tune with your body, with your form, with those movement patterns as a human. Some people are definitely more clumsy, right? And they kind of have to train more for that, and others are just naturally athletic. I guess as we wrap up here, there's probably a lot more we could have covered, but when you think of hybrid athleticism for the general population who wants to get into it, is there anything we didn't cover that we definitely should hit on?

Kris Gethin 51:04

Oh, good. Uh let me think now. Um, I'd say more so than anything, that, you know, again, it all comes down on that person. But nutrition and hydration is everything, absolutely everything, and your ability to recover, obviously, you know, sleep is going to be huge. But a lot of the time I find, especially with European athletes or or clients, is that they think having a cup of tea or a coffee is hydrating when it actually has a diuretic effect. And if I look at people's performance and it's down on a certain day or a certain week, it's usually coming down to their hydration. So knowing that your body is made up of around 70% fluid, just make sure that you get used to hydrating constantly because when you're out there actually running or cycling, you're gonna have to hydrate yourself a lot more. And if you're not hydrated, then your tendons, your ligaments, your muscles obviously become more brittle. You don't have the ability to promote synovial fluid to your joints. So everything is gonna wear down a lot quicker. Not just your ability to perform, but your ability to have longevity in this game. So, you know, I'd say focus on that.

Philip Pape 52:17

No, it's a good one. Yeah, connective tissue. Again, especially as we get older, we seem to be more sensitive to that. And especially if you got into this later, you know, I know from personal experience, uh hydration is massive. All right, man. This has been awesome. I think we covered some really good things, a lot of practical tips from a guy who obviously has a ton of experience. So, where do you want people to find you, Chris? And we'll throw those in the show notes so people can reach out.

Kris Gethin 52:39

Sure.

Where to Find Chris

Kris Gethin 52:40

You know, if anybody has any questions whatsoever, they can reach out to me on Instagram. That's usually the best place to find me, and I respond to my DMs there as well. So it's Chris K-R-I-S, Gethin, G-E-T-H-I-N.

Philip Pape 52:53

That's it. I G at Chris Gethin. I'll throw that in there. We'll connect everyone to you. Also, check out Chris's podcast. A couple episodes ago, he talked about building muscle, losing fat, and mentioned some of the things he was discussing here with preserving muscle. So check out the show, check out his IG. Chris, it's been a blast. Thank you so much for coming on on your treadmill. Uh it's inspired me to get out as soon as we're done and move around and get after it.

Kris Gethin 53:16

All right, so I appreciate it, Philip. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.