Dark Chocolate Benefits with SCIENCE

Hey Athletes! Do you love dark chocolate? What if I told you it is good for your health? Want to learn more? Tune in to this week's episode of the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast! 

Episode 133 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!

Dark Chocolate Benefits with SCIENCE

This week we have Jerred, Joe, and Ashley on the podcast. After they update us on their Daily Over Decades challenge they jump into the study. This week they are looking at an article that has multiple studies on dark chocolate. What they found is that it can be beneficial to your health, yet you have to make sure it is quality! This week's topic is a book review on Dark Horse by Todd Rose. The trio go over their likes, dislikes, and barbell ratings. Lastly, the Meet Yourself Saturday workout for the week is the Confused 2K. Make sure to get after this one and give it a go with a partner if you can! 

If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:

Subscribe on any device HERE

IN THIS 61-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Dark Horse
• Confused 2K
• Dark Chocolate   
• Daily Over Decades 
• Cacao at 70% and Above
• Tips For MYS
• Updates and Announcements
• And A LOT MORE!!

Diving Deeper… 

If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you: 

Study of the Week 

• Cocoa and Chocolate in Human Health and Disease

Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week 

Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:

• Choosing Your Own Weight Can Lead To Greater Strength

— 

Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!

To becoming better!

Jerred

Transcript:

Jerred Moon 0:03
Alright ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage, a mathlete podcast Jerred moon here with chocolate lover and Joe Courtney. I just I read the names on the screen all right people so if you're gonna start putting different names on there, that's just what's gonna be read fine with that

Ashley Hicks 0:20
because it's not a false statement.

Jerred Moon 0:22
So today we are talking about chocolate and this was PR on that community. Ron Burgundy, Ron Burgundy. Ron, what was the last name I Peroni Peroni, Ron Peroni. So if you're listening, we're diving a little bit deeper into a post you put in the Facebook group about dark chocolate because we all found it very interesting. And I don't know I probably spent two or three hours just realizing how much research there is on dark chocolate. Yeah, and there is a lot and so how I did not already know some of this is surprising to me that hasn't come up in any other any other circles. No, we are talking about that today. So we're gonna be talking about dark chocolate. How can increase your performance we have a book review today dark horse that we're going to cover. And then we'll cover meet yourself Saturday workout. But how's how's the challenge going for? For everybody? The 300 Slash 200 daily over decades. Challenge Joe you can you can take it first. And how does it mean?

Joe Courtney 1:33
Yes. I had a fantastic week this week. And so I am feeling great. Another word fully in Monterey at a full week of we were staying on base the gym was right across the street. Awesome gym there if you haven't seen any of my posts. It's pretty good set up even though we have to wear masks very well. That's a whole nother thing. See, I've got my guff got five days in, which was pretty good. Really good. Aim to meet yourself Saturday, which I never do. As you might know.

Ashley Hicks 2:04
It's only because you created the meet yourself Saturday.

Joe Courtney 2:07
I just wanted to use the 100 pound med ball. I just saw it there ever since I got there. And I was like, Yeah, I'm fine reason use that thing.

Jerred Moon 2:14
I think he created it. And it was unedited, because it's not like this is his first idea for me. So Saturday, normally he might bring something and I'm like, That's a great idea. Let's add a mile and burpees to it. He's like, I don't want to do it anymore. Okay. My idea was fine.

Joe Courtney 2:29
Yeah, ruin everything.

Jerred Moon 2:31
Yeah. So no, yeah, we should just let Joe come up with more meaty stuff Saturdays and he will do more.

Joe Courtney 2:38
Just when I when I wanted to have some fun like that.

Jerred Moon 2:41
And sugar was just a running workout when we started. And Joe love that. And then when

Joe Courtney 2:46
I did it, it's it's still on my watch. That's the only fat and sugar I've got the OG original version. Surprisingly, My recovery has been way better to like being able to get you back training more, but my recovery just like awesome. I don't know why. Why would it is just like really clean air like California. Yeah, right. Something in the Water. So it's great right now. Awesome. Ashley, how do you feel?

Ashley Hicks 3:16
No, I'm feeling pretty good. Um, we did a squat workout for strength yesterday. And it was funny because we Yeah, and everybody's posting and I was laughing because I was like, oh, man, this kind of proves the study from last week's theory. And I don't think anyone got above 85%. So I was

Joe Courtney 3:33
like, good tea. Yeah.

Ashley Hicks 3:38
But I'm on day 19. As of today, I finished it this morning. And it's, it's going great. It's a good time and meeting all the minutes meeting all the calories. Life is good. Connor is out there with me. So it's fun to he cracks me up. He does all sorts of things. Like because I do like a mix of yoga and strength stuff. Like I'm out there doing burpees for the whole burpee penalty thing for the front rack carry today. And he's doing a three legged dog. Like, you're Greg the RE up. No, that's gone. Well, Jared, how about you?

Jerred Moon 4:16
That's going well. I wanted to have the perfect January 31 days, but it looks like I'll have one day missed. But I hit I hit six days for the previous week. And what happened was I I wasn't to be honest, I wasn't really motivated. I had already hit 300 minutes in like everything by Friday and then I still train on Saturday then it was Sunday and I was like you know I'll just probably do like a a light run at the end of the day today or something like that. That's kind of what I've been doing if I need need to get something extra in. And then Emily got food poisoning like really bad food poisoning Sunday around like 4pm And so I was taking care of her and taking care of the kids. And just to be honest, didn't feel comfortable being like, good luck. I'll be outside like, I'm going to go work out. So I have found my weakness, and that's probably my family. If that's the only thing that will make me like, ditch the challenges if they actually needed me for something, because it wasn't even a question. I was like, No, I'm not gonna, I already already hit what I needed to to maintain the 300 minutes everything else like, I'm not going to just do this, this vanity session for an extra ticket a perfect January. So I did skip out on that one. But other than that, I only missed one day in January. So it's going well. And I feel good about it. I keep saying it like it is pushing me to a different to a different level, you know, just of maintaining the discipline to get that many minutes every single week and make sure I'm focused on how many calories I burn each, each and every single session. So I am enjoying it. And it is bringing back some some discipline. So I like it.

Ashley Hicks 5:53
They can stay outside with you. Like if you trained for, you know, like 4045 minutes, would they? Yeah, like if you got all three of them, like, hey, entertain yourselves outside.

Jerred Moon 6:06
Maybe maybe for like a 20 minute workout. It's really Eleanore at this point, the boys will do whatever. She she's not a great workout partner.

Ashley Hicks 6:16
Oh, the challenge then is to get 300 calories in 20 minutes. Well, I guess it's only a few meet extra minutes. It's not too long.

Jerred Moon 6:26
Yeah, I didn't know that. That's the reason I didn't do is because I was like, I don't need this for any reason. So I'm not gonna do it. Had I been like, in that situation where it's like Sunday, and I needed 30 minutes or whatever, then yeah, it would have just been like, okay, like, we're gonna figure this out, you know, I'll just move until my body hits 300 calories. But you guys talking about hard workouts. We had hard to kill yesterday. And it has that bar that simple complex in it. So it's got like the seven different movements, the six by I hadn't done that in a while. And I think I went a little too heavy. And it was kicking my ass every single time. Well, when I started at 165. And that was, I was fine for everything. Except for the push press. I don't really know what I was thinking. I was like, the squats are fine. Everything was fine. And then I was like, Why did I think I was just gonna push press this like super easily after doing all this other stuff. And so I went down to 135. And that was much more manageable. But my brother cracks me up. Have you guys seen it? Super bad? Yeah. So have you seen super bad Joe?

Joe Courtney 7:40
Yeah, I just don't know the reference that yet. I'm about to tell

Jerred Moon 7:43
you the reference that you gotta know if you've seen the movie first. So in the

Joe Courtney 7:45
Catholics, we know the movie, but I don't know if it's the movie. You want.

Jerred Moon 7:49
Superbad? There's only one super bad, right? Yeah, I think so. Okay, so when they the COP is chasing the kid, and then like, the kid gets away or whatever. And he's like, Fasken life? Yeah, he's like, super out of breath in and like starts throwing up. That's what my brother does. Every time we do something incredibly taxing like that. He is doing the barbell complex. And then like, he'd set the barbell down after he was all done. And then he you know, he's like breathing his hands on his knees. And he's like, fast scale life. And it just cracks me up every single time. So that's what I started doing now after the barbell complex, because it's pretty awful.

Ashley Hicks 8:23
So you can row 165 pounds. Row, like barbell row.

Jerred Moon 8:28
Oh, yeah. That's impressive. I can roll like,

Joe Courtney 8:31
keeping that thing. Yeah. I could probably row more than I can press.

Jerred Moon 8:36
Yeah, I Yeah. I think growing becomes like a grip issue for me more than like a back strength issue. Like it's like kind of like a deadlift. The law of rowing back in the day. I actually wish I had one of those like machines, you know, like, we're not machine. Well. It's kind of machine I guess. Where? Yeah, like you lay your chest on it and you pull it up. I love those things. I get good at pull ups. Get one of those rowing. Because, alright, we'll get into the study now. Alright, so it's kind of a study, it's kind of not. What we did was actually looked at the article that was provided in the Facebook group, which I think I thought I had pulled up

Joe Courtney 9:20
from Runner's World. Yeah, I found it myself. It was just mentioned that the dark chocolate so I just went googling. And this article I was actually linking to study. So that's why I wanted to do it because like, it's good for them to actually provide sources.

Jerred Moon 9:33
Yeah, so the title of the article is five science back ways dark chocolate can boost your workout. And then each part does link to a study which I dove into each study a little bit more. So it talks about increasing your aerobic capacity, reducing inflammation, many mental benefits, cognitive benefits, and then one of them was a little bit of a stretch. They are kind of like hey, it has some caffeine in it and caffeine is an amazing supplement. That's a stretch cuz there's not a lot of caffeine and chocolate not enough to get the benefits. And so yeah, we can kind of dive into these. I went into a lot of the more the mechanisms and the why behind it, which was kind of where I focused my research time for this article. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on dark chocolate, you know, kind of as a supplement for performance and everything else. You guys think

Joe Courtney 10:27
it in the first one or I think there's only one study that I saw that actually mentioned the percentage of cacao that was used Kikko that was used, so like a cow. Yeah,

Jerred Moon 10:40
it's a cow. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. So we're gonna get clear on that when we start because it's going to be probably said a lot, right? Yeah.

Joe Courtney 10:50
The first thing you didn't see like the actual percentage because you know, when you go to the store you you see the percentage like 85% but the second one mentioned 70% of that so anyway, I'll just just go in order I guess. The first one is about via to max, it was sedentary people. So only and first I was kind of raise my eyebrows like okay, we just have sedentary people that are not even training during they're just taking like a before and after. And the after test was on a bike. It was a bike or gadgetry, whichever that is but I know they'd mentioned wearing a mask to do their via to max. And somehow the v2 max improved. But I think a lot of this was especially with chocolate that has sometimes a lot of great stuff and had a dark dark chocolate has a lot of great stuff. And I think that's like a byproduct of the antioxidants and other things that it has, is kind of one of my main takeaways for pretty much a lot of these things because like they they make the antioxidants, either the sun might have some sugar or some caffeine. And all these things can make you feel good and have good effects. But it's not just like chocolate is the way to go. So that was kind of a brief of my thoughts in general. The second one, it was just mentioned that it helped inflammation and mood and the only thing I got was that you have to have at least 70% Keiko and okay. Yeah, cacao David.

Jerred Moon 12:22
I tried to establish

Joe Courtney 12:25
it right after you said that. I was like, Wait a second. And then the chocolate and depression one. That one seemed a little bit off to me. I wasn't really kind of on board with it. Like it was super large study. All they did was like, send out that from what I read. And all I did was like send out a survey kind of thing. And they asked people if they consumed chocolate, and if they did some chocolate did they feel they were depressed? And like, Did it help? Siri is deciding to talk to me right now. I don't know why.

Jerred Moon 13:05
Hey, Siri, chocolate.

Joe Courtney 13:08
I think it's fair to tell me where Dark chocolate is. All right. Well, thank you for that. Um, yeah, so the last one to one depression. I just I didn't really feel like that one. Like it. I don't know if it's like a chicken or egg situation, how they how they did that study whether like if people just hear about, oh, well, maybe I should just eat chocolate. So like, I'm eating chocolate. And this is gonna make me better. So I'm not as depressed anymore because I'm eating chocolate because it's already like, I feel like it's been widely known to like, Hey, have you feeling down eating chocolate? I don't know. The beauty maximum was the coolest one to me. I think that was one actually had like the biggest thing. Study was actual, like, parameters that we would normally go over. But again, I think that was also could have been some other things that they anti-oxidants Which we've covered in tart cherry juice and some other things like that. So Ashley, are you some of your thoughts? On Oh,

Ashley Hicks 13:59
I'm gonna carry up. I'm cacao and cocoa. Um, so I actually liked the one. So I actually read the it's like an overall article on PMC and I'll link that one because I think that has literally every study on it overall. So if you guys are shownotes people will have that one link, but I liked it. It was actually they studied people who did no chocolate, people who did chocolate and again we're talking dark chocolate, which is 70% and above. And people who did other candy like even if it had chocolate in it like other candy and they found that the dark chocolate people and again like yeah, it was kind of a survey but I mean, how else are you going to measure mental like depression? I don't know that they had to talk about but I found that that was cool like that that was a positive thing that dark chocolate could potentially help with mood like a mood lifter, if you will. I know it helps my mood for sure. Sure, but the positive ingredients for me 70% of the above is what we were talking about here. And no added sugar, which I'll get to for my killing comfort, but fiber in 70%. And above is about 1.7 grams per serving, which not a lot in the grand scheme of things. But I was like, That's cool, like, because I've never, like gotten to the ingredients of dark chocolate and gone, like, what's healthy here for me, right. And then a mineral that they talked about that was really that helps too is magnesium. Like there's dietary magnesium, potassium, and calcium in it, obviously. But magnesium was like 36 milligrams of it, which is only about 30% of what they recommend for, I think a daily dose. But anyways, I thought that was cool that it had magnesium and fiber in it. And then some of the studies or health outcomes that I found that were positive was the Japanese study where they found the risk of diabetes was reduced to 35%. And again, we're not talking like these people are consuming massive amounts of dark chocolate here, they're consuming a serving, which is like a square or a little portion of a bar, right? Or even potentially, two servings, like it's not like it's a ton of dark chocolate, we're not talking, hey, go get a whole bar of dark chocolate and consume the whole thing every single day like no, this is not what we're talking about. And then it also said that it helps reduce inflammation, which you kind of touched on because of the whole antioxidants things. So do you care if I just dive into my takeaway and killing comfort? Oh, four. So my takeaway for this is like, I think dark chocolate is delicious. Some people hate the like bitter flavor of it. But I think there are good enough benefits to consume it. But obviously, like I said, maybe a serving. And it doesn't necessarily have to be every day like it could be every other day or like a nice treat on the weekend or something like that. And 70% and above is what every single one of these studies have said that is what shows the most benefits so anything below that probably shouldn't dabble in. Also read labels that's my killing comfort for this. Don't buy anything that has any added sugar, sugar, including sugar substitutes like monk fruit and stevia and Earth at all and all that mess. So some brands if you want to maybe test all these theories out is Thrive Market has like a paleo dark chocolate, which if you're saying the word paleo it means there's no added sugar to it. evolved is my favorite dark chocolate. Emily actually got me onto this and it used to be my they used to have like a it's almost like a peanut butter cup but it has like cashew nut butter in there instead or something. Those are balm. And then good. Sam has no added sugar. Dark chocolate, again. 70%. But Jared

Jerred Moon 18:04
recommendations there. Yeah, so I dove into this. And I read all the same study. So increases via T max helps with mood there seem to be a lot of cognitive benefits associated with cacao and taking it and you can just get it 100% raw organic powder form fairly easy to do. tastes awful. It tastes pretty bad. I mean, similar to if you were to just like ground coffee into a powder and then probably try and eat it similar just super bitter. But I I'm actually I just made a like I said we call it like a latte this morning with cacao just for for the podcast. So it was like oat milk. Couple grams of cacao raw, organic. And that's basically it. So it kind of bitter but still fine. And feel great. But I always feel great. So who knows if it's who knows if it's working. But anyway, I dove into it. And the underlying mechanism seems to be mitochondrial efficiency, which we've talked about quite a bit on the podcast, and like ways that you can help in training zone to helps train your mitochondria to become more efficient. And beets are another one it's a different pathway but it seems to be the same. Same ultimate, like healthy mitochondria helps. What is the word I'm looking for nitric oxide production. That's it. And so in dark chocolate seems to do the same thing just like I said through a different pathway and then the specific flavonol that helps very hard to pronounce its EPA cat to chin But Katha chin. Yeah, so EP I see a te ch i n if anyone wants to google it, but there seems to be a lot. Like that's the main thing. That's the main flavonol that like helps with everything. And if you dive into like deeper studies on that, it can inhibit myostatin, which there are theories that this is like if you can inhibit myostatin, you will have no limit to how much muscle growth that you can you can get. Again, these are theories not as much science based slight science but not like not enough studies to be like yeah, this is it. So there's that there's the VO two Max properties. And so you know, the the big takeaway is just seeming to be eating these darker flavonols and increasing nitric oxide production, like beet root, dark chocolate does it you know, there are a lot of like, dark leafy greens like we talked about all these things, they all have very similar benefits. So I think having these in your diet in some way is is good for you. But the one I feel like where Dark chocolate is going to edge out beet roots specifically is if you look at all the cognitive benefits and not necessarily the depression that they're talking about, but it seems to have a lot of like neuro protective benefits and there's a lot of research on that with dark chocolate right now and it's dark chocolate has the same you know stuff that like wine does like a red wine, but I mean I would much rather try and get all the benefits from dark chocolate as opposed to consuming alcohol for looking for health benefits right and so you could do that produces inflammation It seems I mean pretty legit and super easy to add to almost anything Ron was talking about adding it to his coffee which I think is a good good way to go about it probably an easy way just to mean you're essentially making kind of like a mocha at that point. And I guess if you get the raw stuff there's no no sugar involved no sweetener involved not as fun right there's no right this is not a great this is not a chocolate bar. That's enjoyable this is like a powder that tastes like crap that's going to help you but you can you could try it out you definitely try it out. I think overall my my killing comfort very similar is that if you really just want to admit if it's go no sugar just try to get the raw stuff and and try it out if you want to enjoy yourself a little bit that's fine too but just know how to do it. Don't you know just start eating chocolate. Yeah, cuz you Yeah, I just can't imagine doing that. Like it's also I think that'd be really expensive habit. I don't know chocolate bars cost I don't know if I've ever actually bought one before Emily definitely has in Broughton homes

Ashley Hicks 22:48
can be pretty expensive. But if you're getting like a Hershey's dark chocolate bar, those things are cheap, but they have so much sugar in them.

Jerred Moon 22:54
So an evolved dark chocolate bar. What am I what am I talking about

Ashley Hicks 22:58
cost wise, rabidly $4? Yeah.

Jerred Moon 23:01
$4 per workout, it's gonna get expensive.

Ashley Hicks 23:04
So eat a little sliver.

Jerred Moon 23:06
I would get the I get the raw powder. I feel like we always have that stuff in my house. I think Emily use it for different things. And so it seems like it last forever. And I don't know how much it costs. But I know. It's probably like 1015 bucks if I had to guess and last for a very long time. Could you just use small amounts? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's that's about it on this, I think it's definitely worth a try main thing to athletes between brain benefits, I don't think you're gonna see a huge increase in your via to max like you did the sedentary people, but I think you could see something. And to know on those, it's like a three month window that you need to be taking it like 90 days of consumption, and not so much like beet root. There's a lot of benefit, like per session, like in a session. Yeah, immediately. I think these things actually compound over time if you're taking over over a long period of time. So it would be like add to your coffee every day for several months and see kind of what benefits that you can track.

Joe Courtney 24:08
That's assuming people would rather have dark chocolate than beets.

Jerred Moon 24:14
Ami Yeah,

Ashley Hicks 24:18
I would definitely choose beats or beats.

Jerred Moon 24:22
I don't even care which one it is a beats is always harder to consume. It's even I mean, you could get the supplement like the the powder which I guess would be similar to cacao but it's a little bit different. It's hard. You can't do anything with that. Right? You just have to drink it so it's not so and I think like I said, I think that in my opinion, cacao has edge edges it out a little bit because of the all of the mental benefits. And it has very similar vo to max and like performance benefits as beet root, but then there's like cow edges out beetroot juice in like one category. So I would rather go cacao if I had to pick at this point. Oh, yeah,

Joe Courtney 25:04
yeah. Then the just your comment on the on the via to max park because I didn't really talk about what study that study and how it raised their view to max they had 20 grams a day for three months, which was a half a bar. They were having a half a Hershey bar every day for three months in order to get that via to max bump.

Jerred Moon 25:25
session. So focus on your mitochondria. All right. I think mitochondria is the the ultimate takeaway. You guys have anything else? No, I really liked the study. That's pretty cool. Thanks, Ron. Thanks, Ron. Everybody in the community start doing some form of dark chocolate and in some capacity. All right now we'll get into the book. Dark Horse achieving success through the pursuit of fulfillment by Todd Rose. And another author, that Joe's gonna say, not me.

Ashley Hicks 26:06
He's gonna type it in.

Joe Courtney 26:09
I don't even know who it is. I

Jerred Moon 26:10
don't know. There are two authors. Joe, you will wait. I'll just talk a little bit more about what the i I've butchered enough author's names. So I'll let you get the co author. There we go.

Ashley Hicks 26:25
butchered cacao.

Jerred Moon 26:28
Alright, so funny story how this book came about. We were reading some other book. I don't even remember what it was. And they mentioned the Dark Horse study from Harvard, and that it had been turned into a book. And we both didn't really like the book that we were or none of us really liked the book that we were reading. And so we were immediately like, Okay, let's go read Darkhorse. And so

Ashley Hicks 26:51
the practice of groundedness.

Jerred Moon 26:54
Okay, the practice of grounding. Who was that by? That was a

Ashley Hicks 26:58
brad Stolberg. Yeah,

Jerred Moon 27:00
he read our he wrote peak performance. And so anyway, giving him some credit, we didn't truly love his book. Sorry, I'm sure it was great. We did it, we weren't in the mood for it at the time, maybe we'll circle back. But Dark Horse by Todd Rose, we enjoyed in we dove into and there's an actual study at Harvard. You can even type in like the dark horse project Harvard, if you want to Google it. And they're really, it's very interesting. And the book was interesting. But the I think the project is more interesting, because what they're looking at are people who have achieved their own definition of success, which I think is very important. To note, they have their own level of success. And they did that through pursuing fulfillment by by finding out what motivates them and pursuing those specific things. And that's kind of what the book is about is defining your own success and pursuing fulfillment. And you know, chasing that as opposed to the more traditional modes of success, which you know, is more like status or money, you know, these are the typical things that people chase, but um, once you kind of get away from that, and you really just run your own race, I think that you get a lot more fulfillment, a lot more happiness out of life. And, and I would say that that's far more important than, than probably anything else. And that's, that's the big reason I want to read the book, because those, that's all that really matters. I think, being fulfilled and happy, independent of how much money you make is the most important thing because you, you know, you hear the stories all the time of rich people who are depressed or contemplating suicide and all these things. It's not like the those are the answers, right? Successful people struggle. But these people struggle less because they they set the right goals in life. Now, that's kind of the big idea. We can talk more about that down to the book itself, what we thought as far as actually reviewing the book, I'll let you want to kick it off, like what do you think of the book from a review standpoint?

Ashley Hicks 29:07
Ashley, got it. Um, so I put, I liked it. I didn't love it. But I liked it. I knew what he was getting at. I know, he's written another book. I think it's called like the end of average or something like that. So I think that that is kind of going along with this one, because he's basically he's talking about, like, the standard to be successful. And he's saying that there's this mold that society slash schools and jobs have created. And basically, you know, you have to fit in this little box in order to work your way up from a company or I guess, pass you know, pass all your classes and whatnot and, you know, make good grades I'm assuming from like standardized testing and stuff and his whole point of this whole book is to break free of that. Like, he's saying, break the mold, get out of this cookie cutter standardized testing. That is not what makes you successful. And so then he goes into tons of stories and elaborations, on how people tried to fit that mold, how they tried to do other jobs. And then they found out that they really enjoyed doing like, one certain thing or their job, or a few certain things of their job, and not the full job itself. And so then they transitioned into different forms of work, which is kind of cool. Like one lady was a, I think she was a press secretary in DC. And then she ends up finding that she loves organizational skills, like that's the one thing that brings her happiness and joy. So then she transitions to a job of, she literally organizes like people's closets and pantries and stuff like that, which she's super popular on Instagram, and social media and stuff like that, because she posts a lot of stuff. One of the things that I really liked was one of the chapters was called Know your motivation. And so we kind of talked about this a ton. For us, we always say know your why. And I feel like it's the exact same principles here. Like, it's know why you are doing what you're doing. And he's trying to say that that is going to help you. Because just like Darren said, there's going to be times of struggle, and knowing your motivation, knowing your why is what keeps you going in order to continue on with whatever it is that you love to do. Um, I will let Joe talk before I get my barbell reading, because we like to do all that at the end. But Joe, what did you feel about this

Joe Courtney 31:42
book, I liked it more than I thought I was going to Chris, I was kind of surprised by it. And because a lot of times these books, they just like harp on a ton of success stories. And this one did have, you know, the same, a lot of success stories that you can't always associate with. But I love this frame of reference on certain things like and standardization and fulfillment, then your talk a little bit about Swift standardization, and how it's not always the way and I think Internet has helped a little bit in recent times for people to break off into just being able to do what they want and like more to open it up to more independent, smaller businesses that can just completely run out on online on their other houses or whatever. So a lot of good thinking there for it's part of centralization goes, education was a big, big one that I that I liked that he addressed, because I just think, personally as a whole, the education system is pretty bad, and could do with a lot less standardized and such. So encouraging nonstandardized thinking a little bit outside the box thinking I really, really liked, I think that can be applied to a lot of things because people get stuck in certain ways of what they should do, how they should be, you know, it's whether it's society, your neighborhood, you know, everybody's kind of like this. So maybe I should be like this, but maybe you should just actually do whatever the heck you want instead. And it also reminded me of Smarter Faster Better another book that I really really like, for as far as standardization goes because they went into it was like a car factory they went into and they would always doing this process for how they were making cars for longest time. And that was like the process they had to stay in their lane. But they had like the most accidents and mishaps and wastes in any anywhere. So they brought in like people from from Japan who had the most that had all these better ways of thinking and doing because they didn't they weren't pigeon holed into staying in their lane, they had a non standardized way of going about things and increase productivity and efficiency a lot. So smarter, faster, better is also just a book that I really like from passing. But then for attaining fulfillment I also really like that because there are different levels and different references for what success is to you. You don't need a mitt whether it's make a lot of money, whether it's more time freedom, independent freedom moving whatever it is, attain your own fulfillment and whatever you think success is, was it was a good thing to put out there because so often success is measured same way so of money and such I didn't really find this I found this funny but also helpful his bite about micro motives and how find out what your micro motors are by how you judge others. So like however you judge people on their on their on their jobs and how they do if you're judging them by that then maybe you don't want to be something like that, but like similar like that. I thought that was funny, but it was also just kind of cool to think of your micro motives as to you know, think of what reasons why or what you judge others by sometimes and then that might be a little bit illuminating as to what you should not be doing and then kind of branch off the other way. So and then lastly, there's a bit about joining an industry like so standardize industry, but so you don't necessarily have to go off to your own beaten path and just be completely original but you can actually join In industry, but change the standardization of that industry from within which the he said a story about that as well about a midwife, which I thought was really cool, because, you know, it's not always going to be, you know, you have these stories where somebody does a complete 180 pivot in their career and is a complete success. And that just seems like hard to relate at times, and a little bit far fetched, because there's also a lot of failure to that. But you can also still go into an industry and think of it as a way of, okay, I'm in the standard industry, but I can still make a change and make it less standardized and improve itself. So I liked a lot of those things that he brought up, I just think a frame of reference and outside the box thinking than just like, wait a way to sit back and going against the grain of what most people think was really cool. Just a lot of stories. You know, one of them in particular wasn't, I ate eventually got better. But at first I was just like, this is this is weird, why he's telling us all this stuff. You're

Jerred Moon 35:56
I think it's a great book. I have some, like more like, technical problems with it. But the message is very powerful. And something I want my kids to understand. And I feel like, I've had kind of this idea from an early age of like, and I didn't even know it, but like I, when I was first getting finishing high school and going into college, I didn't really know 100% What I wanted to do, and I remember talking to my uncle who's a doctor of pharmacy, any, like maybe you wanna be a pharmacist, like let's talk about so we talked about it. And I remember he was telling me about how easy his job was, and like how much money he made and those kinds of things. And then I kept asking him questions, I'm like, Yeah, but do you enjoy what you study? And like, is the research interesting? And like, and he was like, Uh, yeah, I guess, but like he was trying to focus on on these other things that I just innately didn't feel as like, they were as important, right? I was like, I don't care that much. And then the reason I decided to eventually go down the pilot path was was that reason I was like, this would be fun. You know, who cares how much money I make, like I don't, I'm not really interested in that, like, let's, let's, let's have some fun, choose a career doing that. So it's either to be honest, there's either going to be special operations or pilot. And I ended up going, fully deciding on being a pilot, because I met Emily fairly early on in college had I not met her, I probably would have never pursued being a pilot at all. And I would have pursued being in special operations to some degree. But those are always my decisions, you know, those are always my decisions, trying to do things based off of fulfillment and what I would enjoy, and I don't know where that came from, I didn't like read research on it early on, it was just like, that made more sense to me. And I, I see a lot of younger people, I call it the doctor lawyer syndrome, where you're like, you might be a fairly driven fairly smart, so you feel like you should be pushed towards, like being a doctor, like a medical doctor or being a lawyer, because these are these more prestigious careers. But what you might end up finding is that you hate your life, once you get into that career, you know, because you start at the bottom in some like partner in law firm that you might hate, maybe break off into your own thing, and you actually do enjoy it. But there and same with the medical field, like there are lots of ways you can hate your life in the medical world. Until maybe you find your own path and you enjoy what you're doing. There's there's always that opportunity, but to be successful, like you don't have to chase this, like what would be deemed a prestigious career. And then same with like just making money side of things. That's never going to fulfill you there's no number that's going to be like, oh, yeah, this is it. And by the way, no one else gives a shit like how much money you make, like no one actually cares, because it's not their money. So they don't actually care what you're doing, you know, they might be jealous for two two seconds. And that's that's all you got. So if that makes you feel good, that's that's a weird place to be in, you know, so I think this is a message I definitely want to hit home to my kids pursue fulfillment understand what makes you tick. And I think he did a good job talking about that in the book of like, like, if you like something, you need to dissect the why behind why you like it. And I watched a lot of interviews with him too, on in prepping for the podcast because he did some like CVS and other things. And a quick side note on that I found it really interesting. The people who are interviewing him were older, and they had this very like, like negative stance on pursuing fulfilment, like it was a like it was a dreamers idea. And sometimes you just got to shut up and do the work and I get that to some degree but what Joe was mentioning like we live in a different world and a different economy now like if you have something to teach and you have a video camera you could probably if you try hard enough

make a living online with these micro online businesses with zero employees and just like yourself and you could support yourself or your family doing these things these days. Yeah, like you can you can be successful doing a lot of things. So anyway, I found it weird that he thought or that they They kind of had a more negative stance on pursuing fulfillment, because I think that was more of a pipe dream back in the day, but it's absolutely not anymore. And it's something that you absolutely should do. You know, if you're like sitting here on the fence about, you know what, maybe I should get out of this career that I, I hate, and make less money doing something that I love. In my opinion, you should absolutely absolutely do something that you love, even if it's less money. Because there's also always gonna be an opportunity for you make more money doing that thing, you never know what the opportunities are gonna lead. And so I think, pursuing your fulfillment, you just be a lot happier. And I know, that's also what I've done ever since I left the military, and knowing where you fit and you don't fit. Like I was a horrible fit for the military. My competitive nature made me good at the military. Because if you were just like, here are the standards, and I'm like, Okay, well, I'm going to be every single one of you. Like, in my the only reason I want to do that is because you told me the standards. And you gave me competition that made me good at the military. What made me horrible at the military, was people being put in charge of me who I found to be stupid or inefficient? Yeah, I had a lot of problem with that. So I would, I wouldn't have survived a 20 year career in the slightest, like, I would have been frickin mad like I wouldn't, I would not have been able to do it. I just can't, I can't do it. So like, I knew I knew I after being removed from the pilot world, I was like, this is not, this is not flying and having fun. This is not special operations anymore. This is like this is crappy. This is crappy, Air Force stuff, how

Ashley Hicks 41:25
you still pursued like Special Operations stuff still, like just in a different way.

Jerred Moon 41:32
You know, and that's, and that's what and there's a big story behind that. Like, why my commanders at the time, like put me where they put me and all this other stuff, because there was still this idea of like, I was gonna do it. And I just couldn't do it. Like I, I was so close multiple times. And then a lot of great leadership and mentorship there. But then William was born, Graham was on the way when I had to make that decision. And I was like, I can't do this. I can't I want to, but I can't, I can't do it. So I ended up not going all in there. But anyway, I think knowing all these things is really important. Now, the only thing I didn't like about the book was his use of the stories. i He didn't sell me enough. Every time I heard one of the stories, he didn't sell me enough or give me enough reason on why that person was successful. And I mean, I even mean from their own their own definitions of success. I'm not saying my definition of success didn't match up. But like, he wouldn't give me enough background information to understand why that person is now deemed successful either to themselves or by others. He kind of like hinted around it like, oh, this person love to tailor clothes, and they become, they became a tailor. And I'm like, okay, but there's not enough of that fulfillment story behind it. To me, it was a lot more about people switching careers dramatically, to do something more that they enjoyed. But I didn't understand like, what their criteria for success was. And that's what I wanted to hear more. Because I think that that's really important. Like, if if you need to sit down and define, hey, like, here are my criteria for success, I need to make this much money to be able to at least feel comfortable and not stressed out every single month. Okay, money check, I need this much free time with my friends and family members, like on a weekly basis, check, I need to be able to do these things in my job like check, like those. That's kind of what I wanted to hear. And I didn't really get that as much I didn't, it doesn't have to necessarily be a checklist. But that's the only thing. My only critique of his use of stories was I wish I heard a little bit more why those people deemed themselves successful, other than just because he actually interviewed them. It wasn't like, he's pulling arbitrary data, right? Like, these are specific stories. So I want to hear why they felt that they were successful now more so than what they were doing before and what that shift was, and not just these dramatic shifts. Right. And so I think I think that was the only thing the only negative I had. I know we've talked about, we talked a little bit about the book yesterday, before we recorded I think you guys thought I disliked the book more than I did, but I really just had like a problem with his use of stories. But overall, I think the message is incredible. And I think everyone you know should should take something away from it. And something he said in the book and also in a lot of his interviews was prioritize fulfillment over conventional means of success. It basically it he said that allows you to be successful and happy. Find out what you enjoy and ask yourself why you enjoy it. And he often use an example of like football, like if you sit around and watch football every Sunday or whatever, and you're like man, I really, really love this like okay, a lot of people love it. But asking yourself why you love watching football. And you might uncover a little bit more about yourself. Like, do you like the strategy of it? Do you like the competitive nature of it? Do you like the stats? Do you know what is it that you like about it? And you might be able to uncover a little bit more about what drives you like For me in fitness, I don't necessarily love barbell cycling, you know what I mean? Like I don't just like love moving a barbell up and down or like, hit get, you know, doing intervals, those that's I don't actually love that stuff as much what I love most about fitness is kind of what we talked like the research side, like I really love, like knowing more understanding things at a deeper level. And I think those things motivate me I do enjoy fitness, don't get me wrong, but I don't think that's what's kept me going forever. Like, I just always have to understand why. And that really gets me bought into doing things. And I understand that about myself, right? And so I keep that going and in some capacity. So I think understanding your why is a really big takeaway from the book of like, you might enjoy something, but it might not be for the reason you think it's not just like, oh, I I've always loved football. So football, well, you're not gonna make any money, or even have any sort of career just watching football. Okay, so like, what is the what is the thing that makes you tick that white why you like, and that's just one example. And so I think that that's a really good takeaway as well.

Ashley Hicks 46:02
Barbell ratings.

Jerred Moon 46:04
Yeah, Joe, what would you what are you giving him?

Joe Courtney 46:08
Or? Whoa,

Jerred Moon 46:12
Ashley? chocolate lover?

Ashley Hicks 46:16
Oh, man. Okay. Well, I'll explain that I'm doing a 2.5. I think I liked it. I agree with you. I think it was a great message. But I think a lot of it was front loaded. Like he gave you his four pillars of how to do this. Pretty early on. Like, I feel like you could have gotten halfway through the book and read the whole book. So because of that 2.5 I don't think the messages back. And I'm saying point five because I use fractional plates. I'm like some people here. Jared,

Jerred Moon 46:45
I go to four. So that brings the current team average to 3.5, which is pretty solid. I yeah, I think the message is too important for me to read it more poorly than it was from, like I said, a technical use of story. Like I wish it would have been a little bit different. But I find that I wish everyone would pursue their own means of success a little bit more, and you'd be a lot happier. This this happens. Like we see it all the time now like social media and fitness, right? People posting their six pack abs and like all these like, all all these things, just and making people jealous and all this other crap, right? Like so even in fitness, like, what's your definition of success. I know, when I released how I looked as like part of something I care about. As far as like, because I came from the bodybuilding, my arms got to be a certain size, like I want it. I wish my chest was a little bit bigger, like all this crap, right? Once I was released of that mentally, and I no longer cared about any of those things, it's not like you're gonna look bad if you just stopped caring about those things. It's just, I don't care at all about those things anymore. And that's such a, a relief, you know, it's like not something to worry about. I'm looking in the mirror and I'm like, Ah, my wish was a little bit bigger than those used to be things that happened to me back in the day and I don't care about those things anymore. I'm just like, Yeah, I'm out here. I'm gonna do some some work. We'll see what happens. I'm never like, Man, I gotta get a little bit stronger. Like I wish you know, do build a little bit muscle like once you get you release all those things and you have your ultimate Why am I doing this? What are my success criteria here in fitness? And set those for yourself that way when you see other people you know, you're done. And same with your career. Same with if you invest money, like all these What is your what is your criteria for success? The reason I bring up investing is because that's maybe the second worst that I see in people who do invest as they look at what everyone else is doing. And they're like, they there's always this FOMO like, Oh, should I get into Bitcoin? Or is real estate the answer? Should I do this? Or should you know it's like, do what do you feel comfortable with? Like, who cares? Like we're all gonna die? Like you're not gonna you're not gonna, you know,

Ashley Hicks 48:53
get it on your tombstone? Like what you invested it Yeah, just

Jerred Moon 48:56
like just do whatever you feel comfortable with and like be done with it. Don't think about it any more than that, you know, and because I get asked questions about that crap all the time like I don't know I don't do what everyone else is doing. I just do what I like doing you know, and that's about it. And I think if you can define your own success criteria you're gonna be a lot happier and fulfilled so really great message but yeah,

Ashley Hicks 49:18
book which would be the s&p 500 Sorry.

Jerred Moon 49:21
Yeah.

Joe Courtney 49:23
I don't know influencers makes you want to vent about somebody here. But rarely do that.

Jerred Moon 49:29
Who we venting about

Joe Courtney 49:32
did you hear that? is absolutely ridiculous.

Jerred Moon 49:35
Oh, you have a you have an influencer at your gym? Oh yeah. Oh, that's awesome. We have one of those that my my kids I see their grams or Williams there. We have a what like an influencer mom. I don't know what you call it. They really do this Instagram their life about doing stuff. I would hate it.

Ashley Hicks 49:57
I would absolutely hate that. would kill me Scott would be like, Get off your phone.

Jerred Moon 50:04
Yeah, we've been to a few events. And that's the thing, right? And, hey, if you need to support your family, you do whatever you have to

Ashley Hicks 50:09
I don't, I don't care. These people make so much money. It's

Jerred Moon 50:13
crazy. And she makes a lot of money in. It's just like, we can be in an event like a school event or whatever. And she's not offered for phone the entire time. Like, I'm so glad you're seeing your kids today. Yeah, like, exactly be present. But who might a judge you know, maybe she's happy and fulfilled and that is the her success criteria? Or maybe she secretly hates it and wish she wishes she could stop? I don't know. Maybe a

Ashley Hicks 50:42
dark horse and find out.

Jerred Moon 50:44
Yeah. All right, get into this workout. Who's got it.

Joe Courtney 50:51
Alright, so after you have your Keiko, okay is the workout it will be 10 rounds for time. And you'll go 200 meter row or run and then you will front rack hold with the hold the barbell and a duration at the same duration do the 200 meter row at so if it takes you minute and a half, 90 seconds to do a 200 meter row or run. Then you will hold your barbell on the front rack for a minute and a half. And you'll do that same one to one for all of your 10 rounds, which is why the row come first. Competitor weight is your body weight established is 60 to 75% of your body weight and recruit is 40 to 45% body weight or less. So you just kind of govern on yourself. I'll tell you what front rack whole body weight is pretty freakin hard for you know, a 200 meter row which could be a minute or two. Yeah. So that's that. Get a partner thoughts? Yeah, get a partner so that they can grow at you. To make you go fast Jack will always

Ashley Hicks 52:03
Yeah, and I'll always be this way. The Jared workout. I said don't go hot, too hot out the gate for round one. You've got 10 full rounds of this.

Jerred Moon 52:14
But that means less work on hold on cold.

Ashley Hicks 52:17
My tip my tip, get out of here. No look, you think the front rack hold is the break. It is not like exactly what Joe said that thing sucks. So it's gonna suck for 10 rounds. Just embrace it. Like you got to get it done. So. But yes, I mean, don't sandbag the 200 meter row. I mean, you definitely get it done. But like, again, try to do something that you can sustain pretend total rounds that you're not just crazy how to advocate. And then I said for this one, I would need some rock heavy metal like push me through this darn thing. But for all those listening, we talked about this, I think last podcast maybe not zone two version of this. I feel like who brought up the zone to have like every single

Jerred Moon 53:07
somebody in the Facebook group. I don't remember who it was. But

Joe Courtney 53:10
I think it started with like trying it for conditioning to the grave and it's just spun into doing it. Some other ones I think actually said you're gonna start to do more.

Jerred Moon 53:17
The only problem with that is you have to time cap like a lot of work out NYS don't have a time cap so you'll just have to set your own time cap or else you'll you could

Ashley Hicks 53:25
trade like an hour like this could be a our time cap. I mean, just if you need to get a session in or something like that. But anyways, that's what I'm gonna do. Joseph, what are your tips?

Joe Courtney 53:37
When you do caveat the record because I think your heartbreak could spike above 02 After a while.

Ashley Hicks 53:44
That's what I'm saying like this. The front axle is the thing that sucks. It's not the row, arm hole for me. But yeah, the next time Jared, you just go past

Jerred Moon 53:53
Oh, normally like an isometric contraction doesn't doesn't shoot up the heart rate too much. Do you guys find that to be different for yourself? I'm

Ashley Hicks 54:01
doing all sets or if I'm doing like, if I'm doing a long front leaning rest. Sometimes my heart rate does get up like we've talked about this mine does differently than yours. Because you said yours goes down.

Jerred Moon 54:13
Yeah, like I'll drop into like zone one. But my muscles don't agree with that sentiment at all. Like I'll be like, if I'm doing like a long plank. My body's like, this hurts, everything sucks. But my heart rate is like, we're fine. Like a big deal here, but

Joe Courtney 54:28
I'll send you data. And I think what also with this one is that when you're in the front rack, the bars can be like your elbows are gonna be pushed down your lungs, so your breathing might be a little more shallow which could be alright. Anyway, just things to think about. And actually next time Jared starts to granted you to go faster. Just tell him you're attaining your own fulfillment.

Jerred Moon 54:49
Set my success criteria for this workout and you're not noted.

Joe Courtney 54:56
Oh, yeah, I don't really have much these I would say really, really warm up and get your front rack hold in. Because if you're if you do go into your front rack and your elbow is already low, like, the higher your elbows are, the more locked in you are, the easier it's going to be to stay in the front rack. So stretch out your lats, stretch out your triceps really work on getting those elbows high, and holding those elbows high. Because once they start to drop, you're just going to be in a world of hurt. So this is a good time to work on that. And try not to do the cross arms front. Yeah, I guess. Yeah.

Jerred Moon 55:30
You always think that's a good idea until you do it. And then

Joe Courtney 55:33
much less much less. Engagement, you get what you know, it's pretty much all AB core right there. You're not getting a new your lats and your upper back.

Jerred Moon 55:42
That's what you realize, once you do it, you're like, yes, this kind of hurts. I'm gonna cross my arms and then you do it. You're like, damn it.

Joe Courtney 55:50
Give it a try. See what happens? Yeah, right here.

Jerred Moon 55:54
Yeah, I don't have a lot. This one is kind of gamed for you. So you get to pick what you want to do. If you want to abandon kind of sustainable and repeatable here then just fluctuate with like, what you think is better. Because they're, they're kind of our two camps, you know, one of these is going to suck more for you. And I do think the row or the interval is going to suck a lot less. You know, as Ashley kind of stated, because you would have to go incredibly hard for that short of a distance to make that suck a lot, you know, but maybe try one of the 10 rounds, right? Like maybe try, maybe just try it once and be like, Okay, I got that done super fast. And now I don't have to hold this, wait that long and see what that feels like. And then try another one, where you go zone to maybe that may make your first and second first. Go as fast as you can hold that front rack, and then second, do zone two as kind of like a recovery on the row, and then hold it for however long that is and see which one of those you enjoy more. And do that one more consistently? Because who knows? Everyone's different, like our isometric contractions are different. Maybe your front racks are different. Who knows? I do No. Holding anything in the front rack for more than about five seconds sucks. So it's gonna suck no matter what doesn't really matter how you slice is just how much suck Do you want? Is the I can just

Ashley Hicks 57:21
envision someone just like snap though. Can you go like 10 RPE on your first row. And then you go to hold your body?

Jerred Moon 57:29
Oh, what's your mind? We don't lock out your knees like I always forget. I think I say that in the athlete brief. Yeah, don't lock out your knees. I've seen a lot of that in the military people standing position of attention and they lock their knees and then they fall down. It's normally very damaging. It's not like you hit your head probably. Yeah, it's got it was like funny the first time you see it, and then you realize people are getting concussions and stuff. You're like, oh, this is serious. Nate. Nobody. Everybody don't lock your knees. Like don't, don't do it. So yeah, don't do that. Because I think locking your knees and passing out with like, 100 whatever pounds. That's gonna be pretty painful. Yeah. And if that happens to you, we will delete any traces work I ever exist. No, I'm kidding. We already told you don't don't lock out your knees. But I think that's it. Any other any other tips? Tricks, strategies, ideas.

Joe Courtney 58:24
If you want to get just like, kind of goofy or for tracking or for just a challenge you can set since there's 10 rounds, and there's 10 settings on these concept two. Oh, my gosh, or one, one. And then round two, you bump it up to around three? Well, that the ladder approach? Yeah.

Jerred Moon 58:42
I like that or started turning around.

Ashley Hicks 58:44
Yeah, I'd rather 10 and go down. makes it better.

Joe Courtney 58:47
Thank you pick your poison.

Jerred Moon 58:50
Yeah, the first set of anything really doesn't count. I don't know that. It never counts. It's always easier. The first time

Ashley Hicks 58:58
you crack me up. I'm good work no matter what that darn thing. Count

Jerred Moon 59:02
the first interval, you're like, Wow, I feel great. I could do this all day. And then the second round, like, probably not. I don't even know if I'll make it six. And then yeah. That's pretty nice. All right, ladies and gentlemen. That's all we have for you today. So eat your dark chocolate before this workout and get going our course. Again, Ron, thanks for the suggestion. And if anyone else has any suggestions about some science that we should cover, not products you want us to review. Again, we're getting some of that. Again, some of those seeing that coming up and I don't have any any advice on that. But as far as the science we can we can dive into it and look at it a little bit more. Dark chocolate and Keiko, so we're saying Joe seems to have a lot of a lot of positive benefits and something that you should do like I found cacao I found cocoa I couldn't find this cake. Whoa you're talking about it starts with a K You can really only find in Russia you have to go check it. Anyway, we'll get out of here. Thanks everybody who who is part of the community, we really appreciate you doing the workouts and staying consistent get your daily over decades challenge in and keep reporting in the group on our monthly posts there that we have. And if you want to try out our training, go to garage gym athlete.com Sign up for that 14 day free trial. And for my weekly reminder, if you don't kill comfort, comfort will kill you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai