Training Updates; Traveling, Running, Recovering

Hey, Athletes! Training Updates; Traveling, Running, Recovering - Episode of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!

Training Updates; Traveling, Running, Recovering

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IN THIS 25-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Jerred and Joe are both back on the podcast
• Joe updates us on what has been going on his life the last 2 months
• Jerred updates us on his training
• And A LOT MORE!!

Diving Deeper…

If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here is a link to the study for you: 

• No study this week

Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week 

Don't forget to watch today's podcast!

• Our 6 (Fitness) Hills To Die On

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

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: [00:00:00] This is the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast, and we're here to build autonomous athletes and put phenomenal programming into every garage, basement, and spare bedroom out there. I'm Jared Moon, and I'm with Jill Courtney. We are strength and conditioning coaches who have turned over 20, 000 people into Garage Gym Athletes over the last decade, and we're here to reduce the information overload that exists in the health and fitness industry today.

We're going to do that by covering relevant science and give actionable takeaways, not only from the data, but from our years of experience. So let's dive in.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast. Jared Moon here with Joe Courtney. What's up, Joe? Hey, two in a

Joe: row. Depending on how the order we publish season

Jerred: he's here again. Yeah, we're gonna, we're going to be updating everybody at garage gym athlete. No science today, no tips or hacks.

So if [00:01:00] you are really just interested in what we've been doing in our training. In our lives, how we've been balancing it all where the hell Joe's been, all those kind of things. If you want to get into, if you want to hear those things, stick around for this episode. I just want to be.

Very upfront with what this episode is about, way more casual and just giving everybody updates behind the scenes with Garage Gym Athlete. Let's start with you, Joe. You've been Oh, go ahead.

Joe: We might not have official science,

Jerred: but we always have tips. We always got tips. We got tidbits.

We always clean something. There's a nugget that you'll get for sure. I'm not saying there's no value here. I'm just just letting everybody know that we're not getting into how much protein you should eat or Whatever else. So anyway, Joe has been absent for a while. What's up, man?

Where are you been? What you've been doing the last couple of months? Yeah.

Joe: So mid December of 23, we moved from California to the road trip, and now we are in Spain. We got here mid [00:02:00] January. So we had about a month of driving cross country from California to Virginia, making a bunch of stops along the way.

Did a lot of fun stops Zion Durango, and then visited family in Dallas and St. Louis, and then ended up on the East coast, seeing my family and friends and stuff, and then flew to Spain. So now we are in Spain. And as of a week ago, exactly. We moved into our house, got all of our stuff in at the same time.

Been moving in this past week, been ordering stuff, getting everything hooked up. Still hooking some stuff up, but we're, we're 90 percent moved in. We did it all pretty quick. Still adjusting for, especially my office is like the last thing. Cause there's a whole lot of, internet and power stuff to get set up.

But that has, that is what I have been up to, where I've been and why I've been

Jerred: absent. That's a, that's quite a journey, California to Spain, like you just look at a globe. That's a, it's a far hike. So have you worked out in the last two months? [00:03:00] Yes. All right, good.

Joe: There's a hiatus for two or so weeks,

Jerred: for sure.

Yeah, so let's, I want to dive into that because I think that's some of the hardest times to stay in fitness is when you're traveling. And not only traveling, there's a vacation where, you're gone for four to seven days or whatever. And it's okay, I'll try and get in two sessions or three sessions or whatever traveling for two months.

You've got a young kid, and Going across the country. No rope. You don't even have your stuff. You don't have like your gym What have you been doing? How have you been trying to stay on top of some sort of fitness routine when your life is all crazy like that?

Joe: So the first couple weeks it was a lot of hiking we did a little because we were in Utah and then Colorado So we pretty much just hiking and walking around not actual workouts Just before with our last night before we hit Reach Dallas.

We actually went to the hotel gym. We do, we did bring bands. We did have bands in our suitcase. So we used bands [00:04:00] a little bit, not as much as I would have hoped to, but that's how we did. Once we got to Dallas, we went on runs cause there was actually, it was actually, we were actually able to run there.

We were, I didn't think we, we couldn't really run through like Durango and stuff. It was like a little snowy and icy. So we did some running there. Did some other I, Popped in to your house and we did that workout that you guys made me do after going out to lunch. Just sprung that on me.

I come over and you're like, Hey, we're going out to lunch. It's Alright, cool, I guess we're not working out. And then you're like, Alright, we're gonna go work out. And I'm like shit, my stomach's full. Anyway, that wasn't fun. But I did it. And then, yeah, and then we had another week or so when we were in North Carolina and I actually I had to go back to California for guard stuff and actually hit the gym whenever we had the opportunity to hit the weights, we hit the weights whenever we had openings and it was like.

Clear enough to go for runs. We went for runs, even when it was, because when we were in Dallas, it was freaking cold. Like our, when we left out for a run the feels like was we're in the twenties, which was not [00:05:00] pleasant, but we just had to do it. So it was working with what we got.

And in Norfolk, we had, there was like a treadmill in the hotel. It was also super cold there. So we just used it there as well. And I did. Liz had to go in for some work stuff when we were in Norfolk. So I was doing so pushup grids or grids. I would pair like super set grids. I would pair that like pushups with the core or like squats.

And I did that every 30 minutes I had an alarm going for a couple of days. Then we got here and we've actually been able to go to the gym. Cause

yeah, so once we got here. Landon already had daycare lined up, so right away we were able to put him in daycare, I could go to the gym, I just had to walk there, and yeah, it's been 5 6 days a week that we've been working out, and as you can see behind me, if you're, if we publish this on YouTube, my gym is behind me, got all my [00:06:00] gym stuff here.

And so training's been doing good. Perfect running weather today at least. It's been, yeah, so been back at it. Last week had a little bit of a hiatus because we were doing moving stuff and we had to be here and stuff.

Jerred: Yeah, now you have this amazing basement, Jim, or at least amazing in size, right?

It's does it span the entire house?

Joe: It spans more than the house. You can see the ceilings are probably at least a little more and then as it goes out where the house ends, it comes down to like right at six, six one. And then that's like where the patio is so the outside, it's still part of the property, but not the actual house.

So it goes beyond what the actual house square footage is. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I, it's probably long enough to do what is this? About 30 meters, like push, like sled push or something. That's awesome. And the, it is, since it is a garage, it's in the basement, but this is the garage, it does have a driveway that comes down on the side, [00:07:00] so I could, if I wanted to run out and up and stuff, but I don't really do a lot of those types of workouts, if I'm doing anything with a cardio element, I just get on the rower or the air bike.

Jerred: And what's the weather like in Spain

Joe: right now? It's nice. It's there's been days it gets it'll be in like the 50s. Like later this week, it'll be high 50s low 60s today. It's probably going to be right around 70. I can

I got the thermometer on my gym thing. It's 66 degrees in here and 69 percent humidity. So it's about usually it's about 60 70 percent humidity down here. mid to high 60s in the basement.

Jerred: It's fairly humid, but I think that's pretty common.

Joe: Yeah, it'll be worse in the summer. It does get pretty hot, like 90 degrees, 90, 100 percent humidity.

So we'll see how the basement goes. I know the moisture inside houses are a bit of an [00:08:00] issue. We already have a dehumidifier that I'm running down here around the clock. So summer will get hot and muggy and sticky. But I think I'll still be fine. I'm okay with a bit of heat, especially after Bahrain.

Jerred: I'll be good. It's all easy from here. Yeah, Bahrain, nasty. San Diego, Monterey, you've been in some pretty mild situations. Yeah. The climates. Monterey was

Joe: less desirable. It was deceptively cold. You look at the temperature and it might say 60s, but like The breeze coming off the water, it was like 10, 15 degrees wind chill.

Jerred: So you're 50. So like it, it might feel like, yeah, I think that's, I think like the perfect fitness temperature is probably I think for performance, it's probably like 50 in the fifties. I think if you want to sweat, it's probably in the seventies. That's awesome, man. I'm glad that you're back on the podcast.

I'm glad that you're getting settled. And [00:09:00] how long are you in Spain for? Two years. Nice.

Joe: That's awesome. Probably two and a half, maybe. Yeah. Good chunk.

Jerred: More or less the same for me here in Texas. We do have a lot going on. We are building a house, trying to sell a house. That makes things like a little outside the normal routine, but nothing compared to Moving across the country and not having a house for two months, being homeless and all that kind of stuff.

So I don't have, I don't have much to say in that regard. I've been pretty consistent in training, just knocking things out. I think I'll give a quick update just on 50 K training and. Some new protocols I'm talking about. So recently did a podcast called the future of fitness where I think things are headed and what I want to experiment with.

And I just recently started some of those protocols. So if anyone's been following along with my kind of 50 K training, I've been doing running basically three days a week. And then the other three days a week, I've been doing strength training, specifically body geometry, which is our, like one of our strength.

Training methodologies. [00:10:00] And now I am transitioning in this more recent block to still running three days a week, but I'm trying more mixed modality training those other three days. So I'm really experimenting with these protocols before I bring them to garage gym athlete. And what they are some of its interval weight training, which we do a garage gym athlete.

Some of it's like EMOM stuff, but like really long EMOM stuff, like 40, 60 minute EMOMs. Things like that to where we're combining what I'm trying to combine is work to rest ratios that make sense with some strength training enough volume to actually still get stronger, but then also adding like a heart rate element into it.

Like having a let's just take interval weight training session that would be. VO two max beneficial. So it's like higher heart rates. Like you need to maintain zone four for the interval weight training session for each round. Then you come down, you recover after each one. Those sessions [00:11:00] take about an hour, the EMOM sessions.

So I might have a 60 minute EMOM session where I'm going for a full hour. I might have four different movements. Four to six different movements that I'm switching every minute on the minute and some of them will be strength training. So it'd be like a push press and then next I could be on the rower then it could be a kettlebell swing.

And then it's really just adding these things up to try and get enough of a stimulus for strength training, but also following some sort of heart rate training protocol. To see benefit in that regard as well. So this is, in my opinion, this is pushing concurrent training to the limits of what can be possible.

And I really don't know what's going to happen. Obviously everything's gonna be fine. Like I'm not, it's not gonna be crazy. I'm just talking about, I don't know if I'll get a lot weaker or lose muscle mass or gain muscle mass or get stronger. There's a lot of science that. This can go both ways.

So I'm experimenting with it a lot. I think right now though, like overall enjoyment level is like 10 out of 10. I love and always [00:12:00] have just like grunt work. Like just okay, those are the things that I need to do for the next hour. Let me just move through them. I actually as much strength training as I have done in my life.

I don't love just doing a set and then resting for two or three minutes and then doing another set. I've always just preferred to be moving, even if it's like a strength movement, that's just my preference for fitness in general. But those have been going really well, nothing I can tell you on like result side other than I think I'll be, I'll just get in way better shape.

Even though I'm running already, I think if I have some, I basically have some sort of cardio element six days a week, as opposed to three days a week. Now I just think that I will get fitter. In general, but what happens to strength and muscle mass? I don't know, but there's also I was looking at a lot of research that says there has to be like this metabolic waste involved in gaining muscle mass like you can't just go do three sets of 10 in it and [00:13:00] get stronger and gain muscle.

Maybe when you first start, there has to be, there has to be an insult to the muscle. There has to be that micro trauma. There has to be metabolic way. So the these is. Heavy loads, thrown into these, this type of training session. It's quite taxing and I feel it a lot more than I would in a strength training session.

I feel more of a pump, I feel more of a burn. So I'm very interested to see where this goes. So I really think it's headed in a cool direction. I really enjoy the training.

Joe: You think you're going to take some of that to the next cycle of hard to kill? Yeah

Jerred: that's the plan. Like I want to bring it to the next cycle, hopefully the second cycle.

Let's see. As at the time of recording this, yeah, I'll be able to test it for a solid six weeks before I decide what I want to do. Probably not the full protocol where that's all you're doing like I'm doing, but at least some of those ideas bring them to the next cycle and hard to kill. That's ultimately my goal.

So if anybody's interested, I've mentioned this to several people. And a lot of people are very interested in it, like more so than I thought would be people are like, Oh, dude, the [00:14:00] second you get that going let me know. I want to be a part of it. And I didn't think that'd be the case. I thought it'd be more of a turnoff for people.

They'd be like no, I'd rather just do my strength and then my conditioning or whatever. Because this is different than anything like, I talked about CrossFit in that future fitness episode. It's different than all those things. It's trying to take everything I've learned from endurance and how to actually improve endurance and adding it to the strength world and like circuit training.

Like some of the papers I've read on this even go back to 1969. That's how far back some of this type of training goes. So it's really cool. Now, as far as running I also talked about that in a recent podcast episode and not a lot has changed there. I hurt my back. Again, and then my run coach fixed it through improving my cadence.

And that's just held strong. So that's still going. It wasn't like a fluke. I'm running three days a week, decent amount of volume, still not as much volume as I was doing. I've pretty much figured out my cadence. I'm hovering in like [00:15:00] the, so one 70 to one 80, probably one 75 to one 80.

Really? I'm pretty much landing my cadence in that higher range. And I'm feeling a lot better. My body feels a lot better. I still am running a little bit slower, which has been a little bit frustrating. I can't, I have to be so mindful with a faster cadence to run at a higher speed. Like it's very.

I feel like I'm doing one or the other. Like I'm going faster cadence, but I'm going so a higher cadence, but slower overall pace. And then my heart rate's like way too low. It's like in the low one thirties. And then I try to, I go faster. And then once I'm going faster, if I'm not focused, I'll lose focus on the cadence and I'll go revert back to my old running form.

So it's still a lot of work. And that makes sense to me because I run the same way incorrectly for I don't know. Two decades and I'm trying to undo all of these running patterns and poor movement patterns and this low cadence that I had and all this kind of stuff So it's still a lot I am like finding more of a groove with it and [00:16:00] learning how to do it but it's still it seems to be the Best fit for me because I'm not hurt right now.

And I don't think I'll go back to high volume I still plan on doing the 50k but i'm just going to be like hey, I ran as much as I could run without getting hurt I'll do the 50k See what happens I won't be as prepared as I wanted to because I should be doing like Three hour runs and like all these kind of things that I was doing before but I'm, just not doing it all i'm doing as much as I can while balancing A new run for new running form and not getting injured again.

So that's where I'm at with 50k stuff.

Joe: I guess I could say my side of that as well for for running. I was talking about my heel pain back a while before and I did get a running PT that I saw through video a couple of times and I just happened to while on the road trip. He's he was located in Maryland.

I actually happened to see him in person and I got an in person console. I'm still in touch with him through the internet and So while traveling, I have been working on some of that, some of the [00:17:00] exercises a lot of mobility, stability stuff. And then as well as the running form, like changing my running form has been a process and getting used to it.

And because I was over striding And yeah, that's I'm still working on it with my zone twos, but I also know that I need to not just do zone to run. You'd actually do some speed work. So now that I'm here and more consistent, I'm making myself do only delimiting myself. I guess one zone to run a week and making sure that I do at least some speed.

Sprinting like running once a week as, as well, because the weather here is just good enough for that, but it's, since it's good enough to start running and I ran today and I think it feels fine, but it's still afterwards. My heel still has some issues, but like everything it's a kind of a slow

Jerred: process.

When you say over striding, what does that mean?

Joe: Like I my front foot is going out a bit too far. So I think I yeah, so I think it makes my hamstrings work a little bit too much [00:18:00] and put too much stress on my heel so I need to Essentially put my and put my foot more. So under my center of gravity and have my quads cushion more.

And I noticed when I was doing my all my form running, I was going to my first couple of runs, my quads were like super fatigued afterwards because it just wasn't used to catching myself on that position as much. And yeah, so it's been a process, it's, I think it's already catching on.

Jerred: Yeah, my first couple of runs with my higher cadence I felt it muscularly. Like you're saying, like I, it was like in my hips and like my hip flexors, upper quads. Like I felt it a lot more that kind of, it only took a couple of runs for that to go away, but yeah it's, it was definitely an adjustment.

And another thing that you mentioned too much zone two, like. That's what I was doing, I don't know, summer, fall of last year, like I was doing all this Zone 2, but it was too much cause, and I want to talk about this mainly for the [00:19:00] listeners cause Zone 2 is awesome, but Zone 2 is it's building a foundation, that's all Zone 2 really is if, just to take that analogy of building a house If all you did was like build the foundation and then you come back out the next day and you're like, Oh, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sweep the foundation.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna smooth the foundation. I'm gonna pet my foundation. You gotta build on top of it at some point, right? You gotta start doing the other stuff that builds the house. And that is the VO two max, the intervals, all these other kind of things. Because I, how I look at that now is if you do build the foundation and you never build up You never build the VO two max, you will stall.

And some people need a lot more VO two max for us. And this is my theory too, is that we already get enough zone two training through like strength training and all the other stuff that we're doing. Not just zone two running that we do have a pretty solid base. So we need a lot more top end. That also comes with an asterisk, right?

You can do too much top end. So once you build the [00:20:00] foundation, you have to build up. And then if you're like, I can't build up anymore. Now it's time to add. A little bit more foundation and that's fitness. That's the domino effect. That's how it's going to work. Like zone two, you can build this massive foundation.

It will only go so far. And to move away from necessarily like legitimately building a house. It, I always go back to the pyramid examples. Like a pyramid can only be as tall as its base. And so a pyramid, you build out the foundation. Now you can build out your top end as much as you want.

That pyramid is now your fitness through doing the other energy system training. And then if you're like, I want a bigger pyramid, yeah, it's going to be a larger dose of zone two to widen that base again, and then also add in more of that top end and you just keep going through that process and you'll get fitter and fitter.

That's how you prove your VO two max and everything else. But yeah, if you just only ever do zone two, you're like, you got this great foundation, you're just not building up. And I think that was definitely a realization for me last year, too.

Joe: Yeah, I was caught into sort of a zone two loop, [00:21:00] and I think it was, I think it was affecting my.

My form my speed my everything so that even when I went to go run fast I just it was just so hard to run fast because I wasn't used to running fast.

Jerred: Yeah, that's I think I told you yeah, and I mentioned on the podcast like when I would run fast all my like run dynamics Got good. Like they were just, I think Chris is my sprinting background.

It's like I run fast and it's Oh, your cadence is good. Your vertical oscillation is good. Everything looks good. But when I would run zone two, everything was trash just like as bad as it could be. And I do think that was like finding its way into my. But now that I've fixed it on my slower runs my fast runs have been very interesting.

Running this higher cadence at a much faster pace has been crazy. I honestly feel like I've been trying to describe it to people. It feels like I'm writing something like I'm on a scooter because if I'm going like, let's say I'm between 180 and 190 steps per minute, which is really high cadence, but I'm also running, let's say a [00:22:00] six 45 mile pace.

I honestly feel like I'm on a scooter just like going down the road because a scooter, there's no vertical oscillation, right? You're just like, it's super smooth. You're going down the road. That's what it feels like when I'm running. Other than yeah, my heart's beating and it's hard to do.

It's harder than riding a scooter, but it feels that smooth when I have my cadence dialed in. And I'm going at a really fast speed. It's very interesting. I've never experienced that in running my whole life. I think my running my whole life has always been a a mental toughness combined with grit and pounding the pavement.

It's just yeah, running sucks. Everybody knows running sucks. So this is just what I'm going to do. But you can make it suck a little bit less by improving your form. That's for sure. For sure. Yeah. All right, cool. That's it for this one, everybody. We will end it here. If you want to be a part of garage gym athlete, go to garagegymathlete.

com. Start a free trial. We would love to have you for all of our athletes who've been around. Thank you so much for being an athlete. Remember if you don't kill comfort will kill [00:23:00] you.