welcome to the behind the shield podcast as always
my name is james geering and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome back onto the show
darolk and to welcome for the first time dr mark
bubs now mark is a performance nutritionist author
speaker and consultant for a portfolio of professional
and olympic athletes and fortune 100 companies
Rolke is a movement specialist who has worked
with multiple agencies, including the city of
Anaheim, where I used to work. So in this conversation,
we discuss a host of topics from Mark's journey
into the world of nutrition, taking care of our
youth athletes, nutrition and elite sports performance,
the power of sleep, working with tactical athletes,
the reason he formulated his new product ProBio,
and so much more. Now, with that being said,
after we had finished the recording, Mark was
able to get ProBio put on GovX. So the easiest
way for you to find that, if that's something
that you're looking for, is to go to GovX, register
as a first responder, a military member, emergency
medicine, etc., where you'll get 25 % off plus
an additional 10 % off in free shipping with
subscription. Now, before we get to this incredible
conversation, as I say every week, please just
take a moment. Go to whichever app you listen
to this on. Subscribe to the show. Leave feedback
and leave a rating. Every single five -star rating
truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making
it easier for others to find. And this is a free
library of well over 1 ,100 episodes now. So
all I ask in return is that you help share these
incredible men and women's stories so I can get
them to every single person on planet Earth who
needs to hear them. So with that being said,
I introduce to you... Dr. Mark Bubbs and the
Rolk. Enjoy. Well, Bubz and Rolke, I want to
start by saying welcome for the first time, Bubz,
onto the Behind the Shield podcast. And Rolke,
welcome back. Good to be here, brother. Appreciate
it. Appreciate it. Thank you. So you're on very
different parts of planet Earth at the moment.
So Bubz, let's start with you. Where are we finding
you this afternoon? So I'm Canadian, but I'm
not in Canada. I'm over here in the UK, just
outside of London. Brilliant. Well, I'm English
and I'm in America, so we're all over the place
at the moment. Rob, what about you? SoCal, as
you know, James, out here in Southern California.
So with the extreme harsh conditions that we
have to deal with on this side of the planet.
Yeah, it's brutal. We're having a cold spell
come in. It's going to be down in the 50s. Oh,
man. It was a little overcast today, so I might
have to put a hoodie on. So that's how we...
It's a tough life. All right. Well... Rog, obviously,
we've done a couple of discussions already, so
I want to spend a little bit of time with Bubz,
just kind of getting his backstory, and then
we'll start bringing you in as we speak sports
and tactical athlete performance. Hey, James,
I told Bubz to cut his hair for today, so he
actually usually has a pretty wavy hairline,
but he did it just for today, so let's give him
props for that, brother. That's amazing. I'm
assuming he used the same barber, huh? What would
I like to be matching? Dude, it's uniform, bro.
Twinsies. I love it. It's like looking in a mirror.
Love it. So Mark, very first question. Tell me
where you were born and tell me a little bit
about your family dynamic, what your parents
did, how many siblings. So I was born in Ontario,
Oakville, Ontario, Canada. And I've got a sister,
older sister, who's actually on the West Coast
as well. And yeah, mom and dad, dad was in marketing,
sales guy. you know, like to play, like to play
sports and golf and all that. And, um, my mom
was French Canadian, one of 14. So the second,
second youngest of 14. So my grandmother was
a pretty amazing woman, but, uh, not the sort
of sit on my knee type of grandma, you know,
and you have to put 14 kids through school. Uh,
she's, she was a real energetic, but, uh, yeah,
that's, that's me. What did your mother do as
far as profession? She was a translator. So French
to English, English to French. I went to all
French school growing up, always spoken to my
mom since I was born in French, but I'm not,
I'm not native French speaker. So I really confused
the, when I go to France, I really confuse them
because they're not really sure where the hell
I'm from. So it was a good laugh. When you hear
stories from obviously generations back, what
are the nuances? for the French Canadian population
that are different with the rest of Canada? I
think like a lot of different populations that
came over back in like the 1920s and 30s, they're
a hardy population, right? You think of ice hockey,
you know, almost half the league's Canadian.
Got to be at least half of them are French Canadian,
right? I heard some kind of funny stat that the
stuntmen in Hollywood, there's a huge proportion
that are also French -Canadian. So there's an
element of ruggedness and toughness. Certainly,
that's part of the elements as well. You know,
when you've got outdoor beer festivals and minus
20, it's a different mindset than some other
places. So, yeah, it's a great place from a performance
standpoint, like our Olympians in the Winter
Olympics. If Quebec ever separated from Canada,
we'd be down a lot of medals in those Winter
Olympics because you get a lot of the skiers
and moguls and all that great stuff coming out
of Montreal. And it's, you know, a little piece
of Europe and North America, you know, so it's
a cool place. I used to work in upstate New York
on summer camps years and years ago, and I'd
go to Montreal on our days off occasionally.
And they have the wettest, soggiest French toast
I've ever had. It's like, I think it's... Just
one degree from being completely raw. French
Canadians are not known for the cuisine. That's
the one thing. Although you get the poutine as
the big French fries with cheese curds and gravy.
That's the hearty winter dish. So the French
were like, should we bring the recipe book with
us? We're like, no, we're fine. Just leave it
there. Exactly. All right, what about sports?
What were you playing and doing during the school
ages? Yeah, I played everything growing up, you
know, baseball, basketball, volleyball, football,
you know, you name it. I was, I grew pretty quick.
So, you know, I love playing sports, being part
of the team. That whole dynamic was pretty special,
grade school, high school. And, you know, a lot
of the things that you learn in team sport, teamwork,
leadership, how to lose, right? How to bounce
back when you get your butt kicked. And now that
I've got three kids who are in that sort of,
you know, 12, 9, 7 age range, you just have a
different perspective on sport. When you're younger,
you always want to, you know, it's all about
winning and trying to, you know, be the best
that you can be. And then, I mean, you see it
as a parent, seeing it from that 30 ,000 foot
view, you see the whole roster a little bit more,
don't you? And you see the value of having roles
for everybody. And people building confidence
and young kids building confidence because you
can start to see the inflection points for certain
kids when they start to play sport and how important
it can be for them. So I think it's a great space,
you know, for young people. And for those of
us watching it at home or working in it, it's
exhilarating as well because there's no, the
ending's not written, right? It's happening right
in front of you. It's dramatic. It's stories.
It's people's stories. Yeah, I guess it's captivated
me from since I was young and I'm still, you
know, didn't quite make it to the NBA, but worked
in it on the performance staff. What's interesting,
and I'm curious to get your perspective living
in the UK now, but I've talked about this a lot
on here, especially when it is people that work
with, you know, high level athletes. When I first
came here, I affectionately, you know, say I
met a lot of Uncle Ricos, meaning. you know,
men in their late 30s, excuse me, late 20s, early
30s, and had so many stories of how they could
have been in the NBA, NHL, you know, major leagues,
if it wasn't for and then they reeled off, you
know, orthopedics nightmare list of injuries.
And coming from the UK, where we never really
had that high level of training, unless you happen
to be that kind of kid that was sent into the
farms as far as Man United and Liverpool and
all those kind of teams, the rest of us just
played sports. And then when you graduate at
school and then college, usually there was more
sports, you know, pub leagues and local leagues,
etc. So I saw sport being played well into middle
age by most people. When I came to the States,
and again, you're hearing these stories, and
I'm like, why are these 18, 20 -year -olds getting
smashed to pieces? And then you see the way that
they're trained in some of these colleges and
schools. It really made me start asking the question,
well, are we forging performance at the expense
of wellness and longevity in our youth athletes?
What is your perspective with this kind of multinational
lens that you have now? It's a fascinating question
because it's certainly come a long way in terms
of training and nutrition over the last 25 years,
30 years that I've been doing this. A lot of
positives, but also some negatives as well in
the sense of the 24 -7, 365 athlete. In my main
sport, which is basketball, we're seeing Achilles
ruptures at 25, which used to be an injury for
a 35, 40 -year -old. And so this sort of over
-specialization. kids getting into specific sports
really young and then you know hyper specializing
in that is is a challenge and i think as a culture
as well it gets trickier in north america because
you're right you don't see as you see the sort
of the softball leagues but the sports we tend
to play in north america are kind of a little
bit slower and it's not that we're not challenging
individuals to maintain their physical capacity
and it might just be the fact that soccer football
obviously they call it over here is the main
sport here which requires a lot of running So
there's a certain level of conditioning you need
just to hang out with your buddies and play the
main sport. Whereas I think in North America,
you know, we play more American football or,
you know, maybe you're just shooting hoops rather
than actually playing the game. And so, you know,
your level of physical fitness can, you know,
doesn't need to hold up like it might do in Europe
and other places. But there's certainly a lot
of different aspects. I mean, nutrition being
one. But that's what jumps out at me. Roel, anything
to add to that before we go back to the timeline?
No, not really. I think I've noticed that as
well, especially for us, it's getting the kids
fit again. A lot of that has to do as well with
the culture of social media and just not really
being as active and interfacing with their peers,
their teammates, etc. On more of a physical level,
it's more just electronically. So I think a lot
of it is... It's good. A lot of the kids are
a lot more knowledgeable on training protocols,
nutrition protocols, just because of what they
see. But the application is where I'm finding
that there's definitely a deficiency across all
boards. So I think like what Bub's saying, identifying
these injuries and things that are going on,
that usually wasn't the case. But I just don't
think we're doing a great job of getting our
kids out there and doing what they need to do,
just like they used to. Well, this is the kind
of glaring gap that I saw was, again, you have
this high level in these young people. My son
was the same. He ran cross country and ran track.
Now he plays volleyball. But then because of
that steep drop off, I mean, as we sit here recording
now, over 70 % of Americans are obese. excuse
me, are overweight, of which over 40 are obese.
So there's such a huge disconnect between this
high level of sport and the adoration of athletes.
And as you mentioned, just the general population
continuing to move and play. It doesn't have
to be, you know, winning. And I think this is
the negative side of this whole, you know, looking
down your nose at the whole participation trophy.
As I always tell people, what happens when you
finish a marathon? Or a tough mother? Did you
win? No. Do you get a trophy still? Yeah. There's
nothing wrong with being rewarded for putting
in the effort and getting cold and dirty and
tired. Right. You know, Bubz, I was actually
going to ask Bubz a question. Bubz, you know,
when we get into with a lot of the programs from
a fitness or performance perspective, I find
that we're able to get people to start. It's
the retention that it's always the challenge,
right? Can we stay? Can we build consistency
in it? And that's something that I experience
a lot, and I know James knows, even within the
first responder community, is that when you first
come into your career, when you first come into
your season, you're dealing with individuals
that are fit because they were motivated to do
so. They had to do so in order to acquire the
position, get on the team, get the job. But figuring
out ways to kind of maintain that consistency
and build... build that within the individual
the organization the team what have you found
because i know you've worked with so many professional
teams how do you do that from that standpoint
for as from what you do yeah i think this bleeds
into like working as a performance nutritionist
in elite sport and pro sport is one side of the
equation and the people that aren't professionals
those are already your gym lovers so we don't
necessarily even need to focus on them because
we know they're going to show up we know they're
going to train But on the clinical side, you
know, I work with the general population. And
this is where even going down to your note there,
James, on like the participation trophy. Yeah,
like for some kids, that might be the first big
pat on the back they ever get in their life that
they did something. So like, let's not take that
away from them. Let's continue to build some
progression so they can challenge themselves.
But I think this is one where the general population,
a lot of people don't like going to the gym necessarily.
So how do we connect physical capacity and physical
movement with other aspects of their life? you
know, the things that are important to them.
And this is sometimes, and I'm sure you guys
have covered this here, but, you know, really
trying to unpack your values or what's important
to you. You know, what is it that's important
to you in your life? And I think if we can start
connecting those dots with people of like, whether
it's your daily movement, whether it's conditioning,
whether it's building strength, whether it's
maintaining mobility, you know, let's connect
that to whether it's you wanting to work, you
know, long hours, or whether it's being with
your family or being able to age so that you
can pick up your grandkids without you know losing
an l4 l5 i mean this is where we got to figure
out what's important to people and then and try
to connect the dots there because i think and
this is maybe a little bit more in north america
too we really it becomes like a gym culture if
you got to go to the gym and get on the treadmill
or go on the stair master you know and it's like
hey dancing's pretty great modality right it's
a huge energy output there's a lot of uh proprioception
So it's just finding the things that connect
with people. And I think we haven't done a good
enough job of showing in schools. And years ago,
I actually taught in a school in France and there
was English kids, German kids and French kids.
And we would play soccer. And of course, all
the kids that were good at soccer played and
everybody else just, you know, huddled around
the middle of the field. And one of the days
I noticed the girls were great at doing their
cartwheels and gymnastics and stuff. So then
we had, you know, we did one of the days we did
a warm up and all the soccer kids were terrible
at doing that. And just flipping that. good equation
on them to say hey this is a skill set you need
and and this is a skill set that's important
really reframes things i think we can do that
with adults as well because you see with people
who are struggling with you know they might be
have important jobs but again the typical american
as you say james you know we're overweight blood
sugars are high blood pressure's high we're struggling
with sleep we're struggling with mood the environment
around us is all pulling everyone downstream
towards not feeling their best and we've got
a help them to swim upstream. Because if you
don't, if you don't actively do that, you're
going to get pulled in the direction of, you
know, feeling tired, feeling worse and not feeling
your best. It's interesting when I think about,
you know, acrobatics or dance and sports, I think
of Georges St -Pierre from Quebec, you know,
who was known to do ballet. And that was one
of the things he was so unorthodox, but he was
so good because he constantly trained different
modalities. excuse me, did a lot of the calisthenics,
you know, body weight stuff and, you know, but
ended up out wrestling the wrestlers and out
striking the strikers. And I think it was probably
because he wasn't just in that single silo. He
was allowing himself to explore other movement
modalities too. Yeah. And you can see it in some
of the kids when you see them. I worked with
Canada basketball, also director of nutrition
last 15 plus years. And when we get these younger
kids, 10, 11, 12, 13, and you can see all the
different ways that they can move and, You know,
we still do a good job, but I think in general,
when you get that specialization, as they come
out 18, 20, 21, they're not nearly as the movement
capacity can sometimes leave a little to be desired
in a sense that they can move really well on
the basketball court. But to your point, James,
like they don't have enough cross training or
movement and other modalities that helps to compliment
that. And I think that's a big part of the issues
with injuries. And for the rest of us in the
regular life, it's like sitting down all the
time or the things that we constantly do and
we don't do enough to. reverse that or to let
our brains know that we want to be able to move
these limbs in other capacities as well. Absolutely.
Well, Bubz, back to the school age then. When
you were thinking as far as career aspirations,
was it already the sports world or even the nutrition
world or was there something else in your mind?
Yeah, I mean, I got into the sports world and
then it was about health and... In medicine,
I got sick my last year of high school. I was
constantly run down and constantly sick. And
at that time, this is like, you know, mid to
late 90s, you know, typical athlete trying to
bulk up loads of milk, loads of breads, all that
kind of stuff. And at that time, for me, it was
just creating a lot of issues with my immune
system. You know, I was lactose intolerant. The
breads were creating a lot of struggles with...
phlegm etc and so you're just getting sick all
the time and you see this a lot in younger athletes
and so connected with a nutritionist they changed
my diet all of a sudden all that went away so
that really put it in my mind like wow this stuff
that we're eating and putting in our bodies actually
has a massive change you know rather than getting
up in the morning and just blowing your nose
and having all this congestion you wake up and
you feel you know zero congestion brain feels
good and you know at that time this was like
almost 30 years ago this was this was pretty
novel back then and so you know going to university
i thought i wanted to go down the medical route
nobody in those classes was doing exercise or
really cared about what they ate so it was sort
of like oh this is this is a little strange here
is this my this is my community here i'm not
really too sure which to me now is ironic because
obviously 30 years later it's great to see that
that exercise and nutrition is whatever doctor's
talking about because even as an intuition back
then you're like surely When they talk about
an athlete's heart rate is 50 or 40 and the typical
person's 90, I'm like, shouldn't we all be aiming
for a bit more athletic then? Why are we considering
normal to be 80 to 90? Now we can do better.
So I actually took a bunch of years off after
university. I went traveling. I worked abroad.
Traveled to Latin America. I worked in France
for a year. I just wanted to explore and see
the world and see how different people live.
And I think that helped shape a little bit of
my practice now because you just see it done
in so many different ways, so many different
cultures and countries, the way they move or
don't move, what they eat or don't eat, and all
the differences. Yet you have healthy individuals
from, you know, whether it's Central America
or France or all the way over to, you know, to
Indian Asia. And after that, I decided to go
into the nutrition side and the S &C side. And,
you know, the last 20 years, Plus been doing
that and fortunate enough to, to do it in sport.
And also, you know, again, with the general population,
which those wins oftentimes feel bigger than
the sport ones, because you really are making
a huge change in someone's life, right? Like
if they're struggling, those kinds of wins are,
you know, really hit home. When you mentioned
about bulking up, this is a kind of aha moment
that I've had. And bearing in mind, this is coming
from someone who's not a professional athlete,
but I had this mindset for a tactical athlete.
And so I did do strength and conditioning. I
did do a lot of gear training and then obviously
running the calls, having the fire. So it's not
like five, six hours a day if we're being realistic
in the fire service. So when you look at the
sporting community, that seems to be when we
were all young. that was where the nutritional
advice was coming from. And I feel just, you
know, listening to my body, that we were told
to eat way too many, you know, calories, way
too much protein, etc. And you became kind of
fixated on if you weren't, but bulking up air
quotes to be a bodybuilder is very different
than performing at a high level in a tactical
athletic profession, for example. So when you
reflect back to the early years where a lot of
the nutrition and strength conditioning advice
was coming from the world of bodybuilding. What
are some of the misunderstood or misinformation
from that kind of conversation that has kind
of being myth busted recently for the average
person? Yeah, I mean, you hit it on the head
where traditionally this, a lot of the nutrition
came right out of the bodybuilding space. And
so it became this thing of if you want to get
bigger or get leaner, we're going to eat loads
of meals in a day. We're going to all pre -prep
our food and carry it around in Tupperwares.
You know, we're going to consume a lot of protein.
And there's certainly a lot of great things that
have come out of what bodybuilders do in terms
of informing good practice. And then there are
elements that are, you know, not as impactful
for the typical person. Like, you know, we don't
need to – eating six meals a day is not going
to boost your metabolism, right? Like this is
something that's been disproven. When we're talking
about the rest of us who have kids at home or
busy jobs, or if you're working in tactical or
fire, how do we make it stick? How do we make
it practical? Being in practice over 20 years,
I've had clients, I've seen their kids, and now
their kids have kids. If you've had a client
for 20 years, you get a good handle on what they
can actually stick with. I think this is where
those core fundamentals of being patient and
putting things in place that people can actually
repeat. When we talk about protein, people now
today, we talk about these high -protein diets.
Much has changed in the research in the last
10 years. There's basically three good numbers.
1 .2 grams per kilogram is the lowest number
you should ever be at because that's the one
that's going to serve you to prevent age -related
sarcopenia, so losing muscle as you get older.
So we want your worst day to be more than that.
And I think if you go back to like the early
O's and whatnot, then that, you know. the rda
is 0 .8 and lots of people are still struggling
to get that right as you move up you know 1 .6
grams per kilo that becomes 0 .73 grams per pound
that's where most of the benefits are and so
you hear all this talk about a gram per pound
body weight the overwhelming majority of people
if they just get to that 1 .6 they're going to
get loads of benefit but it's much more repeatable
over time you know certainly if you have really
pronounced body composition goals you can go
up to a gram per pound if you struggle with cravings
and an appetite you know you can you can bump
that up but for me keeping people and these are
the first two things i try to automate because
there's not much in nutrition you can automate
is meal frequency and the protein intake you
can think of that like serving as the foundation
of the house because whether you want to get
bigger or or leaner all we need to do then is
turn the dials on the energy in the diet right
but if the challenge for a lot of shift workers
is that if the meals are irregular And the fueling
gets irregular, as in some meals have loads of
fuel and other meals have little fuel or you're
missing meals. That's a little tougher on the
brain and the nervous system in terms of, you
know, the body's going to kind of want more or
the cravings will be more pronounced. And of
course, when your sleep's interrupted and you
have these very, very long days or physical days,
that all connects. But certainly, yeah, protein's
a key pillar along with meal frequency. to how
you set this up. We don't need to go nearly as
high as the bodybuilders did back in the day,
but they were certainly onto something. And if
you can think your whole body is, if you're a
house, protein's the bricks, right? So it's not
just muscle, it's immunity, skin, hair, nails,
hormones, everything. So we definitely want to
make sure we're getting a sufficient amount.
I remember back in my sports science days, them
talking about there was only so much you could
absorb. So there's only so much to kind of intake
on a single meal. What's the science around that
these days? Yeah, we can absorb loads. I mean,
it doesn't make much sense from an evolutionary
perspective to think that we'd be looking for
food for, you know, days or weeks. And all of
a sudden you found something like, oh, you can
only absorb this much. Sorry, we wouldn't have
made it very long. And so there's. There's upper
plateaus in terms of the effect or benefit on
muscle protein synthesis, but then there's also
an effect on limiting muscle protein breakdown.
And so you can get to larger boluses and have
a benefit. I think from a practical perspective
in everybody's daily life, breakfast is the meal
of the day that we consume the least amount of
protein, right? Most people, even if you're having
three eggs in the morning, that's 18 grams of
protein. But the key amino acid here is leucine.
That's the one that triggers muscle protein synthesis.
And you can think of it more like a dimmer switch
than a light switch. So 1 .8 grams of leucine,
that key amino acid, isn't enough for a man to
be able to really maximize muscle protein synthesis.
And if you're bigger or you're older, you need
more as well. And so that's where having a supplement
or adding a fourth egg. Some people don't want
to do that for various reasons. But that's where
adding additional amino acids can be really beneficial.
right because it gets you it maximizes that effect
and that really sets you up for the day because
if you if you don't have a good first meal and
you know we can talk about fasting if you want
to go down that road but if you struggle with
with grabbing stuff on the go with a really high
sugar or quickly absorbed meal in that sense
big bolus of energy you're going to have these
real ups and downs of energy and that's tough
when you got to be on point a lot of the day
or if you're a shift worker and you just never
know when you're going to need to really be on
point because you get you know those lows can
be pretty low roll bringing you in for a second
again sure the kind of um multi -decade lens
that you have in this space as well what has
been the shift as far as your philosophies on
nutrition versus maybe what you believe when
you were young You know, it's interesting. We
talk about the standard all the time, James,
in a tactless space, right? What is the standard
of the department? What is the standard of the
station? What's the standard of the team? And
I find that a lot of people now are talking about
how the standard has been lowered, right? So
we've lowered the standard to make sure that
everybody can fit the bar. In order to raise
the standard, we talked about initially, even
before nutrition, is how do we get people to
engage in this whole fitness journey, right,
to stay fit? to stay fit, the retention of it.
It was really about finding that purpose. We
need to make sure guys started or went into,
became a firefighter, became a law enforcement
officer, went into the military for a reason.
They had a purpose for it. And that's how we
achieve the discipline that's required in order
to get that consistency. But I think lots of
times what happens is guys lose sight of it because
of injuries, because of aspects of their, of
the job and the training that kind of fall short.
And I think, We started to dissect and deconstruct
why that is. A lot of people would look, you
know, it's all about the training. Training is
one element of it. It's one pillar of it. But
predominantly, it was always about nutrition
and supplementation. The guys weren't eating
correctly. Of course, there's a variety of different
things that go into it because there's aspects
of sleep, aspects of recovery, et cetera. But
I'm finding a lot of the guys from nutrition,
you know, they were so much about protein. Everyone's
like protein, protein, protein. It's important.
But I think there were so many other supplements
and deficiencies that guys were finding in their
everyday nutritional plans that they're trying
to figure out how to supplement. And a lot of
within the tactical space, as you can speak on,
James, and we both know, we're always looking,
oh, this is a new supplement we can take. This
is a new thing we're going to take. So inevitably,
these guys are going to have like just a. kind
of a whole cabinet full of pills and they don't
know what to take. So it's kind of like, I tried
this, this worked for a while, falls off. I'll
try this, this falls off. Like they keep going
on and on. And so for me, it's now, you know,
we will talk, we'll start talking about ProBio,
which is a company that I came on board with,
with Bubz on, but trying to find ways to be more
efficient with the guys, because we have to be
realistic, whether it be with the training process,
whether it be with nutrition, we have to be realistic.
You know, you can't take a whole bowl full of
pills we can't guys can't train on the job for
two hours it's just impossible so how do we build
consistency so that's all about shorter consistent
workouts not so focused on intensity but getting
them moving again from a supplementation perspective
it's all about hey what's the right balance i'll
be hitting all the markers that we need and i
think bubs can talk more specifically about all
the things that are necessary and go into it
but that's what i gravitated toward you know,
things that we've created with Bubz and the ProBio
team is just exciting. I think it's the new way
to raise the standard within at least the tactical
space, military, law enforcement, and fire. When
you were talking about that, when I'm thinking
about some of my supplement routine, the danger
was an overlap because, you know, this one might
have, you know, the thing that you're taking
it for, but it might be some extra B vitamins.
And then I've got a nootropic that's got extra
B vitamins. And then I've got something else
that's got extra B vitamins. And all of a sudden
now you're bright yellow. It's so funny. It's
so funny, James. You know about it, too. It goes
into bro science, right? Bro science is like,
listen, man. I'm taking this multivitamin and
then I'm taking another one. And then there's
third one's supposed to be awesome. Now I'm taking
three multivitamins. They told me to take two
creatine, but I'm a big guy. So I'm going to
take six creatine serving. It's like bro science,
right? The bro science starts to build. And it's
always more is better. And I think what guys
don't understand is you just be efficient with
it. I find that that's why there's been so much
excitement about things like ProBio because it's
just like one scoop and you're good. Like, let's
move on with it. And you can sustain that because
what happens with even with my training and James,
you know, you've gone through it. We've gone
through it with all the guys. You know, at the
academy, they're gung -ho. They're like, bro,
bring it. Like, they'll train eight hours a day.
These young kids are coming out and trying to
get on the department. Five years in, now it's
like, oh, we got, you know, we'll do a couple
hours here and there. Dude, 10, 12, 15 years
in, bro, you're chasing these guys. It's like
they're running to the bathroom is pretty much
the cardio. So you're kind of like, bro, like,
let's figure out ways to get in very efficient,
smart, thoughtful ways to get these guys moving
specifically. So, I mean, even with the training
protocols that I've been kind of outlaying for
a lot of the departments, it's much more about
what do we focus on, you know, getting joint
stabilization, focusing on mobility. you know,
aspects, a lot of body weight movements to kind
of get these guys doing it on a daily basis because
they can't be smashed going right back onto a
call. You know, it's great. It's like these guys
think that for an athlete, you have practice,
you're preparing for a game. After the game,
you go home, you recover. These guys are on shifts,
you know, sometimes for four hours, four days.
four days in a row. And you can't be that sore.
So there's a lot of other aspects you have to
think about. But really, a lot of guys that are
recovering, they look into what's your supplement
protocol like? What's your nutrition like? What's
your sleep like? And so those are ways that I've
been focused on trying to kind of, you know,
to try to help and supplement and support in
every way I can. Well, Bubz, you talked about
fasting for a split second. Let's just kind of
open that because there are You know, there are
so many different philosophies now, so many different
trains of thought. Some camps believe that their
way is the only way that every human should eat,
which we're on a big round planet that's flying
through the universe. I'm pretty sure that's
not the case. So talk to me about fasting. And
then if you want to highlight pros and cons of
some of the most well -known eating philosophies
as well. Yeah, I mean, everything's a tool. Right.
And your job as a practitioner is to like a caddy
in golf. You know, you got 14 clubs in the bag.
All right. What shot do you have to hit? OK,
here are your options. Here's the one, two and
three. And I think the disservice that we've
done to the general public, especially with media,
is we're constantly chasing this new thing or
the pumping things up and then chasing that thing.
And then all of a sudden we find out, well, actually,
that wasn't as good as we thought. But check
out this new thing. And it always goes in the
same cycle. Right. And so if people can understand
a bit more of how to use the tools, it's great
because then they can block out the noise. You
know, expression we use is no time for noise,
right? You're busy. You got things to do. We
can't be bogged down with making all these decisions.
And when it comes to things like fasting can
be super effective. I mean, the original research,
which showed a lot of weight loss, didn't actually
do any DEXA scans for body composition. So afterwards
we realized they were losing a lot of muscle.
And so this is where, you know, the best approach
for an individual or a key take home might be
that you can still eat protein in the morning
and it doesn't interfere with any of the beneficial
effects of fasting. Or if you want to do more
of an intermittent fasting style where you start
eating at 11 or 12, you still try to hit your
daily dose for protein, right? So if you're having
three or four meals between 12 and four, getting
that 30 to 40 grams per meal. you know, trying
to hit that dose. So maybe it's a lunch and a
shake and a dinner is really beneficial. Now
you can do longer fasts. The challenge becomes
what you're being asked to do, like to what Raquel
was saying. Like if you're in a place where you're
going to always be doing really high outputs,
your daily outputs are high, your daily, you
know, need just the amount of steps you take
in a day are already high. It's really difficult
to do extended fasts and still be able to then
run up 30 flights of stairs when your glycogen
levels are depleted. And so one of the things
listeners can think about is that when you sleep
at night, your liver and your muscle have glycogen.
They have carbohydrate stores. And so when you
go to sleep at night, your liver basically drains
itself of all those carbohydrate stores. And
that's a signal for the brain then to upregulate
fat oxidation. So that's why if you train in
the morning, you're going to burn more. fat and
more what we call intramuscular fat right so
the fat in the muscle is going to get burned
more which if you're struggling with weight gain
is amazing right because that's a powerful influencer
to improve your insulin levels right and so for
that individual getting up in the morning and
doing some lifting in a fast state might be a
great option if i'm working with somebody who's
leaner and has really high outputs that same
strategy might not be a really good choice you
know and so i think The beauty of fasting is
it makes things simple, right? Don't eat anything,
you know, drink a coffee and your whole morning's
open, right? So it's easy to apply, which is
great because that's one of the things that goes
missed even in pro sport of like, people have
so many things to do in a day. You can't give
them a 48 point plan to how to go to bed, right?
It's like, it's not going to work. We need to
make things efficient, effective, you know, evidence
-based. And the nice part then is if you give
somebody, and this is what I learned, you know,
throughout my practice, going back 10 years is
like, if I can get someone to do something small
and they can see a really tangible benefit, especially
when we deal with things like weight loss or
blood sugars or blood pressure, where people
are kind of used to losing, right? Like they're
used to doing so much and struggling with very
little return on investment. If you can flip
that script and get them doing something small
and actually feeling a big benefit. all of a
sudden we get a lot more internal motivation,
right? You get the athlete or the client saying,
hey, what's next, you know? And that was one
of the big things of even just giving people
one thing to do or two things to do, right? Not
12 things to do because let them do it, do it
well, repeat it, and then we'll give you the
next piece. Hey, Bob, quick question for me.
You know, dealing with someone, I get this question
a lot. I think, James, you do as well. From general
population and athletes in general, You know,
you kind of like, hey, get to bed early, make
sure you're getting your eight hours of sleep,
nine hours of sleep, recover, wake up early,
do these things. And just specifically within
the fire community, it's so challenging to do
that when they're at the station because, you
know, their circadian rhythms are all disrupted.
They're like, hey, listen, I got, let me crash
out, rack out, get two hours here, wake up. You're
going to have to go without sleep. Then you back
up and sleep. So they're all over the place.
And we always talk about the hormone disruption.
But from a supplementation perspective, like
what should they be taking? Like a lot of guys
like prior to going to sleep, like they don't
want to take magnesium because they got to be
ready to like they're like, what is that going
to put me in a deeper sleep? I can't be in a
deep sleep when I'm on shift because then I got
to be up and be sharp and be ready to go. What
do you recommend from the standpoint of timing
for a lot of these guys when it comes to when
to take what supplements, what nutrients are
helpful to get sleep and maybe a short little
burst? Because that's more realistic for a lot
of the guys, because I think. James, you can
lean in on this too. A lot of the recommendations
that we get off of nutritional support are people
that work nine to five jobs, sleep at this time,
wake up at this time. So guys are like, that
doesn't help me. And inherently, when they don't
do it because they don't want deep sleep because
they go, I can't get deep sleep. I need restful
sleep. I need to be enough that I can then go
and do my job. So what do you recommend there,
brother? Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there.
I think the first thing is if you're doing night
shifts and then you're having to get up, you're
having to turn it around pretty quick in the
morning. We've got some pretty good data. This
comes out of the UK Bath University, where if
you had a really short night's sleep and then
you wake up in the morning and the first thing
you do is go for caffeine and coffee, you get
a really pronounced blood sugar response that
leads into all the way through the morning in
the middle of the day. So if you need to perform,
by all means, go for it. But if you had a really
short sleep, you're getting up in the morning
and you can kind of ease into your day a little
bit. I would try to delay that coffee to when
you're actually having a meal. So don't give
that jolt right away. If we come back to what
you're suggesting, which is maybe these little
naps in the day and how to be able to not be
too, you know, not wake up in the deeper part
of your sleep. Keeping the naps shorter is key,
right? Like 30 minutes. So just putting some
music on, put something over the eyes. You're
going to be getting into that alpha brainwave
activity, kind of recharging a little bit rather
than just being in that kind of stress go, go,
go mode. And from a nutrient standpoint, I mean,
this is magnesium. All the B vitamins play a
huge role, right? Like the higher your stress
levels, the more magnesium. Magnesium makes ATP.
That's the energy currency of the whole body,
right? And, you know, stress will do it. Caffeine,
alcohol will increase our needs, right? Deplete
levels. If you're smoking things like marijuana,
that'll also increase the demands. guys on medications
if you're on blood pressure meds or heartburn
meds then that increases demand so that's a key
one and then you know things like folate a b
vitamin really key for energy if you're not eating
your greens you know you're going to struggle
with having sufficient levels And B12 is key
as well, but typically guys need enough protein.
So you get B12 and all the animal protein, which
will get covered. And certainly there'll be,
you know, female firefighters listening and they're
much better on the greens front, but those are
key ones. And that's where making sure you're
getting those in and, you know, getting enough
carbohydrate, which we can almost come back to
your earlier comment about bodybuilders, James,
like now we've got data to show where the amount
of grams per kilogram that they take if they're
a regular bodybuilder versus the elite and the
best. you know three to five grams per kilo so
we just have a better understanding and so if
you are somebody that's you know fitter and leaner
sprinkling in those carbohydrates throughout
the day is gonna be pretty big to be able to
keep up your outputs but again that same strategy
for a guy that's got to lose 30 pounds and is
really struggling we might have we're gonna have
a different approach there because we want to
help that individual use more of their own fuel
right because even if you're 10 body fat like
you've got 30 000 calories of energy at that
leanness right so somebody who's got 25 body
fat they've got all the energy they need on them
we've just got to help them be better at using
it and that's when we can talk about the types
of exercise or how we might time nutrition or
reductions in carbohydrates all that good stuff
well is that also for is that also for gut health
as well bubs like you know because i think a
lot of the guys see one of the struggles as you
know james we again just leaning on james just
because of um you know our our relationship with
the fire community is guys go in and go, listen,
because of my sleep disruption, I haven't had
a chance to eat. It's, you know, I have sporadic
meals throughout the day. So then my gut health
is up. Like my, my stomach's upset. I'm not regular.
All these things are happening. Is there certain
like in what supplements are, are really helpful
to kind of help guys stay regular when they have
a high stress, high stress, high stress job with
not, you know, kind of regular sleep patterns,
that kind of a thing. Yeah, I think one of the
great things from a food perspective to start
with would be things like yogurt, right? We take
probiotics, but really they're much better taken
up and have a much better effect when they're
taken in from foods, right? So having yogurt,
fermented foods in the diet is massive, right?
If you're acutely sick, a probiotic helps with,
you know, duration, severity of illness, but
otherwise yogurt's great or kefir. From a supplement
standpoint, this is where prebiotics are a really
big win because the prebiotics is the food for
all the bacteria in your gut. Right. And so if
we can just like seeding a garden, if we can
get more prebiotics, which is typically coming
in from a lot of the indigestible fibers from
all the fruits and veggies that we all should
be eating, but sometimes, you know, don't get
enough of, or if you're in a really, you know,
in sport, we call it compressed schedule where
you get all these games with not a lot of rest
days. tactical or firefighting you guys are on
compressed schedules all the time right because
you're with these with these windows and so having
something that supports like a prebiotic is nice
because it helps on the just keeping you regular
front preventing bloating and discomfort it helps
on the immune front right so supporting immune
function to prevent colds and flus and then when
we talk about inflammation it helps to build
up things like butyrate these short chain fatty
acids in the gut that are doing all this nice
signaling and helping to keep us you know keep
our levels of inflammation down so That's a pretty
nice one -two combination of trying to get your
probiotics from your food and then that supplemental
prebiotic is a good place to start. Nice. Will
you mention... Hey, James. No, go for it. No,
I was just going to ask. We were talking about
fasting because I was joking. I was going to
say, do you fast, James? It's weird. I've always
been very in tune with my body. There's mornings
where I'm just craving for... toast first thing
and there's times where i'll go do a workout
in the morning and then come back and eat and
so it's very kind of intuitive but it's not so
much fasting and i'd be curious to get your perspective
on this because i've never really heard anyone
discuss it my philosophy is less about, well,
let me not ingest any carbs and let me try and
stay in ketosis, but more about, well, let me
just not put anything that my digestive system
has to really process. So if I have a cup of
coffee, if I had a shake, whatever it is, it's
still in the liquid form. So what is your stance
on that? Because, I mean, when we think of fasting,
we're thinking about ketosis specifically and
not ingesting any carbohydrates. What if someone
has fluids? you know as the first thing in the
morning and then delays the the time before they
put an actual um solid food in their stomach
does that that have an impact at all yeah it's
great question this is where you get back to
really trying to reinforce physiology of things
to help people understand and i think one of
the best aha moments people can have when they
fast is how well or not well they deal with it
right because again if you just slept all night
we talked about that liver glycogen all the carb
stores in your liver are now down to zero you
get up in the day you're moving around so you're
using all the carbohydrate stores in your muscles
but eventually at some point in the day you're
going to burn through all those and so that that
gas tank is down now too and so your body then
needs to upregulate fat oxidation and that's
like flipping a switch again in the body to be
able to do that efficiently and if you're somebody
who struggles on either side you could be somebody
who's overweight you know high blood sugars etc
you know central adiposity belly fat right and
then you might really struggle with blood sugar
ups and downs because the body is just not really
good at doing that right and so that person might
not want to do such a big fast to start with
because it's it's a bit like getting them under
the bar for a 400 pound deadlift right off the
jump when it's like okay let's let's build them
up a little bit here um so there's that side
of it for the really fit people they might be
so used to eating five six meals a day that they
become so good at processing carbohydrate that
they do start to sacrifice a bit on the fat oxidation
side of being able to just use their own fuel
reserve. So I think it's a good, you know, it's
a great tool to use for real athletes or people
that are really having to physically perform
in the moment. It's probably better to do in
like the off season or a different part or a
low demand part of your week or month. But I
like that idea, you know, being able to just
put liquids in is nice. It does give the digestive
system a rest, which, you know, these days we're
putting in so much ultra -processed food that
that's probably a good thing. The body can help
repair and heal. And if you're someone that notices
a lot of joint issues or a lot of congestion,
this is a really big one because we start to
ask people, and I get them off and do this just
until lunchtime, don't eat anything, right? They
have lots of congestion. You know, they're constantly
clearing their throat. They have a lot of, do
wake up with joint pain. You get them not to
eat anything until noon or three, and all of
a sudden, you know, clear as a bell, no congestion,
or the joints start to feel better. You know,
that's a subjective way of telling us, hey, there's
things that are going into the system, right?
There's things that you're eating that are causing
these reactions, and we've got to start to do
some detective work to figure out what those
things are. We used to think we could run tests
for this, like things like food sensitivity tests
and that, but those don't work. So you've got
to just do the detective work. And like you said,
James, it's where people have, it's great when
you can empower people and they start to be able
to feel it for themselves because they say, when
I do X, I can feel better, whether it's energy
or joints. Tricky part with fasting is that we
can't, you've got to just find the balance. You
can get too much of a good thing, right? If we
just keep, you know, not eating through the week,
then all of a sudden we're going to get in some
problems with, you know. Bubs, do you fast? Do
you fast, Bubs? I've done lots of different kinds
of fasting. these days with kids i mean the mornings
i'm a bit like you james like some of the mornings
i'll just get up have a coffee and you know i
don't even decide to fast just life gets in the
way and next thing you know it's lunch um i'll
try to keep you know the protein intake maybe
have a shake or whatnot in the morning to be
able to keep that up but uh yeah i think that's
one if anybody's locked into one way or the other
anybody who's really like oh i can only do this
and i can't do that that's not ideal because
you're likely leaving some wins you know some
gains on the table there because your body's
just too too dialed into one way of you know
oxidizing processing energy You guys are weapons,
man. I try to fasting. My fasting is in between
meals. That's my fast. That's actually the best
way. I fast in between breakfast and lunch, in
between lunch and dinner. That's my fasting process.
That's a great knowledge bomb because for most
people, when I talk to them, that's like, this
is how about we start with not snacking between
every meal, you know, rather than going from
zero to a hundred. It's like, let's just go to
old school, like our parents, grandparents, right?
Three square meals. dude i love james how much
do you weigh now bro um i because you're a weapon
no i i'm still one like 176 now so i was 168
the whole time i was a firefighter which i would
argue was a little bit underweight for six foot
tall but then i um when i got off shift and was
sleeping then i actually did a cycle of peptides
um with a transcend went on them for a bit, came
off them. And it just added like about 10 pounds
more of body weight over, you know, still training
and everything. And then a bit came down again,
but it kind of leveled me out at about one 75,
which I feel is just a slightly healthier weight
now. So I did sleep and nutrition and all those
things. But after 14 years of not sleeping, I'm
like, I bet you there's, there's a deficit. So,
and then also trying to self experiment because
you've got all these first responders. I mean,
if you ask them, their testosterone is in the
toilet. And then what happens is they get, oh,
well, you need TRT then. Well, no, you don't.
You're 28 years old. You need, ideally, sleep,
nutrition, strength training. But if you can't
get those, I mean, one of my Anaheim friends
messaged me the other day. He's just finishing
up 120 -hour shift, five days straight. So clearly,
he's not going to be getting any rest and recovery.
So that's the group, I think, where the peptides
can help. But I wanted to show that you can come
off them too. Use it for a bit as a little bit
of a boost, but then don't rely on it. Don't
rely on blood pressure meds. Don't rely on anything.
The body should be amazing and taking care of
itself. But long answer to your question. But
yeah, at 51, I'm still about 176 now. Bubs, what
about you? What do you weigh? 182. 180, 182.
Oh, you weapons, dude. I think combined, you
guys are what I am. You're a completely different
body shape now. It's like looking at my two thighs.
I'm like, hey, what's up, guys? I can't back
crawl for miles either, though. So there we go.
Dude, I don't know, bro. It's like ridiculous.
It's every time you go on the scale. I was there.
I was training with my son, my older son. And
I got on the scale. And it's pretty bad when
he looks down and he goes, whoa. Come on now.
He's like, Dad, maybe you got new batteries?
You may put new batteries in there. Maybe, like,
check out the batteries. Get your foot off the
scale, son. I was like, get away, get away. He's
like, dude, I'm five feet away, Dad. Never mind,
you're too close to me. It's your aura. Well,
speaking of that, that's a good kind of segue,
just quickly. I had a really interesting conversation
with James, I'm blanking on his last name, it
just fell out my head, mixed martial arts fighter,
made the Game Changers plant -based documentary.
James Wilkes, thank you. James, yeah, I love
Wilkes. And it was a great conversation, but
when you speak to some of these guys, they're
like all in that camp, and then he was on Joe
Rogan, and they had people tearing apart his
documentary, and they're all kind of from a carnivore
point of view. And I just remember listening
going, this was six hours between the two conversations
they talked about this. And it's like, but rather
than saying my way is the best, why are you not
looking at where the lines overlap? And the lines
overlap in carnivore and keto and paleo and all
these other ones with removing crappy processed
food from your diet. That's really the common
denominator. So talk to me about that. Regardless
of the eating philosophy, because I would argue
that an Aboriginal from Australia and an Inuit
would probably have different dietary habits.
Finding whatever seems to align with you, but
really focusing on the common denominator of
removing the ultra processed foods that we're
just saturated with in Western society. Yeah,
I think there's a couple of things there. One
of them. despite the fact that there's more kind
of researchers and practitioners on social media,
there's still not nearly enough, right? So real
experts wouldn't pit one diet versus another.
They know they're all tools. And the principles,
if you zoom up to 30 ,000 feet, we get back to
that notion of like, well, how many grams is
it per kilo per pound for that person? You can
pick how you want to do it. Carbohydrates, how
many grams per pound or grams per kilo? You can
pick if you want to go this way or that way,
you know, paleo or vegan. And I think that's
where... Like you say, there's so many commonalities
between the diets that if we can help people
do that, that's a big first step. And then like
you say, for most people, ultra -processed food
is a big problem because it's over half the household
spending in the UK, Canada, and the US is on
ultra -processed food. I'm over here in the UK.
If I get on a train for an hour and a half, I
get into France, that drops to 13%. If you go
around the Mediterranean, it's like 10%, 15 %
in Spain and Italy and Greece and all these places.
And so this whole Mediterranean diet, we're trying
to blame it all on the olive oil. The fact that
they consume so much fewer energy, calories,
right? It's because they're eating more real
food than we are. Now, that's starting to change
a little bit because the processed food machine
is starting to infiltrate all different areas.
But that's a huge one. And I think this is where,
for me, when I work with clients, it's always
like start of the day, end of the day. really
try to do well at the start of the day and the
end of the day. I don't care so much about what
happens in the middle, right? Most, two -thirds
of people now eat what we call late eating after
6 .30 at night, right? The later we eat, like
8 p .m. dinners, the more likely it's going to
be ultra -processed, the more likely it's going
to be prepackaged, the more likely there's going
to be alcohol, candy, sugars, right? So we're
backloading just a load of fuel, which... for
a tactical or firefighter there might be elements
of that that we can actually work with depending
on when you've got to perform but as a general
rule that's not ideal because it's going to mess
up with your sleep right you're going to wake
up the next morning have a much more pronounced
blood sugar response to your same breakfast you
normally have so how can we get back to eating
you know more real food is a big one and that's
a common ground between like you say whether
it's vegan or paleo they both agree on the generally
on the fruits and vegetables aspect of it and
i think just helping people with the first and
last meals of the day because if you kind of
mess up breakfast or if you're not intending
to fast and you end up fasting and then you're
struggling and you're reaching for bars and snacks
and you're constantly you know using the food
to keep your blood sugars going that's not ideal
and if you get home and you're starving because
you haven't eaten all day and you're just backloading
a huge meal that's tough to to be consistent
with so yeah i think they're You know, it's a
challenge. They don't all have to be bad. I mean,
certain ultra processed foods, like they're different
degrees of this. And so if you're getting like
canned sardines and things like that, then that
can be beneficial, obviously. So there's ways
of working around it that you can buy things
that are shelf stable at home that you can kind
of lean on. Frozen vegetables are great. Frozen
fruits, right? They often have more nutrients
than the fresh ones because they're frozen right
after they're picked. So those are awesome to
keep in your freezer. And then things, just nutrients.
that are key for for overall health like then
this isn't food but you know sunshine vitamin
d right as you get into the winter months as
that goes down it's a big problem for recovery
it's a big problem for inflammation it's a big
problem for immunity and it's one of the few
micronutrients now that we really have good data
on where you want to be you know like greater
than 20 is considered normal but for all the
benefits around recovery right satellite cell
activation these types of things we want to be
higher than 36 so we do want to have To your
point, Rob, what's the standard? The standard
should be the standard. For things like vitamin
D, we want that 36. For immune function, we'd
even bump it all the way up to 40. That's where
getting 2 ,000 IU for most people through the
winter months is massive. It has a huge impact,
especially if you're somewhere with a real winter
climate. Like you were saying before, Rob, a
lot of these strategies can be quite simple.
It's like we have the knowledge, but then when
you go to actually applying it or you review
it with somebody, it's like, That's where the
hard part is, right? Finding how to apply it
for that each individual person so it sticks
for them and resonates. Because, you know, one
of the things, too, is not that we always talk
about gut health. We talk about, you know, immunity.
We talk about sleep, et cetera. But some of the
guys, too, is even things from the standpoint
of vision. Like, you know, as we're getting old,
myself, as you can tell, we need some help with
the vision. Our contacts. I got contacts. Double.
Just double. Just double it up. But I was just
curious because a lot of the guys and women have
asked me within tactical athletes space in relationship
to other supplements that they can take that
will help with vision. Are there things that
they could tell with visual acuity, with cognitive
function? What are some of the supplements and
nutrients that you'd recommend for those? This
is a really cool space in the last decade or
so. There's a couple of – key carotenoids so
these are pigments that you get in orange and
yellow and red colored veggies so like your bell
peppers things like corn lutein and zeaxanthin
in the back part of your eye it's called the
macula that's where these things are concentrated
and that's a huge effect on you know your vision
visual acuity things like glare contrast sensitivity
so getting those in your diet is key and then
also the research on supplements for those two
carotenoids is really impressive right so This
comes from, I believe it's in Mexico where these
marigold flowers are really highly concentrated
in these two carotenoids. And so they've patented
these and you can, you know, from a supplement
form, tremendous in terms of supporting the eye.
And so, you know, as you're getting towards,
I'm in my mid forties, you know, you start to
notice you got to take the glasses off to see
the screen and then put them back on and everything.
You know, this is the time when it definitely
is beneficial. It's one of the reasons why we
put it in the Problend. And, you know, for younger
athletes, even as well, it's helpful for, When
we look at baseball players, football, anybody
performing under the lights, just all that type
of stuff. Or now that we're in front of screens,
you know, really great way to make sure you're,
you know, you're getting what you need. I want
to. So do those nutrients. So those nutrients
kind of, I'm just, this is important for me,
James. I can't see anything, dude. So we talk
about above all the time. So is it going to slow
the process down? Bob's am I, am I are pretty
soon. I'll have these. He kept getting thicker
and thicker. So I'm just wondering here. Whatever
he's going to do, I will go on an IV of this
stuff if I need to. Otherwise, it's ridiculous.
It will certainly help to slow or delay a macular
degeneration, but I can't say it's going to give
you restored vision. Oh, come on, bubs. Unfortunately,
that's too far. Maintain, though. Maintain. Forget
it, bubs. The good news is, Rob, my wife just
finished optometry school, so you can come see
her and she can give you those thick -ass glasses.
I'm going to have her do the basic right in your
living room. Let's go, dude. Well, I want to
take a dive into ProBio, origin story and all
things that we'll find in it. But just before
we do, you kind of open the door to one of the
most important topics in longevity in the first
responder space. And that is simply sleep. As
I alluded to, you know, the schedule at Anaheim,
you know, especially when they have strike teams
that go out, the understaffing there. And I'm
trying to kind of. spearhead a movement to get
our first responders more rest and recovery between
their shifts. But sleep deprivation, excuse me,
sleep deprivation is massive. And I think from
not just a chronic disease perspective, but also
a performance, there's a lot of passionate firefighters
and police officers and dispatchers and paramedics
that really want to be at the top of their game
when someone calls us for their worst day. You
come from a background of coaching so many high,
high level athletes in the professional sports
space and Olympic teams. Talk to me about the
importance of sleep and performance in the sporting
side. And what have you seen as far as a disconnect
on the tactical athlete side? Yeah, I mean, it's
fascinating stuff going back to like the late
0s, 2010s. Dr. Sherry Ma is a sleep expert at
Stanford. She's doing work on collegiate athletes
and trying to see what... extending their sleep
adding more sleep would do to their cognitive
function to all these college athletes they start
all rolling in saying i just had a personal best
in the pool i just scored 35 points i just did
my personal best lift in the gym and so that
all that feedback from these athletes even though
their research originally started on the cognitive
side which we know extending sleep or getting
enough sleep's got massive benefits this is what
kicked off the research into the physical side
like wow if we can extend sleep you know you're
starting to see Better accuracy with three -point
shots in the basketball players, serving accuracy
in tennis players, sprint times. I mean, just
across the board. And that kicked off an era.
Roger Federer was one of the earlier adopters.
Apparently, it was such a big benefit for him.
He was not telling any of his competitors that
he was getting more sleep. He kept that one to
himself for a while, which is a good strategy,
I guess. But as you mentioned, James, if you're...
you know, firefighter, if you're working shift
work, that's just real tough, right? Because
you're going to be not getting that extended
amount, that extended sleep in one shot that
others are getting. And so being cognizant of
that and really trying to, you know, think of
your sleep time as like a weekly total rather
than even just a nightly total. And where can
you add these naps in the day to kind of, to
be able to get to a weekly total that you're
after or to get closer to that daily total? is
is massive as it trickles into the nutrition
side it's mainly a lot of these kind of cravings
and these types of things that really kick up
when you're not sleeping right like chasing caffeine
you're gonna crave sugar way more and then this
starts to put you in a real kind of up and down
roller coaster for for blood sugars and energy
so that's an easier you know easier said than
done thing of like okay we gotta try to find
some strategies that you're bringing in as part
of your nutrition or that maybe we have at the
fire hall that are going to help you out whether
it's you know snacking on fruit to start with,
whether it's to having some protein sources,
whether it's having a shake, things that just
help to take the edge off when you're coming
out of this nap and you're having to get ready
to perform. To your point, Rob, like caffeine
is a nice way to give a little bump. I think
we don't need to have as big a bolus as maybe
sometimes, you know, the, one of the funny things
of coming back from the UK now that I'm based
here over to, you know, the US or Canada, it's
just the size of the coffees, right? It's like.
you know how many 700 milligrams in that dude
it's always bigger is better bro cardiac arrest
oh my god dude so i think some of the you know
having the shorter sharper amounts could be helpful
for for guys and even if you know in some sports
we have supplemental caffeine because then we
know exactly what the dose is right like depending
on the day you go to starbucks the amount of
caffeine in that coffee can vary you know pretty
marked pretty widely from one day to the next
so that can be a strategy maybe sticking to more
of an espresso versus a you know a venti with
500 milligrams of caffeine is a good way so you
have like smaller doses to give you that little
lift and then you won't have as big a crash in
the back end but it's certainly uh it's one you
gotta always keep your head on a swivel so to
speak for because it's it'll it'll pull as you
guys know i mean it just it taxes everything
then right recovery how you think your ability
to perform um yeah it's a challenge yeah i think
i mean when you said the the total hours of sleep
a week this this kind of again illustrates the
point obviously the more hours that you've got
the higher you're going to perform at the moment
we have you know basically most first responders
working 56 hours a week Putting an extra 24 hours
in between shifts would make it a 42 hour week.
So, you know, you would have that. And then,
as I know that, you know, we were talking, I
think when we did the chat before, there's a
massive recruitment crisis because young people
are looking at this woeful mandatory overtime
and they're not wanting to do it. So now a 56
hour week becomes an 80 hour week because you're
told you can't go home. So you think about that,
the people that you call on your child's biggest,
you know, nightmare and that paramedic trying
to do the crike on their throat. hasn't slept
for two, three, four days. It's insanity. So
from a performance point of view, yeah, it is.
So, you know, from a performance point of view,
most so many of us to take it seriously, if we
fight for this healthier work week, it will make
us better firefighters, better police officers,
better paramedics. And I think that's so, so
important because as people always put us side
by side, oh, this person throws a ball into a
hole and they get millions. We don't want to
be millionaires, but I think asking for an environment
that at least um you know and allows health and
performance at the same time i don't think that's
an unfair ask from from the country i really
don't especially when the strategy is free you
know it's like just let them sleep it's insane
absolutely all right well then let's get to pro
bio then you have this background as i mentioned
you know with this uh you know decades of working
with high level performers you're now obviously
working with the tactical space as well what
made you design this specific product and then
talk to me about all the different nutrients
that are in it yeah i mean from a professional
side in sport you know years and years and years
of chasing athletes down hallways with pill packs
only to find them stuff between the seats in
the plane or the equipment guy coming out and
saying his shorts turned orange because he didn't
take them And then on the clinical side in my
practice, coming in and guys and gals bringing
out their paper bag and one, two, three, four,
five, six bottles of pills that they're taking.
They can't really remember what they're taking
it for. They're not very consistent with it.
And hey, we all have that cabinet at home, right?
We open it up and it's just a load of bottles
of stuff. And so you think nutrition is all about
consistency, just like any type of. training
or becoming expert in any domain right we got
to be consistent and that's one of the things
with nutrition you know on the micronutrition
side helping people to be more consistent can
we put it in a form factor that's easier to do
you know most people when they get up in the
morning hopefully they have a glass of water
right so they're already doing performing a habit
that's repeatable and so being able to put the
micronutrition into that glass and we see it
more now with these what we call all -in -ones
traditionally though they're not built for purpose
as in the sort of reverse engineer where we're
looking for marketing claims we're looking for
buzzwords we're using proprietary blends right
we're not really solving for a problem at the
coalface or that we're seeing in practice and
so when we put together the problem that's what
we wanted to do you know 20 years of looking
at biomarkers your vitamin d's your magnesiums
your b12s your fluids what's been out of whack
let's make sure we have sufficient levels there
we talked about protein in the morning let's
make sure we put an extra gram of leucine so
we can bump up your intake in the morning so
it's like you're getting an extra you know 10
grams of protein at breakfast we know the gut
gets impacted from stress and busy days and all
the rest of it so providing support there and
so this notion of being able to provide all the
elements that the typical person's going to need
to be able to be more resilient show up every
day so they can you know as an athlete train
and recover and ultimately be ready to perform
their best on game day but you know for the rest
of us just trying to be able to perform you know
we call it life load right like just be able
to perform day to day with with the workload
obviously tactical fire is massive but then you
add the family or the kids at home and all the
rest of it you know it's a lot and you know being
efficient with it and then also being able to
put just the best in class ingredients in you
know we didn't want to build anything if we weren't
going to actually make a difference and i think
that's where oftentimes and i think you alluded
to in our prior chat there like there's a lot
of sizzle and not a lot of steak so to speak
in the supplement space you know it's just a
lot of dressing and we want to actually put something
together that actually makes an impact. So that
was, that was, you know, the origin story. One
of the co -founders, Paul Winsper is also long
time in pro sport. And so, you know, the two
of us got together and built out a great team
and we're New York city marathon, just, just
coming by here. We're going to be, we're going
to be launching to consumers. So excited past
champion, Sharon Locchetti, you know, again,
we tested this out with actual elite athletes.
She set the record for Boston marathon. you know
she was taking it for 18 months before we were
going to to consumer here and to our conversations
about some of these biomarkers and things to
keep on point you know like for her it was a
solution for that like it solved a lot of issues
you know she had better energy and so as a practitioner
it's like okay we're you know the thesis is holding
holding strong we're actually impacting people
so you know it's been fun and it's been great
to have uh to rock on board as well to be able
to give us his insights on the on the tactical
side and how it's impacting him as well Rogue,
what are you seeing from our world as far as
the application and efficacy? Well, I think like
we talked about today, we had over the course
of our conversation, we talked about all the
elements that need to be addressed, gut health,
sleep, you know, vision, cognitive function,
et cetera. But it's always been a challenge.
Every time I'm training guys or working with
different departments or stations, guys are saying,
what should I take? These are my issues. What
should I do? And so you can always make recommendations.
They'll say, well, I heard about this is good.
This is good. And just like Bubz was saying,
there were so many things that guys were taking.
They don't know how much they should take. They
don't know when they should take it. And there's
just a myriad of different issues. So when I
got introduced, I know Paul Winsper well and,
you know, Bubz and just an A -list team of guys.
And that's why the ProBlend got created. So when
I started to really dissect it and look at it,
there's so many applications for tactical athletes.
specifically for fire um of course law enforcement
military as well but just because all the challenges
inherently with uh you know um the long shifts
the sleep patterns uh disruption of circadian
rhythms stress etc and all the issues they face
it's just like one scoop a day so you know i've
been taking it now for quite a while and i love
it you know it's easy it's really just we have
to make it We have to make it doable in a sense
of, otherwise you're never going to build consistency.
And we talk about consistency is the key, right?
Intensity is always something everyone focuses
on. Train harder, take more stuff, take more
of it. We talked about the coffee, caffeine bumps
and things. You know, if an espresso is good,
you know, like 10 espressos are better than one
espresso. I mean, it just keeps going up. So
guys are sometimes over -supplementing a lot
of different things because they just don't know.
They just want to cover all their bases. When
you have a bunch of experts and guys that are
best in their field come together and create
this A -list team, this varsity squad, if you
will, and put together this single one scoop.
I started taking it. I loved it. I don't kind
of stand behind anything I don't believe. So
that and then I've seen all the guys that have
been taking it around me. They absolutely love
it. So I'm excited. Hopefully we talked about
that standard again. This can raise the standard
of nutrition and supplementation and really make
an impact and a difference. And that's really
why we're all doing this. Bubz, what about purity
and efficacy? You know, as we mentioned, the
supplement world can be a very, very dirty world.
I mean, I remember Jeff Nichols talking about
one protein company and they were actually putting
anabolic steroids in the powder for, I think
it was a couple of months. And they knew that
by the time they would start testing it, then
they pulled it out. So all these guys were getting
these amazing gains and then wondering why they
stopped down the road. You know, we also know
that you can order, you know. powder from China
or whatever, just put a label in your garage
and there's no real oversight. So for people
listening, as far as the safety and the efficacy,
you know, what steps have you taken to set yourself
aside from that other world? Yeah, I mean, anyone
can get into the supplement space, which is why
you see this is still a little bit of the Wild
West. But now we've got tests like NSF testing.
So this is if you're in a sport, work at the
Olympic sports or professional sports, you know,
you've got this stamp of approval. this process
where you're getting everything tested in the
batch, right? You're testing to make sure that
everything that's what's on the label is actually
in the product, that there's no, you know, other
things added to the product. Oftentimes companies
will want to add double the caffeine to their
pre -workouts, you know, some of that ridiculousness.
So this type of testing ensures all of that.
And then it also tests for things like heavy
metals and all these other contaminants that
could possibly be in, which we just recently
saw consumer reports with some of the protein
blends showing higher levels of things like lead.
Being able to see those stamps of approval is
massive, right? And I think now you see some
companies trying to skirt their way around that
by showing you where the product comes from on
their website, making it sort of look pretty,
but it's actually, that doesn't prove anything,
right? Unless you have that stamp on the product
itself at NSF, or if you're in the rest of the
world at FormSport, then you really can't be
confident that what's in there is what it says,
and also that it doesn't contain any of these
contaminants. If you're going to all that trouble
to pay for something to feel better, it's the
least we can do is to make sure it's of the highest
quality and you're getting what it says on the
tin. Well, I think what sounds different to me,
and I know you guys have sent me something that
hasn't arrived yet, so I'm excited to try it.
But when I think of guys and girls that will
take some sort of shake with them on the rescue,
on the engine, in the squad car, whatever it
is. Usually it's going to be just protein or
maybe just creatine. So to have a complete kind
of nutritional profile in the same kind of shake,
again, not sounding too salesy, but I'm just,
you know, again, everyone that comes on the show,
it's something that I believe in too. You know,
to have a meal rather than a sporting supplement
that. Sounds like it's got a lot more bang for
its buck because we're not known for being extremely
well paid. So if you're going to spend money
on supplementation, to have that vast spectrum
of macro and micronutrients versus just protein,
for example, it seems like bang for your buck.
It seems like there's a lot more value as well
than if, as we mentioned before, all the singular
supplements that are lining up on our shelves.
Yeah, I mean, definitely. And we see this in
military. You know, like you said, you've got
the protein and the carbohydrates and the calories,
which is great. But when you're going, you know,
abroad, on site, adding in the micronutrition,
or if you're tactical or fire, being able to
complement the protein shake with the micronutrition.
Yeah, it's massive. It turns it into a proper
meal. And to your point, like, yeah, it's still
a premium product. We obviously offer discounts
for military for fire. But one of the ways as
well, even when I work with clients is like,
hey, if we're taking this. Monday to Friday,
or if we're taking this during the busy periods
when we're at work, we're going to have a massive
impact. You're much better off to take something
that's going to have signal, right? It's going
to have an effect than taking all these things
that are, you know, you might as well be not
taking anything because it's just not going to
have, you know, enough of an impact. And that's
the thing too, James, that we're talking about.
I mean, in the tactical community with first
responders. Cost is always a major issue, right?
What is the cost and how much is investments
required in it? And I think that was the other
thing is that taking all those pills, that's
a lot of money. And when I talked to Paul Winsper
initially, Bubz's partner, and he was saying,
listen, let's figure out a way we can get all
these nutrients to the guys and to the first
responders or athletes without breaking their
wallet. And that was another thing I loved, right?
So it's a way to kind of... mitigate some of
that cost that would be required to kind of hit
all those pillars, but still get the highest
level of efficacy across the board. Brilliant.
I got one more area, then we'll round off this
conversation. But I know, Bubsy, you wrote one
of your two books was Peak 40. So kind of looking
at the older athlete and first responder professions,
I got so much admiration for the old men and
the young man's occupation, as they say. So talk
to me about the kind of philosophies that you
have in the older athlete or tactical athlete.
Yeah, well, I mean, my first book was called
Peak and this was a deep dive into performance
and it was like a 13 and a half hour listen on
Audible. So I had a lot of the coaches coming
up to me saying, you know, Bubz, I like it, but
you know, what do I need? Like, give me the condensed
version of this. So Peak 40 came out of that,
you know, it's about three and a half hours on
Audible. So it's a little bit of a shorter listen.
And again, it's about setting up a system for
people. So we talked about it before with this
idea of like, let's get your morning right. You
know, step one, if we get your morning right,
you can repeat that. All of a sudden, you don't
have to think about that anymore. And you've
a third of your day is now taken care of. Right.
We talk about the top of the tail of the day,
you know, master your morning. I call it an own
your night. Like if we can do well there, the
middle of the day matters much less. And so the
book is just really a straightforward way of
applying a lot of the principles so that you
can, you know, get to where you want to go without
having to make it a full time job. Right. There's
this famous quote from. I think it was a golfer,
Byron Nelson. And he's like, the best golfers
are either thinking a lot about everything or,
you know, they have a very short list, you know?
And he said, if you're somewhere in between,
you're really going to struggle. So it's like,
how do we make, how do we automate things? How
do we make it easier for people? And if we can
automate your decisions, then all of a sudden
you can get through your days and you're just
making the right choices by reflex. You know,
like you sit in your car, you don't think about
putting your seatbelt on. You've just done it
so many times. It's just automatic. And so that's
peak 40 is really all about that, trying to help
simplify things for folks. And, you know, again,
it's just one of those things like nothing's
changed in the research and protein in the last
10 years. But if you go online, you'd think they're
having this raging debate on what's the right
amount, right? And so trying to provide a bit
of signal amongst all the noise is the aim. But
as one of the scientists once said, it's like
a fart in a hurricane, but we'll keep trying.
what about nutritionally what what does physiologically
decline as we age that we need to be aware of
as we progress through you know life yeah i mean
we become more anabolically resistant so we actually
need more protein as we go 50s and 60s and beyond
right um which is key so getting at least that
1 .2 grams per kilo as your absolute worst day
is a big one you know making sure we're getting
in what we call polyphenols. These are these
forms of antioxidants that are found in fruits
and veggies. Actually, coffee and tea is half
your intake is right there. So if you're a big
coffee drinker, maybe you switch over to decaf,
you get all the benefits of the polyphenols without
the caffeine. Even for our beer drinkers out
there, 2018 German national team, how did they
rehydrate the guys in the bobsleigh? Non -alcoholic
beer, right? You get all the polyphenols, it
hydrates faster than water. Right. And then when
they asked the doctor why that over water, he
says, because I can get them to drink a shitload
of it. Right. And so he said it in German. So
even then, like this idea around, you know, alcohol
might hit you a bit harder as you get older.
So whether it's adding a non -alcoholic beer
here and there to help take the edge off, rehydrate
a little bit so it doesn't interfere with the
sleep. You know, these are some of the key ways.
And from a training front, I mean, you guys do
all the tactical work, but just being more efficient
with what you're doing. you know it's like you've
got all this years of maybe training age behind
you we don't need to be pushing all the way up
to that you know maximum recoverable volume we
can be more efficient with what we're doing and
as you probably see roll good i know with all
your work like just getting people to move a
little bit better because the the back pain the
shoulder stiffness like the injuries become the
real limiting factor of getting people to actually
move because they're like oh i tried that but
now i'm injured three weeks in like oh shit okay
Dude, that's what it is, bubs. You know, James,
too. It's like two steps forward. One step forward,
two steps back. So guys, what happens is they're
like, it's not worth it. You'll hear that all
the time. That's not worth it. Because they want
to train hard, but they're like, there's a risk
I'm going to get hurt and screw that. I don't
want that. So that's the whole issue. Then they
just don't train to begin with. And I think that's
where we have to, you know, kind of, again, change
the paradigm a bit. And where guys are looking
at it from the perspective of, let's do enough.
Let's move every day. Let's stay consistent.
I think volume over time is really my focus rather
than just intensity sporadically. So that's kind
of my mantra as of late. Well, it's interesting
because, I mean, if you talk, I've had Dr. Stuart
McGill on the show, for example, talking about
the back injuries. And when I told him about
the shifts, he's like, well, it's not if you're
going to get hurt, it's when you're going to
get hurt. Because as you know, when we do train
and we take our job seriously. It's when we sleep
is when we heal, when we, you know, are reinforcing
the body. So you have that ongoing element that,
yeah, you have to acknowledge that the way that
we're worked at the moment, you will get hurt
if you keep training. And, you know, what's the
alternative that you don't train? Well, that's
unacceptable either. So another, you know, great
point from the rest and recovery perspective,
but from just sheer aging, what I found now at
50, 51 is that. If I can just work on mobility,
so I'm glad our coaching has actually changed
our programming to Wolf Brigade now. So we're
doing a lot of mace work and all those kind of
things. So it really is working on that. It's
phenomenal. But I'm not looking to get stronger
anymore. I'm not looking to get fitter. I want
to get more mobile, which in turn will make me
more efficient and therefore stronger and fitter
at 50. But I think if you're at this age now
still chasing PR, so rather than... working on
on deficits and weaknesses i think that's when
middle -aged men and women get hurt yeah 100
i totally agree if i could circle back and throw
one more in on the nutrition front please as
we as we get older we do our blood glucose control
worsens as well right so the the bag of haribos
that you're having at 50 or i'm having it almost
50 is not the same as when we were 20 24 25 right
in terms of recovery So that's the one where
we talked about ultra processed food. We talked
about diet quality, like in the thirties and
forties, we're trying to build a little bit of
those habits so that when we get to 50 or 60,
we got a better chance of onboarding ourselves
versus like going from the fully processed to
that, you know, heavy fruit and veg and, and,
you know, whole grain diets, tough ones. So that
would be a big one of, you probably notice, you
know, whether it's sugary snacks or other things,
like it's going to have a bigger, bigger effect
of the older you get. Brilliant. All right. Well,
for people listening then, where are the best
places to find ProBio itself? I would say GovX.
GovX is the best way to go. We just partnered
with GovX and I wanted to get it on there because,
I mean, predominantly that's where everyone goes
in the first model community to get their products.
I mean, they get it at a great price. But yeah,
that's the best place to go. I would say GovX
or you can go to ProBioNutrition .com as well
to get more background on everything. I 100 %
support it. It's an amazing company, amazing
product. And you've got guys like Bubz and Paul
and an incredible team behind it. Well, Bubz,
for people, if they want to learn more about
you, where are the best places online for that?
Yeah, I got a funny last name. So you can just
Google me, drbubz .com is the website. Happy
to send out some books to your group too. There's
some Peak 40 books, James. So give me your address.
We'll get some sent over for you. do a lot of
work and, and, and tactical police and EMT. So
definitely want to support the group. And that
was a big part of our mission at pro bio is like,
we want to, we want to be able to support the
people that are doing the hard work. And we talk
about this a lot, but you know, pro sports, we
call it a high pressure environment, but obviously
it's, it doesn't hold a candle to what, uh, to
what you guys do. So, you know, it's, it's definitely
a big, big area of focus for us as well. Thank
you. And, uh, Roque, what about you? If you want
to learn more about you. Bro, people know enough
about me, bro. All they need to know is I'll
be fasting. I'm fasting in between meals. That's
what you need to stay with. No, no, no. I'm going
to be trying to grow out my hair this year. No,
that's not happening. But other than that, brother.
Yeah, just, I mean, my stuff, just my IG, Darolk,
at, you know, DA underscore Rolk. But, yeah,
I'm good. I'm just supporting amazing companies
and individuals like Bubz and, of course, yourself,
James, everything you do. And we didn't talk
about you, bro. Everything you're doing, not
only for all the first responders, but specifically
with the fire service and trying to advocate
for that, you know, the shifts and giving guys
more rest and getting more fit, bro. Amazing.
You're such a legend, bro. It's always great
to get on your show.