This episode is sponsored by StationWise, the
first staffing software to be truly firefighter
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as a sponsor when I focus usually on physical
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.com. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Geering, and this
week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the
show Navy SEAL veteran, former professional triathlete,
and applied physiologist, Dr. Blaine Lintz. Now,
in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics,
from breaking world records as a youth athlete,
his journey into the SEAL teams, autism, compassion
on the battlefield, his transition. Heat stroke
in the tactical athlete, TBIs, the healing power
of Ibogaine, and so much more. 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
almost 1 ,200 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 Blaine
Lintz. Enjoy. Well, Blaine, I want to start by
saying two things. Firstly, thank you to Cody
for even making this connection. And I would
love to get him on the show. So I'm sure he's
listening to this now. So that's the next person
I want to bring on. But that being said, I want
to welcome you on to the Behind the Shield podcast
today. Thanks, James. So where on planet Earth
are we finding you this afternoon? I'm in Fort
Mill, South Carolina. So I moved out. out to
the South after having lived on the West Coast
my entire life, about four and a half years ago
for a PhD that I was doing at University of South
Carolina. Well, let's start on the West Coast
then. 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 Bellevue, Washington, so near Seattle,
Seattle area. uh in 93 and yeah my my dad was
in the navy um he was uh i think what would now
be in it i'm not positive he's a software engineer
so he after getting out he worked in software
engineering he's been at nordstrom as an engineer
and in their management for i think the last
like 17 years My mom used to be a translator
and then she became like an esthetician and working
in cosmetics. And that's kind of what she does,
I think, mostly for fun and for interaction with
people now. And then I've also got a sister who
just did her master's in public health and she's
been working in cancer research for the last
few years. What was your mom translating, which
is the foreign language? Japanese. So I'm half
Japanese. My mom's full and my dad's, my dad
grew up in Detroit. He's like a white mutt. Because
Lentz is an interesting surname. So do you know
the origin of that? So I don't know a ton about
it. I believe that Lentz is an Austrian name.
But I think my, so my dad found out that who
he was raised. The man who raised him as who
we thought was his biological dad turned out
to not actually be his biological dad. And I
think by blood, he may have more French in him,
but that's pretty much all I know. And is your
mom first -generation immigrant here in the U
.S.? Yeah, I think she came over probably around
when she was 30. But her and my dad met while
he was in the Navy. I think they met in Guam.
So I don't know what my mom was doing in Guam
at the time, but that's how they met. I actually
got married in Guam. I was working in Japan for
15 months. And that's like the tourist destination
for the Japanese if they want to get outside
the island and go somewhere sunny and beachy.
So she may well have just been a tourist over
there. Yeah. And whereabouts from Japan is she
from? Tokyo. So I've got a grandma and cousin
and uncle that live in Tokyo. So I actually,
I just got married in Tokyo almost exactly a
year ago now. And that was so my grandma could
be there because she's kind of past being able
to fly around. I think she's like 94 or something.
Yeah, yeah. Besides that, though, I used to go
like every summer to Japan. I went to school
there over the summers for a few years when I
was around like six to eight years old. But my
parents got divorced after that. And then I kind
of hadn't gone back to Japan for, you know, like
15 years or something. I think it's always interesting
when people have a lens on other... countries
around the world, especially obviously if they've
got family there. So for example, my English
family too, my mom and my brother moved to Portugal
and there's some amazing innovations in Portugal,
like what they did with drug addiction, excuse
me, addiction decriminalization in Portugal.
They took their horrendous opioid crisis and
reversed it completely by just putting it into
the hands of the medical community, not the criminal
community. um when you have traveled back and
forth what are some of the things about japanese
culture that you think maybe we should be looking
at here in the us well you so you you've been
to japan so you you you are aware of this but
uh i mean i hadn't been for a long time and i
used to go a lot but it was pretty mind -blowing
how how much cleaner and safer it feels no matter
where you go and i i really really appreciate
that um i yeah i'm i'm a quiet person i'm not
super social outgoing or loud so not someone
who has any issue with people kind of keeping
to themselves on public transportation and stuff
like that. So I love that. And I love the culture
around people taking care of their own trash
and how despite there being no public trash cans
almost anywhere, you could go to the biggest,
busiest part of Tokyo and you're going to be
hard pressed to find a piece of trash on the
ground. I saw an article a while ago. that in
japanese schools i don't know if it's all of
them but certainly in in you know the examples
that they were given the children clean their
own school oh yeah that was how that was how
it was for me when i was uh younger and any other
the school food is is so much like better and
healthier too um it's not like yeah it's not
dog food or whatever um yeah it's pretty good
and then at the end of the day you're cleaning
and instead of you moving around classrooms the
uh the teachers will will move classrooms and
i feel like even the from what i can remember
the the sort of recess time was a lot more active
than what i was getting in the u .s I know the
Japanese, I think it was in the 80s or 90s, there
must have been some hint of some health kind
of decline. And so they actually nationally looked
at what a portion size would be and they controlled
it, which is where you see a lot of the bento
boxes and those kind of things, I believe. And
then as you alluded to, the school served in
Japanese food have to be made from scratch, scratch,
the sources, everything. And you contrast that.
I had Joel Salatin on a few weeks ago. I didn't
realize, but those big Cisco trucks that come
and bring all the processed shit to our schools
in America, that's actually expired food. And
that kind of food goes to our schools and our
prisons. So you contrast those two systems where
you got children having the pride in their own
classrooms and being fed. good food and having
a lot of activity in their school day versus
processed food and PE programs being broken down.
And then we wonder why those two cultures have
very different health outcomes. Yeah, it's pretty
interesting and I'm not too surprised. Well,
speaking of exercise, what were you playing and
doing as far as sport and exercise when you were
in the school ages? i uh i've i've always approached
uh any sort of activities i've done with a very
one of my strongest autistic tendencies is a
hyper fixation on a certain thing and and uh
when i was younger my i know my my parents at
minimum had books on how to deal with a child
with autism and it's My sister's really outgoing
and was popular in high school. So I know it
wasn't her that they were concerned about. And
so I had a lot more issues. I had a lot of like
issues with social interaction when I was younger
that aren't as big of a deal now. But I would
fixate on like specific activity and go full
power on that for a couple of years. And once
I started to realize I wasn't. progressing as
fast as i would like to um i kind of just dumped
it cold turkey and moved on to something else
so i did a bunch of of random or sort of random
things i i was pretty good at skateboarding i
was pretty good at inline skating uh table tennis
tennis um and i also played a few different instruments
for probably eight years. Uh, I played an alto
and tenor saxophone and clarinet. Um, and then
once I got to middle school, I kind of found
cycling and I'd never been like fit at anything
since I was like eight years old and swimming.
I was, I was okay for an eight year old swimmer.
Um, I was a little bit competitive, but yeah,
after stopping that, I I gained a bunch of weight.
I was kind of a fat kid going into middle school.
And I mean, most of the negativity that came
out of it was me putting that on myself. But
I didn't like it. And I didn't like being fat.
So I wanted to do something about it. So yeah,
I found cycling and pretty quickly realized that
I had a natural inclination towards. being good
at cycling and I hadn't really been shown any
promise in any other endurance sports, but I,
I mean, some of the first times riding a bike
seriously, I was, you know, could, could already
tell I was stronger than people who were actually
like racing on teams at that age. Um, so I got
into that, did, uh, a two day, like 210 mile
ride, Seattle to Portland. Uh, it's really. big
bike ride that gets done every year. And I did
that when I was like 12 years old. And after
that was like, okay, like I definitely have a
knack for some categories of endurance. So going
into high school, I started swimming again because
I had swam when I was younger. And then I was
like, okay, well, I'm swimming and biking. And
then ran like a 24 minute four mile in in freshman
year of high school. And that was like the fastest
I'd ever run before. And it's, it's not like
mind blowing fast or anything. It's not going
to get you to, to D1 running or anything like
that, but it was decent. So I started doing triathlon.
Um, and yeah, again, realized that I wasn't going
to be great at anything short. So I started pushing
longer and longer distances. And I think I was
the second youngest person to ever do a half
Ironman. So I did my first one when I was 14.
And then I did another one when I was 15. And
I was on track to be able to turn professional
pretty soon after that, but still felt like my
progress was kind of slowing. So I made a shift
over to ultra marathon running. That's definitely
where I found the most success relative to other
people, just because there's no other 16 -year
-olds that were doing what I was doing. And so
it kind of culminated with breaking the, it's
technically considered a world best, but 100
miles in 18 hours and 26 minutes and 113 and
a quarter miles in 24 hours. And I did that when
I was 16 around a track at the University of
Washington. And it's pretty much a month before
that was when I kind of found out about the Navy
SEALs and started considering it as a possible
route for what to do next. And yeah, as soon
as I did that 24 hour run, I was just like onto
training for buds. When you look back now with
this lens, you have an exercise physiology and
neuroscience. What were, whether it was the kind
of emotional elements of your upbringing and
or any kind of genetic gifts that you had as
far as a physiology side that allowed you to
excel at such a high level at such a young age?
I truthfully think I had so much insecurity because
of being fat and socially awkward that I... often
use the ultra like I mean I was you know training
30 hours a week in high school and I think I
was just kind of using it as an escape from dealing
with other stuff and you know like the thought
process was kind of like well if I'm if i'm breaking
world records and i'm i'm a high level athlete
like training a bunch then like i'm not a loser
like that was kind of the thought process and
i was like well if i can do more of these hard
things i can um you know just prove to myself
and to everyone else that i'm not a loser which
you know i heard navy seal training was the hardest
in the world so i was like okay well those guys
definitely aren't losers um And so there was
that. And then I think that combined with me
not being exceptionally gifted when it came to
any sort of sport that you'd see in D1. So I
wasn't, you know, I wasn't crushing 5Ks in cross
country. I think my fastest time ever was like
1650. So it's like, it's okay, but it's not,
it's not going to get you to be a good college
runner whatsoever. And so Yeah, because of all
the insecurity. I knew that I could run further
and I believed that I had something a little
bit unique when it came to a mental toughness
or aspect of it that allowed me to do some of
these hard runs. And then I just, you know, believed
in myself. It's become very apparent now through
almost 1 ,200 conversations, especially some
SMEs like Jake Clark that have really opened
my eyes on how many of us that put a uniform
on have some struggles early in life. And if
they're left and they're ignored and they're
pushed down, it can be a fracture to our foundation.
But if they're addressed, they can be an asset.
It could be resilience. When you look back now,
post -Ibergame, which obviously we'll get to
as well. Were there elements of your early life
that you think contributed to some of the struggles
later on? I think the social awkwardness and
the being fat thing really did it. My parents
getting divorced when I was eight and there being
lots of fighting in the house. I mean, it was
kind of insane for a bit. I don't know how it
impacted me, but you know, my, my wife's a therapist
and she says probably didn't help. Um, so yeah,
there, yeah, all those things kind of, kind of
work together. But besides that, like I had a,
you know, I, I grew up in a pretty wealthy area.
My parents weren't super wealthy, but, um, I
definitely didn't have like a rough upbringing.
Yeah. Well, they say you don't compare trauma.
And I think this is it. I've had people that.
were literally boy soldiers in sierra leone and
i've had people that were simply the middle child
that felt unloved and i actually ended up seeing
them with their parents at sadly a celebration
of life and i saw exactly the trauma there there
was an absence of love in that relationship two
very very different traumas but both were very
impactful in those people's lives when when you
reflect back now it's interesting is that i think
it's an einstein quote unless the internet is
um Judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree.
So, you know, obviously there is no, you know,
one size fits all when it comes to as you're
talking about athletics and exercise, but also
academics. Was that traditional teaching environment
something that you resonated with, with, you
know, the level of autism that you had? Or was
academics a struggle because it didn't resonate?
academics were a struggle because I was, so everything
I've done because of the hyper focus on things
I am interested in meant that I just didn't allocate
any resources to other things. And so I know
that, um, at least by IQ, I'm very, very intelligent,
but, um, so, so school, you know, I could, I
could put minimal effort into school at a pretty.
you know, top 100 in the U .S. high school, and
I was still performing decently well. I wasn't
setting myself up to go to Harvard or anything,
but I would have been fine going to a decent
university if I wanted to. But, yeah, I think
I had a hard time staying engaged with it. You
know, early on in any sort of class, I would...
I would be a very high performer and then I'd
lose interest and then I'd just stop applying
myself and all my focus would go into training
or something that I thought was going to be more
valuable. And at the time in high school, I was
confident I was never going to college. And I
knew I definitely am not going to college after
high school. I was going to go be an ABC also.
Fuck this school stuff. So yeah, that's kind
of where I was at with that. I just think it's
an interesting conversation. I was a very tactile
learner. So straight C student in high school,
you know, felt like I was not intelligent whatsoever,
which is still partly true. But when I went to
the fire academy and, you know, EMT and ultimately
paramedic school, it was the opposite straight,
you know, pretty much straight A's because it
made sense to me. It was real world application
of math and science and all these things. So
then you have someone like you said, you let
yourself as hyper -focused that probably need
to be challenged in certain ways so that you
didn't get bored. So when we look at this kind
of standardized testing, one size fits all element
that we have here in the US and you compare it
with Finland, for example, I think there's a
lot to learn because how many of these young
men and women. could have had such an amazing
potential but either the the learning style the
lack of um the kind of holistic resources around
that child or in your case maybe not challenging
enough because they've been put in a pigeonhole
because of their age you know i think there's
so many opportunities for us to look at the way
that we deliver education and maybe you know
let it evolve yeah definitely i i agree and i
think yeah i mean you know during my phd i i
did a lot of teaching of of undergraduates and
some graduate students and, um, yeah, it was,
you know, you're kind of wondering like, what,
why are you doing school right now? This just
doesn't seem like the right, right time and right
field or whatever for, for you to do it. And
I mean, yeah, there's just such a strong societal
push to go into university right after. Right
after you're done with high school and who cares
if it's not what you're into, you know, you gotta,
you gotta grind in your twenties so you can have
a good life later sort of attitude. I never understood
my wife, my wife, my wife just went through a
doctor of optometry. She's an optometrist now.
And over and over again, when you hear about
all the high level, you know, math and some of
the kind of real micro elements of biology, for
example. the question is well why are we doing
all these classes before you get to the thing
that is actually actually pertinent for the the
occupation and there's always this thing well
it's a test to see if you can get through those
classes if you if you can stick it out and it
just never made sense to me that's a horrible
explanation for it like why would you not expose
someone give them more real real world you know
exposure clinicals that kind of thing and then
yeah and allow to see if is this actually working
in the real world is this what you want to do
But to do, you know, two, three years of, you
know, high level math to become an optometrist,
we're using technology and it's, you know, it's
really high school level math that she's using.
You know, I think it's another thing that we
could re -evaluate because it would make college
a lot cheaper for these young people if they
didn't have to do these insane needless classes
if they had no application for their specific
major. Yeah, there's a lot of... tradition, I
feel like, or traditional attitudes about what
you should do, even if it doesn't make the most
sense. Well, you mentioned about the burning
desire to go into the SEALs. So where did that
interest in the military come from and then why
the SEALs specifically? So when I was a junior
in high school, I had a friend, Daniel, at at
my high school who was a coach at a CrossFit
gym. And he started like, you know, he was obsessed
with CrossFit. I think he's still into it. But,
you know, there were some things about it that
sounded cool at the time. And I still think some
parts of it are cool. But, you know, it just
sounded appealing, right? You push yourself really
hard in some of these workouts. And that's undisputable.
Like the workouts can be really hard. Um, so
I thought that was cool. Um, I thought some of
the ideas around it, uh, sounded cool with, you
know, the, the methodology of training. And this
is when I didn't really know anything, but, um,
the CrossFit gym he was a coach at was owned
by, uh, a former Navy SEAL, Dan Cirillo, who
was a guest on your podcast. And, um, I. i ended
up talking to him a little bit about it you know
he knew i was doing like my my big runs and stuff
and and i kind of told him like you know this
has been a thought on my mind uh and he he ended
up telling me about it and he said like there
there are like some really insane people that
go into the seal teams and and that's definitely
true but it you know was the first time i'd even
heard about like this sort of thing and there
was a lot of ex exaggeration or, you know, I
think it's confabulation from a combination of
brain injuries and, and personalities and stuff.
But, you know, he would talk about just insane,
insane freaks of nature that were in the SEAL
teams and then some of the operations they would
do and just how crazy it was. It sounded awesome.
And, you know, he was pretty clear, like it's
the hardest military training in the world. which
is arguable. But that appealed to me a lot. So
I thought it sounded badass. And I really thought
that that was going to make me not feel insecure
anymore. That was my path to not being a loser
for life. And if I have kids and grandkids, then
they'll be proud of me when I'm older. Jumping
forward, because this is a theme, we're going
to get into your service and then some of the
other things that you've done post -service.
But so many people, if you watch The Weight of
Gold, for example, a documentary on the Olympians,
we're chasing this feeling of being good enough.
I was the same. I wasn't a fat kid. I was a skinny,
tiny kid. And I always felt... insecure. I always
felt small. I always felt vulnerable. And even
now at 51 with a lifetime of strength and conditioning
and martial arts training, I still feel like
anyone in the grocery store could kick my ass.
It's still a little voice in my head. But chasing
that external validation, I look back now, I
did stunts, I did firefighting, I did all kinds
of things that are air quotes, manly, masculine
professions. And none of it really seemed to
satisfy that imposter syndrome in my head. What
was it that finally told you that you were enough,
not negating all the things that you've done,
but finally realized that you didn't have to
prove to anyone else who you actually were? I
think when I separated from the Navy in 2017,
I had a bit of, you know, as most people do,
I'm sure, leaving any sort of first responder
service or the military or whatever when you've
been sort of. isolated in this community and
then you get out and you have to find something
else to do and maybe something else to kind of
rework your identity around um it comes with
some issues and i think i spent the next couple
years trying to find something that um you know
was just something to do like that was prestigious
next and then i you know as soon as i got pushing
down that route i would figure out no this isn't
really what i want to do and i'm not gonna do
that um but i ended up finding exercise physiology
and i got so excited that you could study exercise
i just thought it was was awesome because i loved
exercise and it just it came came to me really
really quickly because i already had a lot of
practical understanding um from doing so many
different things and under the umbrella of exercise.
And so all I needed was to just put a name to
different metabolic processes and stuff like
that. So it came really easily. And I realized
that I loved learning about exercise. I love
talking about it, researching it, whatever. And
so that ended up being what I wanted to do next.
And it kind of felt like it was the first time
where I was doing something that... You know,
I was doing it because I actually enjoyed doing
it. And I didn't just like suck the fun out of
it right away by trying to be the best at it.
Even though like, you know, I do want to know
my stuff when it comes to the field that I'm
educated in. But yeah, I definitely don't have
the same pressure around it. And then, yeah,
this past year since doing Ibogaine for the UT
Austin clinical trial in January. I've kind of
used that as a springboard to really trying to
rework the way I think about motivation and the
things that I'm doing and why I'm doing them.
And so it's an ongoing process. And I wouldn't
say I've completely achieved it yet. But I think
I definitely have a better sense of why I'm doing
things. And I think the reasons are more authentic
now than they used to be. When I first transitioned
out, I volunteered for a fire department for
a heartbeat locally. And it just wasn't the right
fit. Again, I felt like I was like a ride along
student rather than a member of the team. And
then I kind of took a step back and like, well,
am I really making a difference there? And the
answer was really not, you know, any event that
didn't require a huge amount of extra hands.
And then I was like, well, what am I doing it
for? And then I realized there was an element
of that, that ego, that identity still that I
was hanging on to. And so I think when I realized
that I'd finally turned that corner was that
I could tell people that I'm a podcaster. Because
when you say you're a firefighter or a SEAL,
people are like, oh, wow, that's what you do.
When you tell them you're a podcaster at 51 years
old, it's a whole different response. But that's
when you realize, okay, I don't care what other
people think. And then you also realize, well,
the mission is the same. I'm still trying to
make. help people be better, help people suffer
less, help people hopefully not die. So the mission
is exactly the same, but the uniform is different
now, the costume. Did you have an element of
that yourself that you realized you're kind of
on this same path? It's just a different identity
now? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't have like a
clean answer to give you for that. Yeah, I guess,
can you rephrase the question a little bit? When
you look at someone and say, I am a SEAL or I
was a SEAL, that's an easy thing to say as an
identity piece. You're still clinging to that
part that you were strong, that you were capable,
that you were able, that you were serving. But
some of these other exercise physiologists, podcasters,
it's a little less front -facing, as it were,
as far as the mission. Have you been able to
turn a corner now and separate from the military
part as far as identity and actually settle into
the identity as a researcher? Oh, yeah. It's
tricky right now because I've been done with
my PhD for like four months and I haven't started
working again yet. So that's kind of tricky.
And I think in a lot of ways, you know, my...
PhD research was all or primarily focused on
tactical populations and improving performance.
And so I was definitely leveraging my background
quite a bit. But I think one of the things that
made transitioning out of the SEAL teams easier
for me was that I was only in for six years.
I didn't really, I don't think I ever really
changed. my identity a whole lot to conform to
that i you know i didn't i'm not like a big drinker
party or anything like that so when um you know
i didn't like start doing that in the seal team
just because it was a big uh part of the culture
and yeah i just didn't really i'm not great at
like conforming to anything socially i think
it just doesn't sound great to me and it feels
fake and i also just don't like doing things
that i don't find enjoyable or I find it actually
unenjoyable. So yeah, I haven't had a ton of
issues with that identity piece. But yeah, I'm
happy with where I'm at because it's kind of
like I've gotten to combine some of that experience
and I still get to talk about it a little bit
and still get to benefit or give back to that
community. But also, yeah, I have been able to
really get into some of my scientific research.
and start viewing benefiting the special operations
or tactical population community from an academic
perspective and what I can do now in this new
situation to give back. Well, you mentioned about
the high level of endurance athleticism that
you had prior to the teams. What elements of
your upbringing served you well? in you know
buds and selection uh whether it's the physical
side and or the mental side i think the biggest
thing truthfully that all that preparation did
for me was i had experienced really really low
points already and i knew what it felt like to
want to quit something and then you know not
um you know a lot of people go to buds saying
that they're never gonna quit and i was even
at the time i thought that was goofy because
like you don't know you haven't done it right
like you just don't know and no one goes there
saying they think they are gonna quit um or most
people don't but uh you know there is a shift
that happens at some point for some people and
that that leads to them quitting. And so how
do I know that that's not going to happen for
me? So I think I had some of that humility around
it just because I had already experienced what
it felt like to want to quit. I'd really, really
think about that feeling a lot and just kind
of try to tailor my expectations of Bud's to
that experience and kind of give myself the expectation
that I was going to feel that low through it.
So in that sense, I was mentally prepared for
that. I also knew that I had great mentorship
too. So I had good expectations going in about
what BUDS was like. I felt like I had already
got some good exposure to the type of experience
that BUDS was. But ultimately, you can't prepare
yourself for six months of BUDS day after day
and all the chafing, the physical discomfort
and all that stuff that comes along with it.
You just don't know how you're going to respond
after that long. But I did know that Because
I had such a extensive background of endurance
volume that I felt pretty confident I wasn't
going to develop any sort of overuse injury.
And, you know, if you're fit enough and you don't
quit and you don't get an overuse injury, then,
you know, you're probably good. There's like
pulmonary edema that happens for some people
commonly in Hell Week. But I, you know, that's
kind of just one of those things. Hopefully you
don't get it. Um, the part that I wasn't prepared
for was I, I didn't really expect how difficult
it was going to be to not be so, you know, I'm
not the average personality type of people who
go into the SEAL teams. And, um, you know, it
definitely showed in buds. Like I had a couple
of close friends, but, but to most people, they,
they thought I was like weird. Um, you know,
yeah, it was just kind of like, kind of, kind
of stupid now that I look back on it, but at
the time it was pretty uncomfortable and it kind
of sucked. So, um, that part was actually harder
than, you know, the, the typical mental and physical
struggles that people deal with going through
buds. Well, I think that, that underlines, you
know, the, the thing that keeps us going is that
cohesion is that shared sufferings, you know,
forging that team. But if you. during selection
feel like you're not part of that team for whatever
reason personality type or performance or whatever
it is i can see how that would make it even more
challenging to get through yeah yeah and i still
had you know i wasn't like hated or anything
and i still had friends in it but i just i did
have lots of people on the period i was writing
that i was weird so I can relate. All right.
But then where did you find yourself deployed
over those six years? So first deployment was
to United Arab Emirates. It was kind of a joint
training deployment where we'd go around to different
Gulf Coast countries like Oman, Qatar, Kuwait,
Bahrain, and spend a couple of weeks to a little
bit longer than that there working with other,
you know. whether it's like police forces or,
or special operations forces or, or whatever.
Um, and doing exercises with them. Um, that,
that was kind of that deployment. So it wasn't
a combat deployment. It wasn't as, you know,
some of it was kind of like a vacation. Um, it
was fine. I didn't, I, it was, uh, the first,
first two years of me being a SEAL were pretty
shit. When I got to the SEAL team, I was 19 years
old. So not only was I awkward, but I didn't
really like to drink. I wasn't old enough to
drink. And I just didn't get along with the platoon
that I was in. And I think some combination of
me struggling to find motivation to do the job
and... not getting along socially with the platoon
made it really, really difficult. I kind of felt
sorry for myself for like six months and it was
probably on the verge of getting kicked out of
the platoon. And then eventually, you know, I
snapped out of it and I started training really
hard physically and getting in good shape. It
kind of burned the rest of that deployment cycle.
But after I got to a new platoon, after coming
back from that UAE deployment, it was a completely
different story. I had a great time with that
platoon. I was really fit. I prepared really
well for all the training blocks we did. And
it was a much more positive experience. But the
other thing that kind of... Made it easier to
take that preparation seriously as we had heard
that for that second deployment that we were
going to be going to Iraq. And we, you know,
during the workup period there. Fuck, I can't
I can't remember his. Yeah, Chuck Heavy was killed
in, I think, May of 2016. So it's a little bit
before we. went on deployment charles keating
and he was actually at one of the sites that
we ended up going to and we didn't have you know
any crazy firefights or anything when we were
at that site but you know there was just thought
about this could be like a real deployment this
time so i better be prepared and on my a game
for it so i did do that um we ended up moving
to mosul uh in i think it was october of 2016
in advance of the the beginning of the battle
of mosul that started on october 19th and that
was the rest of the deployment was battle of
mosul which i i believe was is is heavy of combat
is this you know the the regular seal teams were
getting um at that time but uh i think it was
still probably a lot more mellow than like 2005
iraq and what like the teams were were doing
doing then so it was a good experience um but
yeah finished out iraq up to to february of 2017
and and then i had a couple months before i got
out a question i always ask people you know who
were deployed in combat um the back story the
question is very simple back home we are fed
really a kind of uh a polarizing view of war
it's either one side kill them all let god sort
them out stack bodies Or it's the other side,
they're all baby killers. And in the middle are
obviously the men and women that go overseas
to protect complete strangers with our flag on
their shoulder. Regardless of the politics that
sent you to any of the places while you were
in, was there a moment where you realized there
were some horrific people that did need to be
addressed? Yeah, I think in some of this is obviously...
Fed through a certain lens, but there was pretty,
pretty commonly known or a common awareness about
what ISIS was doing at the time. And of course,
there's always a little bit of nuance to stuff
like that. But, you know, I think what they were
doing was was pretty universally considered to
be bad. Maybe not to them, but. Um, yeah, there,
there was that, I think, you know, you saw some
of it on deployment, you saw what they were teaching
in their schools in Mosul, you know, we'd, we'd
go into a, an abandoned school that was basically
like an ISIS feeder program or something. Um,
and you saw how they were educating children
on like who the Westerners were and, and what
you should do to them. So, um. Some of that's
just a conflict of beliefs, but I think that
combined with what we're seeing directly and
what we were getting fed from the media and stuff
like that, it wasn't hard to think that, okay,
these are not the best people out there. Other
side of the coin that we also don't hear about
is kindness and compassion in these combat zones.
When you reflect back on those years, Whether
it was, you know, your own men and women, whether
it was the indigenous population, what are moments
of kindness and compassion you remember? You
know, we, I think we tried to do our best to
help protect the people that were local to, like,
Mosul. And one of the things that was really...
Cool. And what kind of made the whole experience
feel a little bit more worth it was how happy
that the local populations were for us to be
there. And that was kind of contradictory to
what, you know, you might hear in the news about
the opinions of locals of Americans being there.
But every interaction we had with locals was
very positive and they were very in support of
what we were doing. And then we would, you know,
if some of the locals got hurt. because they
got hit by a mortar or something, we'd help them
with it. So I like that. And I think it was also
easy to understand that the people there, even
if we considered them bad, I don't think they
necessarily think what they're doing is bad.
So it's kind of like in Star Wars when... I think
the Sith say, how do you know that we're actually
the bad ones? But it's easy when you're getting
shot at or something to preserve your own life.
So that makes it easy. And then you can do whatever
you can to dehumanize them as well and make the
whole experience a little bit easier. I've had
so many people on the show that are obviously
looking back now retroactively at the last 20
years. One of the most glaring things is we were
attacked on home soil. Of course, there was a
lot of anger, a lot of enlistment. And yet there
were two conflicts. There was Afghanistan, who
was supposedly harboring the man responsible
for 9 -11, and then we had Iraq. And so now on
the back end, a lot of our veterans are looking
with a slightly different lens. Now they've got
all the pieces together. One of the things that
worries me, and I'll use the kind of health of
America as an example, if you have companies
that pay for political campaigns through lobbying
that benefit off people being sick, then where
are the checks and balances for Americans to
be healthy? And I think it's the same with the
military. When there are a lot of companies that
make billions, if not trillions, collectively,
when we are at war, where are the checks and
balances to make sure that we only send our young
men and women overseas when it's absolutely necessary?
So what is your perspective on that? I will say
that the... Like politics and stuff like that
is a field that I don't know a ton about. And
usually I'm pretty, yeah, just in general talking
about stuff like that. You have such polarized
views and people get very religious about their
beliefs when it comes to that stuff. I think
in a lot of times it's very unwarranted because
they probably don't have enough of an understanding
to have such a strong opinion about something.
And, you know, there's strong convictions tightly
held regardless of what information is given
to them. But generally, I would say I agree with
what you're saying. I think, yeah, there was
a lot of like... hate and stuff early on that
it was probably, I think, you know, public opinions
were definitely skewed by what the media was
feeding out. And I think it seems like some of
the perspectives from like the veteran community
have shifted a little bit in terms of like, you
know, was, was the Iraq war being fought because
of the reasons that were initially being pushed
out and yeah again i i'm not super educated or
informed in it so i don't want to like say anything
that makes me sound like an idiot now i think
it's an interesting but like you said i always
stand right in the middle i mean i can't stand
politics but i think you know hearing the voices
of the people that were there like what does
james gearing know i never was never deployed
so let's transition then out um into the the
exercise physiology world so when you found yourself
in that space you know what was some of the first
things that you started focusing on as far as
your studies and then ultimately research yeah
i was uh i was working at after i got out of
the navy i started working for a privately funded
disaster response organization and it was called
global support and development and initially
it was very concentrated with like um you know
smoke jumpers from the fire services um we had
a lot of like air force pjs we had team guys
we had um green berets and we you know we even
had special forces from like australia and stuff
or or the uk and so it was a super cool mix of
people and i ended up uh kind of shifting into
a human performance role while i was there And
the first exposure I had to exercise physiology
was the NSCA certified strength and conditioning
specialist certification. And, you know, I just
bought the textbook for it because I heard that
it was the hardest of the, you know, the reputable
certifications to get. I had like a 60 something
percent failure rate for the first attempt. As
soon as I started reading through the textbook
to help you prepare for it, I was like, I, I'd
never taken in information so easily. And, and
so it was just, I could just read through the
book and then I took the test and I did very
well on the test. And I'd never had any academic
training before that. Like before that book,
I didn't know what the Krebs cycle was, or I
hadn't heard of like aerobic metabolism besides
in the context of like. actually training exercise.
So that was super cool to me. But I think the
main things that got me really excited were mainly
being able to tie it back to endurance. I'd spent
the last couple of years powerlifting and getting
decent at that too. But I think I have a more
natural interest in physiology related to endurance
performance. I think it's just a little bit more.
complex and and also just more interesting and
there's more more to be understood that can contribute
to to better performances than there are with
with strength training so um yeah that's that's
kind of what got me excited at first there seems
to have been a running theme of less is more
when it comes to training you know when i was
young it was the kind of bodybuilding when it
came to lifting and it was just the you know
Stallone montage, just train yourself into the
ground was, you know, was the mentality. But
when I speak to the MMA coaches, you know, they're
not doing full contact, you know, sparring every
single session because they're understanding
TBI and CTE and all these other elements. Now,
when you look at CrossFit, yeah, the high level
CrossFit competitors might be in the gym all
day, but to get a benefit, you know, three, four
sessions a week and you're going to end up. being
very very fit and very very strong if you're
consistent when it comes to the endurance training
what if at all what has been um the shift over
the last few decades as far as the way that um
we're training people for marathons for triathlons
that's um that's kind of a nuanced topic and
it's definitely one that gets debated quite a
bit um I'll say there are numerous examples on
either side of the spectrum that could push you
to believe that one approach to training volume
is a little bit more beneficial than another
way. But I'd say generally, it's very clear that
there's an extremely strong link between training
volume and endurance performance, pretty much
regardless of... the distance or race duration,
uh, assuming you're not talking about like any
sort of sprint sport or very anaerobic intermittent
like exercise. Um, so yeah, generally my, my
beliefs are in favor of more volume is better
assuming you're not overdoing it. And one of
the goals should be to develop capacity for more
volume over time. Um, There are exceptions to
that, though. For example, David Roche, I can't
remember if it was Western States or what last
year, but he broke the course record. I don't
remember what the time was. I want to say it
was like 14 hours or something for a very hilly
100 -mile race. Wasn't training super high volume.
I think he said something like he was training
like 10 to 12 hours a week. It definitely wasn't.
high volume compared to what you would expect
for a hundred mile runner of that caliber. But
then I think you can find a lot more examples
of high level endurance athletes, like, uh, the
Norwegian triathletes right now, especially,
you know, Christian Blumenfeld is my favorite
one, if you know that name, but, uh, I think
he's, he's perhaps one of the best endurance
athletes of all time. And he. over the last several
years has trained an average of 30 to 35 hours
a week in many 40 hour weeks and you know it's
not only that he's training that high the volume
but he's still getting the right distribution
of intensity within that so it's not just an
easy 30 to 40 hours of training a week like there
is intensity in there but it there's they're
so well calibrated to what intensity they need
to be focusing on and Really pushing to build
that capacity for more volume since a young age.
He was starting in his early teens and already
trained pretty high volumes for what would be
considered high volume for a teenager. So yeah,
generally I'm on the camp of if you can and if
your goal is absolute performance, I think building
capacity for more volume is a good approach.
So the ability to do more volume obviously also.
is the result of rest and recovery so what again
has been the uh the evolution of that thought
process when it comes to how important everything
from sleep to you know ice baths whatever the
things are yeah so this is actually my my favorite
place to look to what the norwegian triathletes
are doing um they've been pretty outspoken on
not using any of the traditional uh you know
recovery modalities that people tend to use like
ice baths or massage and stuff like that um and
they highly prioritize getting enough food especially
carbohydrate and then getting enough sleep and
then managing training intensity and volume appropriately
one of the things that's clear now is when you
are training 30 to 40 hours a week you're limited
by typical constraints on maximum sustainable
energy expenditure. There was literature that
used to suggest that you could really only sustain
two to two and a half times your basal metabolic
rate. And if you did more than that, you just
weren't going to be able to take in enough calories
to sustain that training volume. But there was
a recent report that was published on Christian
Blumenfeld and his energy expenditure. And he
was probably expending four to four and a half
times his basal metabolic rate for years. And
that's including periods of downtime and stuff
like that. So I think. If you're at the high
level of endurance sport, the limitations are
going to be more in terms of can you eat enough
to support that training? Because if not, you're
just going to dig yourself into a hole and you're
not going to be able to adapt to what you're
doing anyways. Well, you are part of a population
that was exposed to a lot of sleep deprivation.
I was part of a population that literally is
exposed for 25, 30 years without anyone even
thinking about it. Yeah. Talk to me about the
impact of sleep deprivation on performance and
acuity. And also, if you want to look at the
chronic side, too. Yeah, sleep deprivation is
definitely a problem. It depends how you're measuring
cognition, right? And certain characteristics
of cognition are going to be impaired at different
rates for different people with different amounts
of sleep deprivation. But you could broadly say
based on some research that, you know, 24 hours
of sleep deprivation is comparable to a certain
blood alcohol concentration. And you're going
to have similar, you know, kind of general cognitive
impairment in both of those situations. And I
think, yeah, more troubling is in, you know,
in some of the military communities and even
some academic communities, there's such a...
a negative view on like getting enough sleep.
And I think a lot of that's been shifting. But
I've always really prioritized my sleep if I
could get it. And, you know, I think a lot of
that has to do with awareness of how much of
a detriment it is going to be if you don't get
your sleep, you know, acutely. And you're also
just worsening the effect of any sort of stressor
that you experience after that so if you get
a brain injury while you're sleep deprived in
a culture that promotes a lot of alcohol consumption
um you know not only did you have the stress
of a job that is going to bring wear and tear
on those systems over time but you're you're
also just compounding it with with shitty habits
that you could you could have a little bit differently
and probably be a little bit better off in the
long term. But yeah, I'm a big proponent of sleep
and I'm glad I wasn't in too long and didn't
have too much of the issues with sleep deprivation
because I think it is clear there's at least
an association between sleep deprivation and
sort of cognitive impairment down the road. Absolutely.
One other area, I don't know if this correlates
at all with the smokejumpers that you studied,
but not only when you're in a fire or obviously
you're exposed to hundreds and hundreds of degrees
um uh you know of heat at that moment but the
sheer exertion in the bunker gear which is designed
to not let heat in but also therefore not let
heat out that was always the biggest barrier
for me i never had an issue where on any fire
scene where i was too tired air quotes but It
was overheating, like to the point where you
literally felt like your organs were cooking,
you know, because of the exertion and the inability
to basically let the heat out of the encapsulation
that you're in. What has been your research or
studies on that and the impact of performance?
So I originally started to get a little bit interested
in this topic when I would hear. about you know
students and buds getting a heat stroke or some
sort of heat injury that could be career ending
at that point and it would happen in the seal
teams too during workups you know we do land
warfare training on the west coast in an environment
that can get up to 120 degrees during the summer
um and so guys will have heat strokes and they'll
have like career -ending heat illnesses and um
As you know, if you have one of those incidents
that's bad enough, it could kill you, but it
could also just lead to permanent consequences
with your ability to thermoregulate. It's apparent
that it's an issue, and the military was operating
in hot environments throughout the world indefinitely,
and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those
can be extremely hot during the summers, and
any of the jungle environments are going to have
a lot of heat stress associated with them. So
it's apparent to me that there was an issue that
needed to be addressed. When I started learning
about exercise physiology, one of the first areas
that I was learning about in my master's was
cardiovascular adjustments to exercise and other
sort of stressors. So like microgravity or being
in water, stuff like that, that's going to affect
how your cardiovascular system needs to adjust.
And, you know, through that, I started learning
about like... things like plasma volume expansion
that occur with training and heat acclimation
and all the other things that help you regulate
core body temperature as you get fitter. And
so I had never been told when I was in the SEAL
teams that you could acclimate to heat to make
yourself more tolerant of it and also make it
safer to deal with when you are exposed to it.
And even just regular aerobic training, if...
done sufficiently intense that will elevate your
core body temperature and over time it is going
to make you a lot more robust in hot situations.
So I was just kind of blown away that that's
not something we were educated on, especially
when people were having heat injuries. So I got
really interested in understanding ways that
we could help mitigate the damage from heat stress.
So in my dissertation, I... had an idea that
taking exogenous ketone monoesters would help
with this problem of overheating. And the initial
reason was that when you overheat, you start
to have a reduction in blood flow to the brain,
which beyond that, you also have the discomfort
to the heat. You have maybe dehydration. There's
a bunch of factors that contribute to you having
impaired cognition as you overheat. um and it's
thought that mechanistically like one of the
causes is this reduction in brain blood flow
there had also been pretty extensive research
showing that ketones whether they're the monoesters
being ingested orally or like a ketone iv infusion
can increase brain blood flow quite a bit and
not only that but there are numerous studies
linking ketone monoester consumption to improve
cognition in situations where you would have
an impairment. So think you're running 100 kilometer
ultra marathon, you're not going to be performing
cognitively at your best at the end of that after
12 to 24 hours of fatiguing exercise. But if
you take ketone monoesters, you can potentially
maintain baseline levels of cognition, at least
in pretty simple tasks where you would normally
have a drop -off. Same with hypoxia. There's
been research showing that you can be in a hypoxic
environment and having taken these ketone monoesters
that you can actually preserve your blood oxygen
saturation and you can maintain your cognition
at normal baseline levels. And normally that
would be an issue. Ketones have been shown to
improve cognition in those environments, also
in certain neurodegenerative disease states and
certain metabolic disease states where cognition
becomes impaired. So it seemed like a logical
conclusion to make that these could help with...
the cognitive impairment that you see when you
overheat and not only that but ketones can be
administered prophylactically if you know you're
going to experience a brain injury and that can
help mitigate some of the damage they can also
be given right after so i believe the nfl is
giving people ketone monoesters if they have
like a concussive event um and i know that in
some uh clinical settings i'll give give uh intravenous
ketones if you have uh any sort of brain injury
and i don't know like how how across the board
that is but i know they can't be helpful and
they can also speed recovery for brain injury
so a bunch of reasons why tactical populations
might want to be looking into these at least
um so my my research on these keto monoesters
was to to answer the question of can taking these
help preserve your baseline cognition when you
overheat. So what we did to test this was we
took very fit individuals. So VO2 max is above
55, but we had an average of VO2 max of about
59, which is high, but it's not insane. And I
was hoping that that would be a little bit more
representative of the special operations populations.
And we basically had these participants exercise
on a treadmill with a weight vest in a heat chamber
pretty hard for 90 minutes. And we saw average
core body temperatures between 103 and 104 degrees
at the end of this. And we tested their cognition
in the middle of the exercise and at the end
of it. And we found that... if you were assigned
to the condition that was taking the ketone monoesters,
that you were going to perform better cognitively
on the more complex cognitive tasks because those
were the only ones we saw reductions in. And
not only that, but at the end of those 90 minutes
in the last round of cognitive testing, we had
the participants take off their weight vests
and then do a time to exhaustion test at a very
high intensity. And the condition receiving ketones
also outperformed. the carbohydrate condition
that we used as a comparator by about 27%. So
pretty robust findings when it came to the cognitive
improvements and the physical improvements. And
that was a big deal because keto monoesters historically
have been shown to impair high intensity exercise
performance. There are a number of reasons why
it might have been a little bit different in
this, one being that ketone monoesters have never
been tested in heat, as far as I know. But yeah,
pretty interesting. And that's another area that
I'd love to keep working in is with the ketones.
I always like to look at the evolution of man
to really kind of line up with some of these
studies. For example, Let's take the carnivore
diet. I don't believe that many human beings
historically had access to that much meat that
they could eat three times a day. But there's
a removal of processed foods. And yeah, that's
probably the biggest of the wins. When you look
back historically, what are the elements of human
evolution that's maybe mimicking the ketosis
that's creating this kind of protective response?
uh you know um evolutionary that you'll be able
to mimic with these ketones so i don't think
it's complete there there's a lot about ketones
that's not very well understood uh for example
like ketones can help prevent oxygen toxicity
when diving on a rebreather so you normally are
very limited by how deep you can go when breathing
pure oxygen and you can actually prevent having
a seizure and prevent other toxicity associated
with um being exposed to oxygen at those pressures
with ketones and i as far as i understand it's
not known why why that's the case necessarily
i think there's some theories around it but um
i've got to say i don't i don't really know why
it would be helpful as far as evolutionary biology
goes but The cool thing is with taking these
exogenous ketones and also that kind of doesn't
parallel the evolutionary biology thinking is
that we didn't have our participants on a ketogenic
diet. They were eating a regular carbohydrate
-rich diet. And you just take these ketone monoesters
and they will elevate your ketones as if you
were in ketosis without necessitating. you spending
several days to weeks on a carbohydrate -restricted
diet in order to produce your own ketones endogenously.
But yeah, I don't really know why the ketones
would be helpful from that lens. Besides, in
periods of starvation, they are a very efficient
fuel. people do report having some cognitive
improvement when they're on a ketogenic diet
in a lot of cases, assuming you've gotten over
that like initial keto flu hump. So yeah, maybe.
I don't know, maybe you're more susceptible to
having some issues when you're being starved.
So ketones are more efficient a fuel than carbohydrate.
They require less oxygen to produce the same
amount of ATP. So there is something beneficial
from that lens. The other thing when it comes
to brain injuries is that the reason that brain
injuries, one of the reasons that they can be
a little bit tricky to deal with is that They
basically impair glucose metabolism. And so your
brain ends up in an energy deficit. And that's
the same thing that happens with like, or can
happen with a stroke or heart attack where you
have some degree of ischemia. And there's a loss
of energy in a certain area. And so supplementing
with something like creatine can help increase
endogenous stores that could help. at least bridge
that gap between having the brain injury and
then being able to recover normal glucose metabolism.
But exogenous ketones and lactate, interestingly,
will bypass that block in metabolism that prevents
glucose from being used properly. So that's why.
They just allow energy to continue normally.
I'm not really sure why they would do that or
how it fits into the evolutionary biology picture,
though. It seems to me when you hear about being
ketosis and allowing autophagy to get rid of
all the dead cells, basically, and I'm making
that very white belt, that naturally a lot of
humans would have had feast and famine. And that
kind of undulation seems to be what we're seeing
the benefits from. personally believe in chemotherapy.
I think it's kind of a scorched earth, fingers
crossed type of mentality when it comes to cancer.
But you hear when used in ketosis, they're seeing
better results. And obviously the next question
is, well, what if you did it with no chemo and
just ketosis? Would you actually see the body
kind of shifting back to homeostasis and some
of these cancers actually reversing? But I think
the human body is such an incredible thing. That
I wonder if some of these innovations that we're
seeing is simply the body's own response to disease
or, as you said, starvation. And if left alone
in some areas and given the right fuel and the
right sleep, it would actually be able to self
-correct. Yeah, I agree 100%. I think variation
is... inherently beneficial to some degree. And
one example you see in exercise physiology is
how quickly you can overtrain a horse by having
them do moderately high intensity exercise every
day. So in order to train a lot, you're going
to have to vary your intensity. So you're going
to have to do your low intensity work. um and
your high intensity because just doing high intensity
wouldn't allow you to accumulate the training
stress that you could by kind of distributing
things a little bit differently and i think that
the same thing is true with metabolism and health
and anything like that is um it helps you to
be working through a range of different physiological
stressors in order to have your you know body
be more flexible in different situations so yeah
i completely agree Flipping it on its head, what
about cold and cold exposure? A lot of the SEAL
training involves that. I think that's a lot
of even the people that ring the bell is because
of the cold, not so much as far as the cardio
and the endurance element. I had Wim Hof on the
show, and you watched some of the incredible
things that he does, not just himself, but with
groups and groups of participants. What have
you seen as far as thermoregulation on the cold
side? I know there are some benefits to cold
when it comes to different types of brain injury.
I believe you want to keep the brain cool after
any sort of concussive event, but neonatal brain
injury, you really cool these babies for a couple
days after it happens, is my understanding. I'm
not an expert on neonatal brain injuries. There
is a lot of buzz around cold therapy now, and
I think a lot of it's a little bit overblown.
It's kind of like, I used this analogy with my
friend earlier today, but it's like arguing over
which position you're doing your hamstring curls
at the end of your leg day workout. It's just,
you know, it's like a 1 % thing that might make
a difference. I think generally, like if cold
plunges make you feel better. that's probably
a reason to do them i i like doing them so i
i go to a sauna cold plunge place like sometimes
a couple times a week um and i do spend lots
of time in a cold plunge um but i don't as far
as the evidence goes there's not any reason to
think that like doing your cold plunge is gonna
have a meaningful effect on your longevity um
But at least acutely, they make some people feel
good and they might increase the release of certain
neurotransmitters that make you perform a little
bit better for certain things for some period
of time. There's also the other side of that
with cold therapy kind of blunting a lot of exercise
adaptations. And this is just because you're
kind of returning your body to homeostasis artificially
quickly. So in the case of like... inflammation
being necessary as a signal for adaptation and
heat stress being a necessary signal. And so
if you jump in a cold plunge right after your
exercise and you just bring yourself back down
and remove some of those inflammatory processes,
you might not have as much adaptation. But yeah,
besides that, I don't think... I don't think
the cold stress is quite as interesting as potential
benefits and applications of understanding heat
stress. When I was early on in my sports science
career and then even the lifeguarding, when it
came to injuries, it was rice, rest, ice, compression,
elevation. And as you progressed through, I actually
went to UF to finish my bachelor's years and
years later. And they were actually changing
the way they were talking about it. And they
weren't using ice. And again, going back to evolution.
I believe that the body swells for a reason.
It's encapsulating the injured part of your body.
It's flooding all the things that it needs. It's
painful for a reason because you don't want to
step on the thing that you just almost broke.
So again, it was counterintuitive when I look
back to be like, well, just like you're talking
about. Well, how do we inhibit the very process
that the body knows it needs to do to salvage
this injury? Yeah. It's interesting because,
yeah, I mean, I'm glad they were teaching that.
You still have physical therapists that will
tell you to ice an injury after. And I think,
you know, I don't want to say this completely
matter -of -factly, but at least what I advise
my clients is. the only time that you really
should be icing an injury is for pain management
if that pain is interfering with you know if
you had to give a presentation and you your legs
throbbing or something then like yeah sure ice
ice and make yourself feel a little bit better
for that or potentially for uh like a short -term
cosmetic reason you know you don't want to have
as much swelling around your face or something
like that um but besides that you know i generally
advocate for heat and uh And then as much movement
as you can tolerate without aggravating the injury.
Well, speaking of, you know, head injury, we
were talking about a little while ago, some of
the psychedelic, you know, research and just
observational, you know, results of the, like
I said, the psychedelic supplant medicines are
very, very exciting when it comes to brain health.
But obviously there's that psychological side
as well. What was it that, or let me rephrase
that. When did you first even come across this
kind of therapeutic option? And then what made
you join the research study in Austin? So I've
been a long -term advocate and supporter of whether
it's recreational use or it's therapeutic use.
um there's obviously a ton of talk right now
around how miserable ibogaine is but like i found
ibogaine to be a very enjoyable experience as
a whole um in and i think in some ways it's right
there there's a push for this messaging because
it makes it sound to people who are scared of
of anything labeled a drug that if it's fun then
it's also bad um but i you know Some of these
psychedelics and other similarly categorized
drugs can just be fun. And so I've had an appreciation
for them and just having, you know, just altered
states of consciousness for a long time. My first,
I did salvia once in high school, which is crazy.
So that was one of my, that was actually my first
exposure. But besides that, I was pretty, you
know, smoked weed uh less than five times in
high school and um i didn't drink so that was
pretty pretty straight through high school um
but the first kind of what i considered to be
like the first meaningful experience with any
any drug or psychedelic was was mdma and uh MDMA
was amazing because I was able to go to a music
festival and have the best night of my life,
which before knowing about MDMA, I would have
never gone. The only reason I went was because
I was like, oh, I kind of want to try these drugs
and see if it's... if it's all that people hype
it up to be and and yeah that was like a life
-changing experience in itself and it wasn't
just because it was in a therapeutic setting
like it really allowed me to have an experience
that i don't think would have otherwise been
possible um and that did have some long -term
benefits with opening me up socially um but kind
of since then you know i'd experimented with
different uh substances a little bit and when
i was A couple of years after separating from
the Navy, as soon as I separated, I started having
issues with insomnia. Actually, right after my
deployment, I was having really bad issues with
insomnia. And they would come in waves and they
would be accompanied by like depression and anxiety
and stuff like that. And it would just be a self
-perpetuating cycle with worsening my like just
experience of living. I got to kind of a low
point in 2019 and I tried taking some LSD and
going skateboarding. And actually that was like
one of the most therapeutic experiences I've
ever had with a psychedelic. It just gave me
a different perspective on how I was getting
in my own way. and kind of some of the things
that were contributing to my unhappiness and
my insomnia at the time and right you know within
two days of that experience my insomnia started
improving really really substantially and really
quickly um so i was appreciating the application
of psychedelics and some of those experiences
and i'm i'm sure you're even more likely to have
a positive beneficial experience on your life
if you do those in a controlled setting with
proper preparation and integration after um but
fast forward a couple years i'm on my second
year of my phd second of four years And I had
the idea to pursue Ironman triathlon again and
thought, you know, this is the time, right? I'm
kind of getting to an age where if I start later
than this, I'm going to be too old to be competitive.
So I started pushing Ironman triathlon training
pretty aggressively. And then on my second season,
I was able to turn professional. Trying to turn
pro in such a high volume sport while doing a
PhD and having some sleep issues and some hormone
issues and stuff like that was, I mean, it was,
I don't know if it was worth it. It was a good
experience, but I felt like trash. And I was
pretty miserable at the end of that. I was extremely
burned out. I was just not enjoying anything.
My mood sucked. Then I got an email from Navy
SEAL Foundation saying UT Austin's doing a clinical
trial on Ibogaine and you can get paid like $1
,200 to go do Ibogaine. So I was like, oh, hell
yeah. Um, cause I, I'd been offered Ibogaine,
uh, I was put in touch with Mission Within and
Martine Polanco in 2019 through Dan Cirillo.
He knew I, you know, I was having a kind of shitty
time around then. And so he put me in touch with
Martine. And at the time I was like, I didn't
know anything about Ibogaine besides that, like,
it's the only psychedelic that really, really
can warrant some additional medical supervision.
because of the cardiotoxic risks. But besides
that, I didn't know anything about it. It just
sounded wacky to me. I was like, I don't want
to miss a week of my training to go to Mexico
and do some really crazy, you know, the craziest
psychedelic of them all. So I passed on it then.
And fast forward to 20, you know, end of 2024,
when I got that email from Navy SEAL Foundation,
I immediately signed up. And that's what got
me into. into the ibogaine study so talk to me
about that experience as you mentioned it'd be
more recreational prior now you're in this very
kind of you know um rigid setting what was your
experience this time it was yeah i I know some
of it is made a little bit more difficult because
of, I don't know, maybe it's my autism or something.
But I kind of struggle with the traditional preparation
and integration models. It feels unnatural to
me, and I don't really get it. I saw the value
in it. I really enjoyed going to UT Austin and
doing their cognitive measures pre and post Ibogaine.
So I loved that part of the experience, especially
because I was doing cognitive research, but I
wasn't. doing it at the level of detail that
they were for that study. You know, all the work
I was doing was very applied and applied work
has limitations with equipment and like what
you can do while people are exercising or in
a heat chamber or something like that. But, you
know, we did several hours of functional MRI.
We were doing EEG, which does get used in exercise
physiology some. And we are doing a lot of clinician
administered tests. So it was just a cool experience
to see how they were doing that. The Ibogaine
experience itself was, I think, you know, and
I've had friends who have shared this too, but
one of the most amazing things about going to
a retreat like Mission Within to do Ibogaine
is you get cared for in a way that I think some
people have never been cared for ever. You know,
the people there are really doing it because
they believe in it and because they want to help.
At least that's the impression I got. And I remember
Punky, who was my trip lead, he was kind of in
charge of our group when I went to go do it.
He was so present the entire weekend. And it
made such a big impact on me. I was like, how
can you be in this present and like this, like
connected with everyone the entire time? It felt
like something, you know, he had to do once in
his life. And he told me he does it like potentially
three times a month for the last couple of years
or for, you know, for the majority of the last
couple of years. So I was blown away by that.
And it's, yeah, if you hadn't had that experience.
haven't had the experience of someone caring
for you like that while you're in a vulnerable
position, it's pretty transformative. The Ibogaine
experience itself, I also found enjoyable. I
discovered I'm a slow metabolizer of Ibogaine,
so it takes me a lot longer to feel the onset
of the drug. It also takes longer for me to clear
it. I wasn't able to eat for 36 hours after basically
ingesting the Ibogaine. But besides being pretty
nauseous and miserable that second day, the peak
of the experience I actually found to be very...
like i mean it was just a cool experience like
it feels cool like it feels good you have this
intuitive sense that it's like healing your brain
uh and then you know that coupled with an understanding
of research and that it probably is having some
regenerative effects on the brain um just it's
just a really cool experience to have and i didn't
have some sort of crazy life review that some
people have or anything like that but i did have
an interactive experience with it and um Yeah,
it was just really great to be cared for like
that. The experience at Mission Within was amazing.
And, you know, I'm definitely a big proponent
of it now. I was going to ask you that, but you
just answered the question because so many people,
when they do, you know, ayahuasca, 5 -MeO DMT,
you know, Ibogaine, there's this assumption that
it was when... They were at war when they were,
you know, in a fire engine that was going to
be where all their trauma was. But so often it's
actually earlier life that they really start
unpacking. Did you have any kind of semblance
of that at all? Or was it, as you said, more
of just an experiential thing this time? Yeah,
I would say. There's nothing really that stands
out to me in my life as a significant source
of trauma or behavior, like modification, like
any big event. But I still have, I tend to have
a blunted response when it comes to a lot of
psychedelics. taken like very high doses of mushrooms
before like extremely high doses and i just i
don't have a huge experience compared to what
a lot of people would have at even like a quarter
of that dose um so i just yeah tend to have some
sort of blunted experience in that sense and
i don't know why that is it might have to do
with with the tism or something but either way
um yeah i didn't have anything obvious that connected
it to something from childhood. Um, and yeah,
there's, there's nothing like scary about the
experience. It was pretty pleasant. I felt good.
I did feel euphoric and until I needed to go
get up to go to the bathroom and just, I get
nauseous really easily. So as soon as I moved,
I was just, you know, the entire time. But yeah,
I can't really think of anything that directly
tied it to my childhood. I didn't have like visions,
but I did have an interactive experience that
I think helped me to feel more emotion. That's,
you know, I struggle with empathy a little bit.
And I think that's part of my personality that
I'm trying to work on. But I definitely was able
to feel a lot of a wider range of emotions during
that experience. And that was very helpful for
me after that. I've been offered multiple times
to go to everything from Ibogaine to Ayahuasca.
And I was just asked to go with the group literally
yesterday. And at first I'm like, well, because
my draw is to MDMA specifically. That's something
that I've done recreationally that had an absolute
blast on. But then I was like, well, why have
I got resistance? Because I think it's... uh
you know psilocybin ayahuasca on on the second
day and i'm like but why am i resisting this
and i know i've got brain fog i know i've got
a completely blunted adrenal response from from
a career in the fire service i jumped out of
a helicopter on a skydive in cairo and it was
kind of like a self -experiment because the first
time i skydived it scared the shit out of me
prior to it and zero zero adrenaline so okay
i am definitely broken so so and then so you
got the brain fogs and the other things so i
was like okay even though i don't have anything
that's bothering me air quotes there is definitely
an inhibition of some sort so it's going to be
interesting when i kind of go through those with
an open mind to see what does present itself
because i don't have that thing i don't have
that call that haunts me i don't have sleepless
nights but that being said there's still There's
obviously a box in there locked away somewhere.
So it's going to be quite interesting to be able
to report on that in a few months and talk about
what I saw, hopefully. Wait, what are you planning
on doing? This will be, I think it's MDMA the
first day and then I believe psilocybin and ayahuasca
the second day, if I'm not mistaken, but not
either game. Okay, interesting. Yeah, I... Yeah,
I think there can be value in any of them. It
just depends what you're doing it for. I do love
that Ibogaine seems to have a unique regenerative
effect for the brain in terms of how it upregulates
GDNF and BDNF. And it does that a little bit
uniquely compared to other psychedelics. But
yeah, people definitely have really, really transformative
experiences with Ibogaine. with any of those,
you know, drugs, medicines, whatever. You mentioned
about Dan Cirillo being a mentor. I had an amazing
conversation with Dan. I think it was very shortly
after he had done, I'm assuming it was Ibogaine
as well. I think it was. And he talked about,
you know, alcohol being a huge coping mechanism
for him. I think it was margarita, as if my memory
serves me right. And he literally came out of
that not wanting a drink again. Very, very powerful
story. But sadly, I think it was only a couple
of years after we did the interview that he passed
away. So talk to me about who Dan was. Let's
talk about it for a moment. So people are reminded
of the, you know, the incredible human that you
guys lost in your profession. Yeah. So Dan Cirillo
was. Interestingly, in my Centennial Buds class,
he was in 194 in 1993, and then I was in 294
in 2012, 2013. And Dan was in the SEAL teams
for, I believe, 13 years. After he got out, he
worked in executive protection for a few different
companies. And he had just transitioned to like
owning CrossFit gyms when I met him. And Dan,
like I, you know, I never paid Dan anything besides
like I eventually was like cleaning bathrooms
and cleaning the gym and stuff. He pretty immediately
just took me on and invested so much time and
effort and money into preparing me for BUDS.
He brought me to a SEAL fit camp that he had
to give up a couple thousand dollars for me and
two other of his students. We all graduated in
the same class, by the way. He did that for all
of us just to help prepare us. He never asked
for anything in return. He was just incredibly
gracious with his time. He's the reason that
I train a bunch of students at University of
South Carolina who are in ROTC and want to be
SEAL officers or they are enlisting after they
finish their program. Um, you know, I've, I'm
very against, I just feel like I need to like
give back to them. And so I'm just going to train,
train you if you're willing to put in some work
and listen to what I have to say, um, that I'm
happy to, to do this for you. And yeah, so that,
that was Dan and Dan helped me get a, you know,
he helped me get both of the jobs I got as soon
as I was out of the Navy. um it's probably probably
why i'm having a harder time this time getting
a job even though i'm like overall more qualified
um so yeah dan dan was such a big part of my
life and i know like a lot of people felt very
very impacted by him um and it was it was always
pretty widely known by people at his gym that
he didn't have the best like uh attitude towards
uh you know civilians who were complaining about
something silly at the gym and you could you
could see you know he had some like anger issues
in certain situations and stuff like that and
he never showed it to me but i you know my understanding
is the drinking started to get a lot worse his
health got worse um his his problems with anger
were getting worse and And yeah, then after he
did Ibogaine and 5 -MeO -DMT at the Mission Within,
everyone's like, oh, what happened to you? Why
are you so happy now? So yeah, and that was amazing.
I think the people who go into those retreats
with... Honestly, I think a big part of it is
the more brain injury you have, the bigger response
you're going to have to the treatment. I think
another thing that... at least anecdotally i've
noticed is it seems like people who are a little
bit older so maybe their 40s or 50s and really
haven't had exposure to any sort of other drugs
they'll go and have very very transformative
experiences at these retreats um and yeah potentially
if a lot of the reason for the alcohol consumption
was related to certain habits and exacerbated
by brain injury and you're helping to repair
some of that brain injury then yeah a lot of
those things can can just kind of get fixed seemingly
overnight and there's also a lot of push around
not treating ibogaine or any of these therapies
as cures for anything and that there's still
a lot of work required around around the experience
but um you know, regardless if it's having a
regenerative effect on the brain that was limiting
you in a pretty wide range of areas and you fix
that, like you're going to have a pretty immediate
fix. Um, you know, there's still psychological
work to be done after that. But, um, yeah, that's
Dan. Dan was awesome. Uh, he, he did a lot for
me. Um, And, yeah, obviously I was very bummed
because he had a stroke a couple years before
his heart attack. And after that happened, you
know, his mobility got impaired quite a bit.
He wasn't able to exercise as much. He would
tell me he was, you know, it was a struggle to
walk up a flight of stairs. And, you know, but,
yeah, I wasn't expecting him to have a heart
attack. And unfortunately, that happened in 2023.
So yeah, that's Dan. Dan was a breacher, wasn't
he too? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, not only was he
in a pretty heavy hitting time for the SEAL teams,
but he was also exposed to a ton of blasts. And
obviously, that compounds a bunch of stuff. I
think he's probably in a lot of fights too. So
that didn't help. Yeah. Going back to Ibogaine,
when you were talking about the culture of drinking,
one of the things that, again, through this nine
-year education that I've had with all these
guests, I realized that the way, certainly the
group that I'm aware of, the first responder
professions, the way that we are selected, aside
from obviously the physical and written tests,
is the psych test and the polygraph. And you
speak to enough people in the psychology, psychiatry
space. the tests that they give us, the MMPI
was never meant to be a standalone test. It's
part of forensic psychology as a gamut of tests
to create a profile of someone. So we've got
this kind of box checking test at the front.
You know, you do a talk with a psychologist,
my most recent one. she was a pack rat so her
own mental health is questionable um and then
you have the polygraph which i say i lied through
several times i did mdma i did um psilocybin
when i was in japan actually psilocybin was legal
at the time but you know ironically those are
the things that we just um uh you know disqualified
for and now we're using the same compounds to
heal people so there's an irony for you But what
I realize is because so many of us called to
service do have some things prior, what a beautiful
opportunity to heal at the front door, whether
it's through therapy sessions, through a probationary
year, or whether it's even through Ibogaine or
ayahuasca or something at the beginning. Because
then I wonder... Would there be the same drinking
culture in military, fire, police, EMS that we
have if you were able to heal from day one instead
of kind of pushing it down 10, 15 years later?
Yeah, I think it is a difficult thing to intertwine
with it, especially with how the military and
government views. That stuff right now, it's
obvious when you're going to the recruiter and
they either have to disqualify you or prompt
you to say something different because you didn't
know that you were supposed to lie about everything
you've ever done going into it. But yeah, I think
if we were able to move to a place where that
stuff is being integrated more frequently. You
know, if you were able to come back from deployment,
I can't remember who I heard saying this, but
they were, I think it was on a podcast, but they
were talking about, you know, you'd come back
from deployment and do MDMA together or something
like that. And so they're just blowing off steam
by going to whorehouses and drinking. You know,
maybe they both blow off steam, but I think.
One would certainly have a more productive effect
long term. And yeah, so I do think that addressing
some of the issues that cause people to go into
those areas, you know, into those fields in the
first place would allow for better longevity
in the career. And they'd also just probably
lead to like healthier, happier people. And yeah,
hopefully get rid of the. or change the views
a little bit around the drinking -like sleep
culture. I've always said the same FDA that disproved
or disallowed the use of MDMA -assisted psychotherapy
in this most recent application was the same
FDA that approved OxyContin. So just because
a government organization has this kind of prohibition
stance, which if you look at drug prohibition,
it's got a history of job justification and racism
in the 30s. But just because a government organization
says it's wrong. doesn't mean it's wrong at all.
It's just a law. So I hope that there is this
kind of 180 where, as you alluded to, there's
recreational, and we're not talking about that.
We're talking about specific clinical application
of some of these healing modalities so that we
can create a high performer with longevity at
the front door. But if bureaucracy is completely...
you know, backwards, maybe even because of drug
companies, because some of these natural therapies
are very, very effective and therefore not going
to create a lifelong user. You know, we're going
to basically be stopping the very progress that
we need to heal our first responders and our
military members. Yeah. And on that FDA MDMA
note, are you familiar with what happened with
that rejection? Like why the FDA rejected MDMA?
People have told me, but I've got a memory, like
a sieve, like a colander. So just remind me again,
so I don't put my foot in my mouth. So I've never
talked about this, so I'm not going to articulate
it perfectly, but there... I've listened to Hamilton
Morris speak a lot about this because I think
he's a great source of information when it comes
to this stuff. But he was saying that there was
a woman who I believe her grandfather was going
to give a lot of his money through his will to
her when he died, but he had a life -changing
experience with MDMA and ended up donating. you
know, like all of his will to, I think it was
to MAPS to help fund psychedelic research. And
she was bitter about it. So then she got involved
with some other companies that basically put
hecklers at the FDA meeting to bring up things
about MDMA that were either completely misrepresented
or just not related to MDMA at all. There's one
instance of, I think it was a case of abuse between
a therapist and a participant. But it wasn't
even abuse and it was involving ketamine. So
it wasn't even involving MDMA. And in the FDA
meeting, they said it was MDMA. But that's kind
of the gist of what I know about it. But it sounds
pretty... pretty silly. And it is a big bummer
that, you know, we got that far and then got
kind of sidelined because of some, some pretty
stupid things. Yeah. Well, I know the member
of the FDA that approved OxyContin then went
and worked for Purdue Pharma shortly after that.
So after they completely lied about the results
and the addiction and all that things. Yeah.
One thing, I'm just looking at my notes that
I meant to ask you before when we were talking
about thermoregulation before we start rounding
off. It seemed to me throughout my career that
the older I got, the worse I was able to thermoregulate.
My career spanned 14 years in the fire service
specifically. And I was in the gear a lot. I'd
work out in the gear a lot, even though now we're
learning that there's PFAS and all kinds of stuff
in the gear that probably shouldn't have been
wearing it as much. But have you seen any studies
as far as the ability to thermoregulate versus
age? So I can't point to any specific research,
but what I do feel confident saying is that in
a lot of situations, the relationship between
age and a performance parameter can largely be
explained by behavioral changes rather than...
uh some sort of like physiological change that
occurs with aging and at some point there is
going to be a change because of aging but i think
it's just not as relevant as people like to make
it out to be so i don't i don't know if specifically
there's something with aging and thermoregulation
that would heavily impact So I tend to first
jump to thoughts about, are you exercising less
than you used to be? Is your activity different
than it used to be? Did you gain weight since
the times that you're comparing yourself to?
Certain things like that. I think usually it's
more attributable to how you're training and
the rest of your activity levels. But yeah, I
don't know for sure if there's, you know, something
very obvious that because of your age would be
impairing your thermoregulation. See, I was training
doing CrossFit the whole time. So maybe I just
became a giant pussy. As simple as that. I do.
I do think, you know, there's appeal with CrossFit
and the time. that it takes to do a CrossFit
workout and the community aspect of CrossFit.
But I think as a whole, even for situations where
you'd think it would be very beneficial, so any
sort of tactical profession where it seems like
the CrossFit workout is very functional for that,
I think people fall into a trap of... thinking
that that means it's going to be the most effective
way to prepare for those fields and you know
example i like to give is you if you were training
to have the highest one rep max bench that you
could or run the fastest mile time that you could
you wouldn't run a fast mile every day you wouldn't
max out your bench every day um maybe there's
an application for that sort of thing in the
short term where you are very closely mimicking
the demands of the event but for the most part
you'd spend most of the time doing something
else that's eventually going to push you in the
right direction so in six months or a year you're
producing much better results than you would
otherwise and another example of this is like
you know i was talking about christian bloom
and philip the triathlete before um you know
he does a lot of threshold training well actually
no sorry he's a bad example but like um there's
they're the Jakob Ingebrigtsen the Norwegian
runner he usually competes in the 1500 to 5k
I believe and he has some world records and you
know the his 1500 meter time is I think sub 330
And he is running over 100 miles a week. So he's
doing huge volumes of threshold training, huge
volumes of low intensity training, and a little
bit of faster work. But the majority of training
isn't spent running at the intensity that he
actually races at. It's usually a much lower
intensity than that. And that's just... a different
way to distribute training to optimize the amount
of volume you can get while still touching on
physiological intensities that actually shift
your progress in the long term rather than just
a short -term specificity advantage that you
get. And so I think when people are doing CrossFit
to prepare for any sort of tactical profession,
they're missing out on a lot of different types
of training. you know you might be time constrained
so this might not be practical for everyone but
um i i do think there is a benefit to doing high
volumes of low intensity endurance training you
know it's not super stressful it doesn't have
a super detrimental effect on the other training
you do but it still is able to robustly increase
cardiovascular adaptations i do it's not even
crossfit anymore it's wolf brigades programming
so it's um More focus on the strength training.
Now we use a lot of unilateral, heavy, heavy
kettlebells, you know, maces, those kinds of
things alongside some high intensity stuff. The
class that I teach and usually do with my athletes
is a lot of sandbags, sleds, that kind of thing.
If I was going to add what you're talking about,
some lower intensity, maybe longer runs, what
would be the frequency per week to compliment
the strength training? Oh, so. So very nuanced.
Depends how fit these people are. Depends how
important physical performance is for them. It
depends what their current limitations are. Obviously,
you have some genetic freaks who they don't even
need to do the aerobic exercise and they're going
to perform well. I still would suggest that they're
going to be better off if they do some of it
than not. Generally, when I think about training,
we were talking about variation before. And I
think one of the great ways to add variation
is having, you know, make your hard days hard,
make your easy days easy, and definitely have
periods of rest. One common theme that's seen
in... very high level endurance athletes is typically
they're not doing multiple consecutive days of
high intensity training unless they're you know
doing it for a very specific purpose so there's
a lot of undulation between higher and low intensity
training um and in the case of jacob ingebrigtsen
i believe almost always he is having at least
a full day between harder workouts and sometimes
multiple days with the rest being filled in by
easy training so i think If you think about it
like that, then, you know, you potentially be
getting two or three days a week of this low
intensity training and that doesn't need to be
running, right? It could be. I think in a lot
of ways, riding an air bike or doing a rower
or spin bike or something like that can be a
better alternative because it interferes even
less than running would with your ability to
do your strength training or your high intensity
training just because it has lower muscular load,
but you're still getting the cardiovascular stimulus
that you would get with running. Brilliant. Before
we go to the closing questions, are there any
other areas of human performance that you want
to make sure that we discuss? I don't think so.
We've hit a lot. Okay. All right. Well, then
the first question I'd love to ask then, is there
a book or are there books that you'd love to
recommend? It can be related to our discussion
today or completely unrelated. Oh, that's a tough
one. You know, I think if you're interested in
hybrid athletics, Alex Fiat is the hybrid athlete.
He just came out with a paperback version. Alex
Fiat's original PDF, The Hybrid Athlete, back
in like 20... I think he released it in like
2013 or 14 or something, but I didn't come into
contact with it until like 2018, 2019. And that
book is... is pretty awesome. I think it's, I
think, you know, Alex is incredibly smart and
incredibly gifted when it comes to understanding
how humans respond to exercise and different
ways to, to, to train that can make you better
for very, very unique situations. Um, so if,
if you're interested in like the hybrid athlete
thing, which is pretty popular right now, I think
he's. Probably the single first resource that
I would refer most people to. But besides that,
you know, I'm not, I'm not actually a big reader.
I consume tons of podcasts. I read some research
papers, but I don't do much in the way of reading.
I, right now I'm listening to this audio book
called the, I think it's called the breakdown
of the bicameral mind and the. Origin of Consciousness,
something like that by Julian Jaynes. And the
reason I started listening to it was because
Julian Jaynes, who's a psychologist at, I think
there were two Ivy League schools for like 25
years, so somewhat reputable at least. But he
has this theory that the human experience of
consciousness several thousand years ago was
not at all how it is now. And some of that had
to do, the change had to do with the development
of language. But there used to be an experience
of, he proposes that humans... thought that they
were being talked to by gods which was actually
a separation in the chambers of their mind and
so there's there's just a different experience
where you are being talked to and told what to
do and he kind of suggested that it's has to
do with the differences in what threshold is
necessary to hear these voices. And he gives
a bunch of examples of modern day humans, whether
it's schizophrenics or in certain high stress
situations where you do hit a threshold for where
you're going to start hearing a voice that directs
you to behave a certain way in a certain situation.
So he just suggests that. a long time ago that
the threshold was much lower. The reason I started
listening to that was because Jonathan Dickinson
from Ambio was talking in a podcast about how
the similarities between the bicameral theory
of mind and the Ibogaine experience where sometimes
people feel like they're being talked to by gods
or by... their subconscious or something like
that. My experience was, or perception of my
experience was that I was talking to my subconscious
during the experience, which is really cool.
But other people perceive that differently. So
that's why I started reading that. But yeah,
I'm listening to audio books occasionally, but
I wouldn't say that anything has really stood
out to me as that exciting. And I do consume
a lot of podcasts, you know, sometimes five hours
a day of podcasts. It's interesting what you
said about that separation of the mind. One of
the realizations, again, I've had through this
learning journey is, you know, there's the old
school way of talking about suicide was, you
know, how could they? It's cowardly. It's selfish.
Think of your family. And then you listen to
literally hundreds of people that were there,
many of whom, thank God, never went through with
the attempt, some of whom survived the attempt.
Almost every single person said at that point,
they truly believe that they were the reason
for their family or their friends pain. And if
they just remove themselves, everyone will be
happy. And it's again, we're talking about that
voice in their mind. They've convinced them that
very invisible hand that if you stood on the
top of a tall building on the edge that kind
of pushes you back when you're healthy, kind
of has gone around the back now and said, no,
you should jump. And then you add in the fact
that you. in a profession where you would die
for a stranger. Now you've just amplified that.
And then God forbid, you're a police officer.
Now you've got the mode of execution strapped
to your hip as well. But when people see that
it's not a thing, that it's this perfect storm
of all these contributing factors from unaddressed
childhood trauma, sleep deprivation, organizational
betrayal, side effects of meds, alcohol, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, that they get to this miswiring
where their brain is literally lying to them.
Saying you are the reason for your family's pain
when the reality is, of course, if you take your
own life, there's going to be even more pain
on your family and they do love you. So I wonder
if that's kind of tied into that as well. But
when there's a dysfunction in the brain, that
voice is not only there, but it's a distorted
perception of the world. Yeah, and add in some
brain injuries on top of that, that compound
over time. And yeah, it's definitely a recipe
for doing something that other people perceive
as selfish, but you're perceiving it as the opposite
of that. Exactly. And I think that that gives
some people that are left behind some peace to
know that actually it was probably terrifying
and took courage. to to to do that act because
they believe they were the problem so hopefully
that you know changes the way people perceive
the people that they lost yeah back to to the
books what about television film documentaries
any of those that you love well obviously if
you follow i began in waves and war just came
out on netflix um which you know i think I think
there are some good things and some less good
things about how they did it. But either way,
I think it's going to help bring Ibogaine some
awareness. And I think that's going to be helpful.
And it also, it's, you know, it's very engaging.
It's emotional. It's easy to relate to, even
if you're not someone who's a Navy SEAL who has
your trauma that you're... you know wanting to
fix or whatever um so there's that and i'm always
yeah looking for for stuff like that of night
and light is has still not been released which
is another ibogaine documentary that's uh in
the works and that that features the mission
within a little bit and martin palanco who's
who started that um yeah besides that i Honestly,
I haven't been watching as much TV or anything
as I usually do. I've been playing video games
a little bit more since I've had a lot more downtime.
What are you hoping to do next? Originally, when
I was in my PhD, I was hoping to work for a startup
that was... basically going to be one of the
new ketone mono ester companies and um i think
they're just still going back and forth with
their investors and so things haven't happened
quickly enough for for me to start doing that
um but I'd say generally I'm interested in improving
people's performance, whether that's their cognitive
performance or, you know, just human performance
in general. And I, I find any high performing
athlete or individual to be very exciting to
learn about and interact with. So whether that's,
you know, an endurance sport or it's something
like formula one I think it's all pretty sweet.
But I, I am trying to get. involved in the ibogaine
space a little bit i think it has tremendous
potential and i i love what it did for me but
i even more i love seeing what it's doing for
other people um i you know i love the the tradition
of it um from you know how bleeding's been practiced
in africa um to sort of how ibogaine's being
used in in western society now um I would love
to get involved in that side of things. And I've
been pretty vocal about that on podcasts and
stuff. So if anyone knows of anything, I'm talking
to a few different organizations right now and
trying to get more involved with them. But I
welcome any other opportunities if any of the
listeners know of them. I just had Trevor Miller
on the show. And I know Ambio is opening a second
location in Malta. So if you're willing to travel,
maybe they've got vacancies there right now.
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's tricky because I don't
have a directly obvious background that would
lend itself to Ibogaine research or that sort
of thing. But I think at least there's similarities.
I did cognitive research in tactical populations.
So there's a link there. There's also just having
been a SEAL, having been through the Ibogaine
treatment before. Um, and then have, you know,
being able to see firsthand the issues that,
uh, that Ibogaine benefited. Um, so yeah, I think
that's probably part of the reason it's difficult.
And I also, you know, I think if you potentially
longterm want to get into this stuff and you
want to be in a research role. It's beneficial
to go into a postdoc at another academic institution
and get more involved with that specific research
while still under the academic umbrella. I felt
like towards the end of my PhD that I definitely,
I mean, didn't take till the end, but I definitely
didn't want to stay in academia. Seems like people
getting very stressed over stuff that isn't.
as big of a deal as it needs to be in their minds
and um not only that but you know the pay is
not great the work's pretty hard and um potentially
things move very slow and aren't as rewarding
as you know i would like them to be absolutely
Well, the next of the closing questions, is there
a person that you recommend to come on this podcast
as a guest to speak to the first responders,
military and associated professions of the world?
Oh, yes, I've got two. So we obviously talked
about Cody because Cody is one of my best friends
and he's awesome. I haven't stayed in touch with
a ton of guys since separating from. from the
navy but he's he's someone who's always like
been great about keeping in touch with me i'm
just because my anti -socialness i'm just not
great at like relationships and stuff um but
cody's awesome and uh then another one is evan
mcgougan who is a seal officer that separated
about a year ago and he's actually living in
South actually I think technically he lives in
Charlotte but he's he's in South Carolina quite
a bit and he just reached out to me a few weeks
ago saying you know he noticed I'm here and um
wanted to meet and link up but he yeah he's he's
very involved in in the leadership space and
I think he could be a good guest as well yeah
well I would love to get both of them on so we'll
see if we can make that happen Brilliant. All
right. Well, then the last question before we
make sure where people can find you, what do
you do to decompress? I really enjoy trail running.
I have shifted my, yeah, my motivations around
why I'm exercising. It has, yeah, I realized
after I turned pro in Ironman that I, that the
the mental and physical space that I was in after
that was, I realized not worth it. Um, like ever
again, for probably any reason besides like a
lifesaving one. Um, I just really dug myself
into a hole. I was getting sick all the time.
My, my blood work looked like I had, uh, HIV
that was getting close to, you know, looking
like someone with AIDS. Um, so they, yeah, that
was just a miserable time. And. Now, you know,
over this past year, I've kind of reworked the
way that I view exercise and why I'm doing it.
So I just love going on super chill trail runs
now. I do that four to five days a week. And
then I also love to go to go to this place in
Charlotte that's got a sauna and cold plunge
and steam room and hot tub and stuff. And I usually
go there once a week. yeah and then and then
i'm not a big video gamer but the last couple
months i have been and i've also found that very
enjoyable which games do you like um so i bought
a switch too because i was oh well i don't remember
the initial reason why i bought it i think i
wanted i knew the new pokemon game was coming
out and i was like i want to play pokemon again
because i used to love pokemon when i was younger
um But yeah, I got the new Pokemon game. I'm
playing The Witcher 3 right now. I was playing
Cyberpunk before. Hogwarts Legacy is good. The
Zelda games are great. Yeah, that was, I think,
one of the main motivations for getting it. I
love the fantasy aspect of Zelda, and I'm not
normally big on fantasy or anything that's not
modern or futuristic, but I do. love zelda so
yeah those are those are the games brilliant
all right well for people listening if they want
to learn more about you if they want to offer
you your dream position where are the best places
online to find you um so i'm on linkedin uh you
know i'm not going to read off my linkedin url
because it's a series of numbers that wouldn't
make sense but um you know i'm blame lance on
on linkedin um And if there's another plain lens,
they're probably not Asian. So you can tell by
the picture that it's me. And then I'm on Instagram
at blankets. So spelled like my name, B -L -A
-I -N -E -K -E -T -S. And yeah, usually whether
it's LinkedIn or Instagram, I'm decent about
responding to people. Beautiful. Well, again,
I want to say thank you to Cody and I want to
thank you. It's been such an interesting conversation.
Having the background that you had as a high
level athlete, as a young man through to your
times with the SEAL teams and now the research
that you're doing and the Ibogaine. I mean, there's
so much that we've talked about. So I want to
thank you so much for being so generous with
your time and coming on the Behind the Shield
podcast today. Yeah, thanks for having me on,
James. It was fun.