What's going on Friends? Welcome to another episode of The Genius life. I'm your host Max look of your FileMaker health and science journalist in the author of The New York Times. Best-selling book genius Foods in this episode of the show. I'm super excited to introduce you to my friend. Kyle Kingsbury. Kyle is a retired mixed martial artist and UFC fighter and the host of the Kyle Kingsbury podcast. He's an all-around brilliant guy who studies how diet nutrition training plant medicine and even technology can be harnessed for optimal cognitive and physical performance. This podcast is going to be a master class in the tricks and tactics
that Kyle uses to foster a better Mind and Body Connection marrying technology and the best of ancestral wisdom among other things you're going to discover. Kyle's top hacks for better sleep and his favorite sleep tracking device the benefits of cold and heat stress and how to reap those benefits. Even if you don't have access to a sauna or cold plunge why Kyle defaults to a ketogenic diet and his intuitive training program that keeps him in killer shape without the Bro split that's often recommended in Fitness circles and
So much more now before we get into it this episode of the show is brought to you by my good friends at for Sig Matic. I began my day today with a smoothie in which I Incorporated a packet of for Sig Mattox lion's mane infused coffee their coffees are all organic and I like the fact that some of them incorporate lion's mane, which is a quote unquote medicinal mushroom that is purported to have cognition boosting effects. Now, all the benefits of these types of mushrooms are perhaps unsettled signs. I genuinely enjoy the way that their coffee makes me feel and I'm super glad that they have chosen to support the genius life. And if you'd like to give anything at forcing matica try all you got to do is head over to for Sigma to.com slash Max or use promo code Max and you'll get to save a whopping 15 percent off of everything in their online store, which is the biggest discount that you're going to find four for somatic products anywhere. So head over give them a shot and tell them Max sent you now guys, we're just seconds away from my chat with mr. Kyle Kingsbury. I feel like this is going to be one of those episodes that you come back to again. And again, there's just so much good information packed Within
Next hour, so get your pens and papers ready. Um, but before you do that, please guys go over to Max look of your.com and join my newsletter, which is one of the primary ways that you can support the genius Life podcast. What doing that does is it gives me an algorithm free pipeline to your brain so that I can share with you science that has the potential to improve your life products that I'm really digging exclusive discounts and updates on my latest projects every single one of my emails is handwritten by me and explicitly designed to improve your life and you can opt out at any time. So again, that's Max lewicki for.com join the newsletter, that would be very very much appreciated. All right. Well, that's enough for me. I'm excited to get into it with the brilliant Kyle Kingsbury. I had the pleasure of hanging with him recently in Venice Beach, California, and let's get on with our chat. Here we go. Call Kingsbury. Thank you so much for being here with me man. Hell yeah, brother dude. It was so good to hang with you in Austin when we first met and you had me on your podcast, which
I'm super grateful for and I just love following you on social media on Instagram. You're always doing cool things on hunts and exotic far out places wearing speedos with other friends of mine, like, you know, getting your vitamin D. It's awesome. But one of the things that I love about about you and guys like you is that like me you've sort of become a walking meta-analysis in essence because you host his podcast you talk to, you know, Brilliant Minds from all around the world all different facets of science and health and wellness and biohacking and you know Athletics, so let's just get into like some of the things that have most excited you some of the you know, bio hacks the principles that you've integrated into your life that you found. I guess the most, you know return on. Yeah for sure. I think it's funny because that that I'm down with that term because I grew up in the Silicon Valley and I think like, all right, you're just hacking the system and then obviously the a lot of
Kind of go back and forth on how legit that term is, you know, every biohacking the I've ever speaking at paleo FX and somebody was talking about we're on a biohacking panel is like I don't consider any of these bio hacks. Like if you were to get an implant into your skin like that's hacking your biology or something, you know, sometimes cyborg futuristic, you know, whatever humans turn out to be down the road but really to that note. I think it's the opposite it's using utilizing technology or not utilizing nature even 2 hack how we used to live and get fill in the blanks on whatever we're missing now. So, you know, what what has been the biggest bang for my buck is walking outside moving more during the day, you know, and that's its. I mean, it is fucking cliche as held Mark Bell. We just did his podcast up in up in Sacramento and he has this thing that Mark Bells 10 minute walk and he just Ten Minute Podcast for people to listen to on their walk or you can just go unplug. You know, like, dr. Annie.
Open and Brian Mackenzie have the book unplugged and listen to the sound of birds. Listen the sound of cars listen to anything that you hear but perceive that that level that vibration of Nature and that vibration of cars even but not the vibration of music and the vibration of podcast inaudible and I'm a huge fan of podcasts Audible and music but occasionally it's important to do that. So it's about a one-mile loop around on it and I'll walk a mile maybe three or four times a day at different points of the day or I'll set aside a block like especially if I'm grinding through a really good book and I'll walk eight or ten miles listening to the book and that's an addition to picking up something heavy here and there, you know a couple days to two days a week I left but walking is a big one moving more during the day because that's what we all used to do and you look at Blue zones and different places in Europe where people walk a lot even among I forget he was talking about. I'm sure it's been been I might be beating a dead horse here, but a lot of our great
Furs and thinkers would go they do walking interviews or walking phone calls or they'd go for go for walks to contemplate and I think I forget which book I was reading it in but people are so focused on doing or meditating right? So we have the go go go type A personality and then how do we scale that back? Well, we got to have the flip side of that. So it's yin and yang are getting young and that flip side is to get more again get more still be more quiet, but the happy medium in between that is contemplation and that's done best moving. So if you're walking and it's not super taxing, you can get some of your best thought their right and you can work through things same thing, you know on the shitter a lot of people like that. I give my best quiet time on the can because I don't have my kids yelling at me. I don't have this or that and if you don't bring your phone into the can that's a great time to contemplate right if you're on your phone, it's almost like watching TV while you're eating you're not really present with that when that special time, right? It's so true.
Like who doesn't bring their phone into the can with them these days. I feel like I feel like growing up. We used to read the shampoo the backs of the shampoo bottles over and over something but that's just a way we distract ourselves. Right and we do that with every fucking way, you know, people talk about drug addiction all the time, but we're addicted to shopping. We're addicted all sorts of stuff. We're really addicted to Media. That's what it comes down to and I love that. The iPhone has that you are up 70% this week on your social media and your like motherfucker. You don't know damn it. I got sucked down the rabbit hole again that kind of thing but it's cool because I think I said I'll lead in my next one. These are in no particular order by the way, but self quantification, right if you can attach a number to it and this is you know, really goes into a concept I was talking about with dr. Andrew huberman up at Stanford recently was like this the religion of science. We're so focused on what science brings to the table and really that comes down to numbers. Yeah. So if we can quantify things with a number then it's real to us.
Right. So and in that we lose that sense of feeling right like like feeling out our sleep, but I'm really in a self quantification. I wear this whoop watch. I think it's the best one on the market for sleep sleep is for sure the best biohack on the planet like you get a good night's sleep. And again, that's where people are going to buy like to sleep. Everyone fucking sleeps like yeah, but optimizing sleep is critical. It doesn't matter if your goal is fat loss is a matter for goal is performance strength training any of these things it all comes down to sleep. If you got a big meeting the next day or presentation or a podcast fucking sleeps. Number one, right? There isn't any huberman said that he's like the best nootropic on the planet is a good night's sleep. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. You're so right. Yeah. It's I've was part of a clinical trial actually using the whoop to assess biomarkers and how they would relate to cognitive performance at the
At the Alzheimer's prevention clinic in New York actually for a while, but it's cool. I'm starting to see those on you know, people wearing them which is interesting because for a while it was just the ring. Yeah and the or rings great. I think that it's problematic when I'm dead lifting and doing different things punching the heavy bag. Whoop doesn't seem to be an issue there the thing I love about the whoop is it uses machine learning? So you have in this sorry. This is a fucking giant plug here, but machine learning they'll ask me every night how I've slept. So a lot of one of their questions is did you share a bed and I'd say nine times out of ten. I share a bed with my son who's in just turned 4, right and we plan on co-sleeping for another year. But as we work to have our next child will be weaning him away from that. So if I don't sleep with him, like on a trip like this and I say I didn't share my bed, then it will compare that data to all the times that I've slept with my son and it'll say you get 12% more.
Sleep when you sleep alone things like that. So it's really cool to kind of play with that and see what it looks like the most important piece, you know, people are thinking about oh, yeah. Well, I don't have a son or oh, I always have to sleep with my son. So there's no comparison. That's fine. But playing with things like CBD, obviously I work for on it. So Shameless plug here I use their new mood and then Alpha Brain before sleep will double my rims score is an Alpha Brain a I don't know much. It's all plant based nootropic and it's generally taken like pre podcast that took some today. Wow, you can take it before workouts. You know, Tim noakes is a professor out of at a South Africa and he's big in the keto space. Obviously, you know him. Yeah, but one of the things he talks about in running is how the brain is that Central Governor. So it's your brain shutting down when you Bonk it's not your muscle because the body intelligently knows however much Source you have of glycogen if you're not in a to a fuel system where your model metabolically flexible that
Comes an issue in the brain will demand more so it'll shut down your limbs. I find that very fascinating. But I also think of nootropics as a performance enhancer for workouts because of that reason, right. So anywho if you take it before night, it increases REM sleep and that's really important for cognitive function. But how does it how does it have those dual effects of being a like a stimulant? I guess before your workouts and also helping not a stimulant. So in most of on its products have been non-stimulant based because that's if you like stimulants, you're probably already on them, you know, like if you I've played with modafinil for years on and off again obviously coffee caffeine is the World's Favorite Drug and people don't look at it as a drug, but it's damn sure fucking drug. It's totally your Consciousness. It's very addictive. I have more withdrawal symptoms when I come off caffeine for like an ayahuasca ceremony than any other drug that I take any other drug by far. I feel that difference I'll get
I mean, I wouldn't call it a migraine but it's throbbing headaches from from my withdrawals from caffeine. So yeah, I mean it just it did teaches you how to play with different things. Does this supplement work or not? It doesn't have to be just my thought process behind that and I can actually look at the data and tell that it's working in different ways and how it's working and I think that really empowers people. Also, I mean even just from a sleep hygiene standpoint if you're not in a supplements and spending money and figuring shit out that way like what happens if I turn my Wi-Fi off at night what happens if I you know have blackout blinds and invest in that do I sleep better? Do I have less disturbances through the night all that's a factor. We were at my buddy's place in Foster City Mike's let me do you know Mike not he's a great dude. You should you should definitely podcast with him. It's finished. All of Pol checks courses. He's into a number of different movement practices. He's good, but he's with Erin Alexander's well and a lot of our mutual friends. Yeah, we're staying at
House and you know, he didn't hit his blinds for whatever reason we're kind of the string that lowers them the whole the way were broken. So they were like three quarters of the way down and there's a streetlight outside and I was like man, I wonder how that's gonna affect my sleep and had like 11 disturbances, you know, anytime I would roll over the light would flash my eyelids and it would fuck me up. I'd be awake for a second. I didn't really correlate that until when I looked at the data the next day I was like, oh shit, I woke up 11 times last night. Like that's that's a pretty significant change. Generally that numbers between 3 and 4 times in a night. I might have to pee or if bears with me, you know, I'll see those numbers look consistently at three maybe five top so 11. It was like damn. All right, that's the effect of that street light out there, right, you know, so there's different things, you know, sometimes a situational I couldn't do anything to change it. I wasn't going to be like Mike run to the store go to Bed Bath & Beyond right now and hook me up or I'm going to go there and fucking install this for the two nights that I'm here. But when I'm home, you can definitely set stuff up that will help.
With sleep hygiene and ultimately affect your sleep score and your recovery, you know, we pay attention to so many different things with self quantification like HRV levels and all this stuff and what impacts that one. Can I feel comfortable in my own skin. Can I get still can I dip in a parasympathetic before bed to how do I sleep? Well, that's largely dependent upon how I really exercise the room to a place where it's the best possible sleeping environment.
Yeah, I can't sleep such a big one. It's such a big one and I think the scariest thing is that you can have an effect on your I mean research now is starting to show that there can be an effect on your next day cognitive function via stimuli. That doesn't even necessarily wake you up right? Like even dim light. I think they've shown from like like a candle essentially can still go in through your your eyeball it through your eyelids the fucking smoke detectors that have a tiny red lighter a tiny green light even right? I think I'm guys like Luke story are so so into this. Yeah, they'll keep they'll take black electrical tape with them when they travel in the put it over any possible light in the room. Wow, and if they lay down and they missed a spot that kind of feel that they'll look around and they'll find it and they go through a little more black electric tape on it when they're in hotels and airbnb's and like that's him. That's the next level of the game. I'm not quite there yet that's dedication that is dedication. But you know, that's I mean some people are more sensitive than others. You hear that with the imf's, you know, like you there's the non
In foil guide to EMF. It's a good one by Nicholas Pinot. We had them on the show back in the day and
You know, that's one of the things I like about his approach to it is like look, you might not feel your fucking Wi-Fi. Let's be honest here. But some people are really affected by it. Some people feel it some people feel in their digestion or there's an uneasy in an easiness and the anxiety that they get when they're around it because it is changing us whether we're receptive or knowledgeable about that are not if you can't perceive it doesn't mean that's not affecting you are so I think just having that understanding and knowing like
If that's also an issue I get to as you throw the kitchen sink at people and they're like fuck where do I start? And it's likely you just do one thing at a time. Yeah, and whatever moves the bar for you feeling wise first. That's the thing that you're focused on you can prioritize your bio Acts or whatever life changes. You want to make whatever lifestyle changes you find to be the most pertinent. That's what you focus on. Yeah you okay. So we talked about walking super important Quantified Self, you know, trying to measure various aspects of your you know, your behavior your sleep because what you can measure you can essentially improve optimizing your sleep. Have you spent any time with any of these like red light photobiomodulation kits because I know you recently have the Juve guys. Yeah that you guys hooked me up with their Elite system, which is
It's something it's palpable, you know, like and I even told them I was like it I'm rocking Snus right now. I use organic Swedish tobacco and we can get into that as a biohacker we want but um, I usually have one it I can't where I can't have a Snus in while I do that because it's so it's I don't know. I mean I could feel it. I don't know if I can feel it detoxing the body, you know, there's a lot of read a lot of science on red light and infrared therapy helping the body to detox and a lot of people would be like I proved that where's the science behind that kind of shit, but dr. Rhonda Patrick, I find very intelligent and knowledgeable in the space and there's definitely an acceleration in the detox Pathways when we have some form of red light and that can be from the Sun. You don't have to buy a system. But if you get direct sunlight, you're going to get a lot of that too. And if you are fair skinned because that's obviously a big question people have concerns around sunburns and and skin radiation when the when the sun is at its peak. That's where we get our ultraviolet light and that's where we're going to produce the most amount of D3. So if
Working to increase D3 naturally you want to go out. Midday doesn't have to be for long be 15 30 minutes if you burn and don't wear sunblock, if you really can't be out if you're from Sweden or someplace Finland that kind of thing in your close to the equator. If you go out in the waking hours from 9 to 11 or eight to ten and then at Sunset, you won't burn there's very little ultraviolet light at that point, but you still get all the benefits of the red light in the infrared and that's near Farm. It's all spectrums, right? So it's that's a really good way to hack that the sun. Yeah Simon biohack, you know, it's ours. But yeah red light when I go when I get in front of the Juve, I feel like like a buzz in my skull especially when I'm facing it. And you know, I am going to measure I measured testosterone before I got the machine and always luteinizing hormone follicle-stimulating hormone. I think it's been a thousand bucks that excuse me Wellness effects.com. Wow.
It was very comprehensive and did a lot more than hormonal stuff. But I do want to see how the hormones are affected by that because that's some of the things that they're finding in science is this can be a way to hack and that's why they say to go naked have your balls right next to it. I have your boss light hit your ball. You have the light at your balls and if you're a lady, you know have that hit your lady genitals and you see obviously it's different for men and women but these sex hormones that help with recovery and energy and a lot of things that are all things good. We see that shift in the right direction. So I mean fingers crossed. Hopefully it's working up least not just Placebo, but we'll have we'll have those numbers probably in a couple of months here. Okay, so I have to ask you because they sent me a little smaller version of the light. I'm not as cool as you so I didn't get the full Elite package or whatever but I have one that's like it's about 2 feet high and I've tried to put I've shined it on my nether regions because that's what everybody's talking about. Right like it's going to boost your testosterone.
You know, it's like the leading cells or something. But what concerned me was that the unit gets warm? Yes, and like don't you not want to have warmth on your well first, that's all that that comes down to sperm right sperm sperm don't like that's why our balls are on the outside of our body, right? That's why if you're you go to hot yoga and you're wearing not spandex your balls will sag like an old man's that's to keep them away from the Heat and when you're cold that gets sucked up right because you don't want it to be too cold because that'll hurt them as well. So the balls are flexible. They're moving always. I love it. I'm working on my balls were and so really it comes down a sperm production and sperm health for Reproductive Health intermittent heat is not an issue. It's when they're consistently hot and they say that that I think if you wear say I was to where my glorious Speedo all day long that would be an issue because of no longer allowing my balls to create space as necessary from its environment. Wow.
If you wear tighty-whities briefs, like the old-timers used to that can be an issue and and same goes for you know, spandex or you know, you got you got some virus compression shorts that's going to be an issue if you wore that every single day as your undergarment, I don't wear underwear anymore. I'm always Commando and if I'm working out, I'll throw on those those nice tight, you know virus compression shorts so I can run and not catch a fish and all that kind of shit, but it's for an hour a day or 40 minutes in a day. It's not going to hurt you makes total sense. Yeah. So the intermittent heat not an issue our bodies are meant to respond to heat and cold throughout the day the fluctuations of Nature and I think that all that will go we just talked about Lightman that'll go right into the next one is temperature extremes, right? I mean, that's and again you don't have to outfit your house with a nice bath in a sauna but really living in tune with the climate. So in the summer months, we let it get a little hot
In the house that way there's no you can you can have some escape from the heat but you're still dealing with warmer temperatures because it's that time of year and when it's colder, we don't turn the heater on we might bundle up still but there's parts of my body like my face my head my hands that are going to experience the cold and that can have immune system benefits, but most importantly it teaches my body that flexibility of what we've been missing right then I know everyone's beating this drum to death but it's still worth mentioning if you kind of like, I guess it's analogous to carbohydrates. If every waking meal you eat carbohydrates your entire life. There's no longer metabolic flexibility there if your whole life you were in 72 degrees in the house 72 degrees in the car 72 degrees at work. You're no longer experiencing that and you see that scientifically from children having a much higher Brown fat percentage in their body Brown fat being the regulator of metabolism. Also the regulator of temperature in the body and you look at
Olds far less brown fat adipose tissue much more white adipose tissue, which is the fact that we don't want right. So if we even just go to cold showers and being out in the heat, you know, I used to do this when I lived in Vegas or four months. I did this Poor Man's Guide to heat shock proteins. Oh man, and so I would throw on my full ASU warm-ups with my my fighting my weight cut rubbers over the top and I'd take a half gallon yeti with me and go for a walk for about an hour each day in the Dead Heat of the Sun. So he a hundred and fifteen degrees outside. I'd be sipping my water listening to audible. I think go for a slow snail-paced walk and I'd be huffing and puffing by the end of the walk because the heat just drenched in sweat a lot of times. I'd finish my workout with that. So I lift weights in the garage get a good sweat going through all the gear on and then go out for that walk and we've seen I mean Greenfield talks about this run a Patrick talks about this. There's a lot of benefits to increasing your heat shock proteins post-workout.
So immediately following a workout when you're already turned on your already warm, you do this and you can see a reduction in delayed onset muscle soreness. You can see faster recovery and you're getting a two-for-one because you've been able to lift weights and improve muscle tone and strength and then at the same time you finish with this low level low and slow cardio. That's you know Zone 1 Zone 2 exercise which dr. Peter T is into and a lot of people in the performance space. It's critical but it also helps with recovery. So like there is bang for your buck when it comes to that and those are the things that I look for. How can I optimize my day? So I get the most out of the least amount of time commitment and I think that's that's kind of where it goes. But if you have access to a sauna, I mean fuck yeah work out and then hit the sauna right after if you have access to the cold first thing in the morning or right before bed that can help or in the evenings before bed. So, you know, I've outfitted I think a lot of us have these chest freezers are in Alexander's got one. Yeah.
Kelly Stratton and met Vincent were the first guys to tell me about that but he by a chest a meat freezer and the one I did no affiliation with these guys but homedepot.com 550 bucks for 21 cubic foot chest freezer. I hit it with a little silicone caulking along all the cracks fill it full of water. And then I got this one from Luke's story you put in food grade hydrogen peroxide about 2 cups and then a couple bags of Epsom salt and that will prevent anything nasty from growing their you still got to shower before you get in that kind of stuff but I'll get in that for anywhere between three to 15 minutes depending where the temperature is and it's always cold. I never have to go to the store for ice. I only have to change the water every few months to make you can get a water pump on Amazon for 80 bucks, you know for one of those redneck above-ground pools Jeff stick that in there to pump it out in five minutes and I can change the water out quickly, but I always have access then so I think that we think about so many
Things that our lives from a convenient standpoint and it's important that we have that exercise convenience, but what we can do to make our lives better from a lifestyle standpoint is to make things convenient for us that are good for us, right? So that's something that Rob wolf talks about our any great person that's in the health and wellness space the diet space like yourself is clean out the fucking Pantry. That's usually in the first chapter of every book right because good diets are hard enough. Why have garbage there to tempt you? Because if you can just walk and grab a Twinkie your kind of fucking yourself, you know, so you clean that out and you leave really good snacks around like sea salt macadamias those kind of things avocados, whatever you have access to it then if you're working out, you're always it's always a struggle to get to the gym because it's too far away or you have other commitments time commitments have a fucking kettle bell in your garage. It's all you need, you know, you can build on that but having the chest freezer at home and not having to worry about going to the store and spending 60 bucks.
Ice and loading a trough and filling it full of hose water. It makes a big difference, you know and how often I'm able to get into the cold. It's worth the five hundred fifty bucks and I've saved that much a nice already having it less than a year. It's amazing and like, you know listeners my show people who follow me on Instagram know that I'm a huge Sonic fan. And so I love this idea of not needing a sauna. I basically just being able to you know, dress yourself and walk around outside obviously, you know doing so is probably not without risk. So you want to you know, like you're having a healthy individual unit. Yeah to begin with but it's a really that is a super cool and convenient hack and then the fridge thing I think is just amazing. That's brilliant.
Man, there's so much that we could so why do you think that biohacking has become so popular because I have the same reservations about the term that you have. I think it's kind of you know, it's like a new it's like a new term. It's become sort of a buzzword like super food, you know, but still I feel like it works in many ways. I wonder you know, if you have any thoughts as to why why it's become something that you know that people are now talking about. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like it rubs people the wrong way because of and I've learned a lot from Dave Dave asprey. So I'll say that as a caveat I've learned a lot from this guy. I'm not what I don't think he's a quack in all departments, but when he went on Rogan's and he was talking about ha and we will leave the coffee out of this but when he went on Rogan's he was talking about how he works out once a month on his Vibe plate like nah, son that that ain't how it fucking works. If you said once a week, I'd still laugh at you right like you don't you don't work out once a week and say that's all the physical conditioning you need. Yeah, right. That is not how we used to live. So
It's not that we were deadlifting every day either right? We probably picked up things and maybe did some hard physical work here and there or we went for a really hard long run chasing down an animal on a kill and we've had to bring that meet back in hike it back. Yeah, that's hard work. But that might not that wasn't done every day. Yeah, right that low level constant activity through the day that was done every day. Right so but yeah getting on a Vibe plate. There's some science behind that for warming you up and opening up the body and priming the nervous system. But it's what you do after that that matters the vibe plates not the fucking work out. Sorry. It's not it's not so I think but people generally do want to take care of themselves and
We're always looking for the Magic Bullet. We're always looking for the thing that moves the needle the forest and is like the next big thing. Right and I I've been in this space you've been in the space for a while now, I still look for that thing. It's I don't know if maybe it's human nature to want that, you know and try to find the best bang for your buck. So I think people are more in tune to that now because they realize like I don't know forget which Which principle it is, but you can do 20% for 80% of the gains. Yeah, something like that. Right? So like that that concept of like man if I can do a little of this one really important thing. It's going to really move the bar for me and be a big deal in my life that's time-saving it's efficient. And if you can bring it to your house, it's pretty fucking convenient. Yeah, how'd you get into all this?
Well, when I when I was fighting for my brother listeners who don't know, why don't you just kind of briefly just you know, because you're super brief, however, briefly you have as a football player and got into mixed martial arts and fought on the ultimate fighter. That was my doorway to the UFC fight in the UFC. And then when I was fighting in the UFC really started understand because I loved video games. I loved cannabis. I loved loved all that shit as a kid and kind in college. I realized any time I actually got this from my coach Nogueira on The Ultimate Fighter season 8. It was his thoughts on Jiu-Jitsu where if I'm not training Jiu-Jitsu once or twice a day. My opponent is right. So my thoughts were if I'm not you can't train 24 hours a day, but in my off time when that clock starts in between practices what I choose to do with that matters, so if I'm jerking off essentially playing video games, I'm not learning anything new to help me get better. So I've read more in my fight career.
I ever did in college and prior to that and all the all those things were based around things that I felt could help me so getting into becoming a Supple Leopard by dr. Kelly Starrett. How can I focus on my Mobility which is incredibly important for everyone hot and cold temperatures listen to podcast hearing dr. On a Patrick, you know learning about the benefits of of light therapy all these things became different ways for me to improve. So if I was going to get hit in the head, I could mitigate the damage which is guaranteed to happen and maybe it would help me win to that shifted for me when fighting ended about five years ago into one out of my reverse any of the damage that was done to my brain for sure. There was a lot done and then also, you know, how do I extend that kind of have maybe not I'm not going to live to a hundred and fifty but I can live to a hundred and really enjoy every year right now. I don't want to live long and have a shitty decrepid body when I die. I want to live and be able to do all the things and go for hikes and still be active latent.
My life and then die and I think that's that's really what longevity for me means. So shifting gears from performance in the longevity doesn't mean that I frown on performance or I don't think it's necessary. There's a lot of things that I'm talking about that help both, you know, you temperature extremes? Yeah, they help both they help you perform better. They help you recover more and they might extend your life. They might help you in the longevity space because of as you and I both know mitochondria being a huge Factor there right? It's going to improve the mitochondrial function that's going to improve performance as well as longevity. Yeah. It's such a Common Thread. I mean, I feel like listeners of my show are familiar with Crosby Taylor who was a you know college athlete Ben Greenfield, you know and for me because I've never been an athlete, you know for me. I kind of look at athletes into my God these guys look so healthy. They're like the pictures of Health but it's like this common thing that I hear over and over again that that the world of professional sports beats you up and then you know, if you're lucky, you know you end up like you have like Ben has a
Because you know coming back and realizing that you know health is the most valuable thing that there is and that you know, what is good for performance isn't always going to be good for your mental health your physical health for your longevity Etc. It's fascinating
Paul check gave me them one of my favorite quotes of all time sooner or later. Your health will be your number one concern.
It's it either happens on your death bed or you you figure that or a crisis like I got cancer or early-onset Alzheimer's whatever that is. You can put it off as long as you want, but eventually it's your number one priority Why not start that a little sooner why not get ahead of the curve, you know, and I think we're seeing that shift now even in medicine because for so long we just put all this power into the control of our doctor the doctor knows all the doctor knows and I love doctors of interviewed a ton of them on this Kali trip, but they don't ultimately control your health you do that's your responsibility and I think people as they start to understand that realize how if it is my responsibility. Can I take control of that? And that really just comes down to being fascinated by it wanting to learn more wanting to and it doesn't mean you have to read fucking giant text and all that to I mean I once had this vision
And it's psilocybin mushroom ceremony where I actually physically grabbed a book and ate it and then regurgitated it into the microphone. So the masses could get that breakdown of that kind of like a mama bird regurgitated. It's a baby bird, you know, it is like that's it, you know, like a lot of this information. I got from podcasts first listening to different authors talking about books and then if it really resonated with me, I'd buy their book and listen to that inaudible or read the physical copy and I think it's a great way, you know, like people like appetizers, you know, you want to have something that wets the palate and gets you interested in in the meal that's coming and I think that that really is where podcast bread the bridge the gap for people.
Yep, I guess they're amazing. I mean, I feel like it's a great way to it's wonderful for networking. But beyond that it's a great way to reach out to people who you admire or who you're curious about and to create content with them and without podcasting you and I would you know, probably not have connected. I mean, we have a lot of mutual friends so actually maybe we would have but it's a great way to you know, just to continue to continue your own education, you know, I mean look at like I mean, you're brilliant look at all this knowledge, you've just dropped for my listeners and like having a podcast was probably a major vehicle for you to attain that, you know, everything that you know,
yeah listening to podcast first for sure and then having conversations like this how much have you learned from having your show? You know, like that was something that Chris Ryan talked about when he was getting in a podcast and obviously he's been on Rome has a number of times. I've learned a lot from him. He was on the same hunting trip with Ben Greenfield and dr. Peter T and alterman and all these great guys. He's become a buddy of mine.
But you know when he was starting his podcast he was like selfishly. I want to have a friendship with these people. I want to get to know them because they're people I admire and learn have learned from so selfishly there is that like I want that connect deeper connection, you get from face-to-face interviews. And then secondly, I want to share that wisdom with the world and that's a great way to get it out there, you know, and that's something that really resonated with me over the years. And thankfully I've been able to afford face-to-face interviews where I can either travel to my guests to bring them out to honor and Austin and you know, yeah roll out the red carpet for him so to
speak. Yeah, it's amazing. So what's your what's your current diet and like exercise regimen look like these days. What are you?
Yeah. I'm working my way back into ketosis men. We spent a week in Costa Rica at cetera doing Ayahuasca. And as I was telling you earlier dieta for that plant medicine is pretty specific. It's less fat no salt and there's a hundred things. I'm going to leave out here on purpose just
The sake of time but it's pretty heavy and starch and legumes and that's okay just for that week and then we went to we went to Mexico. I could have gotten eaten just fajitas and with side of guac and not not messed with dabbled with the corn tortillas, but I'm in fucking Mexico like literally live a little and not worry about it. And then on this trip, you know, we're going from Sacramento to San Diego and back up to the Bay before we fly home to Austin interviewing people all along the way it's a lot of travel so and because I haven't been in ketosis for the last two weeks. I'm not going to attempt that now yeah, once I'm home next week, I'll drop back into ketosis and I'll probably do some type of cyclical ketogenic diet where I'm able to have a moderate amount of carbohydrates on carb days, maybe a hundred fifty two hundred grams. Probably once a week Max I'd say
do you default to ketosis for body composition purposes for or for is it more for cognitive?
It's cognitive its body composition.
I am working with a new company. We have sponsors on my show. Now. It's shifted from the on it podcast to the human optimization our to finally the cow Kingsbury podcast, which hopefully it'll stay and so yeah, I mean, it's still health and wellness. I'm still going to have guys like you on right after the after this episode and but it also opens up the doorway to have comedians or whoever else I want to have on the show and really talk about anything.
Am I totally lost my train of thought where I was going with that because the question right before
ketosis like yeah. However both there you go not in get those right now
also have Montezuma's Revenge from Mexico. So that is quite depleting hydration. The ultimate Vaio have it. What is it? I forget the numbers but they say like at least a two percent drop in performance when you're dehydrated. Yeah, and in even higher amount drop in mental performance. Oh man, so I've had diarrhea for the last four or five days and that's that's not fun. But I definitely feel it in these conversations. So yeah, I really, you know, you there's other ways to hack ketosis. Like if I'm eating like on a longer stretch more of a moderate carbohydrate. I've never really going to three to five hundred. I'm always in the hunter 200 range all supplement with MCT oil and exogenous ketones and that's a way I can kind of bridge the gap plus if I've been in ketosis long enough like a three or four months.
And it's pretty easy to keep that metabolic flexibility and dip back and forth, especially while working out. So I think those are those are kind of the main thing that stays with me throughout the year with exception to road trips things. I guess is always intermittent fast. So I'm always 16-8 or you know, 18 6 or even 20 20 hours off for hours on on certain days. If I'm not working out all extend the fast I think that has huge benefits for longevity huge benefits for cognitive function huge benefits for fat loss and composition and I don't really train this is me working my way to the training section and it really trained like I used to you know in fighting I trained two or three times a day five days a week have a moderate day and then a day off towards the end of my career I take two days off that were active recovery days, you know a lot of walking swimming that kind of stuff maybe go for a hike but now I'm working out I'd say I'd lift weights two or three days a week. I've lifted more on the
Because I don't really have the landscape to go for a run or I don't want to smell these cars in La while I'm here. So if I can get to the beach and go for a run, I will but not with Montezuma's Revenge. So generally though it's two to three days a week. I'm lifting I'll do one. Hi bout, you know high intensity interval training. My favorite comes from drama Cola. It's called a Sprint 8. So you pick like you can do this outside without equipment but my favorite is just to grab an assault bike or an aerodyne and you go 30 seconds to warm up for two minutes moderately all nasal breathing. This is my own ammo and take for Mackenzie and the guys is to do the nasal breathing during the warm-up any workout to do is nasal breathing during the warm-up. But your you warm up for a couple minutes on the bike then it's 30 seconds all out 90 seconds active recovery still on the bike and that'll go for eight rounds total and then a 2 minute cooldown. That workout is 20 fucking minutes and it will annihilate you. Yeah, and it's not, you know, I did so much high intensity interval training and fighting.
That I really resented it and didn't I was like never doing it again. It's long and slow as he was known to cardio like a nose breathing lock ra conversation paste run rather or jog nose breathing jog or another one that I do is I'll do nose breathing on a concept to rho and rho a 10K which takes about 40 minutes or less and I can listen to audible, you know, it doesn't have to be pumped me up music for that. I'll probably do the long and slow once or twice a week sometimes three days a week and I'll hit that high intensity interval training once a week amazing alongside the to but it's really based on feel, you know, I don't have a training split, you know, like bodybuilders which in health and wellness they kind of get knocked but there is a time and a place for hypertrophy and gaining muscle in size and I think a lot of people like training that way but there's no training split where I'm like, this is deadlift day or this is arms and chest day or any of that shit. It's just based on feeling a lot of times. I'll hit full body workouts where I'm doing some type of lower body.
Squatter a deadlift or kettlebell swings or front squats and then I'll work that into some type of row. Maybe some steel mace work some kettlebell work snatches some type of press overhead or bench variation those kind of things and so the workouts, you know, I started with the typical as most guys did in the 80s bodybuilding style workouts then training at ASU. We had one of the best strength coaches in the world. He was just, you know, only guy to ever win strength coach of the year in division 1 football as well as the NFL. He's ahead strength coach for the Carolina Panthers coach joke in big house and he taught me a lot, you know, but but really like how you train as an athlete is different than how you train just to gain muscle and so I Implement a bit of each, you know, and that varies for some weeks. I'll spend a couple weeks just doing hypertrophy old-school bodybuilding, you know, a lot of rope presses and shocked that other weeks. I won't fuck with a single exercises.
To do it that it'll all be kettlebells are all be mesas at all be functional stuff and then other weeks it'll be more powerlifting where I'm squat deadlift bench and a lot of heavy compound movements and then there's periods of time where I try to mix in all of that but it really is based on feel and what I'm up for and what I feel like pushing to but I think not having a template is great. If you're not a professional athlete, you're professional athlete you got to have a template you got to be working towards something. There's a reason and intention behind the training for me right now. It's just doing things that I really enjoy and if I really enjoy it that's what keeps me coming back like not knowing like oh fuck. I have a Max effort squat today.
Even if I feel like I want to squat I can show up and decide as I'm warming up to a my body feels pretty good. It's pretty primed. Maybe I'll go heavy and and do you know a few sets of triples or all head five sets of doubles and in really go heavy or body's a little tight, but I do want to get a good pump. So I'll do an old-school set of 20 with two and a quarter, you know, and just pump my legs out and see how see how many sets I can get in how many reps I can get in and do volume training but having that flexibility keeps it fun and fresh and then I'm always enjoying my time in the gym and at the end of that jump in the sauna. Yeah, I feel pretty damn good grab a shake from the cafe and call it a day when it comes to the training. So I think that that's really where my trainings at now. It's definitely based on feeling that's one of the ways that I tap into that. I think any way we can start to tap into how we feel and train based around that that connects us to our bodies a bit more and there's periods of time where I take off any self Quantified device and I'll go a week or two without it and I'll just try to listen.
Body, how did I sleep last night? There's no sleep score. There's no recovery aspect for me to for me to look at numbers wise, but I can start to attach that feeling and move based upon that
so great such great advice. I definitely, you know II it's smart to develop your sort of intuitive Compass. Just curious why the emphasis on nose breathing because I'm sure some of my listeners are going to be wondering about that.
It's a big one. I learned it from the art of breath guys in first day. I don't know if they've talked about it and unplugged but Brian Mackenzie. Dr. Andy Gulpin a lot of these guys are
Really moving the bar on all the various ways that breath work impacts has so people have heard of with not breathing. It's incredibly powerful tool free diving, you know, CO2 retention incredibly powerful tool and the way you train for that and there's several apps for free diving apps that can help you with CO2 retention, but really what Brian gets into in his art of breath seminars, we've had them out on it. They've been on the show a couple of times is how you prime the pulmonary. How do you prime yourself and Runners know this a lot of times Runners will do a warm-up. They'll feel good. They've got spring in their legs and they go for a run and it's only after the first mile or two that they feel like they're connected to their body and that they're able to run and their lungs have warmed up. So why not? Why wouldn't you warn the lungs up alongside your body, right? So as you open up the body you really do want to open up the lungs and there's several ways to do this. You can unlock the psoas. They've got different methods do it by hand. But I like, you know little something like a ball that I can get in there and really lay on and open that up. So now when I
Deep breath. My ribs are actually expanding the way they should right. But if I warm up with nasal breathing that also Prime's the body to warm up and oftentimes if you just start going you might start chest breathing right out of the gate specially if you haven't trained the habit of belly breathing first and taking nice full breaths. So it forces us to really be able to utilize the full breadth. And when we do that now when I start to pick up the pace in a run or if I'm doing a high intensity interval, you know that 30 seconds on markets. I might even keep that first 10 seconds of nasal until I have to breathe out of my mouth and as I'm slowing down in between sets they call this gear shifting. So the first 30 seconds of the 90 off I'll do with cough stop breathing mouth mouth.
And then the second 30 seconds nose mouth inhale through the nose and the last 30 seconds. I'm back to nose knows so I shift gears down and you can get all of this online. What was it power speed endurance.com and you click on their art of breath and they even have an app now, I think it's called State because how we affect our our state of mind our state of breathing are our internal State can be hacked through the breath. So that for sure is one of the most potent things and it's free once you know, it's oh, yeah, you got to pay for the app. You got to pay for the program but worth every fucking penny.
Wow, so interesting. Well, we're out of time Kyle Kingsbury. I got just one last question that gets asked to everybody that's on this on this show. But before we get to that how can listeners find you on Instagram Twitter? And and yeah, what's your podcast called?
I'm happy didn't mention Facebook because I'm off that it's that's your grandma Twitter. It's at Kings boo on both of them. So
Ang sbu that's my last name shortened and the Cal Kingsbury podcast. Boom. That's it and you'll be able to hear my man Max Luke
of Iran as well again. Wait. Hell. Yeah. Alright. So the last question Kyle take this wherever you want. What does it mean to you to live like a genius?
Hmm, it means being mindful about everything and mindfulness gets thrown out there. All the time as is almost like biohacking, right but mindfulness to me is paying attention. So paying attention to what I put in my body, even when I'm on the road paying attention to how I sleep and how I set up my sleeve so that that also means how I operate during the day, you know, and that's where the Stillness practice comes in is in contemplation practices. Well, if the first time I think of my day is right when I lay in bed at night, I'm fucked that's going to cause a lot of thought to happen right before I go to sleep that's going to be hard to turn off and that's going to mess up my sleep. So if I can spend times periods may be a little timer reflection at the end of the work day before I become dad and have to entertain my son and be husband to my wife and all these things that affords me the ability to lay down when I lay down at night and not worry about shit to know that I've at least thought everything through and contemplated as much as I can and then I sleep well, but that mine.
On this extends into everything so just being mindful about all the things that matter to me how I interact with with my son with my wife how I communicate with people how I respond to stress if something's hitting the fan at work or you know, we we gotta fuck we rented a Toyota Sienna to be able to have all the gear and there's four of us on this road trip for the for all the podcasts and they said, you know, we're fresh out of we're fresh out of minivans, but we've upgraded you to a 12 passenger rapist van for the trip out like oh you've upgraded me at no extra cost. So the gas mileage is the same. I'm going to be able to park this in La that's no and no but can I roll with the punches because life will serve you to no end challenges and stressors and really how I approach that without freaking the fuck out that matters that matters to My overall quality of life. And really that's that's
what we're here for, right? How do I
improve my quality of life? That's it.
Amen Kyle. This is brilliant. Thank you so much for being here with me and to all you guys out there.
Listening in podcast land. Thank you so much for tuning in to the genius life. As always. I appreciate your time and attention share this episode with your friends with your Social Circles would really appreciate that. This has been another episode of The Genius life. Peace.
