Episode 418: Hot Cold Contrast - Dr. Jess Tranchina

Dr. Jess Tranchina is a PT, DPT, NASM-CPT, A.R.T Certified Provider, CKTP. She has been an athlete most of her life. Training and competing in runs from the 5K to 50ks, triathlons from the sprint distance to Ironman distance, strength competitions, and figure competitions has provided her with opportunities to train from the best, learn from the best, be treated by the best, and compete with the best.  Competing, racing, and trial and error have taught her the importance of proper conditioning, nutrition, hydration, prehab, pliability and recovery.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 Introduction to the Human Performance Outliers Podcast

00:05:52 Mountain Training for Leadville 100

00:11:34 Importance of Perceived Effort in Training

00:17:27 The Three Pillars of Recovery and Training at Generator Lab

00:23:00 Benefits of Strength Training for Runners

00:28:53 Benefits of Infrared vs. Dry Saunas

00:40:37 Cold Plunging: Impact on Recovery and Performance

00:46:08 Managing Inflammation for Runners

00:51:47 Understanding Graduated Compression for Lymphedema

01:04:00 Benefits of Red Light Therapy

01:14:50 Benefits and Origins of Cold Plunging

01:20:24 Balancing Career and Running Passion

Episode Transcript:

Then I know that's 100% true for me. I remember very little of what I learned in school from just like, okay, you had to pass this test standpoint, but the subjects that I was asked to teach that I had to actually go and present on, those are things I actually can recall, even. Yes. Not all of it, obviously, but a lot more of it to this day, even though I haven't been teaching and I don't even know how long at this point, probably almost eight years maybe, I think eight years. So you've been full time coaching for eight years? Yeah. So in 2015, I stepped away from teaching because at that point my coaching business kind of started almost just like just yeah, it was I had friends saying, hey, can you coach me? Basically, I ran some really good races and that sort of like kind of put me a little bit more on the scene and the ultrarunning world and the running world in general, and then you just have random people, friends, usually people you meet at group runs and things like that and say, hey, do you coach? I'd love for you to coach me. And then I had some coaching background. I was coaching, you know, track and cross country. I ran collegiately, so I had enough information to probably help people out at least. And then that kind of spurred, okay, if I'm going to do this, I need to really get into the weeds of some of the hows and whys about this. Other than what I just assumed. I know from what a coach told me in the past and start charging, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Don't do it for free anymore, right? Yeah. So yeah. And that just kind of organically grew to a point where I was like, this is going to be if I want to be competitive running and I want to be a good teacher. I want to be a good coach. I don't have enough time for it all. So I got kind of picky. So I sort of thought like, well, the professional athlete side of things, that is not something I can do forever. That's probably got a relatively short timeline compared to the other two. So if I want to do that, I have to do that now. And, you know, coaching paired up much more cleanly with that. So that's when I stepped away from teaching. As you move to California for three years. And here's 15 1617. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Then I met Nicole and we moved. She was actually in Dallas at the time. So we met. That's right. Yeah I had a trail running trail running camp. So yeah we started dating after that and then decided to get married and chose to move to Phoenix because it kind of had at least part of everything that we needed at the time for 110 degree weather. Right? We could have done without that. We could have done without that. That's why you ran it for me. Although sometimes if you're going to do a race that's hot, then you don't mind it as much because it's yeah, it helps you kind of prepare for it. But yeah, generally speaking we could have done with just the winters there, not the summers. I mean, if it was just the summers or just the winters there, we would probably still be there because I don't know how you could possibly leave an environment that's a Phoenix winter year round. Was it just so dry? You love the dry. I love the dry. Nichole liked it less. She said we have this. We kind of debate about this all the time. Where's the humidity versus what? I'm so curious what you think. I actually think I prefer the dry heat even when it's Phoenix level hot. Nicole would rather have, like, still pretty high. I mean, it's not like it's 70 degrees here in Austin in the summer either. It can get up to 100 here, and then you also get that 90% humidity. Humidity? She likes the humidity. Yeah. She I wouldn't say she likes it, but I think she tolerates it better than she does the hot dry heat or at least the fact that there's breaks within it where like in Phoenix, once it hits Summer, you're just staring down that exact same heat every day. Rinse and repeat every day until it breaks. There's, like, literally no reprieve here. Like, you'll have those stretches, but you'll get like, a storm coming through. And then also it'll be 80 degrees for a couple of days and you're like, okay, I've got this. I kind of build and break every once in a while that you can look forward to. Now it's like or in Phoenix is kind of like you kind of had to, like head up to Flagstaff to get out of it or something like that, which wasn't too bad. But have y'all ever raced because I've lived in all the places you have to, except for I've also lived in the southeast like Alabama. I've never lived. That is insane. So talk about humidity. Yeah, that's like I would live there for a little and then come back and then go, because my parents live there and I'm like, oh, this is the world. Like, now that's a I feel like Austin's a nice in between. It is. Yeah. Yeah. I think you once you get used to it and then, you know, if you get out of town in the heat of the summer every once in a while, just to kind of take a break, like we went up to Colorado for almost five weeks this year, and that was nice. Oh, that is nice. So that's what you do during the summer? Yeah, we did this last summer training. Yeah. Nicole was doing the Leadville 100, which is baseline 10,000ft. And then it goes up to like 12.5 or maybe even close to 13 in some spots. But yeah. So it's like we needed to kind of get out there into it a little bit for her to be able to feel comfortable there. Yeah. Oh no. So you always have. Ever since you met her at the camp? yeah. Yep. No way. Yeah. Oh. That's crazy. Does she listen to you? Not always, but I guess that is what it is like, I was like. The truth of the matter is. No. No client listens to you always. There's a spectrum of compliance. Sure, sure. But that part of the game that's part of the and some of it, it's like as a coach you gotta ask yourself why. Right. Like so, like if a client is not. Responding to the input you're giving them. Is that because you're giving them something that's unsustainable that doesn't work for their schedule? Is it something they're not ready for, or is it just like they're not interested in it? You have to find a different way to frame it so that they get that exposure without it being done in the way that you have it structured currently. And yeah. So I mean, it's always kind of fun on that side of things. It's not all just like programming and that input, all that is a big part of it for some people, because a lot of them are just really busy people who don't want to deal with any of the programming. They'd rather just offload that to someone who kind of knows what it is and then follow the schedule more or less. But you typically have your clients are they're probably motivated. Yeah, right. They're typically compliant. And yeah, they're ultra runners. It's not like they're training for, you know, A5K. Yeah. Typically you probably do well with compliance. Yeah. It's not common at all. Like you usually if I have noncompliance it's more often based on like oh like work got really crazy for a bit because I've got some like a startup and then it's more of a conversation of like, okay, what should we do for your targets right now? so that it's doable. So like, maybe let's pick a different time to really, like, max out on training and get you ready for this race versus just kind of keeping you, like, generally fit and healthy and then ready for when that time comes. So you're not kind of starting from the couch. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Oh, that is so interesting that you coach Nicole. Yeah, I love that. Aha. That's so cool. Yeah, yeah. And she, it's funny because she's very structured in her day to day life, like at work it's all very well plotted out, very organized, like very mistake free, very like she's an attorney. Yeah, yeah. She does health care compliance. So she has to stay on top of moving targets and things like that. And she has to. Yeah I mean she has to, she can't be off. Right. So for her, running is like a room for her. Yeah. So she doesn't like that aspect of running. She wants to separate that from running for her so she doesn't wear a watch. She runs by feel. She's been doing it for over 30 years though. So she's got a very good sense of perceived effort. So I can kind of tell her what I'm looking for from a workout and she can basically like plug that in. And to some degree that's even better because she knows about how much time she's out. Oh yeah, she can predict it to the minute, basically. Like if she goes up, if I tell her to go out and run for like 90 minutes, she'll come back within a couple of minutes of that. No watch. No watch. That's awesome. And she probably just meditates or something. She's in the zone. Yeah. She doesn't really listen to stuff when she's running either music or podcasts or we're different in that regard too. I'm almost always listening to podcasts or music when I'm running. Yeah. You just and you can really focus on the podcast when you're running. If it's an easy run, if it's like a speed workout, then I won't. And actually some speed works. I won't listen to anything because then it's just like you want to kind of channel into both the thought and the intensity. But yeah, so podcasts are more low intensity runs. Music is like if you think it'll be a value for the speed workout, or if you're you're trying to get that extra little bit of lift from it. that's when I'll, that's what I'll usually do. Interesting. I never did like running with anything. I think I'd maybe, just maybe used it to meditate or focus. Yeah. If it was like a tempo or a speed thing, but it sometimes just is so nice just getting lost in your thoughts. Yeah, absolutely. I love it being outside, but I love that she doesn't run with a watch. Yeah, yeah, that's so cool. I did one race. Natasha VanderMeer was my coach at the time, and I just didn't run with a watch. And it was an amazing race. It was the 70.3 Galveston and a one age group and no watch. I didn't even really know where I was. Yeah, well, the reality is, if you can learn perceived effort, like, you know, what intensity matches what kind of or what physiological state you're in, if you can recognize that and know where that lies on the intensity spectrum, and then also know like what is sustainable for a given duration, that's actually the gold standard guide. So if you can like Nicole's actually probably better served by that. She could definitely get some value from collecting data. and we've done that at times. Whether it's like she's doing a workout with a group, I'll go and I'll look at what their splits are. Of look like and use that to kind of measure progress in things. But in terms of the athlete actually like executing a workout properly or a race properly, I'm way more interested in them spending time at the effort or the intensity that we're trying to target, versus them chasing some number on a watch. I love that you say that, because every coach I've ever had has always craved the data that I don't like delivering. I've never had any. And so even if I wore a watch, it was nothing fancy. And they did what you did, they would collect data from if I was swimming with a group or, or cycling with a group. So I'd love that you said that. And I love that too. And I don't know if it's a mental thing for me either. Like, I would hate it if I looked down and I was off. I think a lot of times it would throw me off. Yeah. So I just loved to not really have the data. So I never really did get any of that. Yeah. It's one of those things where it's great for post-workout analysis, but it can be a problem for intro workout. Well, and then if the person hasn't really gotten comfortable with perceived effort, I mean, Nicole's been running for 30 years, so she just knows it intimately. Whereas, if I'm working with someone who's relatively new or has just trained in a different philosophy for a lot of time, and they don't necessarily attach those sensations of easy running, intensity running and hard running to any specific prescription. Then they do need some guidance to kind of get that understanding. That's right. Yeah. So I'll use things like heart rate for lower intensity guides. I'll use pacing from field tests to get them in the right ballpark for short intervals and long intervals and some of the speed work sessions, and then generally kind of getting them to be like operating within the right intensity. But then from there I tell them, okay, use that as a tool, but pay very close attention to how it feels, because the next training cycle would be really cool if like if you just knew how it felt and didn't have to look at the watch and then you could just dial up because the way I describe is intensity is fixed. Your pace is a moving target and we want that moving target to improve, but the way it feels will stay the same. So like if we're targeting yeah, if we're targeting a certain intensity it'll feel the same. Whether you're early development or late development, you may get better at tolerating it for longer periods of time. But really what we want to see is your pace improve within that. So chasing pace means you're chasing a moving target. Chasing intensity is fixed. So if I'm going to teach someone something, I want to teach them fixed and then let them use the moving target as the measurement tool of progress. Huh? I've never heard it explained that way. Yeah. That's a very, very super special way to think about it that I had never thought of. Yeah. And I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll maybe get to a point where, like, measurement tools are so sophisticated that, like, cycling's a little more sophisticated because you can get like power meters and you can see a really objective amount of like, output, and then you kind of use it as like, okay, we know you can produce X amount of watts, for this workout session. And then it may be more important to know, how did you feel during that versus other times. Because like if they feel great, that's okay. Cool. If you feel terrible, okay. Well, maybe we've overworking you a little bit or if you're not able to hit those wattage and things like that where we don't have as accurate a measurement tools and running yet even heart rate, which seems very objective, can be a gray area to some time to time and impacted by a lot of other things outside of just, you know, the work output that you're giving. So, you know, I think it's true. And also heart rate actually. I really do like heart rate for lower intensity stuff. So like zone two or aerobic threshold and below. Because at that point you're doing it for such a long period of time, it doesn't matter if it's inaccurate for like the first three minutes of the run, eventually it kind of usually assuming the monitors hooked up right, and all that stuff is going well, then you're going to usually get pretty good data from that. But if someone's going to try to do a moderately high intensity in like, say, interval sets of six minutes each. By the time they get their heart rate up into what would be the target intensity for what we're trying to hit with those types of intervals. They'll already be like maybe halfway into that interval session. So if they're just trying to chase that heart rate number, they'll probably overshoot the goal intensity, trying to force it up quicker than it's really going to naturally rise to. And then that gets frustrating because they're overclocking for the prescribed workout and they're not getting the right data on the screen anyway. So it's just like you can't really use it as an accurate guide at that point. Do they fatigue quickly? If they do it like that, they will. Yeah. Because you're essentially increasing the intensity of the prescribed workout and the workouts prescribed for the duration of the lower intensity that they should be, or not lower intensity, but lower than they are doing. So that creates a problem because, you know, if they're, yeah, it's just like if you go too fast in a race, totally, you're gonna pay for it in the end. Always. Everyone knows that for everyone. Man, my coaches would be like, every single time. I just think I'm not running quickly in the beginning. Yeah. It's so frustrating because, like, I get really excited. I'm. I'm one of those, you know, probably not. Not unlike the rest of your athletes. It's super competitive. I get really excited. Yeah. And I think I've dialed back and man. Well. And it's just different race days. Different too, you know. So you get your adrenaline and yeah you get arrested. You're tapered. Your legs are just like you've got all these ants in your pants. Yeah. Yeah. So I really don't know that I ever have executed a negative split like in a 50 K a marathon. Sure. Nothing 25 K. I don't think I've ever done a negative split. How embarrassing. It's hard, it's hard. How embarrassing. And well, and to think about it right is like in order. You can get precise to some degree, but you're always working at a range of targets. So like if you think, all right, this is the goal time and that's just slightly too aggressive, then what you think is a good pacing strategy for a negative split is actually not. And then it can end up badly or going badly for you. So, you know, people who are really ambitious, they tend to always target the maybe the more aggressive goal on the table, and that makes it just more likely that they're going to overextend by accident and then have a positive split. Although I do think like there's probably for most people, a slight range between negative even and positive, that's going to yield their best performance. That's a good point actually. Yeah you're right. My target was like, I'm gonna kill it. I'm gonna do 50 today. Yeah. And meanwhile I was not training for two minutes, maybe a three. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. So I mean it's but but yeah, it's, it's an interesting topic in of itself is pacing strategy. Yeah. Oh, that's super interesting. I could talk about that all day, but tell me what you would like to talk about today. Yeah. Let's get into it. Let's, let's let's not talk about you. I need to start a podcast. And you're going to be my first guest. I talked to you all day. Yeah. No, I do want to talk about a few things, because I recently went to your, your, athlete generator lab, which is a really cool setup. I didn't actually realize going in that you have, like, a three pillar setup there. Oh, cool. I thought it was just kind of centered on recovery, but it seems like it's kind of like. Stress from a workout standpoint with some training facilities type stuff, as well as like the recovery stuff, which kind of has a couple of interactions with the king of the hot cold contrast, compression and then massage area stuff. Yeah, yeah, that stems from my background in physical therapy. So I've been a P.T., I've been wanting to be a P.T. since I was 12, all concurrent. That was about the time I realized I liked running. I got into soccer and some softball, and I was like, I think I just like running. So I ran so early. I knew I liked running and I wanted to be a physical therapist, so it's just been like a life of that as a main focus. And so as I would follow the best mentors, but I would also be running and racing and triathlon or whatever I was getting into. I started seeing a lot of like coherence and some synergies between the two. I would see. So as a practitioner, I would see a lot of imbalances and injuries from a lot of, you know, running is just super. And I was a runner at the time, too, super sagittal, not a lot of transverse or frontal plane motion activity. Yeah. So a lot of ankle sprains. And I was doing a lot of trail running at the time. And even I would be like, oh crap, I didn't do a lot of my agility or balance or frontal plane or transverse plane. So anyway, fast forward a bazillion years. The reason we have those other two pillars besides what we're most known for is the recovery pillar, because in that strength room, the coaches, it's small group training. So the coaches focus on moving the athlete through all three planes of motion. So we see a lot of gen pop that they love. But we do also see a lot of runners that come in to do those supplemental training there, because they know for sure in that one hour, they're going to move in all three planes of motion. They're going to get some balance, they'll get some core stuff. And then the other pillar that is nearly as popular, I'd say, is our recovery is our manual therapy. So my background, after all, following all my mentors, I decided I figured out I loved healing with my hands. So I still see clients, and I do a lot of specific manual therapies that are super, super, targeted and very, very quickly beneficial. So I love to train and teach my massage team. And so they're really highly experienced and it's very therapeutic results driven. So it really the pillars sort of came out of years and years of. Just observing and researching and trying to solve a problem and answer a question for people like, where do I go for this? Come to the generator. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. So anyway that's that's why the other two. But you're right, we're very most well known for our research in the, the science backed wellness protocol which is sauna contrast tubs specific times compression red light vibration. Yeah. Yeah I want to get into that because that was the protocol I did when I was there. I want to ask I just want to comment on some of the stuff you said, though. It was, one of the things I learned kind of a little bit later in just training professionally for running is just like how much of the like, secondary inputs outside of the actual running itself get important. And I think some of it was just, you know, when I got into I got on running pretty early, like in middle school, and I didn't take it like overly seriously until you could argue, probably midway through college or even to some degree after college. But, I started taking it really seriously in college, but I had a lot of growth to kind of get to, which most college age one is probably do. so it's just like, but, you know, in those stages of my life when I kind of really learned to love running, I was also doing other stuff I like. I liked strength work and stuff like that. I liked doing other sports and things like that, especially in like, high school and middle school. So a lot of those like lateral movements and some of those like secondary exercises that I have to do now we're sort of built into just my day. I was doing them. So and you're younger and like just coincidental. Right? Right. Beneficial. And then I remember like you learn that, you know, so you get into like your 30s and you're like, you know what? I actually haven't done like a team sport now since, you know, a decade ago. And you start and you're getting older and it's like, yeah, you don't you can't just you don't just retain that. You have to actually do it and continue to do it, or you get very one dimensional. And then when something breaks, you start seeing all these different issues pop up about how, oh, I've got this imbalance here, or I have a weakness here. Maybe not. Like the direct use when I'm running, but if it fails on me, or if something else fails on me, then that's going to get called in and then it's going to be a problem. yeah. I mean, it just gets more and more important as you get older. And yeah, so like adding in some of that stuff where you're kind of moving in different directions, you're doing the strength work, you're loading in ways that are going to keep you kind of strong as well as as well as fast. we get more and more important and then, you know, the more inputs you throw in, the more you need to kind of be mindful of the recovery side of things. So that's right. And I love that you include that and know the importance of it to the importance of multiplayer. And then I always tell people, think about how you're going to thank me when you're 80. Yeah. Because even like maybe, maybe you're not running. Maybe, maybe you are running. But even if you're not, you're going to feel so strong in multiplayer and all these planes of motion because you've, you've, you know, practiced doing things strength and agility wise in a functional, in a functional three dimensional plane of motion. So I love that you probably incorporate that into your training with your athletes too, because you personally know the importance of, yeah, yeah, there's a strength strength training program that goes along with the running. Yeah. Well, especially with all of that sagittal movement. Right. You have to almost equally balance it out with the funny planes. The funny thing is the variance between people who are way more inclined to be a trail runner versus the road runners, because the trail runners get a lot of that just by doing the trails, which is really interesting. They don't need nearly as much of some of the secondary inputs, whereas I'm very much more dominant in terms of my preparation and race type surfaces being like a more straight line or flat, more controlled surfacing. So I'm probably more susceptible to it. Getting hurt or not, having a really good kind of setup. If I avoid those types of secondary exercises, then some of the trail running friends sound like you don't avoid them. So I try not to be fine. Yeah, but running is super fun. It is fast. It is a blast. Yes. hum. Yeah, yeah. So I, I want to kind of get into kind of the protocol that I went through at the lab with you, before, before you kind of walk, walk us through it. I want to tell you just kind of like what my impression was when I finished it. So when I kind of walked out at the end of it, it was like, I remember my first thought was like, if I had like a heavy training day where I was doing a hard workout in the morning, and then I had a second workout in the afternoon. putting that right between those things would make such a big difference for that second session, because, yeah, I walked out. I actually did a pretty heavy lower leg session before doing that. So I wasn't like I wasn't sore, but I was maybe a little less like Poppy, sure, or a little less fluid than I normally. Then it could be springy. Yeah. And I walked out after that. I just felt like everything was, like, well-oiled. Right? Yeah. And I even noticed, like, walking down the stairs, which. Yeah. Yeah. You're walking down the stairs back, back down to the, you know, the parking spaces and stuff like that. It's like, oh, wow. That if I, if I did this, like right before that second training session, it would be like. Smooth as butter versus kind of like that. One can always be a little tricky, especially having to work harder in the morning. It's like, you know, that I'm going to have to do a really good warm up first, and even then I might kind of like have to ease into this run versus being able to feel like some a lot of my morning sessions, I feel a lot more kind of like, okay, I can just get right to it and I'm pretty fresh for it. Or if I'm just more tapered. So it was similar to just coming off a download week where you're a lot more fresh than you normally would be, or after a taper heading into a race where you get that like, oh yeah, my body's just like really humming on a real smooth plane. So that was what my first thought was like, this would be like a if you have if you're blocking workouts really close to one another, putting that right between it seemed like it would be a value add for sure. First of all, I'd like to experiment and do that for you. So I got to beat myself up. Yes, set that up. And there's so many things that are coming to mind when you say that to to to highlight number one, athletes like you that are so, well, well oiled and so fine tuned and so high performing and and already well oiled, nutrition and hydration wise, that's the that's what we hear a lot like that. I completely feel like I didn't work out. I feel so fresh. Imagine. So I want to highlight how amazing it could be for you athletically. On a personal note. But also highlighting the other population and demographic that are actually super influenced. They are sleeping better, they have lower anxiety. They're not they you know, people have come off their meds, which interestingly enough, when I opened it up, so I called it an athlete lab. I thought it'd be a bunch of me floating in there like runners and triathletes and yes, but we're getting this whole other demographic that I've actually grown to love almost more because I feel we have more of a mental impact on them and a health impact. Right. They're lowering diabetic medications. We have oncologists referring people to us. That's huge. We have a neurologist, neurologists referring someone with Parkinson's to us. His Parkinson's hasn't progressed since he's been coming because the data shows five times a week of using sauna has decreased the incidence of any kind of death by disease, of the brain by 66%, by the heart by 65%. It's amazing for heart and brain health, especially in men in general. A lot of the research has been done on men. So, who's our biggest demographic? I'd say we would be our go-getters, like our entrepreneurs are people who are trying to get somewhere in life. They're early risers. They want to perform well physically, mentally and and and professionally. Right. So it's a huge demographic. Some of them don't identify as athletes, but they look like they're fit right to use or super fit. We do see athletes, you know of course. Then we have this all other demographic that's gen pop that were scared to come in because of the name and who they see on Instagram. But those who I want to come in, I want to see the tired moms, the imbalanced hormones. I want to see the people with lymphatic stoppage. Oh, they're swollen and they're fluid. Maybe they're diets are not great and they're tired and they're stressed and they can't sleep. That's who I've been loving to see because their transformation has been just amazing because what happened to you has happened to them. But on a, on a more like a mental mental breakthrough for them where they have this energy where they can, you know, be no more and pick their kids up or go to sleep better. but the science behind the protocol is so impactful. I'm so over the six years we've been open, I've. My heart has gotten so big seeing all the people that we've helped. It just makes me so happy. It's. And I can go through the science of what's really happening. Let's go through the protocol. I want just the listeners to know, kind of like what exactly it was that I did when I was there. So you want to just tell? Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, I'll let you. Now we're talking about it. I'm excited. When we change the subject, I'll be less excited. But we're talking about the protocol. So you start out so we have infrared saunas. And there I do have some research on dry saunas that I can share as well. The reason we have infrared saunas, I've personally tested in both of them. And my internal temperature gets that. It becomes the same whether I'm going to dry sun or infrared. There is a lot of infrared. I know I've done what you're thinking like I've done internal temperatures in both of them GI saunas. And I've been in those 220 degrees and I can outlast a lot of people into dry sonic just because I sauna every day. But it's so much more comfortable in an infrared sauna and my internal body temperature gets just as hot. I like infrared saunas better than dry ones, but I say get in a sauna. My I'm a proponent of saunas, like I said, increases in orphans, which are a precursor to endorphins. and Specifically in an infrared sauna because of the light wave, it's on a slight spectrum. So when you look at the rainbow, you see Roy G. Biv. So the R is 600 to 880 nanometers. Beyond that it turns infrared. And then you have the sun. And in the sun is some infrared. But in between the rainbow and the sun is something called infrared. And it's about 1000 to 10,000 nanometers of light. So it's invisible. It's invisible. It's like passing the rainbow before the sun. And that's when an infrared sauna is. And it's heating you not only so the ambient air doesn't have to be that hot, because it's heating you from the inside out. And it's vibrating molecules around fat, not just sweat. So I personally am more oily after a sweat from an infrared than I am a dry sauna. So this is why I particularly like them. So we start there. So immediately your endorphins are up, you're feeling relaxed, you're getting a detox, your lymphatic system is starting to become prepped and ready for cold. We have true contrast in the generator. So a lot of people have opened up since we have and they have what they call contrast, which is sauna plunge, which is not true contrast. So the true contrast is between hot water and cold water because water is a better thermal conductor than air. And I'm going to explain to you why our cold plunges are colder than ice baths, because everyone says they are. And I'm going to tell you why. So from the sauna you go three minutes into the cold plunge. And the reason our cold plunge is colder than any ice bath you've ever been in. First of all, they're highly insulated. They're circumvented, which is like a right if you think of an oven, sir. Convection is distributing the heat evenly throughout the food. Right. Same with our tubs. So it's distributing the cold water evenly throughout the tub. In addition they're jetted so the water is constantly moving, dissipating the heat away from your body. And also remember water is a better thermal conductor than air penetrates 25 times greater. So when you're in an ice bath, there's some water, but there's mainly ice, which is a solid, so it's not penetrating as deep as water is. So frequently people come in and they're like, I mean, I thought, I've been in some cold water. This is really, really cool. Interestingly, our tubs were manufactured by Tom Brady's tubs. So we have some high end. Ours are the only legal permit commercially run or allowed to be run commercially. And we, the health inspector, come and inspect our pools. They're considered pools actually. Really? Yeah. They're considered pools. So you're three minutes in the cold, then you go three minutes in the hot. Now your true contrast is happening. So the sauna has its own benefits. We talked about earlier decreasing symptoms of disease. Death by heart 65. Brain 66. It decreases mortality by 40%. So you've got different benefits from saunas. Now we're getting into true contrast. So we get three minutes cold, three minutes hot, three minutes cold, and three minutes hot. Another benefit. So we could talk about the benefits of the cold real quick. The release of dopamine 250%. Everyone knows which is equivalent to cocaine, right? You get in cold water. Of course you feel like your adrenaline is up, your endorphins are high, your serotonin. It's really crazy, huh? Especially if you get in and you get into a parasympathetic mode, meaning you stopped freaking out at that point. Your body goes into rest and digestion. So when you're in that kind of calm state, your body releases a host of white blood cells. So you're in this cold water. The only other time you release white blood cells is when you're sick, so you're sick. Your body's trying to fix itself. When you get into a cold plunge, your body immediately releases white blood cells and just kills damaged tissues. It just goes to work killing damaged tissues. So that's why you'll notice your immune system is better. You're not getting sick when you do protocol. So that's just some basic overview of what a white blood cell increases. Interesting isn't that it's amazing right. So that's why. So you're like well why do I never get like I've members that come in and like I haven't gotten sick. And since 2019 we've been since 2018. And he's like, this got to be the protocol of course is a protocol. And that's the number. A big reason is because your body releases white blood cells in the cold plunge that's killing damage so that they can never turn into disease or get you sick. So have they tested someone where like, I had like a baseline of like, blood tests with like, their normal white blood cell count, and then done cold exposure and seeing like an increase in their results there. Yes. That's where I read the research. Oh really? Yeah. Isn't that amazing. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. And then I want to touch on the biggest thing. And I think this is what you felt specifically when you left. The benefits of the actual act of contrasting between hot and cold water, because the lymphatic system doesn't have a central pump like the blood has in the heart. Yeah, right. That pumps blood in and out via arteries and veins that the lymphatic system doesn't. We have these little lymph nodes, right. That just pumps the little toxins out from the interstitial tissues. And so you can dissipate it. But that acts as a true lymphatic pump going from cold to hot water. And you just go back and forth to your vessel dilate, your vessel constrict. And at the same time you're pumping this interstitial fluid out of you, pushing it into your lymphatic, your lymph nodes so that you can excrete it later. That's why it's immediate you get out, you immediately feel better and fresh and ready for a hard workout. And then from there, the third step is normal compression, which everyone knows. Typically at this point right there graduated compression garments. We have legs, hips and arms. The vibration plate. Is amazing for bone density. I like to tell people that that's not the function of IT generators. You'd have to be on that thing for 20 minutes to start getting some bone density changes. Ours is specifically to flush the rest of the lymphatic system. So you're on it for a couple of minutes, flushes the rest of the lymphatic system. And that's our four step protocol. Yeah. About an hour. Uh Huh. Yeah, yeah. So it's 30 minutes in the infrared sauna. Then you have the three by three, three sessions in each of the 15 minutes. Yeah. Then the normal tech boots for 15 and then the plate. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I want to just talk a little bit about the interval time. Is there a reason why it's like 30 minutes in the infrared sauna and then three minutes? Is there a reasoning for that versus it being like 5 or 2 or something? That's a great question. Varying research that I've read between 20 and 40 minutes in the sauna. 20 minutes is where you're going to start getting your minimum benefit. And a lot of the research Rhonda Patrick was doing on runners was that based on the 40 minute? So because of that research, we have a community sauna. You can come in, you can come in and actually come in way earlier than your appointment. Time to get into the community sauna and get extra sauna time for those runners looking for that change. The research she did was on runners. They got into a sauna after a run for 40 minutes, five times a week for I believe it's three weeks and they went 32% longer to fatigue for six weeks. It doesn't quote me on the weeks, but it was a very relatively short amount of time. Yeah. And they and it was just sauna and they went 32% longer fatigue. So but based on all the other research, 30 minutes is that money spot. So I chose 30. But because of that research we have the community sauna. So let's say you start coming. You really want to start reaping the 32% longer to fatigue. You got a big race coming up. I think it's six weeks actually. So let's plan ahead. Six weeks for a big race. Let's do the experiment Zach. Will. Yeah, yeah. Let's try it. And then you would come in at least 10 to 15 minutes before your sauna time, get in the community sauna, then do the rest of the protocols so you'd be there a little bit longer if we wanted to go along with that research. That's the reason for the sauna. And then peak norepinephrine release and dopamine. Here's the trick, Jesse Eisler. If that's how you say his last name, he was funny and made a great post recently. I looked at him like, listen, I'm no cold plunge expert, but. Here are my tips to get through it. You know, holler when you get in. Which is so true. You want to kind of get some energy out when you get in. Don't fight it. You're not going to win. Calm down. So get parasympathetic. I thought that was great. He was like, I go in for three minutes because I trust all these people have done research and from their research three minutes. So it's so true. There's so much research and it really is temperature dependent. But on average it's about three minutes. And so that's why I say three months. A lot of people can't make that right. They're at one minute they're at 90s they're at two minutes. After three minutes it's diminishing returns okay. But before three minutes, you know, you're probably two minutes and you're going to be okay getting maximum benefit. But a lot of people can't even make that. Yeah. So that's why it's chilly. I kind of push it at that high end and hope people at least make 90s. But we've got a lot of diehards that are becoming that, you know, or make that, even though it's really cold. The other trick is you really got to get in all the way down to your, your vagus nerve, your thyroid gland, like everything in here, which is super hard for people to do. Yeah. So arms all the way down to the neck to get all of the maximum benefits through your hormones and your lymphatic system, which is really hard. But that's why we chose three just based on all the research and the temperature. The reason the temperature is so different is Huberman says it best. It has to be cold enough where you want to get out. That's going to be a different temperature for everybody. Yeah. It's good. People are bigger than others, right? Some people are just that we're all built differently. So that's why we just sort of had to choose a cold number 47, make it jetted and really, really cold and then and then and then pick numbers based on research. And it's worked really well. Could somebody, if they were more tolerant to just staying longer then with the same temperature, or would they really need to lower the temp in there to get the same effect. Ours are particularly cold, so I think lowering it as is probably we've not had anyone ask. No one's complaining about cooling it off. No one's complaining. But we have. I've seen some people stay in it a little longer. I wouldn't strongly recommend it. You know, like you said, maybe their tolerance has gone up. I mean, three minutes seems like a long time for me, and I do it every day. That's it. It's that cold. That's enough there really. And I like to explain to people they're diminishing. There are diminishing returns. I'd rather you get your arms in and get all the way into your neck before you start increasing time. Yeah, 30 minutes is good. And then you're going to get back in it in three minutes. So go ahead and get your hot tub over with and get back. And then you end up cold. So you're ending in the three minutes cold. So you're getting a sufficient amount of cold which what the Soderbergh principle says? 11 minutes a week and you're getting nine minutes in one session? So, yeah, even people that come in once a week are almost hitting Soderbergh's protocol. One thing I wanted to ask you with the cold, plunging stuff is like, I'm not a cold plunge expert, just like Jesse, but, or protocol. I think it was maybe what he said, but is there because when I see it like that, Cold Plunge has gotten so popular now. I mean, you see every claim you could imagine being, like, sad about them. And I usually assume like there's probably some extrapolation or like exaggeration with some of the stuff. But, I was told that with cold plunging, like, if you do it after like a heavy strength session, like right after that, it can if you're in there for too long, it can have a negative impact on recovery versus a positive one, which I think is odd for people because I think they think of like their favorite professional athlete, or if they competed collegiately or in any sort of facility, like people have been doing these cold, cold baths after like hard workouts and stuff for a long period of time. Is there something about the duration or the timing of all this that makes it either beneficial or not beneficial? Because that's one of the most popular questions. I've actually dug into a lot of research on that, and I have some great answers, some that I've extracted extrapolated. Performance versus hypertrophy. So there was some research done on some professional baseball players that were looking to have amazing performance. Right. Yeah. So they put them into cold plunges after hard workouts and they performed extremely well. But those guys weren't looking for hypertrophy. For hypertrophy benefits. You really don't want to get into a cold plunge. You want to keep your tissues warm and hot for at least another four hours to create that inflammatory effect. Okay. So that later on. So it's really when you're sleeping when you have muscle growth, right. Yeah. But if you stay warm for four hours after the muscles become inflamed and they're breaking down and you don't, you don't immediately constrict them. So they, you don't inhibit the tissue from breaking down. So if you do a cold plunge, it's not going to tear down anymore. So in order to get hypertrophy, you want that muscle to tear down, to rebuild later when you're sleeping. So it becomes bigger. So for those folks, I do say wait for hours to like our strength people that are in the gym. I don't have them getting the cold punch if they're looking for hypertrophy benefits. Okay, so that's the two for you. I mean, if you're not looking to be a bodybuilder, I would. I'd put you in right after I got you. I'd get you in there quickly. If you're looking for performance or going to fatigue longer because you'd get into the sauna first, right. So you get that whole round of Patrick research and then you get cold because you're not looking to become bulky. But like, if you were doing a bodybuilding competition, I'd have you either do it on another day or just wait 4 to 6 hours. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, I was curious about that because I was also like, I, I could be wrong about this, but I thought like, that research also was like a little bit of a longer exposure point to, whereas I think it was I had I don't know if you know, a doctor, Mike Nelson, he's gotten into some cold punching, but he's pretty like, straightforward with like the research is at. Yeah. And he said, he said like what's his protocol? I don't know what his protocol is, but I think when I asked him he said he, he, I probably don't have to worry about doing shorter intervals. Like that wasn't going to be a long enough period of time for it to be like, I wish I remembered how what what how. I prefaced the question for him because he may have said like, oh yeah, beyond a certain number of minutes would be where you'd have to start worrying about that. Gotcha. So what you're saying is after a heavy workout, he just takes a quick dip in the cold. I think that might even have benefits. Yeah, I think I might have asked him, just like if I want to get kind of cognitive because, you know, when I like this is one thing I just know from experience. Like if I jump in a cold plunge and then I get back out, you're awake. Yeah. It's like it's definitely. It's doing something to your mental state. Yeah. And it feels good. So it feels great. So when someone tells me like, like, like, oh, I go on a cold plunge, I want to get out of it. I just feel better mentally. I'm just like, I can relate because it has the same effect. Like I'm not. I don't have to suffer from depression or anything like that. But you notice, like if you go in there and just kind of even keel, you get out, you just feel a little more kind of upbeat. Absolutely. That's it. That's probably what his point was. So you get a workout, you've got a cold plunge right out next to your gym. Yeah. Take a quick dip. You're not going to. It's I think if you just you're you're you're in there for three minutes and you're freezing, shivering and you're shivering and then you're creating that constriction and you've blocked the tearing down of the muscle. Yeah. But I mean, I'm not in bodybuilding, so I do protocol right after I workout. Yeah. For me no it makes sense. So then there is. So what is the. So when you're, when you're going in from cold to hot and back and forth like that, that's just promoting like circulation can happen a lot faster. Just. Yeah. Exactly. You're pumping your lymphatic system. You're and you're pushing, pushing all that lymph into your lymph nodes. So you can just push it out later. So for the gen pop, you know they feel a little leaner. They feel lighter, they feel more energetic. And for you you probably just go hit a hard workout right after. Because any inflammation that was created from that morning is completely gone. Like your lymph system is completely clear. Okay. So then it kind of got the same. Scenario where like if you finish like if I, if I finished like that session for the day and then I was like having a rest easy day the next day. And I just really wanted to kind of like having the opposite direction of stress and recovery. I want to avoid doing that protocol on that day because I want the inflammation there. Not for you, not for not for not not for a runner, I would say for a runner or because I was running for a long time too. Well, I guess the heat would be. He would be great. Yeah, all of it would really would, would be great. But you really don't want a lot of inflammation as a runner, right? You're when you go to sleep, you're building up all of your muscles that you've turned out, but you've not torn them down where you've, you know, lifted, you know, shot at £500. So any kind of inflammation in an ultra runner's body, I would say not any. I'm just a little bit as good. Right. Because you're getting some growth but you don't want to, I would say on a rest day would be a great day to do too. Interesting. Cool. Yeah I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would, I would vote for it versus against it. Okay. Cool. Awesome. So then yeah, the other thing I was going to say is like, if even if we looked at it from a like, you know, the construction of your muscles from the cold, is there any Does that research change when they're contrasting like that? Because I would think that if you ended up in the heat, is it really going to make that big of a difference to your hypertrophy if you were in a cold for like, you know, nine minutes total, if you're ending on heat like for that period of time. Oh, tell me what you know. So let's say that we just grant the research of like I'm trying to build muscle, trying to be a bodybuilder. I want to avoid this cold tub right after my strength session. Does that happen? What if they got in the cold tub but then got in the hot tub right after that? Would that brief period of time the cold tub still negate some of their recovery? It's a great question because you would think you know what that is. But that research hasn't even been done because probably not. You want to know why? Because there are not very many facilities with true contrast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hadn't even thought of that. If I, if I, if it were me and I was really training for a bodybuilding competition, I probably wouldn't get it until I played it safe. But what a great question though. Grad student. Get on that one for their PhD grad student on that. Because to your point, you're getting really hot. So you're reopening those vessels and allowing those tissues to tear down more. So that's a good question. Yeah. But you asked, you said something else that made me think. If you were to do protocol and then your run was going to be within the hour, I would end on hot for you. Okay? Yeah, I wouldn't know. Yes. You're going into the session not tight. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So we will probably fine tune your protocol or somebody else's protocol. If they were specifically training for something like longer sauna times for you ending on hot before you're. Yeah. If it was the last one for the day, you didn't have a cold, you'd still do a longer sauna. Right. So like we were saying earlier, we have general protocol for everyone and then for people training for specific things. Okay. Yeah, I should actually ask about that because when I went there with Aaron, we actually went cold hot cold hot cold hot. We did end up in hot weather as we were supposed to do it the other way around. No, you started cold. You did great. And then ending cold. Typically we end up cold. Oh, okay. So you do an extra cold one then. Yeah, you have an extra cold. Okay. You do three colds and two hots. Oh, okay. Well, then we cheated. We did. Well, let's just do it again, I guess not. That makes sense now that I think about it. Because you said to get there late anyways. Yeah, yeah, he was to redo. Anyway, he only had 15 minutes in the, in the, the infrared sauna doesn't count. He's got inference on his house though. So I'm sure he's exposed to full protocol. We have to do it. We have to do it. Yeah. So. Okay. Yeah. So we did it with you this time? That makes sense. I wasn't doing the math, I guess, because. Yeah, if you're getting 15 minutes, then you'd have to have one less one on one of them. But yeah, we ended up going. I think we just hopped in. We were just kind of in the routine. And then we jumped in the hot one for three minutes right after that. And then went to the normal tech boots so. Well. And then maybe you worked out after. So maybe it worked out. Yeah, you probably had to work out after anyway. Yeah. I wonder too though, if even if it did end on cold after doing like the normal tech boots. And then the plate. If it wouldn't really matter. Yeah, especially if it's hot outside. Yeah, right. Yeah. Interesting. It's probably a non-issue. For the most part. It'll be a nonissue, but that just sounds like we just need to do it again. Yeah, well, I'm down to do it again for sure. So. Needs to come. Yeah, yeah. She's been dying. I want to do it with her too. Yeah I want her to go because I, I think she's going to hate the cold plunge. She doesn't do cold plunges. But but she's so mentally strong. She'll figure it out. She'll figure it out. Yes, she'll figure it out. I mean, it's not my strength either, but she hates cold compared to me, so I just assume that it's going to be the hard part for her. But she'll get through it. She'll. She'll get through it, I bet. I bet she'll I'll bet I bet she may think, okay, this is going to be hard. And then she'll be in it. And I think she'll realize the benefits outweigh the costs when she feels. Yeah, well, she's good at delayed gratification, so if she she'll, she'll muscle through discomfort if she feels good afterwards. And if she reads that research and she wants to be part of that experiment, I bet. Yeah. I'll get her in there. Sign me up. Yeah. Six weeks before Leadville. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, yeah, I think she would. I think I think to your point, I think she would suck up anything that she knew it. Yeah, I know I do. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about the normal tech boots in that, that kind of approach. What is there. What is the idea behind that. That's just like kind of pushing through. Is it. It's graduated. Yeah. Is it that and massage because it almost massages you the way they like. When I first heard. Yeah when I first heard about those like normal tech boots or like the initial, I just thought, okay, there's restricting and tightening, but then when I warm the first time, I was like, oh no, they're actually like articulating through. And it's kind of almost like a slow massage moving down your leg or up your leg. Totally. I'm so glad you asked about that. That modality is one that I feel like doesn't get enough attention and questions. So the other part of generators, the birth of the generator is. So my husband and I met, he's also a therapist. We met working in a nursing home when we were 27. So we've always worked together. He's a health care practitioner too. Anyway, fast forward, he ended up working in a lymphedema clinic where he worked with people with true lymphedema and lymphoma, and they would work with these graduated compression garments. So these. These are medical grades. They're based on research used for people with true lymphedema and lymphoma. So they're there. And people yes, of course, if they don't know that, they're like, oh, these are great messages. And they are you can use them for that. But these are specific graduates like you know how you wear graduated compression socks. Yeah. That's exactly how they are. They're going to start distally and they're going to slowly squeeze up proximally. So they're going slowly . We recommend a level of two. Right. So it's a light pressure lymphatic massage. We also have a lymphatic massage therapist. It's a very light technique because the lymphatic system, the lymphatic fluid, is very superficial. So you really don't need a very deep pressure level 1 or 2 on these devices. And it graduates, it's graduated and it pushes the fluid up. And then in for your leg it's behind your knee the popliteal lymph nodes and then your inguinal lymph nodes. If you have the hips on and then your subclavian you're actually your nodes. If you have the arms on and it just pushes it gently into the lymph nodes. But people love it and they crank it up and they get a massage and they're getting both benefits. You're still getting your lymphatic benefit, but you don't really need it squeezed tightly to get the lymphatic benefit. But a lot of people use it for massage benefits too. And then they just flushes out the fluids of these people that will truly have lymphedema and lymphoma. You should see it. They and then you left and you probably saw all your veins pop out, right. Because it just flushed the superficial fluid out of your legs, your legs. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I, What was I going to ask? Oh, yeah. How does that compare to, like. If so? Because actually, this is one thing we would do in college we could do like a hard workout and we would just, like, we'd lay on the ground and put our legs up against the wall. Yeah, yeah. Legs on the wall. Yeah. That's great. Is it the same kind of general idea? General idea, general idea, a little probably more efficient to do normal tech, but legs on the wall is great. You just push all the fluids. Just dumping down and going to dump into your lymph nodes. It's great. And it's also great to do right before you go to sleep. Legs up on the wall. Really so that your leg. Oh yeah. So you go to sleep, with fresh legs. Okay. Because we're on our feet all day. Right? So the fluid just pushes down and we're in an anti-gravity position. And just so then you push your you put your legs in this anti-gravity position and push all the fluids down. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually funny. So, like, I was at that race last weekend. I was coaching at the 20 for the listeners for 24 hours. So not only did I barely sleep, but I was on my feet the whole time and I was like, in the airport later that day, and I was just like, oh yeah, my legs are just kind of a little swollen, a little tight. It felt kind of after doing a hard run workout the next day when you get that kind of inflammation and swelling and it's like, yeah, just being on your feet all day. And then obviously not sleeping much is probably even worse. But we should have signed up for it. Yeah, but I was thinking about jet lag. Yeah, I was thinking about it just because you said that. It's like you're on your feet all day and you get that kind of drop, you get that lymphatic fluid in your legs, and it's just kind of like pools in there. Did you wear your compression socks? I didn't. I was like so poorly planned from that, from that regard. You were being selfless. Yeah. I mean, it was such that I actually saw I flew. I added insult to injury. I flew out at 530. Saturday morning because the race started at eight. Oh, what I got there like right at the start basically. And I didn't need to be there before it from a need standpoint. So that's just the way I decided to do it. And then I flew back Sunday at like two in the afternoon or something like that. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah. So it was that you just basically were up for and you were up for the 24 hours pretty much. So what I did was I rented it because I, you know, flew into Phoenix Sky Harbor and then the event was in Goodyear. So it's maybe like a 40 minute drive from the airport. So I rented an SUV and just parked it there. And I just, like, ducked out for like a couple hours throughout the night and took a quick nap in the back of the SUV. But that was it. So yeah, it was a it wasn't great strategy from the start back yesterday. Yeah. You have to be exhausted today. I'm not doing too bad. You know, if I planned properly it was I was off season from training for the two weeks right up until yesterday. So like I was feeling pretty decent at that point and well rested and everything and not necessarily like as probably physically or mentally stressed as I would have been if it were like, okay, I just finished this two week block of training and now I'm going to go run off to Phoenix for 36 hours and not sleep the entire time. And stand, stand and walk around. Well, that's the other thing too. You don't realize how much walking around you do when you're just not, like, kind of sitting at a desk, like I think I because I didn't run at all and I was hit like I think like 15 to maybe 20,000 steps on Saturday and Sunday morning. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And some of that just getting to the airports too. You don't realize how much walking you do. Just like getting to the airport, walking to wherever especially like Sky Harbor, which is like you have to walk like a mile just to get to the shuttles and everything like that. You definitely did not have an off weekend. No. And then, you know, the weekend, wasn't it? Yeah, I bet you didn't. I would like to do that too. It was that actually I did believe it or not, I was on top of that. But you know, my thought, my thought was kind of like, this is going to be terrible for me no matter what. So, like, I'm just going to like, I'm just I, I went from like, from, like total preparation to, like, if it's going to be this bad, I'm just gonna, like, jump on a plane and just do it. Yeah, but at least you hydrated. I hydrated. Yeah, I was on top of that. So yeah, I was well fueled and well hydrated. Because when you think about it, like the coaching clients, they're going on a one mile loop and you're just kind of helping them when they come around. So you sort of have a like. A brief few seconds of, like, interaction and then, you know, nothing for like, you know, 8 to 10 minutes. So you have plenty of time to drink and plenty of time to eat and walk around a little bit and stuff like that. So congrats on your runner winning. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Philip was one of my runners and he won the 24 national championships. So that's huge. Yeah, he was excited about it because he's been working on the 24 hour now for almost a year. It's actually a funny story, he did a 24 hour show last year around the same time. But we were preparing them for this 100 miler in Texas. And then unfortunately for that race organization, the park that they had, the race that pulled their permits like a week before because there was a big storm and it was just really wet and soggy out there. And they didn't want to, like, tear up the trails. So he's trying hard. He's like, we'll repair and we'll do everything we have to do afterwards and make him go back to normal. Just don't make us cancel the event. But they wouldn't budge. So he had to, like, postpone the race. He had like basically two bad options available. One was to move it to a totally different location and keep the same date, which isn't great because you know, where are you going to move it. That's relatively close to where people booked their flights and their lodging, or moved it to a different date. And so he ended up doing that. But my coaching client was like, okay, I'm already mostly tapered. I really want to race this weekend. I'm just going to pivot to the next available event that is that weekend. And it was this 24 hour race up in king of northern Texas, and he probably ran 120 miles. He ran 131 for his first 24 hours. And it was just like he had that. Yeah. Which isn't. Two different than a flat hundred miler, but it is different. So like the fact that he was able to kind of just like mentally. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then so then he got interested in it because like, okay, maybe I have some potential here. I'd like to maybe work on this. So he wanted to kind of prepare specifically for that one. So he went and got a nice 11 mile PR compared to what he had before. And it wasn't ideal either. I mean, this I don't want to say this race isn't ideal because I think the setup is really, really good for running quite far for 24 hours and it's Phoenix in November, almost December, so it is usually pretty good weather. But it happened this year. We got a little warmer on Saturday morning and afternoon. It got up to like 80 degrees, which is a little too tasty for high performance. And then it drops so quickly when the sun goes down out there that you, you get over to like being too cold, almost hydrated. Right? Right. Yeah. So you can get you can, you can get caught unprepared a little bit with that temperature shift too, if you're not careful. And then one of the hardest things to do if you get cold in a race like that is get back moving. Yeah, because you're already sore tight. You're already at a spot where, even if you stop early, you're going to be pretty wrecked the next day. And the idea of going from walking to running at that point or standing still and running is just really tough. So you have to be ready for that switch and make sure you're staying warm as you get out of the heat and enjoy cooling off for a little bit from dealing with it all day. So he managed a nice PR and relatively on optimal conditions compared to what he could get in some races where it's like a range of like 40 to 60 degrees and maybe a little overcast, which would be ideal in my opinion. That's going to be a mental boost for him when he goes to train. Yeah, like his next hundred. Yeah I think he will. And I think he'll, he'll probably take a break from the 24 hour for at least a little bit. I mean if he's, if he's fortunate he'll end up getting a spot on the worlds team, the team or the US team for worlds. And then that'll be a year from now. So he'll have some time to do something else between now and then. So I think, yeah, 100 miles would be fun to build for him I think. See how we can do there and then circle back and see if he can get up and do the 150 mile range next. So I checked off one. He lives kind of like northeast Texas. Oh, so he lived. Oh, no. I'm sorry. North west Texas. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So he's kind of just heading west to get to Dallas. So it wasn't like having to get on a flight. He actually drove to Phoenix. I think he said it was like a 12 hour drive. But he had his family with him, his kids and his wife. So they were out there crewing for him. And then I was helping out for a little bit with them too. And yeah, so it sounds like that sounds like it was almost worth it. Yeah. We both could have used the protocol after that, I'm sure. Yeah. Let's get him down. Definitely. Congrats. Yeah. So cool. But yeah, so I should probably touch on. So we talked about the sauna, the contrast, the normal tech boots and then the vibration plate. How long are you supposed to? How long was the vibration played? Again, I'm trying to remember. So a vibration plate, a generator. We. Ours. Our protocol at the end. It's only 2 to 3 minutes, and it's to activate all the systems of the body and flush the lymphatic system. Uh Huh. The hertz on our Ares. I have to look. I think it's something I'm going to have to own. I think it's actually ten megahertz. So ours is a little higher than a standard one you'd get over the counter or like on Amazon. So it's a little higher. It's more therapeutic. So on our specific one you can stay on it for 20 to 30 minutes. So Bowen I remember a PT told me one time she's one of my mentors. The language of bone is vibration. So okay. Stress fractures any type of vibratory therapy is amazing for bone injuries. So that's why in, you know, osteo type facilities that focus on bone health and getting bone stronger in people, they have a lot of vibration tools. That's why. Is that where those are those based out of, kind of medical research to where they had hospitals and stuff originally? Yeah. How much stuff kind of stems from that? That's exactly right. And I think it probably is by no accident. And it makes sense that Delphine and I are healthcare practitioners. So yeah, our schooling is exactly. But I like to clearly lay the disclaimer that we don't use it for that, although people get on it when they're, you know, have a stress fracture and they use it for that. But that's not the intent and purpose of it. A generator, 2 to 3 minutes flushing the rest of the system, lymphatic system, activating all your systems. It kind of feels kind of looser when you get off of it. You feel loose, you feel good. If things feel, you know, more shaken out. Yeah. that's. Yeah. So I like to lay that disclaimer that it's great for bone health, not our purpose set generator. Uh Huh. Yeah. It's sort of like, it sort of, kind of is almost similar to, like what? What people just do intuitively. If they are doing a hard workout or something, they'll just kind of shake their arms after a lift or something. Good point. Yeah, that's a good point. Gonna shake it out. Just kind of getting that full range of motion through your body, keeping it nice and loose. So flushing it out. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. So no, it was fun. I liked it. It was really cool to track check it out and like, yeah, walking out, it was very clear to me that I felt different than when I went in. So awesome. Were you able to. This is a newer modality we added to the generator. Are we able to look into our red light room? We'll have to come back. Oh I was going to ask you about that because I, I think I saw a sign for somebody that I thought you had said something about a red light, when, when we met. But it's a newer modality that we added to the generator. So like we talked about earlier, the rainbow and the red is just 660 to 880 nanometers. And ours also has near-infrared. So it does go up to a thousand. And it's you know, you're six inches away from this, these panels for ten minutes. And you're like, well why what's that good for. So, you know, as you know now, a generator. We only have things that have tons of research, right? It's not going to, you know, a new modality that just joined the market. Sure. Red light. There's so much research on red light being beneficial for all sorts of things. I love it specifically because it's a great energy mood boost. If it's gray, I like to get a little red light. It's great. Interestingly enough, even though the research is there, I've actually tried this on the kids. It's great for wound healing. That's what I was going to ask about because I saw I isn't that that's where it started, right? And yes, it's crazy. And like hair growth, people are using it for eye health and for sexual health. So you get into it naked. So it's because here's what a red light does. It increases circulation. So what does circulation do? It increases oxygenation. So it brings all this blood and oxygen. So basically blood brings the oxygen to the surface of the tissue okay. So that's really all it is. Yeah. That's why that's really all. So that's why it's great. Like if you put a red light cap on you're going to have hair growth. If you put your face right on it, you're going to see that your skin is clearer and your collagen is because it's increasing the collagen in your skin. If you, you know, put it in front of the kids Booboos it heals them up really quickly. What else? Personally, those are things I use it for. But man, all this other research out on it lowers, you know? glucose uptake. So you have a meal, you get in front of it 24% less. Really? Uptake of the glucose. I know all this other research that's coming out that's really new. So we're like, all right, there's enough research. Yeah. And all these big guys kind of support it that we have it. So it's kind of a newer modality IT generator. It's not part of the protocol. So but it's an extra ten. So a lot of people come in. They'll do it for ten minutes right before you don't have to. It's not part of the protocol. But we have it just because of the benefits of it, for the glucose stuff. Is that what it would be like if you had a spike after a meal, it would keep it from getting as high or I just read that recently, it's exactly like dropping it. It's some crazy number, like 24%. I'll look it up and send it to you if you're really interested. Yeah, I wear like a continuous glucose monitor and eat a meal and then see if it goes down higher totally. And then share that with me because that's new research. Here's this other crazy research I just saw. Someone sent it to me. Actually. This child had like 90%, I, I guess sight loss and I can't remember the amount of days. It was maybe three months. It was something quite significant. And he had to just stare. And at the red light, it was maybe, maybe an extended amount of time, maybe 15, 20 minutes. I'm gonna have to look this up. And he regained like 75% of his eyesight. Really? It was insane. Huberman recently had something on one of his podcasts. I'll have to look it up. That talked about the benefits of not wearing the glasses and the red light. So I'm gonna have to look that up and send that. I think I saw it. Did you post something about that? I don't I don't remember details of that. So I don't. I don't put the glasses on when I'm doing the red light because Huberman has gotten so popular now. It's like if he says something you don't remember if he said it or someone else was talking, and you also and you also just do it, by the way, I'm like, okay, whatever, he said. But yeah, I remember seeing someone is either a post he put up or someone quoting him or saying like, yeah, like there was something about actually looking I think he was talking about in the morning, maybe like looking into the red light. Yeah. I wasn't sure if that was like some sort of circadian rhythm thing or if it was specific to eHealth, but I health I mean, I bet maybe circadian rhythm. I'll have to look at that. But my health helps. There's something I've been reading about too. So some really cool benefits to red light. So I'll have to get you to try it next time you're in. Yeah, yeah. One thing I always wonder with like any of the protocols that are like with red light is just what is it like, what are they doing in the research versus what is kind of getting into the market from like a dosage standpoint? So is there like. When the research looks at skin like with the wound healing research, what were they doing for that? Was it pretty localized, or was it them getting in front of a huge body panel? Localized. Was it okay? Interesting. Look, especially the wound healing that was a local red light. But with any panel on the market these days. Yeah. And by the way, they're not all created equally. They're not some of them are not truly aromatherapy okay. It's just like a red bulb. So be careful. Be careful. You can't just go spray paint your light bulb red. Exactly. And call it a red light. yes. But for the wound healing specifically, it was localized. But with any panel that you have at the house or like a little facial one that you had. Yeah, you just put your you can just get really close to it. If you're within 6 to 10in, you're getting the benefit. Okay. And from all the research I've read, it's like 10 to 10 minutes, 10 to 12 minutes, okay, for max benefits. And when I'm like, my son Will gouges body playing soccer. Yeah. And I'll, I'll sometimes put a red light on it. Yeah. For a couple times a day because there's only ten minutes again from the red light. Yeah. And then they read a book or ten minutes for a teenager is like an hour. Yeah, a whole hour. Ten minutes. I have to sit in front of this thing. Mom. Yeah. It is funny though, because you will see like you can get like a little pen thing that's just like a little circle. And then you can get these full, like very basically into a chamber and it's like panel, panel, panel, panel. And you're just getting blasted by a red light. That's the one. We have a generator. Is it okay? Yeah. Blast it. So yeah. Because you just get it everywhere. Everything is off. Might as well yeah man. When we got it I just started asking people immediately. Okay, there's some things out there immediately. One of our members is like, I immediately have more energy. That's the first thing he is, he's somebody probably, you know, I feel like he knows everybody, but he'll be the one that loves to do things like you do like do an experiment. Sure. So I'm gonna do it every day for 30 days. He immediately has more energy. That's the first thing. And then the second thing we hear is better sleep and then skin. Those are the three things I hear the most about. What's the sleep? Yeah. Is it just some sort of calming type of I think it's the endorphins that are released and I'm not sure exactly. Is it doing it before bed then, or is it just something where if you do it daily then you'll just. He wouldn't do it before bed. The people that have like self experimented weren't necessarily doing it right before. So yeah wonder to your point if it's the circadian going back to that might be what kind of like they're regulating these circadian rhythms. Maybe that's it. Yeah. Kind of getting us into a because the light exposure thing certainly obviously we know that that impacts circadian rhythm. Everyone recognizes it during daylight savings time. Right. Like you know, a little more tired. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah it's interesting stuff and especially nowadays too or you know, we're not outside as often as we maybe once were. So forget our early morning sunlight. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think I mean I haven't dove into red light research in any deep manner. But I do remember some of the stuff I saw suggesting like red light exposure in the morning is good for circadian rhythm. So maybe that's what they're trying to hack with. Kind of that early morning sun exposure would be setting you up for a better circadian timeline over the course of the day. And you know what? That's probably more important for people that wake up at 4:00 Am like you, right? Like you're not you're not going to get the sun for two hours. So sit in front of maybe like five minutes of the red light real quick, and then you go on your run. So you can see that it's probably good for the rest of the world to open up. Thankfully, I don't get it before I have to run anymore. Although yeah, this weekend was different than most. But yeah, when I was teaching, yeah, that was hard. I'm glad I was young when I did that. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. You get those winter days then and it's like you wake up at four and the sun's not up for another three hours, and then you go inside for eight hours. It's actually light outside. You leave and work. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. You leave and it's dark again. It's like, is there ever light? Oh no. That would that's when you would need some red light right. For you, you know. Yeah I don't, I can't remember if red light was I'm sure it was available just probably wasn't on the market as commercially as it is now back then. But. Or if you've ever lived in Seattle. Oh yeah. Red light. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be. I wonder if there's like a. If there's like with the research on the benefits of it. If it's like I saw it actually. Yeah. Like the worse off you like if your baseline is really poor, if you get better returns, then if someone who's like getting a lot of it already, if they maybe don't see it as much or any of the benefits from it in Seattle, I read something recently about how it it lowered the depression rates and the people using the red light versus the people not so they were specifically moving using it for mood because of, you know, how extended period of time it's gray. And in Seattle. Yeah, I lived there for ten months. Oh. Have you ever lived there? I've been there for a week at the longest, so it's beautiful. And the trees, you know, all of it's beautiful. And, you know, the racing scene is great, but, yeah, the gray, it didn't get to me as much as it did my husband, who's a Texan through and through, and he's like, I need some sun. This place is rough. Yeah, this place is gray. Yeah, I haven't though. I had one more question for you about the contrast stuff. Yeah. And it maybe if you know, because I just this is something I keep thinking about and I keep forgetting to like to look into it. I love it with the contrast a lot because like, that's not new. That's not modern. It's not new. Yeah. That's like none of the modalities we have is new right. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's been well researched. Yeah. It's kind of like the northern European areas where they do like saunas and they go and like to roll around in the snow, which is I guess as close as, I mean, maybe some of them jump into the water because they probably have that access at some points. But yeah. So what was, is there like what's the history. Do you know what the history behind that is? Like I wonder why that started. Yeah, it's in fact it dates back years ago. I was doing this research I was writing. So I write monthly for Austin and they'll sometimes ask me what to write on. So it's been a while since I've researched the history, but it dates back to many of the different continents from a lot like even in Asia and Japan and Japan, they would do. You know, their version of contrast? all many different parts of the world. Why did it start, though? I don't specifically know why people would do it. I imagine the same reason we do it right. Mood benefits are immune. I think that's what, We have a member whose wife is from Finland, and they go back and they'll do similar protocols, he said. They do different protocols, but he does my protocol. He likes it better, but they specifically do it for the immune benefits. So I think maybe the immune system is how it all started. It makes sense to me because and then mood to I think yeah. Because if they're like they're not getting a lot of sun out there either. So if they're looking to kind of boost their mood. Yeah. Mood boost in an immune system boost. Yeah. We're an I you know honestly in all transparency I started it for more of a performance benefit. I'm like this is going to make all my clients faster. Me faster. I didn't really you know, you do the research, but you didn't really realize who your avatar is going to end up being or who you draw or what really, truly benefits you're providing to your community. Until then, you really start seeing it. It's really cool. That's when I started digging into the other research. And. Yeah. And it just feels it feels so much better to help people mentally, you know? Yeah, I think that's probably a even a bigger application just from like I don't I don't have any reason to believe that other than like when I talk to people who like, who like Cold Plunge a lot and do that sort of stuff and ask them like kind of what their reasoning for it is, and they'll say, well, I just feel bad for. And every once in a while there's someone who, like, actually had a real clear reason before to try it for that reason. And just because like for me, it wasn't like I didn't get into a cold plunge thinking like, oh, I'm going to feel better about myself afterwards. I went into it because I, you know, I've gone into cold plunges when I was younger, just from like sports related stuff, but like when I started, when when everyone started getting more into that sort of stuff, when I did it, I just noticed, like getting out, like, oh yeah, you do feel like a little more upbeat than you did getting in. So it's like a yeah, it's like there's something going on there. Yeah. That's right. I could get why someone would want to do that if they were feeling a little bit, if they're just kind of chronically maybe a little bit lower energy level or lower mood just. Jump start everything, I guess, with that. Totally. And then think about, for people like me, you know, my energy level is so high as is. I just use it as my edge. Yeah. Because it just gives me that extra little boost. But I do feel more focused and less sort of distracted and all over the place. So yeah, I and I'll, I'll time it like I, like I said I could plunge right. You know, ten minutes before I came here. Just to just be clear. There was also another member that said it. I like what he said. He's like it just decreases the static in my head. Yeah. I like to just be focused. The other thing I like to do, right before, you know, a lecture or being on a podcast is I just have, you know, like a little, you know, protein drink like a light, like, I don't eat too much. You're going to keep it light. You don't want to be sluggish, cold plunge, have certain things. And it just really just helps. Like, yeah, clear my head, I do wonder, I wonder if that is something to do just with like the, the relative difficulty of it where it's similar to like if I do like a short interval in running, like once I start that interval, it's like it doesn't I don't really care about any of the stuff that was kind of floating around my head at that point, because I just have to, like, focus on hitting that interval. Yeah, it's kind of the same thing. You get into that cold plunge and it's just like all of a sudden like you've got you don't care about anything other than just like, okay, I'm freezing, I'm freezing. How do I stop this? Or how do I normalize this? How do I get comfortable in this and that just yeah, just yeah. It just makes you focus on one thing. And I wonder if that's just kind of resets, like if you're just like kind of going about your day, like especially modern, there's so many distractions around and just like available on our phones and everything, where you start kind of having your head go into like a thousand different directions just from our environment. Whereas when you get into the cold plunge, you kind of almost just like forces back into like one narrow focus and then it's so it's almost like resets that. And I've heard that before too from members like I just can't think of anything else when I'm in that goal. Right, right. And so like we were saying earlier, I wonder if it just did a version of a meditation. You're just forced into a kind of a short meditation where you get out of beta, like, I was just reading this, you're out of that thinking head. Yeah. You just move into some version of a different way. Brain wavelength. That helps you. Yeah. It's interesting stuff. So interesting. And I can't wait to have you back. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to getting back into it too. Yeah, well, and especially too, because I wasn't doing like run training when I did it either. So I'd be curious how I feel like in, in the context of like peak training and stuff like that. So need to be interesting. Let's it's let's you love data. Yeah. Let's just report the data. Let's just collect it. Yeah. Why not? Why not bring it in. Let's just tell everybody the the share the data. I think that'd be so interesting. I love data, although I don't like my own data. Yeah, I would like your data. Yeah, I like collecting it. That's that's a fun, fun for me. But it's like. Yeah, not everyone does. So. And you love your data too. I do, I like collecting data. I get motivated by that. That's that is a personality thing though. Some people do and some people. Well, it's like we were saying with Nicole where she would rather not have it either. So she doesn't get in your head, does it? Right, I think, yeah. That's data. Uhhuh. See? Yeah. Would it? It would get in my head. Yeah. I don't like it. Well, I think she also probably knows, too, because it's like when she grew up running, it was all database because it's like her coaches would want splits and all that stuff. And she tolerated it then because she probably because she didn't have all that in her day to day life. So I think some of it's a threshold thing where it's like if I start like she knows what she could do with that if she had access to it and just doesn't want to overthink it, doesn't want to turn. Same because her purpose for running is different than just like she wants to perform, but not at the sacrifice of having an outlet from her other stuff. So 100% agree with that. Yeah, no, I love that she wants to do it until she dies. Yeah, she wants to do it forever. Yeah, she's active and she'll always be active I think so like that. But yeah, having to, it'd be curious. I'd be curious if, like, if you took her job away, if she would be more interested in the data because then it would be something she could measure. If there would be like, then it would go from like a surplus to avoid. Hmm. I hear you and feel you, but I, I mean, I just met her the one time I think she's so cerebral that I think that she would have to have a job. Another job, if you will, does that to her. She wouldn't get to a point where she was just just running. No, that's for sure. I can guarantee that. Super. Yeah. She would get too bored with just one thing for sure. She's not going to want to overanalyze running out of time. So maybe the other thing is what if she had a job that was just very like mind numbing, whereas like just manual labor essentially like or like. Yeah, just do you see her getting bored with that? Although if she had gotten bored, if she had a job that was that physically demanding where it wasn't like, okay, I've got to think about it a lot. I just kind of rinse and repeat what I already know. Then that might be so physically demanding that she wouldn't want to do the running. Yeah, exactly. She wouldn't be looking for the running outlet then. So it'd have to be like something that was like high cerebral output. Yeah, yeah. So she can focus on it so that she doesn't hyper focus and hyper analyze all the running. Yeah. But that doesn't physically fatigue her right. Yeah I think she's got the perfect gig. It finds a way of balancing itself one way or the other. So doesn't it. As long as you don't put a watch on her. That's exactly right. Awesome. Well, Jess, where can people find you if they want to check stuff out? Oh, yeah. Website. Yeah. Generator. Athlete lab.com. Cool. you on the socials? So social? Yeah. Instagram at generator athlete lab. Cool. So you run it all through that handle? Yeah. All through that handle. And then you can message there. I'm not very active on social media, so you could probably find me somewhere but don't have a lot of followers. Like you. but yeah, you can text me to you or email me doctor Jess at Generator Athlete lab.com. Perfect. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming by and chatting. It's fun to do the protocol and I'm looking forward to doing it again. Thanks so much for having me, Zach. Alrighty. Take care. Yeah. Take care.