The Athletes Podcast
The Athletes Podcast is a leading source of information, inspiration, and education for anyone interested in optimizing physical performance, maintaining good health, and living an active lifestyle. Join David Stark as he interviews some of the world's biggest athletes and fitness professionals, The Athletes Podcast provides practical advice, expert insights, and real-world strategies to help listeners achieve their health and fitness goals.The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire the next generation of athletes!
The Athletes Podcast
Dr. Ben Sporer - Engineering Human Performance - Episode #221
Have you ever considered what sets elite athletes apart from the rest? Dr. Ben Sporer, with his rich background in sports performance and physiology, joins us to unravel the intricacies of achieving peak athletic excellence. From his early days as a lacrosse enthusiast to his pivotal roles with the Vancouver Whitecaps FC and as a consultant, his journey is a testament to the power of passion pivoting towards a purposeful career. His new book, "Output," is more than a treasure trove—it's a manifesto for athletes and coaches dedicated to the relentless pursuit of excellence.
Dr. Sporer's insights are a guide for anyone aiming to optimize performance in life's diverse arenas. Dr. Sporer's approach to critical self-reflection and goal setting transcends the playing field, offering universal strategies for personal growth and achievement. His emphasis on understanding the human element in sports science provides a refreshing perspective on the pursuit of greatness.
Wrapping up, we dissect the broader implications of human performance, from the psychological to the tactical. Dr. Sporer shares stories of athletes whose strategic preparation and mental fortitude have led to iconic victories, inspiring anyone with aspirations of success.
Buy his book here!
Powered by Perfect Sports Supplements use the code "AP20" at checkout!
---
Want to see more of the AP? Subscribe to the AP YouTube channel.
---
Check out Dr. Sporer's stuff:
LinkedIn
---
Check out Dave's stuff:
Instagram
Twitter
LinkedIn
---
Produced by Rise Virtually
---
Other episodes you might enjoy:
World Strongest Man Mitchell Hooper, Taylor Learmont (Little "T" Fitness), Bruce Boudreau (Vancouver Canucks), Rhonda Rajsich (Most Decorated US Racquetball player), Zach Bitter (Ultra Marathon Runner), Zion Clark (Netflix docuseries), Jana Webb (Founder of JOGA), Ben Johns (#1 Pickleball Player in the World)
Check out our Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Tiktok | Spotify | Apple | Google | Youtube l Save 20% on Perfect Sports Supplements
Whether you win the gold medal isn't actually up to you. You might be judged, you might have another competitor that's just better than you. But what is up to you and what is in your control, is your output, your ability to prepare.
Speaker 2:You're the most decorated racquetball player in US history, world's strongest man, from childhood passion to professional athlete, eight-time Ironman champion. So what was it like making your debut in the NHL? What is your biggest piece of advice for the next generation of athletes, from underdogs to national champions? This is the athletes podcast, where high performance individuals share their triumphs, defeats and life lessons to educate, entertain and inspire the next generation of athletes. Here we go. Hey, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 2:This is the 221st episode of the athletes podcast featuring Dr Ben Sporer. You just made the best. Here we go for Vancouver Whitecaps FC. If you haven't heard of him, it's Vancouver's soccer team, proper football. That's to say he's also the performance consultant, advisor for B210, as well as the founder of Resync Consulting, the president, co-founder of Integrated Athlete Development. Ultimately, dr Sporer is engineering human performance and he's done this now with his book Output that's available now at output dash bookcom. But instead of you having to read this entire book, we've decided that we're going to do a podcast with Dr Sporer and pull out some of the finer details, some insights, some of the wisdom that he's acquired along his decades of knowledge, wisdom and experience in the sports, fitness and wellness space. So, without further ado, this is episode 221. I want to make sure that during this episode, you're fueled, hydrated and performing your best, because that's important, even as you're listening to a conversation, whether you're walking, running, working out, we know you're an athlete because you're listening to the Athlete's Podcast, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Ben Sport, dr Ben Sport, engineering, human Performance, strategic and Innovative. He's blending science and application. He's an author. He's a speaker. This is the 221st episode of the Athletes Podcast. Here we go. Number four Ben Spohr, as you were, bobby, or I know I had to start it off.
Speaker 2:You read that that's funny. Well, you know, I got to do my research. Where did you see that I got to do my research? Where did you see that? That was on that podcast that you just referenced.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it was with Scott. That was excellent. I remember that that's what it was growing up.
Speaker 2:Three-and-a-half-year-old lacrosse player, just inspired by Bobby.
Speaker 1:Orr and I wore his number for most of my lacrosse until I couldn't get it anymore. And then I moved into seven. That was a combination of seven and four to 11, because I had to have four.
Speaker 2:I I just heard a clip about bob. You were talking about mcdavid at 15 saying he was going to be the best skater. Yeah, and now I was like, oh man, that's saying something from one of the greatest skaters ever if not the greatest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's pretty.
Speaker 2:I mean, he's pretty special player for sure, and obviously the game's changed a lot since then I feel like you've been a part of that progress from an athletic standpoint over the past couple decades, making those improvements, yeah I mean, yeah, for sure there's a.
Speaker 1:There's a big change and shift over the last couple decades, for sure, in sport performance and how we prepare athletes to perform on demand. Um, but the interesting thing for me when you think about that, it's actually athletes. Like you can put anything on paper you want, at the end of the day, it's commitment from athletes and individuals to do the work and that's what they. That's what they the best typically do is they have the ability to get in there and grind. Yeah, like you know, like we were talking about earlier, do the grind I, uh, I.
Speaker 2:Where do you want to start? Because I feel like I could dive down a million rabbit holes. You've got your new book. We could start with you. As a four-year-old lacrosse player, you also transitioned from computer science into athletics sport from like the enthusiastic fanatic point of view. Maybe if you could educate our audience a bit about who you are, your role with the white caps, the consulting you do, and then I can just really ask questions afterwards to pique my interest.
Speaker 1:Sure sounds great. So I'm a physiologist by training. I did my undergrad and master's degree at University of Victoria and then I did my PhD right back here at University of British Columbia we're on campus right now, which is great. As a physiologist, I started early, right away, while I was going to school. Right after my undergrad, working in sport, started in hockey, gradually moved into Olympic sport as I did my master's degrees and then worked throughout the rest of my education in primarily Olympic sport across a big spectrum. So I'd work from the artistic style extreme sports in snowboard, snowboard racing, slope style and then right through to the pure endurance physiology sports, which was cycling, triathlon. I spent a lot of time in those years and worked up through the Canadian Sport Institute models and helped with that for a long period of time and then, over time, with family and other pressures, moved into different areas and different spaces and then started my own consulting company in 2011.
Speaker 2:Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1:And that's sort of evolved into where I now work with a lot of different organizations.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of is an understatement. I feel like you've impacted between you and Howie. The majority of Canadian sport has been touched in one way, shape or form, at least on the West Coast. Am I wrong?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean first of all, it's very flattering to even put me in the same level as Howie. But yeah, I certainly have worked in a lot of sports in BC and Western Canada and across Canada, but over the last 20, 25 years for sure, and a wide spectrum of sports.
Speaker 2:Have you had a favorite that you've been able to work with, sports specific and then maybe athletes?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's interesting because I actually talk a little bit about this in the book, but context is so important and I have to say that I realize this, probably 15 years ago is it wasn't about the sport, it was about the pursuit of uh performing at a super high level and sustaining that performance. So for me that was really the pursuit, um, and that's what I found I loved more than anything, um, and then the challenge.
Speaker 2:It was like always a puzzle, and so you know, sometimes it's a team, sometimes it was an individual and sometimes it was about trying to figure out the pieces of that puzzle that allowed uh, you know that athlete, or help support that athlete, to reach their ultimate potential I guess that's what got me excited when I was reading your book output, because I, to you, am more of a fitness enthusiast where I didn't come from a background in science sport physiology but over the last four and a half years, you know, we've chatted with some of the world's greatest athletes in a variety of sports researchers like yourself, practitioners like yourself, and I'm always amazed at what people are capable of doing.
Speaker 2:You know what they're able to overcome. Some of the injuries that people suffer and then are able to come back even stronger from are just mind boggling, and I guess that was what was exciting. When your wife reached out about coming on the show, I was like, hey, this is someone who realistically fast forward. You know, a couple of decades is where I could see myself maybe not in the physio, don't know.
Speaker 1:I shouldn't say never. But.
Speaker 2:I'm like there's a lot of overlapping interests here and I guess that's what piqued my interest in having this conversation, because you've been able to integrate yourself within sport despite not having that interest at a young age and like diving straight into that industry. So what's what caused that change? Cause it was down in that New Zealand Australia trip, I think, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's um. So I've always, I've always loved sport. So I remember anytime just growing up as a kid like I would be in my basement with, with a friend or, and we, we just create a game and compete. I love to compete and so it was not about being competing to win, it was just the aspect of competing, and so sport was always a really good avenue for that. And I played lots of different sports growing up and I think that trip that you talk about, when I went down to Australia, new Zealand, you know I was working in computers. I had gone and done a degree in computers or diplomatic computers and really enjoyed the critical thinking aspect, the problem solving. But when I was traveling I realized that one of the things I really enjoyed when I was down there was watching these new sports I'd never been exposed to. So rugby league, cricket, rugby union, I'd seen a bit of, but in Aussie rules football.
Speaker 2:Wildest sports.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some crazy sports and I'm just going. But every one of them captivated me. It wasn't like, oh, I don't like this sport. Yeah, some crazy sports and I'm just going, but every one of them captivated me. It wasn't like, oh, I don't like this sport. And people would say, oh, I don't, rugby league sucks, rugby union's the one, and I'm like they're two totally different sports. They look the same but they're different. And so I just loved how people prepared for them.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if you've ever seen this, but the state of origins match in in rugby is that people play on different teams, but when the state of origins, they go back to play for queensland, queensland or new south wales, and these guys play against each other in the state of origin match and they're like competing at the highest level, even though they're teammates regularly and they they get bloodied and they work hard.
Speaker 1:And I thought, wow, just that ability to challenge yourself, to be your best in these different moments. And so when I was on that, that trip and that sort of personal journey, if you call it that, I, I came to realize that I wanted to get back and work in sport, and so I wasn't sure how or where I knew I wasn't going to be an athlete I was a little old for that yeah, same, I'm still working on that yeah, and I was never really good enough to be a professional athlete in that regard, but I, um, I realized that I wanted to be involved in sport, I want to be around that pursuit on a regular basis, and so I found the path that really connected with me.
Speaker 1:I looked into medicine, I looked into physio, I looked into coaching, broadcasting, all these things. And, um, I remember going to University of Victoria as I went into my undergrad, re-back, went into my undergrad and I met Dr Howie Wenger and the first day I just was captivated by him and his energy.
Speaker 2:Okay, so how does one of the most distinguished physiologists in the West Coast Canada fail out of ubc?
Speaker 1:well, I think that's funny.
Speaker 2:You brought that up, but yeah, I don't mean to I just you know it's so I think.
Speaker 1:I think it's like anything right and I think it's the same thing that happens even with athletes in sport, and I talked a little bit about this in the book. But you have to understand why you're doing something, and I went to university early on because I thought it was expected of me. Right out of school, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to. I bounced around from different programs. I certainly wasn't interested in what I was learning at the time. Although I was interested in it, I wasn't passionate about it, okay, and so I just I was finding other things to do, having having fun with friends, socializing, and I got to a point where I just was not super interested in what I was trying to follow at that time. And I joke about this to my kids right now because they laugh about it too whenever they get a report card or something. And fortunately we haven't had to have the discussion yet about, yeah, you know you might fail, but um, yeah, and I just decided that I think passion is a big part of it, like really understanding what you love to do and and being connected with that. And I have to say that since I've gone back to school and, um, although I've worked all through school and and when I was, when I was going to school, and then I work a lot. I often get that from my kids and my family, but I've never really felt like I've had a job per se, like I really love what I do, and I think that once you find that passion, or you search for that passion, or you connect with something in that regard, it makes it really easy, like I found myself.
Speaker 1:I remember going back. I remember a very distinct day. I had an opportunity to go out with some friends and I was like no, no, I'm going to go grab some food, I'm going to study. And I went to a drive-thru restaurant like serve to your card, a white spot at the time. And I remember sitting out in New Westminster overlooking the hill and I I was going and I had my books out and I was studying and writing in the books and I thought this is easy, like I actually enjoy doing this, which you know. Several years before I was like it was I wasn't interested, you weren't opening your computer science textbook to reference.
Speaker 2:I was doing, uh, weird I was doing a reading about biology and dna.
Speaker 2:I remember it to the moment weird I the only reason I bring that up is because you hear it on social media, which we talked about before. The pros and cons a bit around like oh, trust the process, you gotta go get your degree after school. Some people are like it doesn't even matter, you just gotta go learn it. Make sure you figure out how to learn, how to you know allocate your time properly, time management, whatever, when in your case you didn't need that you needed.
Speaker 1:Well, I did actually oh, you know what's interesting about like, okay, like, and that's the thing like no regrets process, like every, every aspect of what you do, I find you have to there's always things to take from it, and in hindsight I look back and think well, even though they were called them failures because I dropped out, they were actually incredible learning experiences. I learned that I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I actually hadn't learned how to study and prepare in high school. It was really easy for me, so I never learned the skills that you had to have, and I had to go and acquire those skills. I had to put the effort in to gain those skills, the technical skills, right, I had to have the mindset to be able to think about.
Speaker 1:You know, I actually I'm going to make a sacrifice here to know that the bigger picture is here, like, even like we get that failure transcript. But it is actually a learning process. And so you take and we do that in sport now too Like we have a poor result as a team. Okay, great, what did we learn from it? What did we take away from it? We have a great result as a team. What did we learn from it? Did we actually play well or did we? So that reflection process, I think is really big and um.
Speaker 2:I did need that, like for me personally well, and it's only a failure if you don't do anything with it right, exactly, it's a learning experience, otherwise yeah exactly, so I guess that was you know. I'm always curious when people look back, do the reflection piece. Are there things that you would change? Or when you're having these conversations with your kids for? Instance how are you taking what you've learned and then trying to apply that as a parent? Are you looking back on your experience? Are you seeing how others approached it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good question. I, um, I think a bit of both. Yeah, I think a bit of both. For sure, like uh, one of the things I try to do and my kids may not agree with me on this, but, um, one of the things I try to do is, um, rather than say you should do this, uh, is to try to encourage them to really figure out what they want to do. So in those situations, I do think, yes, you've got to trust the process.
Speaker 1:But if I look back, it would have been great to learn earlier on that I really should follow what I want to do. I really should learn how to think as opposed to just do. I should really. I mean, one of the biggest skills I think is important, which I learned, um and after that phase, was about critical thinking. Like critical thinking and it's, you know, it's really commonplace. Now, it wasn't commonplace, it was rote memorization for the most part. Yeah, you know, schools weren't teaching critical thinking. There was only one university that taught critical thinking processes, which was mcmaster, and then, as a sort of module, how to actually learn, and some teachers did it here and there.
Speaker 1:For sure and obviously I was exposed to it from howie, yeah, um, but I think you know that process and just getting into the critical thinking and and diving into those questions and asking yourself, and you know what is it do I like to do? Why am I making these choices?
Speaker 2:yeah, having like a logical approach and mindset is important. Dr nick, who's on instagram as the fittest doc we just had him on the pod and he's like. He was an engineer by trade, went to school for it and then afterwards went and got his medical degree. Because he's like now I take an analytical, logical approach to everything. There's no bias because of how I feel right. It's based on numbers, data. We hear weights clanging and banging downstairs music going right now.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:I'm assuming those guys are just following the training protocol that you suggest right now? Yeah well, our team here does.
Speaker 1:Yeah like I personally don't. There's a lot of other people that do it and they're way better at it than me, but I I think the reality is don't there's a lot of other people that do it and they're way better at it than me but I think the reality is, I think there's a healthy balance between the two, right, like there is a, you know, one of the things we have at this club here and I think wherever I go, I try to regularly encourage this approach it's really data informed, it's not data driven. Okay, I think you run into a challenge when you become data driven and and and the easiest way for me to describe that is like data sets tell you information when you have lots of data, which is good and that, but they basically tell you information about populations. They tell you information about groups and even within that, there's a whole distribution of how people respond and don't respond to different types of interventions, call them right. So I think there's a data-informed approach that allows you to bring that into individual context.
Speaker 1:So and I often use this example, like I've given a talk before to a room of strength and conditioning coaches about the concept of really not understanding personal context, and I think everybody acknowledges that. But if I ask the room, I say how many people here can build a program to increase someone's vertical jump? Everyone should put their hand up. Everybody puts their hand up, right? How many people in this room can build a program? If I asked you all to show me the program, how many of them would be the same 50% in value, similar 20%, 10%, 5%.
Speaker 2:I bet you there's probably maybe 5% Because there's going to be nuances right.
Speaker 1:You bring your biases, you bring your past experiences. Well, how many people would do the exact same program for every client they work with? None. Some would.
Speaker 2:Yeah, true, Actually fair. A lot of people wouldn't.
Speaker 1:If they do a data-driven or a, you know, cookie cutter mass production, right, okay, but the reality is is that your program might not be the best for me and my program might not be the best for you, yeah, but mine might be the best for me and yours might be the best for you, and so it's not just about the physiology of it, it's actually about all those other things that go on, like how much time do you have? What's your history of training, right? What do you like, you know? Do you like to be in a room where there's lots of other people? Do you like to do it in a competitive environment? Do you like to be solo? You like that solitude, you know? And so application to personal context or team context is really, really important.
Speaker 2:I guess two, two questions around. That is like how, if I'm a 15, 16, 18, 25 year old athlete, how do I go about identifying what works and what doesn't for me? Is it just trial and error? Are there certain things that you'd suggest?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yeah, it's a great question and I think it is a bit of trial and error. Um, I think there's also some inward reflection. That's always required and that's not always the easiest right when you're 14 years old.
Speaker 2:Come on, that's what I was thinking about yeah, for sure no, but it's not even close.
Speaker 1:But I think there's ways to do that in very simple ways, like you know, to look at what do I like?
Speaker 1:yeah do I like to be with a group or do I not like to be with a group? Like some simple things. I think the other challenge that exists that makes it more difficult is um, what's the best program? You will change right right, so it's not just dependent on your likes and your dislikes. It's dependent on your, your age, your upbringing, your training age, as you train the best program is going to be very different for you, your nutrition, how your body's adapting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are you? Are you, are you physically maturing? Is your hormone levels changing, like there's so many things, especially for a developing athlete, right through, you know, early mid-20s and then once you get into that mid-20s, you have a little window there, that's, things are pretty stable, but then they start to deteriorate. Yeah, the physical side starts to fall off, the other side, especially on the strength and power piece, right, but you maintain and are able to develop a little bit more of that capacity, endurance component.
Speaker 2:So are you telling me it's all downhill for me from here?
Speaker 1:I'm not okay, mine's uphill, it depends where you are.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's all relative I just had to make sure I'm at that mid late 20s part. You know, I just yeah well I will say.
Speaker 1:I will say that you know, there's a lot of people I know who become better athletes after the age of 30.
Speaker 2:Why is?
Speaker 1:that their previous background, their specificity of what they're trying to do. So some might move from an athlete who's much more power, explosive, technical sport Hockey is a good example to an athlete that's more of a cycling, endurance-based sport or a different type of sport that requires different skill sets which take longer to develop.
Speaker 2:Okay, if there was one thing that you could suggest to that athlete who is at that 30-year mark, or 27? And they're like, oh, I feel like my body's slowing down, I'm not performing the way I was. Reframe mentally, looking at your data, reviewing it. What would be if you're going through?
Speaker 1:it Like an elite athlete or a casual athlete Both. Both, I think they're different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all context.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's all context for sure, and that's the same as whether you're 45 or 27,. But there's not, I don't think there's one. I would say that there's a couple of things to do is just really reassess, like what's we can touch to the book here on that spot. Yeah, just reconnect with what your objective. Objective is what are you, what are your goals? If you're an elite athlete, your goals might be than a recreational athlete. But then I always start with the phase of like what is your objective and what's the output that's actually required to achieve that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess that is probably where we should start. In your book, people look at inputs, outputs. Your book's completely focused on the output because at the end of the day, the outcome doesn't necessarily look at what the output was, and I'm butchering it so maybe you can articulate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's a great I mean a key principle in the book, and it's actually why the book ended up being called. We decided on the title of output. Was that performance really about the books? About performance, and it's human performance, and that we often measure performance and outcomes right, whether it be. Did you get the sale, you know? Did you win the championship? Did you get an mvp? Like all these different outcomes? Did you win the gold medal?
Speaker 1:Um, the reality, though, is that you know, my experience, uh, based on lots of support in sport was that you don't have control over the outcome. Whether you get the sale isn't up to you. It's about who decides whether they get the sale. Whether you win the gold medal isn't actually up to you. You might be judged, you might have another competitor that's just better than you like but what is up to you and what is in your control is your output, your ability to prepare that's in your control and your ability to execute the output. Those are the things that you're actually able to control, and so the premise behind the book and the underlying principle is that high performance is all about output, and sustained high performance is being able to prepare yourself to deliver that output that's required to achieve your objective, and what you do in that regard is you don't actually guarantee your likelihood that you achieve your objective. What you do is you actually increase the likelihood. You put your performance window in a bandwidth that increases the likelihood that you're successful.
Speaker 2:So you set up three Vancouver Whitecaps players along these tables, you give them the exact same ingredients and you ask them to bake a chocolate cake. Who's making the best one? Is there one on the team? The best baker on the team? Oh, I don't know. To be honest with you.
Speaker 1:That's a tough question. I don't spend much time up to the baking side. I know why you bring that up.
Speaker 2:I like to bring real world examples. You did a really good job in your book of being able to explain the difference between process inputs and outputs. Chocolate cake example to a T, I'll let you share, maybe, the inspo behind that. Is there a reason you use the chocolate cake example?
Speaker 1:Well, actually I think the reason why I use the chocolate cake example was my daughter. When she was younger, she made me an incredible chocolate cake for my birthday and it blew me away, like it literally blew me away to the point where it was better and I don't know if you're a local person so you might know Capers, which was in West Side. It was bought out by Whole Foods, but they used to have a chocolate cake that was mind-blowingly good. Like nobody can compete with it, and my daughter made this cake and it was literally the best cake I've ever had how old is she when she did?
Speaker 1:this uh, she was maybe 10 or 11. She have any help?
Speaker 2:no, she did it all right, she built it.
Speaker 1:She built it. She was always a fan of baking, um, but she made this cake and she, you know, found the recipe and there was some aspects to it like she really worked hard on it. She'd been practicing with some friends uh, she practiced with some family members on baking. She it wasn't like her first cake, she baked a few, but she also knew what I liked and she hit the cake perfectly on the nail for what it was that I enjoyed in it like, and it was the ganache filling and the chocolate icing and the moistness of the cake. So all those aspects were right on to what I liked. Now, whether everybody else thought it was the best chocolate cake in the world probably would have been different, right, and so, in that situation, her process, her output, that she delivered was it won the gold medal. Um, that's part of the premise why I use the chocolate cake.
Speaker 2:And there's only a little bit of bias, because she's your daughter, you know what, though, and I will say this, though?
Speaker 1:that her aunt had made a cake for me a few years earlier which I thought was the best chocolate cake, and it had beat the capers, and there was no question that my daughters beat her aunts.
Speaker 2:Perspective changes over the years. Yeah, exactly For sure what was the highlight of writing the book? Because it's a culmination of, you know, decades of work, life experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a couple of big highlights, like, first off, it was an amazing experience to go through with Trina, like we worked on this together. It was an amazing experience to go through with Trina, we worked on this together, it was an incredible partner project and some people said, oh, are you guys going to survive? And we thrived with it. So I think it was an incredible experience to go through it.
Speaker 1:Personally, from a professional perspective, I think it was one of the most challenging things I've done in a long time.
Speaker 1:I really had to fight my scientific background and you know history of writing articles that are scientifically referenced and, you know, backed up by science. And it's not that this wasn't backed by science, but what the impetus for writing the book was people asking over time. You know, what do your experiences tell us? Like what would you do in this situation? And although I'm a scientist and I read the science literature all the time and I write articles, I also apply that in real context and so I think one of the things that over my career has been really taking that ability to think about the science and apply it to individual context, it to individual context. So writing the book was really difficult for me because usually when I sit with somebody like yourself or you know an athlete or coach, I can talk to them and listen to their situation and they're all different and shape the message. But this book had to be written in one voice for thousands of people, hopefully thousands hundred millions.
Speaker 2:It might be billions after this, who knows?
Speaker 1:whether you're following.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe it will be um, no, but like to write one voice, yeah, and then to write one voice, but do so in a way that was readable for the end user, the person that wanted it. It was digestible, it was in context that they could understand, but it was also like practical. It was it. It was authentic to how I work with people. That took a lot of work like it. It was a lot of rewrites, a lot of. I worked with an editor, a couple different editors over time, and it took a lot of finagling and rewriting and pulling sections out, and I think that was probably the um, the hardest piece so professionally.
Speaker 2:It challenged me in ways that hadn't been challenged in a long time I think that was part of the why I appreciated reading, or I was able to appreciate reading it so much more. I equate it to like you know, you'll throw on a huberman lab podcast and it might be a little overwhelming when he starts throwing out some big words in there and you're like okay, layman's terms please, right yeah you provided real world examples, right baking that chocolate cake.
Speaker 2:Your experiences from the past and I think that's what can separate good from great is allowing the masses to be able to consume and then apply what you've hopefully. Obviously, huberman does it well too, so I shouldn't say he's no, like, I don't like.
Speaker 1:I listen to all those podcasts too, and I think one of the things that I we we set out from the very beginning not to recreate was there's amazing books out there, like you know atomic habits, outlive, peter adia's book and Huberman Podcast. There's tons of people that are doing a really good job in presenting science in all these different areas, whether it be longevity, whether it be personal performance, whether it be, you know, leadership aspects, and we didn't want to recreate that science, and so what I really wanted to do with the book was create a framework for people to take all the information, take all those other resources and apply it to their own context. To think about that. So that was really an objective. I hope we've achieved that. I think feedback we've had from people has been really positive. But you know, at the end of the day, the readers will decide what works for them and hopefully, hopefully, a few people really enjoy it. For that reason, I?
Speaker 2:uh, I was just. We were down in seattle a couple months ago chatting with megan young from seattle yeah um, and then I'm it jogged my memory. You talked about work and your family says you work a lot, but you don't feel like you work a lot. Can you touch on balance? If you look for balance in life, if you think balance is not a thing in life?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'd love to get your opinion on that because I've I've received so many different and yeah, so I I will say this um, I think I don't believe in a concept of balance per se. We're on the same page. I I don't believe in a concept of balance. Um, I use a model of performance for everything, okay, but where I think most people um trick themselves when they talk about balance, and that's to say that doesn't mean I I don't believe in multiple facets of my life. Um, I believe in saying, being true and honest about what is my performance objective. My performance objective is to be a great father, a great partner, to spend personal time on myself and be really good at my career. Right, and that's my performance objective.
Speaker 2:So you got your four or five buckets then.
Speaker 1:I've got my four or five glasses of water on the table.
Speaker 1:A picture example from the picture of water from the book is like those are my buckets. I also realize that I can't be the same as a person that is strictly in one bucket, so I judge my performance on my output in those buckets relative to my objective. I also prepare myself to say what can I do? How do I best prepare myself to achieve that objective? And sometimes that means making a sacrifice not going on a guy's trip to skiing when I'm going to be able to ski with my kids, like. So those are two different things, right, but they're both how. How I weigh those, and it doesn't mean I don't go on guys trips. I'm going on a cycling trip next week, which is great, to california, yeah and so.
Speaker 1:And sometimes I balance my work with personal objectives. So it's just being true on that objective. And then someone might look at that and say, well, that's actually balanced. Well, it's actually not. It's not balanced. Sometimes it's one of those gears the bucket's a little bit fuller, more full. Sometimes they switch depending on what's going on and what's needed, but my objective is to be the best I can be in all those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess I ask selfishly because I'm trying to figure that out in my life. And, uh, sometimes there's it's. I look at it as seasons. Now, right, and it's a season where there might be more professional work being done than personal, or vice versa. Right, and you go through different seasons in life and that's the way it's supposed to be. You mentioned your fitness. You're going cycling in a week. What is your? You said you were never going to be a professional athlete. So now I gotta stick to that and pull on it, because you're still obviously one of the smartest people when it comes to physiology. So how do you now maybe apply your we'll call them mediocre genetics that you were provided at a young age to now still trying to?
Speaker 1:come on, I think I have great genetics. I would. You said it.
Speaker 2:I was just going with what you said, but like, how are you applying what you know now to you know still be performing at your best, even when it's just on a guy's career yeah, so I don't know if I'm actually performing my best all the time, but it's best for what I have at this moment right.
Speaker 1:So, like, love that, like so, and I'm really comfortable with that right, and I think the cycling trip is a perfect example. So the last four or five years when I've done this, I've done this. It's a. It's a local development team, okay, um, and they have a master's group goes down, but we support and sponsor and I and help a lot of the younger riders out at times over the years and many of them go on to be on national team or on pro teams down the road and and they're probably one of the longest standing national development teams young development rider teams in North America Wow, with plenty of them going to world championships and national teams.
Speaker 1:But when we go down to this camp, I also go with a lot of friends and colleagues who are really they spend a lot of time on training. Yeah, and I'm not as fast as them and I can't keep up with them, but I'm okay with that and my objective for each year at that camp is dependent on you know what else is going on. Last five or six years, my kids were in that age where they needed a lot of more attention, and now I've this year I've been able to focus on a little bit more. My expectations to go down to that camp from a performance perspective for myself are to be able to ride some of the bigger rides, to be, you know, a little bit quicker some of the climbs and to but to do so in a way that I feel really good about myself. Right, that's how I judge my performance on that. So each year it sort of shifts and it's it's different. Yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It just feels like you've stripped away all ego associated with like. I just look at it and I'm like man, when I go, if I get on a straightaway with one of my buddies, I don't care. Like I go back to a 12-year-old day where it's just compete and win right and I'm like that ego aspect would be tough for me to strip, even though I'm aware of it, even if my performance isn't where it should be. I'm still going to break my body trying to do it.
Speaker 1:I still have an ego. Don't get me wrong, I still have an ego when it comes to that. Like, if we're on a straightaway and I will sprint. If it's a sprint for a signpost, I will do it. I'm going to sprint and compete with myself and that person. I'm going to sprint and compete with myself and that person. But if I know that that person's in training my expectations are that I'm going to beat that person, Like if I even make that person suffer, like that's a victory right.
Speaker 2:Like if I make that person suffer and I'm proud of that. It's interesting because you brought up on a previous podcast. It was like you set this arbitrary goal to run a six minute mile and then you hit 605. Despite it being an incredible feat, still you're pissed because you didn't get six minutes and I like set out some arbitrary number to get like a 500 pound deadlift in a five minute mile. And I then listen to your podcast. I'm like man, I'm an idiot, like what am I doing?
Speaker 1:it's all relative right and I think at the end of the day, it doesn't mean you can't do it like it's just got to be relative to your performance. And the other thing I talk about in the book is a little bit and I think this is a thing I think even elite athletes and high performers that aren't you know they're in executives or entrepreneurs my experience shows me they're not often realistic. They set expectations that aren't realistic, for one Doesn't mean don't have a herodicious goal at all I totally am for that, shoot for the stars but they're also not realistic about where their profile is at. They're not honest about the fact that they're going to have to put in this much work to make that much change, and so their expectations sometimes are a little bit like well, you know you actually I think you put on one of your post-its, maybe your post-it, pretty sure, the deon sanders, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, are you willing to do the work? Like you know, like that's a big thing, like, um, I talk a little bit about that at work in the book and it doesn't mean grind mentality. It doesn't mean, like you know, the hustle culture, which could be hugely detrimental. I think it can be negative on people's performance and in lots of spaces. But it means are you willing to do the work that's required to actually achieve your objective? If you aren't, that's okay, but just be then realistic about what your objective is yeah, I think that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2:A lot of maybe kids more, I refer to myself as a kid still uh, people in my generation are struggling to see like, okay, what do I actually want to do? So that's an interesting. You're like, hey, figure out what your objective is, work back from it. I'm like, hey, ben dr sporer, I don't know what I want to do. So again going back to just taste trying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's like start here and then it goes there. It's constantly a back and forth right.
Speaker 1:My objectives change over the course of my career. My objectives change every year, and I think one of the challenges that we're faced with in the modern generation obviously, social media we talked a little bit about this before is there's a lot of like, comparison, and I'm not the like. There's millions of people that talk about this. It's everywhere. The thief of all joy yeah, like the is, though, is that we still compare, and so you ultimately got to get to a point where you're able to say well, what do I want to achieve? Well, who am I? What do I want to achieve? I, because person x has written something on a post, or that doesn't mean that that's what I should want to achieve. And then, if your achievement isn't at the same level, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be happy about that achievement or elated about achieving that, and we talk about this in.
Speaker 1:A good example would be Olympics. So there's a lot of people that go to the Olympics that do have incredible performances, but never once you're heard from Right, they might have been a top 16. They got in as because there's always like 30 plus people in an event. Yeah, who do you do you know? Everybody past the first three, or even the first one, no like. But those people may never have had a chance legitimately to win, but they come because of country, yet they hit a PB by 5%. They timed everything perfectly, incredible performance. If you judge that performance on whether they won the medal or not, or whether the person who finished second was faster, that's not judging performance. That's comparing two different people. It's judging on outcome, and so that's why I think, go back to the book. Is that be really clear on what is your performance relative to you? Understand the output that's required to deliver that, then are you able to deliver on that. If you prepare yourself to deliver something, you deliver on it. High performance.
Speaker 2:And I think that's where Sam reinhardt struggled. After first year in the nhl he's like, oh, maybe I'm not putting receiving the output that I would like it's funny, you bring him up.
Speaker 1:You got his 50th goal last night. Well, that's why. That's why I did.
Speaker 2:I was like, hey, this is kind of a big deal. He's you, he's got a quote in your book, so I figured there's at least you're probably allowed to bring up some stories that you have with Sam. And I figured maybe, given his 50th goal, an incredible season with Florida he's been like he's had a crazy trajectory. I'm not going to attribute all that to you, but I feel like you've had an impact on his career since that moment that after his first year he came identified, started talking with you, right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:so I mean, sam's been. Sam's a perfect example, like literally, he's a perfect example for the book. So sam knew where he wanted to go. Um, he wanted to put in the work to do it. He has a great team around him.
Speaker 1:Um, he's still probably somebody I talk to every day via text, uh, and you know he's able to prepare himself every night and if you actually ask him, I'm pretty sure he would probably say to you right now that, like he knows what he has to deliver, what he has to deliver on the ice, every night he goes out and prepares himself to do it. He makes a sacrifice throughout the summer. He took the long view of building up his capacity to tolerate, and I think there was a quote earlier this year where head coach Paul Murray said something about Sam's able to play the minutes we need him to play now, like he's prepared himself to do that. Well, that just didn't happen overnight. He put in the work, he knew where he wanted to be from an objective perspective at the end of the day and prepared his body to deliver that output over time Mentally, physically, you technically and tactically.
Speaker 2:And I guess that's part of where it's probably super interesting for you to work with a team where you can say I got Sam Reinhardt, but I got 20 other players that I can manipulate, and he's got good aerobic capacity, he's got good strength, and you mesh them, create an ultimate high-performance team.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think one of the things that's been great about the project with the white caps for me was, you know, 2019 the ownership group asked me to speak about. You know, try to develop a performance strategy for the club that would be provide sustainable performance over time and, um, and be part of a group to help establish that, and I think that was an exciting project for me. Um, and and there's a lot of people of the organization that have come on in five years and are huge to that, like you need to have a. The sporting director has done an amazing job at this club. The head coach has done I mean, the players that are brought in bought into a team mentality, so there's all these things that have to come together to play and it, and often we have a lot of practitioners here who have bought into an approach of preparing and strategically going about driving performance in the club, so it's been a really exciting time.
Speaker 2:You've got your fingers in so many different organizations, areas and you said you're just a fan of sport competing as a whole. Is there one that really gets you going? Or like any stories, yeah. Or like, in particular stories, sports that you're like, oh, I really want to go there. Or you know, you reference the olympics, for example. I know you referenced previous things in the 90s, before I was even born, like, are there things that you look back on that were pivotal moments or events that you're like? This solidified why I'm doing this, and you know I'm never going to change what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:We wouldn't be able to talk about performance and not include the word protein, because they go hand in hand. For you as an athlete, protein is important, there's no second guessing it. Typically at least one gram per pound of body weight 0.8 if you wanna get really fancy with it, but one gram per pound is a good goal to strive for and that's what I use Perfect Sports Protein for myself. Personally, I'm having to get 200 grams of protein per day. That makes it a heck of a lot easier when I include a scoop or two of diesel protein, that being New Zealand whey isolate. It's the best on the market. If you've tried it, you know that there's no other protein out there quite like diesel. So use the code AP20, save 20% yourself. Buy as many protein powders as you possibly can. Let me know your favorite flavor, because they have so many. I personally love the Canadian maple, but I want to know what you like. Back to the episode featuring Dr Ben Sporer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, I think there's so many. To be honest with you, I wouldn't say there's one pivotal. I do think that there's some times where key moments where I realized that the biggest impact you can have is to not screw things up. You can have is to not screw things up. So when I when I say that it's like it's really high performance in a moment is often about not being able to deliver on demand, okay, success in the moment is often being able to not deliver on demand right so if you don't prepare yourself, you're never going to be able to deliver on demand right.
Speaker 1:But, and you know, often you'll hear people say, well, it's 90 mental in the moment. Ben hogan, yeah, there's. Hey, there's many of them to do it and he's one of them for sure. But there's other people even now that will say like it's all between the ears, like when I get on the at the start line or the at the, the moment of my event, and I get one shot at it, the o Olympic Games, to do a freestyle or a half-pipe run or whatever it might be, you have to be able to bring all those pieces that you've prepared yourself together to an integrated performance, like it's mental, physical, technical, tactical. So I think that any time there was moments like that in my career and I watched people deliver on those moments was really just reinforcing about that's high performance and I can even like now, just thinking about it like I get. I get like tingles and shivers, like times when, um, you know, great example is JCJ Anderson. I don't know if you know who JCJ Anderson is, but he's an Olympic snowboarder. He was actually the favorite to win the gold medal in Nagano. I won Ross for Baguio Daddy. He crashed out in one of the preliminary rounds, you know, vancouver 2010.
Speaker 1:He had prepped so well as a team, like the year before I had joined snowboarding, as a team, like the year before I joined Snowboard, and they took all the efforts to put in the work, to think from board technology to environmental conditions to. It could be rainy, it could be foggy. We knew what was going to happen at Cyprus. The event was going to be here To pre-warming. What happens if there's a delay? To where do we put people to? We're going to ride sleds up when we get into the semifinals. How do we stay warm?
Speaker 1:All these different things that came into play and the coaches and the athlete and the support staff and the team are so tightly focused on delivering and working together as an integrated, sort of amoeba per se, as one unit. And then you watch it come together and you see those moments where the athlete delivers in demand and you think, wow, that's pretty cool, like, and all those pieces bring together and they just reinforce that belief that when you do things very strategically and you prepare and you put in the work, and that doesn't mean you always win. He happened to win a gold medal that day on Cyprus, because we had other athletes that finished in a silver medal and it was a great performance. But you increase the likelihood that you're able to perform in that environment and that that, to me, is a I mean, examples like that are always really sort of, you know, reinforcing that, that desire to be in a high performance environment.
Speaker 2:I think 2010 definitely solidified that for me probably a ton of other canadians too.
Speaker 1:Just that whole yeah, you're in a perfect age for that too, you know it's a funny story.
Speaker 2:My mom had to drag me to go to downtown to pull me out of school to go downtown just to be a part of it. I had no idea the impact and the scale at which the olympics were how big of a deal it was.
Speaker 2:I was grade seven, grade eight, like crazy. Looking back, grade seven and uh, yeah, I I'm like forever kicking myself about that because I was such an opportunity. I was still thrilled. Obviously, like you know, you go to crosby's golden goal, all those type of events, and um, they stick with you for the rest of your life. You're watching it in gym class with buddies that you can look back on. But I also remember that being like, oh, look at how many people were united by one single, like everyone knows where they were during oh yeah, for sure, right, and I know exactly where I was no other like business science.
Speaker 1:Nothing does that like sport sport is very, is very powerful.
Speaker 2:That was one thing that just it resonated because from doing my research, you've had that itch from a young age too. It sounds like, yeah, Was that from your parents?
Speaker 1:No, I don't think so. I think it was. I remember watching the Olympics as a little kid, from a very young age I think I shouldn't say it wasn't for my parents, like, obviously my parents put me in sport, so I think that was a big part of it. Um, I think I played most sports when I was younger and I had success when I was younger, um, and I think. But when I remember from a very young age like I used to just love watching sport on tv and I'm not, I mean, I date myself here like it's like anything darts is one of them but like I remember watching um, it was black and white tv.
Speaker 1:At our, at our trailer, we had where we'd go for the summer holidays and I watched the summer olympics and I I do whatever I can and there was nothing else on tv because we only got one channel and and it would be like cbc and it would be the Summer Olympics and I'd watch every event that was there and I just like this is so great. It was just a competition. Sometimes somebody would win and I'd never know anything about the sport, or then I'd be like super excited to watch this person come from behind and win. And it was just that environment, that really sort of, I think, just being exposed to it.
Speaker 2:And partly my parents and partly just yeah, how have you seen sport change since then? Like have there been paradigm shifting moments? I think of like the ice bath over the past couple of years. The influencer is like it's funny.
Speaker 1:you should say that I actually was listening to a CBC thing on the ice bath today, which actually was sorry to interrupt you, but it was about skeptic science around the fact that ice baths aren't you know, people are doing them for all the wrong reasons. But even then the science is like again, I couldn't help but listen to it and say like, yes, but context is really important. So sorry to interrupt you?
Speaker 2:No, it's what's your objective. Yeah, that's what it comes down to I think it comes back.
Speaker 1:I always try to align action with purpose. Right, it's a big thing I talk about in the book and and so people would often ask me what would you? Well, should I do this? And I'm like, well, what are you trying to get out of it? Even today, like when we do a training session, or when you know work with a coach or you know, even sammy will, he'll be like what's? And it's like what's the purpose of today's session. Well, I know, I know you can go harder, but today's session isn't about going hard. Today's session is about recovering. So tomorrow's session is a better session. And so I think it always comes back to what's the purpose of what you do.
Speaker 1:Ice baths, yes, we've known for many years I'd say probably 15 years plus that ice baths blunt responses, protein, protein responses. We've known that, we've had evidence of it for a while, and same with antioxidants. Antioxidants can be a blunting response from a recovery process, but there's certain situations. If your context is to get adaptation from training, then I would say never take ice baths, ever. There's no reason for it. If your response is to say, if your purpose is to say, I need to recover so I can be the best output tomorrow ice baths, a perfect moderator. Try to facilitate that. Right, you're not gonna. You're not worried about adaptation, it's less than 24 hours away. Yeah, I need to make sure I'm as recovered as possible from from today for tomorrow in back-to-back games and back-to-back competitions Makes sense.
Speaker 2:So what if I'm doing ice baths just for the mental benefit?
Speaker 1:Well, again, I would go back to say, like you know, understand and I use this topic in the book and maybe that's what you're getting to is the concept of net performance impact right? So I think that's one of the pieces that I try to encourage a lot to really think about. What's the net performance impact? And that's not just in the thing that you're thinking about. Right, and you know we get, whether it be a training session or whether it be an ice bath or whether it be.
Speaker 1:What is the purpose of your doing it? And then, if you take away a little bit of adaptation, does it matter relative to the mental aspect you get? And the only way you can ever answer that is to be really clear on what your objective is, Make sure you understand where your gaps are and then know why you're actually doing the different interventions or moderators that you would use to get to achieve that objective. Because your point's a really good one. If you're doing it for some mental refreshing, mental focus. It allows you to stay aligned with what you're doing, it creates habitual behaviors and that has a bigger impact on you personally on a day-to-day basis to get the other things done. If you lose a little bit of adaptation, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Because ultimately nothing is completely isolated.
Speaker 1:No, everything's integrated right, and actually that was the original title of the book was Integrate. We tried to think of a play on it, but it was too complicated of a word so I was like forget it, this doesn't work. And output was the natural title. But think you know we often and I see this a lot in sport organizations and even you know we talk about these integrated health clinics, and this is another sort of pet peeve of mine is that integrated does not mean just having people in the same location, or having someone for each of these roles, or acknowledging that you have mental and physical or medical, and a masseuse and a physio in the same clinic.
Speaker 2:They still don't need to be communicating integrations and action.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it creates it's. It's a verb, it requires you to actually do something, and that means you to sit and talk. And it also means doesn't mean just talk or tell you what I'm doing and you tell me what you're doing. It means actively thinking together to say okay, what's the net performance impact of what you're doing and I'm doing? You know what? Right now my thing might be I'm dialing back on this. So this is where we get more from. That's integrating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're going to be training heavier, then I've got to reduce what I'm doing on this end.
Speaker 1:Whatever it might be, yeah. Or if, mentally, that training that you load, that you're trying to get in, because a perfect example is an executive who has a bike coach and the bike coach is saying this is a program that's perfect, it can get you really fast, really quick. Anybody can build a program that gets you really fast, really quick For yourself, right. Build a program gets you really fast, really quick for yourself, right, it's not going to be pro level, but that program requires you to train five days a week and you go out and you try to put it and it's high intensity because hit training makes you faster, quicker, for sure, we know that. But that intensity that you're putting into those sessions, both mentally and physically, the recovery that comes from those sessions cumulative sessions over two, three, four, five weeks the impact that has on your ability to think when you go to work or be focused with your kids, and how those things integrate together is is different so are you?
Speaker 2:uh, do you do basically assessments from afar on people, like if you were looking at me, you're like, oh, dave's got a couple things on the go and he gets after it in the gym every other day? He might be redlining it or are you doing like assessments like that? Do you look at it that way is it, and see?
Speaker 1:so are you asking me how I've looked at you and what you?
Speaker 2:do? I'm not, I'm just using the example.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no I, um, I wouldn't say that like. One of the things I've learned is that, again I go back to context, I don't know. Yeah, and I actually use this example all the time in pro sport too, because I'm pro in Olympic sport Especially, and I'll use media as an example. Yeah, media broadcasters, paper, whatever it is, bloggers they often look at sport from retrospective perspective. Right, they're strictly looking at what happened, and that's because that's what's available to them right they see it.
Speaker 1:They look at the data, they look at the score line, they look at the box scores, they look at the data streams that come off of it outcome well part of its output, but some of its outcome for sure.
Speaker 1:Some might be. Some of the data that comes from a data stream might be output on field or on the ice, or, but that's only one piece of it. It's what happened in the game. It's actually what happened in the 90 minutes, but I do know that there's a lot of things that happen throughout the week. You know we missed three training sessions, something happened at home for the person that that one athlete and their dog died, or you know there's so many things that come into play.
Speaker 1:So to judge something from afar your question what you're doing I would say it's totally doable. I don't know what else you're doing, but the context would be I would sit with you and ask you oh so what else do you do? Tell me more about what's your objective. And if I see you doing a whole bunch of other things that really aren't giving you net performance impact on your objective, I would ask you I'd question you on that Say, how does that actually lead to what you're trying to do? Or how does that fit to your total objective, because you say this is your objective, but you also got these other things here. Objective because you say this is your objective, but you also got these other things here. You're not really acknowledging that those are part of your objective.
Speaker 2:How hard are those conversations to have with super high performers?
Speaker 1:I have a good question. I mean, I interview every person I work with and some people I. I think they're not hard to have questions. I don't. They're not hard to have those discussions. I'm not saying every response to them the same way. I think a guy like sam responds to it really really well, okay.
Speaker 1:Um, there's other athletes who I've sat down with and they're not ready to hear that, uh, and that's okay. Um, and there might not be an alignment between what they think they want versus what they really want, which is to be so. There's many athletes that are out there that play at an elite level because they're incredibly gifted, they've got great talent, they love to play, but they want to be at the next level, but they don't really want to do what it takes, you know, back to your DM post. They don't really want to do it, but they're very happy being here, and that's okay, I have no problem with that, and be being here, and that's okay, I have no problem with that. Um, and so sometimes it's always about the right fit. You know, yeah, is it the right fit?
Speaker 2:and so I don't think that approach is the right fit for everyone, because they're just not necessarily ready for it I guess crystal ball sitting in front of you here, if you were to look at your past experience now formulate genie three wishes. Do you have a you know bucket list things you want to do for the remainder of your career? When we chat again in a couple months, years, like the things you want to have checked off that list? Obviously you got the book now, but are there other areas in sport that you want to touch impact, like I'm always curious.
Speaker 1:That's a good question. I I've never really thought about a bucket list on that regard. I probably. I think I'll continue to work in sport just because I love it so much. But I really think one of the things I'd like to do is and that's part of the reason why we did the book was to just really expand the aspect that human performance is for everyone, it's not just for elite athletes. Love that, like everybody's a performer.
Speaker 1:And the other thing I think that's really important, I think would be a really cool thing to see happen, is is that people approach life from a performance model, because at the end of the day, that's what we all do.
Speaker 1:You know it may not be like world's best executive, or, but what is the world's best executive, right? What is the world's best athlete? I think ultimately, if you think it from a personal approach, is if you take a model of performance for your own personal life. And sometimes we use medical models and I'm not the biggest fan of medical. Medical is an aspect of performance and I think if we take a model of performance to think about physical, mental, technical, tactical, what's required for us to achieve what we want to achieve, that everything sort of falls falls into place, and so I think it would be really cool to see that become more commonplace. As opposed to, people think it's not for them, but it's actually for everybody I love that the athletes podcast is for everyone that's it, I try and I try and like articulate it that way, because that's just the name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're all human beings, we're all capable of being athletes in one way, shape or form so true, and, uh, it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting you bring up that. Like justin rothling schoffer, who I don't know if you're familiar with in miami, we were just training with him a couple weeks ago. We used to train penguins, a couple other nhl teams and he started own it and he does cellular testing right and he was diving into all the science around that and how it's beneficial and people are just doing blood panels and that's like you know, surface level compared to cellular.
Speaker 2:So I'm learning all about this stuff now and I'm probably going to go try and get some of that work done. But devin mcconnell, who's the performance? Yeah, he also talked about the fact that you can also get almost too deep into the science way too deep and you don't want to get that deep in the data. So I'm like on a weekly basis having these conversations, fascinated by what everyone brings up, but like, okay, again back to the huberman layman's terms. How do we identify when we're doing too much or not enough?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know it's um. That is the. That is one of the questions I get asked most often. And, while I love the science and while I think there's a time and place for it, and I do think that there's value in all these different aspects I mean, I touch on this in the book, right, and everybody refers to marginal gains, right, and I think that, like don't get me wrong, davis Brailsford, to marginal gains, right, and I think that, like, don't get me wrong, david brailsford and marginal gains is an incredible process to go through.
Speaker 1:But, like I say, I was there in 2008 when I watched them. They had great coaching, they had great athletes that were committed to doing the work and they had already taken care of all the fundamentals. So, you know, people get bogged down in these, all these little icing on the cake per se, but they make a really crappy cake, right. So they don't put in the work, they don't think about what are the objectives, they chase different ideas and, while the cellular testing might be really key in some key spots, but are you going to be able to action that? Are you going to be able to put that into your life, into your daily scenario? Is it going to make the difference for you to be able to actually put some of those things in play.
Speaker 1:And I like what Devin says about that, because the reality is often, as humans, we see all this stuff come up and we're excited about it, and it's quick fix and it's accessible. I just have to pay a bit for it. I get it. It gives me some interesting information, but what are you able to do with that information? And I'd liken it to you know, in sport we get inundated with. My inbox is full all the time. New technology, try this, try that. Yeah, I mean I, but there's certain things to say. Well, it's great, I love that you get all this technology. I even did some continuous glucose monitoring on myself.
Speaker 2:James Wendland big fan of that. What's that, james Wendland? He does it every morning.
Speaker 1:I had it up for two weeks because a lot of people asked me about it and I said you know what? I'm a scientist, I'm a physiologist. I understand this information, but I'm also going to tell you like I don't need that much information, um, but I think there's a time and place. Are you able to action? It are you able to get? Do you have a team around you? I talk about that in the book. Do you like, if you don't have the skill sets, do you have a team that's able to support you or provide you feedback on that? And even in sport, like we, if we have technology, if we spend I used to use this number and it's made up, but it's for purpose of explaining it is that for every dollar you spend on technology in a sport, expect to spend 10 on staffing to make it functional that's good right, I would love that, if people like you know ten thousand dollars if you don't buy ten or thirty thousand dollars worth of equipment.
Speaker 1:You need a salary for that person, salary for multiple people. You're buying thirty thousand dollars a year. You probably need anywhere between 150, 200, 300 000 to make sure that that you're getting the most out of that technology. In the field of play, you get some with a little bit here and there, but is it worth it if you're only getting some? So I think that that's a really key message I try to drive home with people. I'm not anti-technology, I'm not anti any of that. I'm actually very pro it. But don't do it at the cost of getting your fundamentals and don't do it if you can't utilize it.
Speaker 2:I just imagine waking up. You know I'm 2028 Olympic Games and my WHOOP score is 17. I'm like, ah, you know, I'm 2028 Olympic Games and my whoop score is 17. I'm like, ah, you know, I'm just not going to go after it today. I'm like there's things you got to do as an athlete, right? Well it's interesting.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you a good little story here. We just I'm working with a snowboard cross athlete from Canada who's actually having probably the best season maybe the best, arguably the best season ever in snowboard cross maybe arguably the best season ever in snowboard cross. But you know, one of the things we implemented a little bit of technology into his routine this year and he's got a great team around him, but they weren't able to fully utilize the technology. And this year we were able to utilize it a little bit more and were able to make adaptations. And sometimes the technology is saying, saying you're not ready, well, what do we do? Do we say, oh, you can't go compete? No, you find solutions and you have the ability to make a decision on that with the team around you, to then say how do we, how do we rise above that?
Speaker 1:yeah, back it off a little maybe or nor or just it is what it is yeah, you're not going to be able to change it now. Know that you're prepared and go out and deliver.
Speaker 2:Is there value in just ignoring it then, and not even looking at it at that point Like morning of you're like man, if I got, a 99 recovery or a 15, it doesn't matter. I got to perform Like do I bother looking? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Sometimes there's a value to say fake it, to make it, and you talk about, you know, integrate output. It's not always going to be perfect, yeah, so do you have the mental skills, when it's not perfect, to be able to rise above that, to fight through it, to fake it a little bit?
Speaker 2:I just got to check my notes here. Make sure I'm not listening or missing anything. I have a couple of quotes I'm going to include in the at the beginning of the intro, because it's just better for me to read them in person instead of that. But yeah, the one thing I guess I want to wrap up on is the fact that you have worked with high-performance executives, athletes everyone, at the end of the day, as a human being, should be performing their best. You mentioned a couple of things. As someone who's listened to the show, you know the way we wrap up is. We ask our guests their biggest piece of advice for the next gen. This is a specialized population that is human beings, and we're all high performers. So I'd love to just let you share any other insights, nuggets of wisdom, pieces of gold that you'd like to leave our audience with, and it can be anything from, you know, sometimes faking it till you make it is what you need, or?
Speaker 2:down granular statistics and anything I missed during the episode, like I'm sure we'll keep in contact, but um yeah, oh, floor is yours um, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:I think there's probably a couple things. The first is one is that, um, the factors that drive human performance are fundamental and they're the same across all domains. You can break them into hundreds of domains, but the same things drive human performance. You have a physical aspect, you have a mental aspect, technical and tactical. Some of those domains require bigger aspects from physical or bigger aspects from technical or tactical. And so I think the one thing I would challenge your listeners to is to look at their own performance objective, really be honest about what it is, then understand what's required of them to deliver on that from those domains. And the second thing I'd say I think is really important pieces of wisdom is, or advice, or typically I come out is to really prioritize and don't get bogged down in all the add-ons, all the icing per se, and really prioritize fundamentals per se and really prioritize fundamentals. Like you know, there's a reason why a lot of people are talking about sleep, nutrition, physical training, like they're core fundamentals for just human health as a whole, but they're also core fundamentals for performance, right? And I think that they core fundamentals because they they impact and the integration, the integration of those aspects on the ability to execute technically or tactically are really important. So I think that understand that. You know, don't get bogged down with all the the the niceties of the ice age and just really focus on the fundamentals.
Speaker 1:The third thing I'd say is that you know you ultimately have to be willing to put in the work. So if you think you have an objective, be honest with yourself. I see so many athletes and executives and even just people and friends in life where they will tell you that this is what they want to achieve, but they're really not honest about the other things that they want to achieve and so they put look at these things in isolation. So if you want to be, at some point, a good husband let's say you get married and you have kids your objective changes. Right, it's not just about running the podcast and vr and all these other things. It's actually about being a parent and running my companies, and so your objective is actually slightly different and what's required is going to be different.
Speaker 1:So understand that and just be honest about what it is. Quite often I see people say to me and especially when you go from the executives but it works on both ends when the executives come to me and they've got sport goals. They often are like, oh, I want to be the best cyclist in this and I'm like, okay, but you also have to run a billion dollar company, right, like you also have to have a. You know, you're a dad to a 14 year old and a 12 year old.
Speaker 1:Got to keep those other buckets full, and so they're not really honest about what they're asking of me. They're. They're honest about that perfect individual goal.
Speaker 2:Um, so appreciate that they're all integrated and they're actually highly dependent on each other okay, we got a first, a first challenge from someone at the end to challenge what your actual goal is, what you want I challenged someone, you did. I think that was the first thing you said challenge your listeners to to go after and make sure they identify what they actually want and whether they're willing to put in the work For sure. Yeah, and then focusing on those fun. That was brilliant. It's been an honor, Ben I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1:Um, glad we got in, by the way. Happy birthday.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you, thank you, no, uh, hey, this is what I love doing.
Speaker 1:And you crossed the threshold today of being less than half my age to being over half my age.
Speaker 2:There you go, there you go. It's always interesting. I have a lot of people bring up the fact that they were doing research before I was born and I say, hey, that's why I'm still here learning.
Speaker 1:That's great. I got a lot to catch up on.
Speaker 2:Where can people find your book?
Speaker 1:I know you're not always social media. What's? I'm on linkedin it's been four, and then I think, uh, the book is output-bookcom and it's available on amazon and usual sites amazing thank you folks for tuning in.
Speaker 2:Thanks, appreciate it. Awesome. Hey, just wanted to say thank you for tuning in to this episode. This is the 221st. You folks have been along for the ride. Don't forget about our athlete agreement. This is something that I don't talk about enough at the beginning of our episodes, so we're getting it at the end. Just hit that subscribe button. We really appreciate you being here. You've tuned in, you've listened all the way through this episode, and for that I can't thank you enough. My name is David Stark, host of the Athletes Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. We'll see you again next week. Bye.
