The Muscle Episode: Bodybuilding, The Iron Man, and Putting on Muscle on a Tight Schedule with Kris Gethin

Boomer Anderson 0:06
Welcome to decoding superhuman. This show is a deep dive into obsessions with health performance, and how to elevate the human experience. I explore the latest tools, science and technology with experts in various fields of human optimization. This is your host, Boomer Anderson. Enjoy the journey. Alright, superhuman. So today on the podcast, we are going to go deep into muscle building with little time with my friend, amigo and guy who is traveling all around the world right now. Kris Gethin, but before I get into introducing Chris, I want to give a shout out to a couple of listeners who have been raiding the podcast on iTunes. This one goes out to El Unger. Not quite sure I wish I had a fanatical breakdown there. But she says, great show love this podcast, Boomer interviews, amazing guests. I find it informative and helpful even though I’m new to a lot of the biohacking world so okay we all are and and some of us don’t even use the term biohacking. He asked great questions and you can tell he really wants his listeners to get a good experience and to be able to utilize the information. Well, thank you for that. And, you know, I just love reading some of these reviews. If you want to leave a review on iTunes, head on over there, iTunes and just put in decoding superhuman plugin five stars, leave a nice little commentary and we’ll read it on the podcast. Alright, so back to my guest who, among other things is become quite a good friend. We’ve shared amazing ideas together. We’ve had a lot of fun. We’ve just chatted about everything from vacation destinations to treadmill desk to a whole bunch of other things. But Kris Gethin is an internationally renowned businessman, celebrity trainer and physique transformation specialist. He’s the CEO of cage muscle supplements, co founder of Kris Gethin gyms franchise, founder of healthkick.com, author, educator, biohacker and hybrid athlete. And so today, I get to pick Chris’s mind on. Well, we spend a lot of time on that last concept, which is the hybrid athlete, I go through Chris’s book and talk about why a bodybuilder which is Chris’s background, would want to do something like an Ironman triathlon. And believe it or not, Chris was able to do the Iron Man triathlon, not lose any muscle and actually gain muscle. And so what did that look like for him? We get into a lot of it on today’s podcast, but you can imagine trying to consume 5000 galleries on very long bike rides, but also being able to jam and wave Lifting sessions with a very rigorous training and client schedule of course, the show notes for this one or at decodingsuperhuman.com/kris that’s K R I S and enjoy this conversation with the legendary Kris Gethin.

Mr. Gethin. So good to see you again, my friend.

Kris Gethin 3:31
Yeah, it’s been a long time, about a week. Be careful.

Boomer Anderson 3:34
I have to start showing up at your home and joining you on that that treadmill.

Kris Gethin 3:38
Oh,

look at well be careful what you

Boomer Anderson 3:42
wish for if you ever come back to the side of the pond, we’ll have to get together or we’ll probably meet in the middle somewhere. So, Kris, I have to ask a question that came out of your book. You have an app on your phone that tells you exactly how long you have to Live. What’s the name of the app? Because I like I did it with a spreadsheet. But I would love to know.

Kris Gethin 4:07
I’ve got Well, I haven’t even I’ve got it right here. I forget the name of it actually. It’s called countdown. Count. Yeah, countdown. And, yeah. So it gives me a sense of urgency with a lot of things. So you can see the actual icon here. Let’s see what I’ve got left. It’s waiting. I’ll bring it up in a second. But it gives me a sense of urgency because, you know, we always get to like, 2020 God, Where did 2019 go? You know, we’re always thinking, where did that time go went so fast. So it allows me to be a little bit more present. A little bit more assertive, you know, like with the conversation that we’re having now, I’m not messing around with my phone and you go to out to dinner and you’ll see a lot of people, they’re distracted. They’re not really in conversation. And you know, I’m old enough to have the comparison to know what it used to be like. So I try to bring it back a little bit. And that’s why of the reasons why I live in Boise, Idaho, because there’s four seasons here as well. And it helps me break up the year. So that app, you know, some people think is a little bit morbid, because it counts down the minutes, the hours, the meals that you have left, giving you an average lifespan of like, I remember, I think it was like 90 years old or something like that at five years old. And so every meal counts, every minute counts every conversation every day, you know, so I like

Boomer Anderson 5:31
I love free. Like I said, I tried to back it out on a spreadsheet, but it’s harder to carry around a spreadsheet with you all the time. And

Kris Gethin 5:40
yeah, so So here it says, I’ve got 37,000 meals is quite a lot of meals. I guess that’s based on what I used to eat six meals a day. And you know, there’s basically I’ve got 43% if you’re looking at this visually 43% pilots great.

Boomer Anderson 5:58
It’s so You’re known for the bodybuilding element of things, but you also decided to almost go the other side of the barbell and do the Iron Man. And I have to ask, like, what prompted the Iron Man because you’re doing, you still are doing a lot of bodybuilding things and like the Iron Man, a lot of bodybuilders would think that is death to muscle. What prompted it?

Kris Gethin 6:27
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. So I’ve always been somebody that’s done cardio every day, if not twice a day. It just feels good. And, you know, I don’t want to just work out my delts and my traps, I want to work my heart, I want to work my lungs. It’s not it’s not going to be my upper pec development that’s going to get me to 100 years old. It’s going to be the functional aspects of my livelihood within me is going to get me there. So a lot of people would frown upon that, but I found that I recovered very well by doing cardio times a day I’m carrying oxygen rich blood nutrient rich blood around to my body parts that I’ve just annihilated in the gym. So that allowed me to go from a typical four or five day split to about six days splits, I was able to recover that much better, but still, you know what the haters like online, so I figured, well, I know I’ll go and do the extreme, and I’ll give myself six months to prepare for an Iron Man. And within that six months, I did an Olympic distance triathlon, I did a half Ironman and I did a full Ironman and I went to the lab at the University here and had all the tests, the dexa scan, you know, the FTP, lactate threshold, all these various tests to show that I would not lose muscle during this period, and I didn’t actually put on muscle. During that time. However, I didn’t train and eat like a typical triathletes. I ate more and supplemented more than a typical bodybuilder. You know, because I was still weight training in the gym as a bodybuilder. Plus, there’s still you know what I do to this day, a lot of endurance activity and I wanted to also merge the both because a lot of bodybuilders are like mantle pieces, they just they’re just there and they don’t want to exert any energy and I think there’s a lot they can benefit from the insurance world and I wanted the insurance world to see the positive aspects of strength training for them as well. So this hybrid flatus ism since sure is not coming.

Boomer Anderson 8:40
Awesome. So let’s let’s jump in a little bit to that training regimen. Because if you’re doing bodybuilding and you’re maintaining the muscle and you’re doing the Iron Man, it sounds like a lot. Was your entire life basically dedicated towards the Iron Man at this point or was there room for You have multiple businesses, you got gyms in India. How did you keep it all going?

Kris Gethin 9:06
Oh, Gina was during the week I was actually doing less cardio than what I typically do. Because I like to do a lot of low level activity, you know, like I’m talking to you right now on a treadmill. But I was only, I was only doing an hour of cardio a day Max, five days a week. And my weight training is usually about 40 was 45 minutes, four times a week. You know, it’s not that excessive. You know, I’m a kind of person I get up very early in the morning. I’m up at four o’clock in the morning. So I’ve got everything done by about 7am. I’ve got my whole day and then to, you know, carry on with my businesses. It was only on the weekends that things changed for me. Because during the week I’m doing a lot of Hill sprints, a lot of high intensity interval work. But then on the weekends, I knew that I had to have time in the saddle. I had to get used to fueling myself without, you know what they call bunking or hitting a wall. And I had to get comfortable being uncomfortable but going long and slow. So I’d go for like a, you know, maybe a 12 mile run on a Saturday, and on a Sunday, maybe an 80 to 100 mile bike ride. That was the only difference. But hey, yeah, it was my weekend. You know, but I again, I’d leave early in the morning on, you know, on my bike ride, I’d be back by 12.

Boomer Anderson 10:27
I mean, it sounds like in reality. I’ve heard of Iron Man athletes even have longer training regimens than that and some cases, and so on, for sure. The ability what it was also then was that mainly what do you attribute that to, in terms of that? Was that just excess calorie consumption or the supplement regimen? There’s some of it in the book, but was it just consuming an absurd amount of amino acids? What What do you attribute it to?

Kris Gethin 10:57
Yeah, so it was a few things. You know, like nutrition was a big protocol. I was eating, you know, sometimes, like on a weekend, like when I was going long and slow for like an 80 mile bike ride, I could, you know, excess of 5000 calories on a Sunday like that, you know, that was a minimum 5000 would be a minimum. So it’s like a buffet, a psych, a moving buffet, call it so I’d have a backpack with food in my pack. You know, I’m going out with some other triathletes and they’re just eating a couple of bars and a couple of gels. But it was different because I was trying to maintain if not build muscle mass, a lot of it came down to recovery. That was a huge part of the aspect that is often overlooked. You know, your recovery is your performance is dictated with your recovery. So I ensured that I got good quality sleep, you know, I was quantifying my sleep. I was doing everything that I could to bring my cortisol levels down as low as possible, staying calm, meditation, breath, work, things like that, you know, try not to be to stress because I can be a little bit edgy at times. And that was a big aspect of it, you know a lot of hot and cold thermogenesis after a long bike ride or run on jumping in the ice bath or cryotherapy chamber. And when it came to supplementation, like for instance, sometimes I’d go out and do my training fasted, so my body would be a little bit more fat adaptive on occasion, not all the time, but during that time, I’d call it a controlled fast. So I’m drinking my essential amino acids. I’ve got my fermented glutamine. In my other bottle here, I may have my whey isolate, you know, so a lot of my fluids would never plain water, it had some form of amino acid profile to maintain muscle protein synthesis. You know, like I’ve always got colored water with me.

Boomer Anderson 12:49
I love it. And that’s a gallon jug for those who are listening on the audio or maybe even a half gallon. But one of the things you mentioned the book was You quickly hired a coach, what was the role of the coach in this? And how did it help you?

Kris Gethin 13:05
I think the coach is very, very helpful because they can pull you back. If you look at a lot of athletes, whether they be bodybuilders or endurance athletes, we do tend to over train, you know, so it’s always good to have somebody to help pull you back. But the person’s name was Alex whadda. And when I started doing this, I hadn’t found anybody that had done anything like what I was trying to do, until I came across Alex viado, who’s like a 230 pound power lifter, who also competes in ultra marathon and Iron Man events. And I got to know Alex, you know, I reached out to him, luckily, he knew me through social platforms. And we just got into conversation and he was really able to really get a lot of knowledge that he could help me that I couldn’t find in a magazine. I couldn’t find from even like a world champion, Iron Man athletes, you know, increasing the strength and the stability of ankles because our upper bodies are so big. So it’s very easy for us to twist an ankle. Yeah. Because all my running mostly was off road. I was doing trail running to take the stress away from my hips, my knees, my back. But I’ve sprained my ankles about eight times, I’ve broken my ankles as well from race to motocross. So he was able to help me in areas like that, that I’d never really would have thought of, and, and not always try to go as far as you can, as long as you can, keeping these intervals into very short periods but hard, never really going into a gray area. It was either slow recovery rides and running sessions and swimming. Yeah, or very hard. It was never in the middle. And, you know, it was good to have him to check my HRV and look at the training protocol. Based on my responses, he would change their training following that.

Boomer Anderson 14:54
Okay, let’s go into that injury. You had an injury prevention protocol, which I found from fascinating because most people, like myself, for instance, when I did a marathon, it was just sort of like, Okay, how can I do a marathon in eight weeks? It’s not quite an Iron Man, but I didn’t have the injury prevention protocol in place. What did that look like for you? And at what point did you say like, hey, I need this shit

Kris Gethin 15:20
from the very beginning, because like, I’ve had so many injuries in the past from snowboarding, you know, I’ve taught my pack tore my hamstring. I’ve, you know, separated both my shoulder joints, torn my rotator cuffs I’ve done had so many injuries, but outside of the gym, from extreme sports, which go figure and I knew that when I started doing a little bit more running, I found that a lot of these injuries that I’d completely forgotten about started to surface themselves. And when I started researching a lot more into like marathon runners, I think found that there seemed to be a lot more injuries within the insurance sector than the strength train sector, which was very surprising to me just that repetitive compounding movements, especially running, you know, cycling not so bad swimming fine, but running was the big one. And I knew being a bigger person, you know, exceeding like, by 220 pounds, being quite short and having all these injuries was just not was a recipe for disaster if I didn’t really focus on injury prevention, so I get a lot of hate online because now I’m squatting on a Bosu ball with plates on my back. You know, I’m on wobble boards. I’m doing rotations for my ankles every single day doing a lot of stretching, having a lot of massage. And that kept me in the game for sure. You know, I have had a couple of injuries but they could have been so much worse hadn’t i’d undergone that preventative measures and you know, I’ve gone a little bit further as well and had stem cell treatment which is really, really helped. Because, again, I want to stay injury free, but I don’t want to get to 90 years old and regret the things that I’ve done now.

Boomer Anderson 17:09
Of course, of course now talk us through the race and how that went. Because I have so many questions I want to ask you, but I want to hear first about the race and sort of what were the challenge any unexpected challenges that you faced? For instance, the wall where people bonk, did you ever come up to that? How did that work?

Kris Gethin 17:26
No, I always aid in a caution of eating too much and drinking too much. And what I when I went into the full Iron Man, I was quite calm in comparison to the halfway man, because I did my half Iron Man at quarter lane. So I knew the track. I knew the route that I was going to go into. I was just going to do like one, two loops instead of the one loop. And I’ve got quite a good time in my half Ironmen. So I figured Okay, whatever I did, you know, I had all the time. Written in on my swim of my run of the of the bike, and I thought, okay, I am just going to make sure that I timed myself a good five to 10 minutes back from the swim from the run from the, you know the cycle. So I knew that I paced myself because I know a lot of cameras on me this was filmed as a daily video trainer, and it was published on bodybuilding.com. They had like 4.1 million followers on YouTube subscribers on there. So I thought, well, no one’s gonna care where I finish. They’re going to care if I finish or not. Yeah, I just really took my time and stayed calm. My parents flew over from Wales. They were there and my father, but always been with me throughout my motocross career. So I felt very comfortable and very calm. And I was also doing it on behalf of an all girls orphanage in India. And I’ve actually got what’s called a car here that I got from the Golden Temple. I remember swimming because when the swim started, like I have elbows hitting me knees hitting me everything. And even though I’m a bigger person, I am very, very small in that water. You know, I just I had a little bit of a panic in there. And, you know, I thought, gosh, how can I regulate my breathing because I’ve got to stay calm within the swim obviously can’t breathe, you can’t swim. And I remember as my hand was coming in front of me, and I saw this car on my wrist, I realized this is much bigger than what you know issues or problems that I think that I’m dealing with in my head because I’m taking an elbow or you know, a fist to the face accidentally, and I kind of just reminded me to stay on track is a very hot day. So I just to ensure that I just stayed extremely hydrated, getting plenty of electrolytes in because there were so many people that I saw dropping like flies because they were drinking a lot of fluid, but not looking at the quality of what was in that fluid. So there They were dehydrating themselves really because, you know, there was lacking all the the nutrients that the sodium needed. Yeah,

Boomer Anderson 20:10
for sure. So Chris, I want to chat before we go on to the bodybuilding side of things. You have this amazing entrepreneurial career and you have multiple businesses going on. You have the podcast, you have gyms all over the place, you have a supplement line, you have a massive social media presence. Let’s start with the gyms where does India come into play here because it just seemed kind of a little bit random to find that, you know, there’s there’s Kris Gethin gyms in India.

Kris Gethin 20:42
Yeah, it is random. I get that question all the time. I’d written a I published a book through Simon and Schuster back in 2010. And it was called body by design. And I was asked to go over to an event in India student appearance and I have my books that Book made its way to a celebrity over there named Riddick Roshan and he needed somebody to help transform him for this movie roll called crush was like a superhero trilogy and this was this was one that you need to get in shape and however he had ruptured a couple of discs in his back and he had problems and I remember I was back in the UK at the time and my manager call to say hey, this guy Riddick Roshan because my managers from Indian heritage as well even though he lives in London, and I remember just being in a supermarket thing, Riddick Roshi who’s this guy, I don’t know who he is, and he wanted me to help transform him. Long story short, I had a consultation went back over there, that 12 week transformation turned into several years because of them. I started working with other celebrities because his transformation just hit headlines over there. And these actors are not actors. They’re gods in India. And so I stayed there for several years, but I knew that I could See that there was a huge lack in education in India that motivated that passionate, but lacking in education, and I was training a lot of personal trainers there in my fundamentals like DTP dramatic transformation principle. So I certified over 800 trainers and realized, okay, these people need an academy, but we can allow the public to come in as well. And that’s kind of how Kris Gethin gyms was, was formed. So it’s with a real focus on the infrastructure. Of course, we have the best equipment, and it looks great, but the infrastructure of the training, that’s how it came about, and it’s been going great if you can open a franchise in India, I think, you know, anywhere

Boomer Anderson 22:44
and that’s absolutely true. You’ve seen many multinational businesses fail in India. So that’s pretty impressive. Now, where did where in India did you start?

Kris Gethin 22:54
We started in Hyderabad. So I transformed a gentleman called their manager Bubu was a South Indian actor, very famous South Indian actor. And that seems to be the great the perfect place to start off our first facility. Especially because I was residing in that area for about a year. Okay,

Boomer Anderson 23:13
awesome. And so you have multiple business lines, and they’re now all across the globe, just out of personal interest here. How do you keep it all together without going insane? You know, how does how do you manage to stay productive on a day to day basis?

Kris Gethin 23:32
Who says I’m not insane?

Boomer Anderson 23:34
We’re all just a little insane, right? Yeah. For a while step away from insane or what is insanity?

Kris Gethin 23:40
Yeah, I surround myself with real good people. I’m not very good. I I cannot admit that I can excel at one thing. I just can’t. But collectively, maybe I can. And you know, I’m the kind of person that will read like six books at a Time because I’ll start to get a bit of a DD and I need to move on to the next one. So yeah. It takes me a while to finish those books. And it just keeps me interested. I like the fascination of seeing something grow. And then I want to see something else kind of grow alongside it, and having something within this sector that I know. And they can complement each other really helps as well. So obviously my supplement line compliments that my, you know, my personal platform, my podcast, they all complement each other. Now we do a lot of tours and seminars. Like I’m about to go to India with Ben Greenfield. Now, week after next well, I’m going next week. And you know, it’s a perfect opportunity for us to spread the word. And you just never know what happens at one of these talks. Someone will come up with a business idea adventure, and you just go Yes, let’s do it. And the next thing you know, there’s another business, you know, it’s not always intentional. They just happened.

Boomer Anderson 24:55
Yeah, it’s beautiful.

Kris Gethin 24:57
And in regards to steak and saying I bookend my days. So I make sure that I don’t check my phone for the first half hour in the morning, I’ve got what’s called a feet up, that helps me do a headstand. In the morning, I’m meditating, I’m in front of my infrared panel, and I’ll do the same thing in the evening. I’ll just switch off because, you know, I don’t want the artificial light at that time anyway, but I don’t want my brain racing. So I’ll usually just read in the evening, and that helps me stay sane. You know, especially in a much like you, you’ve got work internationally, it can be very easy for you to get down that rabbit hole, where you’re in bed on the phone or answering emails like you just can’t do that. You’ll get to the end of your life with the regret that you did it you know, so I always think to the future What is my future self going to tell me that I should have spent more time on the phone or that I bookend and just put the quality time in because I’m more I’m more useful to people if I’ve, if I’ve, if I’m stress free, you know, and I’ll just be stressed if I was on it all the time.

Boomer Anderson 26:00
This is why apps like countdown or having a spreadsheet that just reminds you how many days you have left are very helpful. This is great.

Kris Gethin 26:07
Yeah, exactly.

Boomer Anderson 26:08
Chris, let’s go into bodybuilding because there’s a lot of people here listening, executives, entrepreneurs, really high performing corporate professionals who are saying like, Hey, I would love to put on some muscle men. But either time is an issue, or they just don’t exactly know how to do it. They’re also trying to fast, I guess, let’s take time because you are an entrepreneur yourself. You work out 45 minutes a couple times a week, take us through just sort of some steps that people can use to put on some muscle if they want to.

Kris Gethin 26:43
For sure. Well, the first thing that I say especially to people or clients over the past 10 years, is stress, stress management, you know, because I’m dealing with clients encounter much more strength than I did the decade before. And I think it’s because of, we’re too accessible now. So with that we give too much of ourselves, we never give enough to ourselves, you know, we give away. So stress management is going to be the biggest thing, and fast and that’s absolutely fine. But I do get a lot of my clients to control their fast. And what I say control is, of course, you know, we’re not talking about eating food, but at least take some essential amino acids, not bcaas because the leucine can give you a high insulin spike on essential amino acids, maybe some glutamine just to help you stay anti catabolic, but, you know, sleep is pretty much going to do this thing. And a lot of people a lot of my clients if I get them to quantify their sleep, they get about five hours. I function fine, Chris, I’m good. Yeah, yeah, you’re not because you aren’t able to put on muscle. Those are the biggest things and controlling your environment and not allowing yourself to get controlled by it because people throughout the week they’re very good. They’re at work. They’re scheduled. They’re on time they get to the gym in the morning, but the weekend throws them off social gatherings, parties sleeping in, and you just have to learn to don’t think of your weekend as WAK end, you know, it’s your weekend is seven days, don’t think of it being any different to the other five days, stay on schedule, go to bed at the same time wake up at the same time. And just you know, just put yourself first. And you know, the environmental factor all comes from the neck up, not from the neck down. You can play me your genetics, you can say that someone’s getting results better than you. But it all comes up to you know from the neck up. You’ve got to change the environment. That is crying doubt weakness, and excuse me ahead.

Boomer Anderson 28:48
And you’ve done some great posts on mindset and that kind of stuff. But let’s break down into like tactical how often should somebody be training? Is there right number four For people, is it five days a week? Is it three days a week? Is it one, what do you think

Kris Gethin 29:05
weight training, it can be anywhere from three to five, three to five. You know, I work with mostly people that are just off the street, or entrepreneurs, or, you know, people who want to maybe compete in a bodybuilding show or an Iron Man, they’re not professional athletes. If somebody is a professional athlete and they want extra curricular sup supplementation, those people can probably train six or seven days a week, the rest of us can’t, you know, so three to five why I say three days a week weight training, is because I’ve had clients who do on various business and they hardly sleep and they’re stressed, so they’re not going to do well training five days a week, then probably do themselves more harm. So I’ll get them training three days a week for an hour each time. Other people who are sleeping well they’re quantifying their hydrated eating their stress free than five days a week is perfect. And again For about 45 minutes, it’s all about quality, not messing around with your phone, you know, put that in the locker, and it’s quality time but cardio, I get everybody to do cardio every single day we are designed to move, you know, much like think of yourselves, you know, ancestors, they had to hunt, they had to gather. And that’s what I always like to try to get my clients to do as well. If they cannot always get to the gym, then, you know, stand up and sit down 50 times that day, stop after 3060 minutes and actually do some push ups do some burpees just some sort of movement, especially after a meal to bring your blood sugar levels down. Sometimes I’ll wear a blood glucose monitor. And if I can get my clients to do so, you know, I’m always thinking okay, activity after a meal activity after a meal and they’ll help regulate your blood sugar levels as well.

Boomer Anderson 30:49
I want to come back to that daily cardio in a second. But when we’re looking at and we can answer this question two parts, but when you’re looking at a three or a five day trip Split. What does kind of the body part regimen look like? Because you know somebody like me I love for instance, like traditional West Side splits of that max effort upper and lower and then dynamic effort. It’s blown up my nervous system before. But, you know, when we look at your average run the mill person, how do you split up body parts or however you want to call it?

Kris Gethin 31:22
Yeah, it’s usually two to three body parts. So, you know, it could be chest and tricep baxton bite back your biceps, legs and shoulders, I would throw out some carbs in there as well, you know. So that would be like a three day split. So I usually like to go for more so like the bro split depends on, you know what that client is needing. But sometimes it’ll be push pull. So one day we’ll just do all pushing movements, other day will do all pulling and then they’ll take a day off, and then they’ll repeat that again, but with different exercises. Let’s say that, you know, Monday, Tuesday, take a day off Thursday, Friday, we do the same push poll. However, different movements You know, I usually like to block off the workouts into four week increments. So they’ll follow a workout for four weeks, then based on their response, how they how they feel, what’s hurting, what isn’t what exercises, they get a good mind muscle connection on they don’t, then we change it over the next four weeks.

Boomer Anderson 32:20
And so those exercises that they do get a good mind muscle connection on are you switching it to encourage more adaption? Are you keeping it the same?

Kris Gethin 32:28
Oh, no, I encourage you to more adaption. So you know, they should always beat their previous weights or reps. Yeah, you know, every time all dependent on the exercises and all dependent on the rest periods, you know, because if I’m going to get their rest period, I don’t need to be like 45 seconds, then they’re probably not going to increase in strength, but sometimes I’ll get them on a strength protocol where they’re going to be resting for about two to three minutes and it’s all compounds. So then we will go by strength, adaptation.

Boomer Anderson 32:55
And what about D loading and these things? I always know when I was doing CrossFit, there was always a D load week, right? Well, now that I’m by myself, there’s kind of a D load day built in. But how do you look at D load for people, particularly busy people who may be thrashing their nervous system and other areas of the world?

Kris Gethin 33:15
Yeah, well, if there’s this thrashing, thrashing of the nervous system, then the chances are I’ve got them on a three day week protocol anyway, maximum. And you know, on that non Training Day, they’re doing like some low level cardio, there’s no hit, because a lot of people love doing a hit, and that’s absolutely fine, great for anti aging crypsis mitochondrial purposes, but if I’ve got him on a calorie deficit, and you know that they’re hitting, you know, large muscle groups, they’re training, deadlifts, squats, bench press, stuff like that. I don’t want to spike their cortisol again. So you should just get them to do very, very low level activity that’s like my big that’s that D load, like you know, stress free, but if they go in the faith that dieting over a 12 week period, over that 12 week period at the end for about 10 days is a complete D load.

Boomer Anderson 34:08
Awesome. And macro splits for people who are looking to, let’s say, put on muscle and put on weight. Do you? Do you have a specific split that you focus on? Or do you look at in terms of the individual? For instance, could you use a ketogenic diet and put on size and muscle at the same time?

Kris Gethin 34:26
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I’ll put people on keto, especially if they’ve created a lot of insulin resistance over time, and I just want to reset them are the people I have on a cyclical keto approach. put on muscle just fine on that. A lot of that comes down to as you know, fully well with a lot of blood reports and their test DNA testing and stuff like that, that can help a little bit with a pinch of salt. And but when it comes to the usual macro split, it’s usually 4040 carbs and protein than 20 fats. Okay. So, one thing that I always try to insist upon Is that it’s, it’s grass fed. It’s organic, it’s humane, right? Is this locally grown? Because, you know, I could tell them to go eat salmon. But if that’s farm salmon that’s gonna have a completely different calorific and omega content compared to you know, your wild caught.

Boomer Anderson 35:17
Yeah, absolutely. So not necessarily like the IFM approach, but more with the approach of getting the the wild organic type. That’s great. Exactly.

Kris Gethin 35:26
Yeah. And I always tell people, you know, the people that follow the you know, If It Fits Your Macros, I don’t believe in that at all, because it seems to give people that justification to go and eat Twinkies and dogs and all sorts and I always tell them, like, think about the calorie what information do you want that calorie to give you? Is it going to heal you or harm you? A lot of the time is harming people but it makes them feel good, but it’s not going to make them feel good in the future.

Boomer Anderson 35:55
Coming back to tear of car do you do it every day. And I have to ask this is gonna be my last question before we go into them final rapid fire questions. How do you fit it in every day? What does that look like? Is it on your treadmill desk? Or are you outside? You know, it’s doing a little bit of running? What does that look like for you?

Kris Gethin 36:14
I try to get outside once a day, for sure. I want to get my I want to get the sun I want to get the restorative red lights whenever I possibly can. It makes me feel good as opposed to being stuck underneath the artificial lights all day. So I get one of the sessions there. The other sessions all mix up so I could go down into my garriage I’ve got one of those Carol bikes. Cow.

Boomer Anderson 36:35
Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite devices since great.

Kris Gethin 36:39
Yeah, you must be sick too.

Boomer Anderson 36:43
We all have a little bit of sadistic inside. Yeah.

Kris Gethin 36:46
Nice. So

Boomer Anderson 36:48
when I’m in a rush and still need a workout, I like to use a bike called the CAR.O.L. and eight minutes and 40 seconds I’m able to get a kick ass workout where My legs just feel like jelly. And why is that? Well, because it achieves rapid glycogen depletion through an AI powered algorithm that allows you to really get personalized resistance in very little time. You get to 20 seconds, sprints, that’s it, and you’re exhausted. So if you want to try this out, in fact, you should just go and get yours. You can use the code Decoding150 at CarolfitAI.com. It’s been a really, really hot device these days. In fact, it’s hard to get but go over to Carol fit AI, plug in the code DECODING150 and you’ll get a nice little discount.

Kris Gethin 37:41
So I’ll jump on that you know, I love that especially if I’m short on time like I’ve got a fly on Saturday, release or probably jump on there before I go. I’ve got a curved treadmill downstairs as well. Sometimes I’ll do some work on this some sprints. I’ve actually got a pain cave downstairs. So I’ll do like a lot of functional work like a lot of box jumps, kicking the bag flipping the tire in the street here with weird on looking neighbors coming my way and so I like to mix things up. I like to change things up constantly. It helps me stay mentally stimulated.

Boomer Anderson 38:15
Next time you’re in Amsterdam, we’re gonna have to compare paint caves.

Kris Gethin 38:19
Ah, you’ve got to paint cave to

Boomer Anderson 38:21
Yeah, except for my paint cave is kind of the European size which is jammed into a lot of room and I throw in my backyard every once in a while when the sun’s out.

Kris Gethin 38:30
Yeah, that’s, that’s my way of socializing, because I’m not a social person at all. So I invite some friends around on a Saturday morning, and we just hit it and then we go jump in my I’ve got a sauna out the back, we’ll jump into sauna. Then we all jump in the ice bath not together. But I’ve got like a cattle trough and we’ll jump in and that’s my way of socializing because otherwise, I’m not gonna fit into one of those Blue Zones you know?

Boomer Anderson 38:57
Exactly, exactly. Gotta get the social aspect. of health. That’s for sure. Exactly. Chris, final, rapid fire questions for you. And some of these you might have touched on already on the podcast. But first book is what book has his first question not first book that kind of hits hints at the question. First question is, is what book has significantly impacted your life and your ability to show up and perform in it?

Kris Gethin 39:23
tribal leadership, I really like tribal leadership, it made me realize that you know, anything more than like a tribe of seven, that you dilute yourself, it’s very hard to keep that community within your business. That’s what I use it more than anything within my Korea. So tribal leadership would be the big one.

Boomer Anderson 39:40
How do you unwind?

Kris Gethin 39:42
I’m

usually reading a book.

Boomer Anderson 39:46
What’s the best piece of technology that you bought in the past year, or has been given to you?

Kris Gethin 39:52
Over the past year, I’d say the bio strap for my HIV

Boomer Anderson 39:59
awesome vacation destination.

Kris Gethin 40:03
I don’t know if I’ve been there yet.

Bali. Bali is where I want to go. Thailand

Boomer Anderson 40:08
is pretty, pretty cool. I’m getting married there this year if you want to come and join.

Kris Gethin 40:12
Oh, really? You are awesome. Yeah, I know that I know so many people that have been there and I just got to have everything but great things to say about it. The Hanging Gardens looks really, really good. Really

Boomer Anderson 40:23
nice. I’ll text you afterwards. But if you show up in August, we’ll make room for you. That’s for

Kris Gethin 40:29
sure. Yes.

Boomer Anderson 40:29
Cool. All right. Thank you. Awesome. Chris, where can people find out more about you all of the stuff you’re involved in?

Kris Gethin 40:37
Okay, they could find me on my socials like on Instagram, KRIS GETHIN. Pretty good on there. My website is healthkik.com. Also got you know, my supplement company and whatnot, but you pretty much find me on Instagram is probably the best place.

Boomer Anderson 40:57
Awesome. And we’ll link to all of this in the show notes. That decodingsuperhuman.com/gethin that’s G E T H I N. Chris it’s been a pleasure getting to know you over these past couple of weeks and I am serious come to Bali, I’d love to get to see in person that could that could be just the just the excuse that I need to

Kris Gethin 41:16
get my butt over there. Awesome, my friend

Boomer Anderson 41:19
to all the super humans listening to this have an epic day.

All right now super humans. That conversation could have gone on for much longer. I really appreciate Chris’s just sort of general view on life and but also his ability to distill topics like muscle protein synthesis into very bite sized pieces of information. We had a good time. And if you enjoyed this episode, head over to iTunes, leave a five star rating. You got something out of it tag decoding superhuman on the social medias and I would love to share what you have to say. Super Humans