Julien Pineau: Q Training, Sprinting, and Improving Your Mental Game with Exercise

[00:00:00] Boomer: 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. Enjoy the journey.

My guest on today's podcast is Julian Pineau. You guys can find him at strong fit one on socials, and he is the founder of strong fit and he is back for round two. Last podcast, we got into something called baseline versus stress response, discuss the role of nor adrenaline as well as Carl Friton and how movement can influence anxiety, depression, and so much more today's podcast, because that first one was so wildly popular is diving a little bit more into that.

And we get into something that Julian calls, cue training. What is it? Well, let's get into the podcast. You guys can find the show notes for this one, which are doozy@decodingsuperhuman.com slash strong fit two. So Julian, you have two hours. And since now you're on the other side of the world. Uh . I may take a lot of that from you, but let's, uh, let's see where we go today.

Um, right before I clicked record on this, you and I were just talking about, uh, training and I was kind of relating my experience with. What I understand to be Q training. I want to get into that today and just sort of contrasting that between my experiences with, uh, the conjugate method or west side barbell and how I was training for power lifting competitions, and just kind of beating the shit outta myself, literally, uh, in order to compete versus, you know, Q training or what I understand to be Q training, uh, and really just the enjoyment of it.

And so let's, I wanna unpack all of this with you today, and I'm sure we'll go around all kinds of areas, but let's, let's just go right for it. 

[00:02:23] Julien: So first someone let's explain beating the shit of yourself, because if you train for power lifting thing is gonna happen, but turns out there's really two different ways of beating the shit of yourself.

There's the beating yourself physically, which, you know, you're sore the next day. You're beat up like all good. Like we all have to go through it. You wanna get stronger up. You're gonna have to put heavy weight on your back. You're gonna feel it, but then there's the kicking in your ass mentally. And that's where I think we are, um, misunderstanding some very important factors.

And so the Q training, like the volume I'm doing right now through it is monstrous. Uh, and so like, I'm so like, uh, as much as I'm enjoying the process that there's nonstop the saunas or the beating up physically, like I'm really feeling it this morning, but the biggest difference with all this was exactly what you talked about was that, is that, um, feeling, you know, waking up in the morning, excited to go train, oh, I can't wait to go blast myself.

Right. Which, uh, I'm sure a lot of the listeners will relate too. At some point you're like, oh my God, I gotta go to the gym. So, so some moments is normal where you go, oh, I gotta go train this morning, but turns out again, there are two different, uh, there's the one where you go like, all right, Then we go to the gym and do this.

I'm just, it's normal. I'm a bit tired. I'm a bit sore. I don't feel like moving again. That's fine. But then there's the other part, which is the flight mode where like your sense of self is actually getting crushed and going to the gym requires a more, a greater and greater commitment of energy every morning.

And when I'm in NLG, I don't mean like, come on, let's do this. I mean, like you have to go deep inside, uh, to go dig, to find a reason to move forward. And at some point you feel, you feel your sense of self being crushed on a daily basis. Uh, you can cope with it. You can pretend it's toughness to go through it.

You can use drugs. There are many ways to go through it. My view on it was that, is it necessary first of all? And is it a good thing? Second of all. So a lot of people will say, yes, it's necessary. No, it's probably not a good thing. And the necessary is where I'll disagree with people. And so, uh, how do I, how do I came down, uh, to that idea actually is through physiology, through biology that I went to there.

So I started, we talked about this, uh, I started testing the lactate levels right. Of people and everything. And then as I, cause I studied lactate a lot. And then, um, to go back, for example, like I'm going try to do chronologically. So people understand in a simple way, like about two, three years ago I had one of my coaches, his name is Wim.

He has a lot of injur athletes, like marathon rhinos. He had a, uh, he had a guy who ran two 10, I think. So. I mean like you, so he had yeah, yeah. His brother one at two 30. Uh, so the two of them are like very, very high in the insurance world. Right. And we don't notice something. What the mistakenly called the anerobic special.

There is Nona Arabic threshold. There is no LACT acidosis, but that's another of podcast. Right. But we did see that spike of lactate. So the question was, what is that spike of lactate due to so, so people understand, you make people do sprints and then you see the lactate go up. And at some point you, you get a hockey stick, which means the lactate just jumps up.

And that's what is called the anaerobic threshold. The only way of thinking was that is because you don't have the oxygen to oxidize. The lactate has nothing to do with that because lactate is produced aerobically or an aerobically, and you would not explain the spike. Anyway, on top of it, we see that spike in what is called a septic shock, for example, where, when people go sepsis or infection in the blood, the body starts to get in trouble.

We see no acidosis at that moment, but we see the lactate going up. So there was a deep relationship between lactate and whatever that was. So, what is that? So we start to look, uh, like for example, we do a study with, I think it was 400 people, like a, a large, large number of people. Uh, and we saw that that spike of lactate happen when they jumped into flights.

So we did a, a series of tests, you know, with questions and stuff like that. And you can also check your pupils for a sympathetic reaction. And we saw people telling us that they went from hunting, the sprints to being hunted by the sprint. And I think we can all relate to that. Like you wanna workout and you're hunting it and suddenly you get hit and then suddenly you feel a workout is hunting.

You, it's not the same feeling and it's not a good feeling and turns out that's your sense of self sense of self got hit. And that's what causes that spike of. It's actually a self-defense mechanism because like that is a fuel, not a waste product. And so your whole body is producing massive amount of fuels because it detected a threat that is so large because it touches a sense of self that he has to jump into the next mode.

So it jumps from fight to flight. Right. So I would that make sense from that, from this one? Yeah. I 

[00:07:32] Boomer: just, um, one I'm gonna interject here and just say like, is, is there a case, and maybe there's a certain mental state, uh, where it's good to push that boundary. Right? Like the person who, last time we were talking about baseline versus response.

Right. And, um, if your baseline is so low, for instance, is it good to, I, I know you coined the term burn the questions, like, is it good to really get there, um, in order to get that sense of sell 

[00:08:02] Julien: right. So exactly. So that's the question is, can you challenge the sense of self? Yes. Can you defeat it? No. Mm that's really the thing.

So build the questions, which means you're still in fight, which means you never let yourself go to that moment where you feel you are losing the sense of self cause that's when the sense of self is being defeated. So, uh, I would need a few hours to expand that, but turns out that I made a podcast on this where I think the sense of self is actually a function of the threat system.

I think the sense of self is actually what allow us to go from fight to flight that, um, like, you know, fight is I'm dealing with the world's things happen. I can do this. And then suddenly the flight is more like, alright, I'm at waste, right? Like things are not going well. I need to revise my position and I need to take out.

That's why we call it the flight. I need to stop running and being hunted like this survival mechanism that comes in, that is what I think the sense of self is. It's part of the threat assessing system that we. Which would explain why the sense of self from the, you have a connection from the heart strength to the part of the brain that links to the me.

So I would've to go into this, but sense of self is the me versus the eye, right? It's body as a subject versus body as an object. So there's an entire thing there, but long story short, I think the sense of self, just a function of the threat assessing system of the body, right? And it's the one that directs energy, the sense of self.

And when, if you feel like you are at a threat at an exist existential threat, you start to pump that flight mode and pump the energy level to the max. So is there is, it is a good idea to go there. Yes. As long as you can win the fight, if you were to go into, uh, losing the fight, it would crash it completely.

Cause it would end up in freeze where the body is not capable of dealing with whatever was happening. And therefore goes to freeze to first of all, stop spending so much energy and try to reassess what went wrong. So we could have some moments where it'd be interesting to go there as a way to ask ourself existentialist questions.

Do I want this or not? But if you lose, the price is very hard. Okay. You could crash yourself to, into depression or to stuff like that turns out that's what really depression is. It's just your body pulling the hand brake going like, alright, we keep spending energy on all that stuff and it's not going anywhere.

We are not solving any problem. The threat keeps being there. At some point we have to start doing this is just not the chronic way of. The prediction system that we have is wrong because it's not helping us solve the issue. So therefore we have to pump the hand break and we set the prediction system.

And that's what depression is basically. And until you do, you stay in that phase. So they are interesting questions that can be asked, but they have to be answered because otherwise you'll crush yourself until you insult that. So depending on deep you in the hole, that would be interesting to see where we go with this.

Okay. 

[00:11:09] Boomer: it's a good question. Where do we go with this? Because I wanna get back on the, the, the path to how Q training developed, right? Because you you've gone through and you know, the last time you and I spoke on this podcast was baseline versus stress response. And we were talking very much about neuro adrenaline and lactate and all of these things.

Um, beautiful conversation, encouraged people to tune back into that one. And so that's been. It was December last year, actually. And since that time you've kind of progressed quite a bit. I know you read a lot of Friton. Um, and what has that journey looked like for you in kind of arriving at Q 

[00:11:51] Julien: I figure out something, I think major that we missed.

I, I really do it. I'm gonna explain where I come from here. So, um, if you look, when you start mental health, you see three issues. You're giving me a two. When you need a 10, you're giving me a 10, when you need a two and you come gimme a six mm-hmm . Right. Which means what do I mean by, uh, giving you a six?

Well, you know, like there's something you don't like fight with a boss or whatever, and you only have two ways to answer only give a two, which is fully pressed, where you avoid the fight or you gimme a 10, which means you lose your marble, start screaming or is stressed out for two days. Your reaction did not match.

Where the fight was. No one said the fight is enjoyable that you should like it or anything, but it's not a 10 either. It's not losing my marbles. My sense self was destroyed because the guy is an asshole. The guy's an asshole is worse six, or you deal with, you know, you deal with email that you don't want to do.

Okay. That's a fool, right. But if you see a program is when you answer with a one which is procrastination or 10, you stress yourself out so much to do the email. You, you are crashing for three hours after those are not correct responses based on what the world is giving you. Right? So it means that your prediction to what this is, is wrong.

You either, or can give me a one, which means you procrastinate, or you just lose your marbles or while doing something that is neither, that is somewhat in the center. Well, you need to do stuff you don't like, but it doesn't require that much either. And you know that you just can't deal with. Right.

That's what giving me a six is. Right. And this is where to me, most of the work is, is can you give me a, a response that is, that fits the demand of your environment? Because if you cannot, that's called a somatic error. That's what we lead to anxiety, depression and all that stuff. Like, so how do we give a response that fits with the environment require, right?

So now there's different. That's where it gets complicated, right? And so that's what I call the, the cure, which means to quit. And the quit does not necessarily mean the physically can mean mentally. What do I mean by that? By checking the lactate, I've seen some very interesting patterns. I've seen some patterns where the response should be a fairly easy one and you see people shooting up on the lactate levels to insane levels, to one where obviously.

It should not be that high. So let me give you an example. There's many, many, many, like this, cause I've been doing this, but one that was fascinating as a coach, he goes into the sun for 30 minutes. He's in Holland, right? So 

[00:14:35] Boomer: yeah, exactly. This is like once every 10 days we have to, 

[00:14:40] Julien: we have to time it. Right?

Right. He goes in the sun for 30 minutes, comes back is levels of L data over 20 million for 30 minutes. So people, I don't know the normal lactate levels in between one and three, three, you're starting to get pissed and everything 10, you are doing a workout. 16. Usually it's most people, uh, what they call, uh, VLA max, which means your max capacity or producing lactate is for most people between 10 and.

If you push to 2020 is a very interesting number because it's the, what they call the lactic acidosis, which is the acid is not caused by lactate. That's another podcast. Um, but that's what they call acidosis. Acidosis is very important because that's the moment that freaks out the body. It actually starts to mess with your brain, which means we've seen that the, those levels of lactating in the brain cannot allow the gamma brain waves to work properly, which means the network of the brain start to decompose.

So you cannot think straight, literally physiologically. You cannot think straight at 20. So it's acidosis and it's very dangerous. Cause your pH level starts to go up. So the CDT starts to drop to dangerous levels and there's nothing that's that threatens the body like temperature and CDT. So that 20 milli is a very important number and we see that's when people crash.

And so he gets to 20 and crashes completely. Why would you get to 20 level, uh, 20 million more level of LACT data are being in the sun for 30 minutes. That makes no sense. If I show that to a doctor, they'll send them to the hospital. Right. And so there was no reason for that. So we start talking and then I remember he said that he was at the beach one day with his friends and now welcome comes back.

He's at 16. So we start to go a little bit more and turns out he doesn't like when his vision is blurry. He doesn't like it. That's I saw that in the question, work out where we were doing stand, his vision got blur, and that freaked him out to know him. Turns out he hates when he cannot scan threats around himself is kind of a control freak.

And so when he doesn't see, well, he creates a sense of threats. He does not handle correct. Right. So I was like, alright, is it possible that, that what, it was 30 minutes in the sun, like is his vision was, you know how it is, you haven't seen the sun, you spent 30 minutes, uh, you know, even with your, uh, eyes closed, right?

So a few minutes, you're like, Ooh, this is different. We can also go into the dynamic range change as well of being inside all the time, where you only focus on things that are two meters away from you versus being outside, where suddenly you focus miles away. That also has his own, uh, thing. But anyway, something caused that switch of black date.

And to me it meant it was a, a switch to flight. Something threatened him a sense of identity in a case of global vision, which means I cannot handle threat correctly. I freak out and I'm in a position of tremendous danger. My Lage shoots up to and until levels. All right. So that was my hypothesis. Very simple way of testing it.

Go back next day into the sun with sunglasses on. Same thing, 30 minutes, same place. No one is seeing him. So he was on social anxiety stuff. Cause there was no one around comes back from the 30 minutes in the sun, but this time sunglasses on clocks at one point. Wow. 

[00:17:59] Boomer: And that's purely just due to VI to, well, the control freak.

[00:18:03] Julien: Right? So I believe so. And so, but that's the key is I have this story times 20 now because I have all the sheets of my clients that, that I'm popping up and I've seen that story time and time and time again. I have a client of mine, Nicole, who has my first really case study on this, where I've seen her wake up at 24.

Like you have to understand the machine. Doesn't go past 25. She's not the only one, but wakes up in the morning at over 20 milli miles of black. I'm like half. 

[00:18:32] Boomer: Is that a, that's like an alarm clock plus I'm stressed outta my mind. Kind of, it sounds like it, but I'm kind of curious what the details are behind this, right?

[00:18:40] Julien: So we look at that and I'm like, look, 24 is like, your body's about to shut down. Like, this is such an insane amount of lactate. Like again, you would send you to the hospital, like we are way past that SIS. Right? The machine stops at 25. So to give you an idea, um, and so we are going, like, this is insanely high.

And so I'm going to the, the day before, right? And I'm saying she went to bed at 17. I was like, Ooh, what happened? Cause she woke up at two that day. So she was in a normal range. It turned out that she had a fight with her boss, but a very specific or fight where she fell. Like she didn't stand up for herself.

Like, so she's worthless, she couldn't do this and this. And then the lactate went up and up and up and up. So today, and she wakes up at 25 the next morning. And that happens three times over the course of three weeks. And every time it was a social anxiety thing, which means she felt worthless in front of people.

And that that's a trigger. So. It's not the control freak thing for her. It's something else. And so that's, what is the most fascinating is I'll show you 20 sheets and you'll see the same results from different causes every time it's whatever threaten you as a person, as a whatever, threaten your identity.

And it's all different one it's blowing vision. The other one is first type of, of fight. The other one is, uh, at work, but different type of work, different situation, not the fight with the boss, but more something else. And it doesn't matter. There's a trigger that whenever you press that button sends you through the roof.

On your lactate levels, there are tremendous physiological consequences to having such high levels of lactate. You can't recover. Uh, you can't move properly. Like it's actually extremely destructive for your body to pump black data at such high levels. Like through the night of, I imagine 

[00:20:27] Boomer: you sleep just goes to shit.

Right. 

[00:20:31] Julien: Right. And you never recover. 20 is one of my sessions on the sled. It's about question on the sled. That's when you reach 20, so you are going there on a daily basis. So you might not feel it mentally consciously, but you are their yeah. RT. They fill it on a daily basis. So it's, it's, it's a hit to the sense of identity that is tremendously powerful.

That has turns out tremendously powerful, physiological impact. And so I saw that and I was like, all right. So what we cannot have is. You cannot wake up at 20 in the morning or you can't go to 20 because you went in the sun for 30 minutes. So what do we do? We just wear sunglasses all the time. I'm like, okay, that's one way to look at it.

My way to look at it is how about you learn to give me a six instead of a 20, you go into the sun. Your vision is real. How about we teach you to respond with a six? Which means I don't like it and not, oh my God, I'm being threatened. I'm gonna die. Whatever the hell that goes through his head that sends him to 20 or with Nicole, whatever the fight is, you're not gonna like it.

So I'm not asking you to respond with a two because that's wrong. What I want is instead of you going 17 at night, 25, the next day is I'm like the guys, a asshole. You're not gonna like it. So gimme an eight minimal after the fight, not something that turns to 17 to 20. And so. And I explained, I'll explain how, but I started the acute training with her and from three took about four weeks and I'll explain exactly what I did.

It turned about four weeks and now she had a fight with the boss and her levels at night were at seven wow. To the bone where she was like, but I don't understand. I still feel bad about it. I'm like, yes, exactly means you handled it properly. Which means you don't like the guy. I never said you would. And you never will.

You don't like the guy, you don't like your job. You don't like the asshole. That's fine. That's normal. But 

[00:22:30] Boomer: let's say in this instance, because look, Julian, to be fair, like I have these instances myself where, and I don't have the lactate level to prove this, but I'm sure, you know, email comes in and like, holy shit, boom.

It just blows up your day. Right. And I'm just presuming here that my lactate levels would go through the roof. Um, With Nicole in this instance, is the, the sort of reaction or response the same, uh, maybe from, uh, a external, like reaction versus, uh, you mentioned there that the internal reaction has changed.

Um, so does the external reaction and feeling you get change as well? When you change the.

[00:24:24] Julien: Um, the external reaction didn't change that. Well, yes. In the sense of suddenly, because she wasn't crashing so hard, she was able to do more about it. Okay. The key was because the internal was less of a spike. She had, she still didn't feel good about it or anything like that. So you still freak out about it, but you are able to deal with it a bit better.

And that means 

[00:24:47] Boomer: that. And so your time spent essentially in that higher. Heightened mode is like, it's almost you, you react, but you come back and you have the appropriate reaction. 

[00:24:59] Julien: Right? Exactly. So instead of three days you come back eventually, hopefully right away or not even go so far, I believe it gotten, uh, you know, like super scared to the point.

Like, you feel, you gonna walk straight, you know, like Jon are moving all the time or like, you try to run it, you run like challenge champion, like that that's a flight mode, but you see how poor your coordination is. You see how poor your thinking is when your levels of like data. So, hi, there's not much you can do outside of runaway, just freaking up everything.

It is not a useful thing. And cause you can't really do anything. It's a bit like, you know, you ever taken six caffeine to do an email and realize that you can't do the email cause you're too. 

[00:25:39] Boomer: Cause you just jacked on caffeine. Right, 

[00:25:42] Julien: exactly. Right. So those levels of like data would be that like there's a physiological, there's a evolutionary reason for us to have such levels, but.

You don't want it on a daily basis and in this society, that is certainly not how you can deal with it. So that response is a 10, right? Whereas in the case of an email or in the case of your boss, what we need is a six, which means you don't like it, but you deal with the stuff. Right. And that's what mental health is, is being able to answer a situation correctly based on the input so that the output matches the input.

And so in her case, he was allowing her to not have such a strong, physiological reaction. So how do we do that? Because the second you, you touch the sense of self. Obviously the thing is gonna jump up and you have no control about it because, you know, Nicole did not wanna wake up at 24 that morning. So you feel you have no control over it, but that's not true.

What happens is you became a binary creature that is, that only has two options. Quit one or blow 10. It's basically very little in between. So I was like, all right, so you cannot move things through extremes. The pendulum just starts swinging more. I was like, all right, let's move the center. So what is the center?

Is that six? I was like, all right. So how do I give a six? I'm like, well, I'm gonna use training. And there's a, there's a simple way. I'm gonna take something that I don't like in my case, for example, in the air nine. Right. And I'm gonna go on the Airine and I'm gonna choose a speed at which I am not comfortable, but not freaking out.

So how do I know I'm freaking out when the voice starts talking, you know, that voice that tells you to quit or tells you like, oh, and we need to do stuff after, or you have a great 

[00:27:29] Boomer: name for that voice, the diva brain, right? 

[00:27:32] Julien: That brain. That's what it is. Right. It's literally a part of your brain asking you, why are we spending this energy?

And I call it. So it's part of the selfish brain theory. It's not mine, but I call it the diva brain because to me, that's what it sounds like. It's like, why are we doing this? I mean, it's like what we just said. No, and it's never happy. Like if you listen to it, you'll never do anything because it's always like, we are fine.

We're cool. It's the cognition part of your brain that is, uh, that social creature that just requires a lot of energy to, uh, to survive and always wants more and more and more and more hence the right. Right. And so whenever you're on that, Airine, you're starting to move. The brain is like, no, why are we doing this?

There's no bear around. There's no zombie chasing me. I have zero reason to do this. That's the voice in your ear. So the later that voices, you notice, the faster you going, the, the louder, the voice is. All right. So in fact, choose a time of 10 minutes, 10 minutes. Why? 10 minutes? Because eight I being a worse.

15. I don't wanna do that 10 minutes. I'm like, I can do 

[00:28:36] Boomer: 10 minutes. And so 15 is not the diva brain talking. It's just more, you know, that's 

[00:28:41] Julien: no, well, it won't be, but it'll be me quitting. Yeah. If I do 15 I'll muscle my way through the first weeks and I'll gotcha. Cause the diva brain will be too strong.

Gotcha. Okay. That's that's the thing is the diva brain can, can, can be too loud. So what is, where is that loudness at six. And what is six? Why do I mean, I mean enough that you are being stressed and have to deal with it, which means you have to be present and tell a I to shut up. You know what I mean?

Like, you know, when, when it starts to go, you go shut, fuck up for a second. I'm doing this. There is, you're not gonna stop me. I'm doing this for me. It's 10 minutes because I'm like, I don't care. You feel you do 10 minutes. You don't do your worst. You can do 10 minutes. Come on. 10 minutes is not the end of the world.

So I'm like, okay, if I say 15. Yeah, but that's kind of wrong and right away, I'm starting to lose already. So I I'm already on the wrong side. So I'm like, all right, mentally and every different number for other people, maybe some of you feel you can do 20, how at it? 10 minutes. So I found out the number for me was about 60 or PM.

60. If I cruise I'm at 55, 56, well, I feel like can do it all day. I was like, yeah, but that's not what I'm looking for. Cause that's a four, I want six. So I'm like, all right, so I'm at 60 or 60. I'm like, all right, I need to pay attention to what I'm doing, but it's not 64 where I'm starting to go my God. Oh my God.

Oh my God. And then certainly for minutes six on I'm dying. That's not the point all because then the voice is very loud and it's winning. So what is that number where I can go, that is hard enough that I have to be present and tell the, to shut up, but not to the point where the is so that I can't tell it to shut up anymore.

Where do I win? What is that number? Where my battle against the means I win, not the dine. If it doesn't shut up, then I lost. So for me, it's 10 minutes at 60. I moved it to 63 now. Cause I'm I'm better. But at first it was 60. And so that's what I call it. Two minus one, because two was quick. Where is that moment?

When you quick admit a divide, one is solar. You're going into flight. Can you endure the 10 minute? The 10 minutes? Yes. But at some point you'll be enduring. It you'll be submitting to the divide one and just accepting your pain. And then you, you, once you used to this, you'll feel the voice having a very specific quality.

That is very windy, very, um, depressing, almost like it takes away hope. Whereas at 60 I'm the way I want to feel for my day. 

[00:31:12] Boomer: So in a way, this is a great way to set up your day in terms of like waking up, uh, you know, people here may meditate, but after you meditate, hopping on and really just kind of getting that first victory, if you will.

[00:31:24] Julien: Exactly. That's exactly what I do. That's what I do every morning. Wake up, go feed the dogs, go pee. Then we go to the gym and I do my 10 minutes on the airlines, because at first I was doing it as a way, as you said, to set up my day as in like, um, cause my biggest biggest issue is procrastination always.

So that's, you know, and sewing with someone. I don't wanna 

[00:31:42] Boomer: do it. I, I don't think you're the only one, by the way. There's plenty of people. 

[00:31:45] Julien: Yeah. But yeah, but so when he was that like, do I wanna do 10 minutes on the other night? I do not. It's been two months. I still don't wanna do it every single time, but I'm like, dude, you can do 10 minutes.

So that became the war with myself. With that voice is like shut up. 10 minutes, give a fucking break. 10 minutes on the nine. It's not the end, the world it's like, and then, then I started to see the results because those 10 minutes, when, when I have to do an email, I'm like, choose, do the email, stop spending the energy, thinking about it, choose, do the fucking email.

No one said you have to like it. I still don't like the nine, but that's okay. No one said you're supposed to. And that's. I was like, oh, but at the same time, it doesn't hurt that bad. I'm like, yeah, because I'm at 60, I'm not at 64. Cause my ego didn't start winning swim or you can do 64 or 10. Of course I can.

I've done it. But that's not the point. The point is not to go to that 10. So it was I'm at one or I'm at 10. I can't be at 10 doing emails, all that. That's never gonna work first, the next two weeks. So the point was like, what is something that is ridiculously stressful? And that's 60 for 10 minutes when you go, like, I gotta be present, I gotta go at it.

I gotta go at it. And it's hard enough that I'm like, shit, but it's not like, oh my God. So that was step one. And then what I started to do after that is once I had around minutes, six, I'm into it going like, I'm gonna do my 10 minutes. I'm not quitting. You're like, my mindset is very like, I'm not winning this.

No. Which is the way I visualize it. Me saying no to that voice. Then I start bringing the stuff that I have to do today, or I don't wanna do into it. I start thinking about it. And it was fascinating is right away. I saw, see myself slowing down or spitting up, slowing down means I was having a procrastination moment.

Spitting up means I was having an anxious moment. And in both cases, I was like, no, If it's going home, go back to 60. Cause that's where the work is not 55. Kick your own as go to 60 and kicking my own. As I realized that my honeys didn't wanna work. That's where I was at 55. That's where the freeze was in my honeys.

I was like, Ooh, that's interesting. And so I started moving myself faster when I'm at 60 and I'm breathing really hard cause I'm stressed with this, but I'm still doing the work. And so suddenly I started to gimme that win to while I'm doing the work. But the win is not like, I feel amazing. I don't feel amazing.

I'm still at 60 on an airline. It still feels like shit. But it doesn't matter because I'm winning because I'm doing it. It turns out that's why doing those emails out. It's like, you're not gonna feel amazing about it. You're not gonna feel like you want the world, but you're winning because you're doing them.

So 

[00:34:18] Boomer: without freaking with that, uh, uh, just I'm curious, sort of the knock on effects that you realize, because you mentioned a few things that everybody on this pod that's listening to this podcast can relate to. Right emails. Like I, I know there's emails in my inbox right now that I just. Really don't wanna deal with, there's a meeting that I have after this, that like, hell, I'm not looking forward to.

Uh, and so it's just, uh, so how does that play through, as you've been doing this the past couple of months to how you 

[00:34:46] Julien: handle those, and that's been the greatest thing out of the queue training is that it's, um, once you've been doing the Q 20, you realize after a while that, because you're gonna do the work, I'm gonna do those 10 minutes.

Like now I'm on a stage where I'm on there. They, the questions become less and less. So now that I'm on there for 10 minutes, I start to look for the small wins instead of the small losses. If you look, when you have that meeting or you're thinking about, there's a number of things you don't like about it,

Exactly. Right. So once I've been on that fucking air dying for 10 minutes, which I still don't like now I'm starting to look outside going, oh, that's pretty all. That is my money is starting to get away from, yes, this sucks. Cause I accept that. I don't like it, but it's not, I don't like it with baseball anymore.

Like, you know, why do I have to do this? I feel forced. I don't like it. I don't, I don't like it. I feel forced. It was that overblown reaction for, I do 10 minutes on a real time, just fucking chill. So it was like be at 60, but then spend the last amount, the least amount of mental energy possible for this work and that I took to while emails, because it's like, how much mental energy do I need to put in that email?

Exactly. And you realize that it's a lot less than you think because you don't like whatever in that email is, you're starting to spend a vast amount of energy that has no place there you are giving me a 10. So then the question becomes, what is it in that email? Or that meeting or whatever that is require me to have such a high level of mental energy.

I am being threatened somewhere. All right. Once I can figure out what a threatening thing is, I can go train it on the airline or with weight or with whatever. So that when I face it in the email, I can lower the voice right away. And so a very interesting part of the two training I had with my private client is a lot of them are telling me, for example, I have one for me, like he used to fold his close up to the last two and then he would always leave them out.

I'm sure some people can relate to that one and he doesn't do that anymore. Now he folds all of them because there's no threat in the last two. The last two created that. That spike that he doesn't have anymore because now, like he doesn't have that spike anymore. So for example, uh, Nicole has been waking up between three and four, like this morning at 1.7 for the last three weeks.

And she hasn't spike over 10. Wow. In three weeks. Yeah, because now when she goes to weld the stuff, she doesn't like she has a lesser response based on what the situation is instead of based on what her is telling is telling her. So it would be the same thing on the email. Once you know that feeling of there, you are able to go, woo, woo, woo.

Not at high. I just need to do the email, do the email shut up. And you are literally able to say shut up to the voice.

[00:37:50] Boomer: And so the, this is just literally a con another conversation with the diva brain, but outside of the Aine context and because your diva brain has already been tackled. It doesn't really necessarily silence the voice, but it dampens the effect of the voice.

Is that right? 

[00:38:10] Julien: Because you can't, you're not gonna silence it completely because it's not a tool you don't like it for after that, we can talk as to why you control freak. Why you have this doesn't matter. It is part of you that threatens you. Okay. So we know that, but again, threatening does not have to take you to attend.

The key is can we just take it to a six? You don't have to like it. Some people there's some emails you go like, yeah. All day mm-hmm like, it's boring, but I'll do them. And then suddenly there's that specific one. Well, okay, so that one means it's doing something fine. How about a six? How about a seven, but how about not a 10?

And the thing is, if you only have one hour 10, it's very hard for, for you to figure out 5.2. So we start at six. And then from six after that is violence has to, like, this is how I should respond to this one or that one, like for me, it was, uh, very interesting is like, now I can get angry and not crash, so I can be angry at situation that I don't like for work and stuff like that, then really pissed.

And that's it. Mm-hmm, , I'm just angry. Whereas in the back in the past that anger will always need to crash. 

[00:39:17] Boomer: If I crash, this could be just sort of like getting tunnel vision around a subject, for instance, and not being able to focus on anything else for the next day or so. 

[00:39:27] Julien: Right. That that would be more anxiety.

Crash would crash would be full procrastination. Like I don't want do anything. I feel no energy. I'll do it by completing the passive way. Okay. Our vision means which can be great. But if, for example, like you have, you know, six emails to do, but then that one that, that, you know, threatens you and then that's all you do for three days and then leaving everything else on the site.

That's a sign of anxiety. Now you're giving me a 10 where need the six. That email is important, but it's not necessarily that much more important than everything else that you cannot do anything. But that that's a high anxiety response. I'm like, no, give me a six. So that might feel good. That tunnel vision, because you feel like you're tackling your problem, like yes, but you're tackling, you're tackling problem.

Number one out of seven, it's not helping you. It is not a response that fits the environment that surrounds you. Therefore, it's not a good response because at the end we do live that's and that's dichotomy, right? Is we live within ourselves where we also live within the world. When you are response over two or 10, what you're doing is you are letting your.

In a world dictate your reaction to the outside world. And that's not how this works. It's, that's not how the world works. It's prediction versus observation. Everything is a game. It's a amazing inference model. Everything is a game of postages where it's like, this is my world, but this is the other world.

And then we are gonna, there's something there that needs to, to function. So you can't surrender to the outer world either, because then there is no inner world and that's not how this works. Then you just to slave to the system and you don't go anywhere. So where is that balance? That balance is fighting the six, because once we have the six from the center, we can start seeing whenever you need the seven or whatever, you need it for whatever, but that can only be done from the center.

The extremes are not a good place to stop. And so the Q triggering was that was like, I'm gonna give you a six something you don't like, and then we are gonna make you win against it. And if that's too loud, then we lower world. We lower. That's why Q minus won. We find the quit. And then we are gonna stay right below it and then we are gonna make you go at it.

And then you're gonna start winning, winning, winning, winning, winning to the point where you start to gain control over divorce. 

[00:41:46] Boomer: Okay. So, uh, just giving the example of the air dying, for instance, and you start there and you mentioned just in your own situation, sort of the last four minutes you bring in, uh, the task for the day and just sort of see how they feel and how your body responds to that.

How does that then translate into, uh, the, I guess either weights or endurance exercise and how you get kind of look at the other aspects of Q training. 

[00:42:17] Julien: So how does it translate to weight? And that has been the most fascinating path is I I've been training my entire life and I've been lifting weight for the last 30 years.

So I know my reactions really, really well. And for example, I could, I could not do body building for more than three weeks without crashing. Every single time, I would blame it on being so tired, but I, but knowing that there was, there was a fatigue there that was not normal. I was like, I'm tired, but I shouldn't be like, I've done more without being, I exactly, it's a weird form of time and turns out so people I can send you, uh, they were analyzing fatigue, uh, looking at chronic fatigue versus, uh, physical fatigue of exercise, for example.

And their idea was that in something that I, we wish, cause I've been adding for a while, that fatigue is actually a somatic error that is unresolved by the lower of the system. So I know it sounds very complicated. It's an entire podcast on that. That fatigue is actually, so there's a prediction versus observation, uh, system based in brain idea.

Um, but you have lower that are what we call unconscious. Uh, you know, like how fast, your, how needs stuff like that, that is supposed to deal with that somatic error by itself. When it cannot, it's gonna go up one RC every time. Hey, that problem cannot be solved. More highly hierarchy, more evolved RC from an emotional perspective, engages more parts of the brain, more parts of the system.

And every time it goes up RC, and eventually it gets the higher ER, where things are being brought to the conscious mind. And that's what fatigue was. It was a somatic error being brought to the conscious mind so that you pump the hand break and look at the situation and go, we need to fix that because on automated, we cannot.

And so I was like, all right, so there's a not, there's a somatic error that I cannot deal with with body ING. And I'll find out that for me, it was always like to do that extra three, four reps to stuff like that. I was putting myself in flight in too many movements. So what is flight that would depend completely on the person, but for example, it could be that your technique breaks down and you feel like everybody is looking at you at the gym and looking like a fool.

It can be your technique breaks down and you are afraid you're gonna hurt yourself. It can be technique breaks down, but you're doing it. Cause you know, you want the muscles, but you don't feel the muscle actually working, uh, whatever it is that creates that sense of self being threatened will take you to flight.

And that's what I was doing with, uh, body building. And so I was like, all right, so there's a simple way to fix it to my response, which means I'm never gonna touch the fail. Which means whenever I left, whenever I'm worrying about hurting my lower back on the right, which has been something I have since I'm 15, like, okay.

So I don't go there. So I'll stop one rep showing of that whenever I do, um, like it's external talk on the left, that causes me an issue. So I bench external talk. If I cannot do the next rep in external talk, I won't do it right. If I cannot feel the engagement the way I want, I don't do it. That's for me, that might not be for you, but that's for me.

And so what I did is I stayed at minus, uh, so I did two minus one on that set every time. And so normally I, I was doing two sets, but I was like, yeah, but like, that's not. That much more, that much work. So what I did is I started to increase the sets instead. So I replaced with volume where I like with, uh, intensity in the sense of in specific instances, not going past the fail ever, so never being in flight.

And if you look from a performance perspective, if I touch the flight, as we've seen with all my flight, the lactate level shoots up. If I put myself on a 20 million more level, just from doing bicep curls, my session is done. There's nothing of effect. There's nothing of quality that can be done at those levels.

Your brain doesn't work properly. So I would feel exhausted from jumping by lactate level. So high without actually doing. Useful work, which means I will not get better, bigger biceps. So I feel like I exhausted myself cause I did. And yet I have no resource to show for because the stress was not put on the muscle.

It was put on my physiological system, not allowing me to push for example, on the muscle, to where I needs to be pushed. So instead I stay into Q one and then I increase the volume so that I could go at 

[00:46:49] Boomer: the most. So the idea there is okay. Never touching this area. Right. Um, and so you have, uh, just a ceiling, uh, to picture for people and sort of staying right below that ceiling.

Uh, the, so what, because I've had a little experience with Q training, uh, but what happens when? Okay. For instance, uh, does everybody need a lactate monitor in order to really nail this or are there other metrics? And then secondly, um, if you hit Q. And you weren't expecting to hit it. Like, let's say you had a shitty night's sleep.

You wake up and, you know, 10 bicep curls is sort of like your warm up on bench day. And all of a sudden you're like, wow, things aren't going here. Uh, do you just stop? What do you do in those situations? 

[00:47:40] Julien: So if you reach 20 milli, more like you should stop because honestly there's nothing you can do best at you, but you could go do so in December to lower yourself and then start training again.

Right? Because at 20 million more, your body will not respond to training. Mm-hmm the, the, the biggest thing with Q training and what has surprises me the most is you don't necessarily know you hit fail. I had, Nicole told me, like she fell the same way at 10 and then at 23, except at over 20, usually you crash completely.

But, um, most people, whether they're at eight or 18 will not necessarily know the differe. A massive difference, but they don't because it's actually, at first, it's very hard to know the difference between I don't like it and I'm threatened by it. You'd be surprised how many people cannot tell you the difference.

And that's what the lactate levels marry on so much in there is because like, I would never know that my coach, for example, uh, 30 minutes in the sun, which wet that high ever, we would've missed it. There's no question. So you're gonna go like, oh, I know exactly what that feeling is. You know exactly what the feeling is.

I don't like it. Yes, that's true. It's not necessarily true that you know exactly how that flight feels like we are very disconnected from stuff like that because we are being put in, in situations where we have to do things regardless since, uh, early age in school and everything. And I've seen quite a lot of people where let me tell you a story.

I'll explain exactly what I. I had, uh, the coach, he sends me a private client. So we're doing it as be honest. Right. And so I'm starting to look at her like date, uh, measurements. And so we talk about a competition that she had prostate competition when after the workout she's had 20 minute more. And she's like, yeah, I hate when people look at me, like, alright, so more like social anxiety.

That's why drove. Well, I'm like, right. So can we train her alone? We start talking. But then I look at the sheet and I see two other moments where she's over 23 while she's at 19 or stuff like that. And I know a typical workout takes her to a nine or 10. So I come, those two were over 18. What happened there?

And she was like, well, no, there was no one at the gym. It was fine. I'm like, well, that's not fine. Like you way too high. Like, we touch something you don't like, like, but you don't like that. Your unconscious part let's call it that, that your unconscious doesn't like, and I'm like hack come there was push presses in there almost because the first one at the competition, you had to do a ball slam.

And then I see your push with Bel and I see your push with the Bel. And, and then we start talking and I'm like, are you like all traps when you train? And our coach goes like, yeah, yeah, she is. I was like, I'm curious, do your neck hurts? And she goes, ah, when I go over head, I do this. And then I feel it in the spine.

And I'm like, oh, you don't like when your neck hurts. And she was like, oh, I'm tough. Uh, I can handle it. I can. I was like, that's not what I asked. I didn't see if you could endure it. I'm asking you. Don't like, when your neck hurts, do you, and she goes like, and then 20 minutes of talk, she goes like, yeah.

Yeah. I don't like it. That kind of scares me. Cause it's my neck, I'm over 30. And then I feel, and then I'm like, alright, so now we going somewhere, you don't like that. When you go head, your neck hurts, it freaks you out. And she goes, yeah, looking back. So like, all right. So let's see, we take this stand back.

We make to a five by five pushing slightly for like that level is at four, two days later, she doesn't push gel. Like that level is at 70. She was afraid of her neck. If you talk to her, she would tell you that the reason she felt bad, the competition was people looking at her, not her neck, not feeling her neck.

That's almost like an unconscious feel. That is, that is ruining those workouts on her because the second she did three, she was already out of breath. Well, yeah, you in your update levels to and godly amount, it's a lot of energy being spent like being created. A lot of being spent. Your acid level is gonna start to go up because of the ATP to AGP translation, like stuff like that.

Like you already lost the work gap. You haven't even started yet just because you are afraid of doing the, the, the typical movement that will hurt your neck. But I needed the lactate levels to get her to understand that because for her, it was something else. And I see that 

[00:51:55] Boomer: all the time. So in the case, look, this is fantastic.

And I, I am. A big fan of measurement in terms of just bringing general awareness. Right. It just makes, uh, because we spend so much time drowning out our levels of awareness that it's, uh, it's useful to of course have measurement, no matter what it is now in the case of the neck, or I know you mentioned earlier on the bike that like there was some security in the ham or there's hamstrings, like how do you, what's the course correction pattern here?

Or is it like, do they go to the chiropractor for instance, like, I, I, okay. How do we, how do we kind of course correct these 

[00:52:36] Julien: things? So the way we, uh, course correct it, like I'll use her example. And my, uh, hers is simple is right now you can't feel your neck, so we're gonna do the sandbag and you're gonna press for and everything.

So we are gonna have to engage the P. So what we have to do is to teach her to move correctly. Cause the problem is she went overhead with weights, pushing her head for well, loading the traps because she could not load them. The proper pattern with the correct muscles that was coaching. Right. It was just, uh, jumping ahead when you're not ready.

And so her structure is not ready to put weight overhead with the bubble pushing head. So she just doesn't hurt. So the mobility to do so. So I was like, all right, then we're gonna get the P going. We're gonna get the lots going, and we're gonna use the sandbag because you can control the sandbag in the way that you won't feel your neck, but it's not true with the barbell.

So we are gonna get you back to the barbell, but first we are gonna need to build a structure. Like it could be that I need to change your technique or stuff like that. Yeah. We might get there for me is I could tell, like there was a lack, the, the ham is just did not wanna work. I was like, all right. Time to decide who's gonna win.

And so what I've been doing is on squat and they live there is like a shit to of Armstrongs at first isolation work just to make it contract and get the conversation going. And now it's compound movement. But with external talk, uh, on the left, I re result to my, my is on the left. Not doing exactly what I, and so I went at it through the human response and, but that, and that's the beauty of the thing is now I can target my hams because I don't fail.

If I don't fail, I don't dread the hams. And therefore I do more volume. I do more work, I get more connection. I get better skill. And I come back the next session and I do it again. Like how many sessions are we skipped? Because we either forgot or something hurt or whatever, guess what? You just don't want to do it.

And you might have a very good reason not to want to do it, for example, in the case of my client, because your neck hurts and it's not a good feeling. So instead of playing a tough guy, they're like, oh, I'm fine. I can enjoy everything. No, we go like, there's a problem. We fix it. So how do we do it? We gonna challenge it, but not stay away from it because that's a problem as well.

So that's what you do when you skip that session. Oh, I forgot to do Moham today. All that stuff. You're giving me a one, you procrastinate on the work that needs to be done, or you gimme your 10, which means you do, you know, max, max weight on the Sumo, and then yours are shot for two weeks, but then you don't have to, to train them.

Cause you kind of hurt yourself and you could see that in both cases ends up with you not doing the work. You, you are not doing the email. It's the same thing. So the key of key training is that it's like, what do I need to do to allow you to, to gain that confidence, to shut up the voice so that you can do the work where it needs to be done.

It's a lot harder than it sound it's. 

[00:55:29] Boomer: Now that I'm going through this with you, it's far more complex than I was originally investigating and, and what, and it's amazing, of course. And I, I just, so in the case of, for instance, the neck, um, and it kind of boils down to somewhat of biomechanics, right? That they're MIS loading.

And so, uh, assuming that the person has a coach that knows how to identify this, it's really building, it's rebuilding those biomechanics basically in order to, uh, and is most of the problem, just awareness of muscles. Like are people just so shut down in their mind that they don't connect 

[00:56:10] Julien: to the muscles?

Same problem. If you look at any exercise, any performance, anything you can always de Cose it in three levels, you have a new output, the capacity to, you know, create the new energy to push the thing, what they call the nervous system, uh, which is wrong. But you get the idea. It's like the capacity to generate the fight to the movement.

If you're hurting, your system will go, ah, we're not doing that. There's also the skill, right? So the technique of the lift, which Mars obviously cause you using blue leverage and then this muscle capacity are those muscle capable of contracting to the level that I need them to in order to handle that specific weight.

And do you have the muscle level in the first place? We always have muscle. They might be underdeveloped and they might not contract how they enough to get us what we need. And so, uh, we see a lot of it being first to steal work, which means maybe we're using the wrong leverage. So we can we start with that because that's, that would be the simpler way to fix it.

Hopefully many times. It's not that it's just not enough. Then we get to muscle capacity where you might have PS, but they just, they don't have enough. Or they just don't contract the way we need to, for you to be able to press that weight, that weight overhead, not to press overhead, to press that weight overhead, because it's not enough to look at it as my neck doesn't hurt.

When I put my arms up, who cares what Mars is, if your neck hurts at that weight, because that's a fail, fail is not going overhead, where fail is that specific weight at that specific red. So that means, and that manual school let's say the problem is 180 5 over head for seven reps. So you I'm gonna do, we're gonna go 180 5 for six.

We're gonna do sets of that. And then the third set might not be six, might be four reps, but it doesn't matter because I'm gonna keep challenging you right below the ceiling. And I'm gonna keep right below the ceiling, but I I'm gonna keep challenging you because I need to challenge you for you to make progress.

So it's not, let's not go overhead, but it's also understanding like, yeah, we can use 180 5 or 180 5 starts to hurt right away. Then we use 1 75 and then we do seven reps. But if you fail at the severance, I'm gonna put you at the sixth. Weather's failing means maybe failing means on the seventh rep your technique goes to ship, goes to shit.

And that scales you. Then we don't do the seventh rep. Maybe it means that you could do 10 reps, but that web number six, you start to feel the neck. That means we do fibers. It doesn't matter in that sense. Right. And then we just figure shit up on the volume after that. But the key is you cannot do that rep that takes you to the bad place and it can be, oh, I felt something.

I don't like it. All right, but let's not step away from that exercise on the contrary, let's go at that exercise. Let's just not take you to the bad place's that dark came looks skywalk, you know, what do you, whatever you bring with you just don't do the extra two reps. And it's not that you're not capable of doing it.

You're not, don't worry about it. We know you're capable of it. It's all good. We all love each other. It's just that if you do that experi rep and then your technique goes to shit, or it just feels wrong. You've done that when you've got five reps are awesome and then you do the six and 

[00:59:23] Boomer: it feels like shit.

So this is in a sense, removing the ego from it and just really, yeah. Which to be fair, a lot of people are gonna struggle with that now looking at. 

[00:59:35] Julien: Yeah. So do, but then, you know, what do 

[00:59:38] Boomer: another thing. No, no. So, so many of us, uh, grew up with, uh, programming, uh, given to us, right. Or, or at least those that are fortunate enough to have worked with trainers.

And I remember going back to the original, uh, story that we started with, like my west side training splits were you do X number of sets. And usually it was an tremendous amount of sets and higher re or dynamic effort days would be, you know, interesting types of reps and that kind of stuff. Um, and you wanted to hit the numbers on the page.

And so what we're actually proposing here, what you're proposing here is that pay more attention to what's going on in the muscle rather than the numbers on the page. Right? 

[01:00:23] Julien: No matter what, no matter what, but that being said, I can still make you hit those 12 sets on the, on the, on your speed days and everything.

The question is whether you should do that extra rep that you have in mind of doing or not. So the number of sets. We can do it. Like there's a moment where it's just playing too much, but we could discuss what too much is. Like, I'm willing to go into that. The biggest difference that I see me during the set is don't go into the fail during the set.

Like you want to develop mental toughness and you want to do 12 sets, no matter what. Sure. I don't mind that that much, but what I don't want you to do is when he says five reps and you add three and you know, like you're gonna start shifting on the force, but you do it anyway. That's where the back shit happens.

Like if we talk about lifting, remember I think it was even ed Cohen, who was saying like he had entire program where he didn't miss the lift, even, uh, Dave Tate, who side talked about like, don't miss lips. Don't miss, like, remember when he bench on the closed grip, he doesn't even want you to struggle on the bench.

Remember he was saying that he was like, he must, he doesn't want you to lock out to have a hard lockout when he makes you do the closed grip, because that's not the point. So you could see that you could see that's Q training. Technically it's the same thing, except the difference with me is to incorporate that flight mode that seems to come from the sense of self that is not just enough to not fail physically is you cannot fail mentally.

And that is that mental fail has a physiology core impact on you. That is much greater than we understood. I think the medical world has missed the role of lactate completely and its importance in the measurements. 

[01:02:08] Boomer: Okay. So aside from the fact that you should have an affiliate commission on, when I buy my lactate monitor right after this, uh, we want to, uh, if we don't mind passporting this to something like sprinting, for instance, um, so.

What would the breaking point feel like as a, as a sprinter and keep in mind? Like, I'm not a sprinter. I try. Uh, but you know, is I have one more? Yeah, exactly. I I'm asking you because I know you live with one, uh, you know, what is, what does Q minus one look like for a sprinter and, uh, you know, how can we, one is very interest.

[01:02:47] Julien: Yeah, it was, um, so we have raised, so I need to explain a bit, cause that's fascinating that, uh, that got me super excited. So, uh, she's going to our power lifting, but she's still running obviously and stuff like that. And the biggest difference was the, what we call the silence of Q training is once you have shut up that voice is.

It creates something like if we go into sprinting, are you moving yourself or are you moving the world? What do I mean by that? When you hit the ground, are you trying to move yourself off of it or are you pushing it down? Think about the air nine. Are you pushing really hard on the handles and the pedals or are you trying to move yourself faster?

It's not the same. So there's moving yourself and it's moving the world. And the more I could shut off the world, the less she's moving the world, the less she's moving herself, the more she's moving herself. And so when I put her on Q training, she realized how loud the voice was, but the voice had impacts like when she was doing drills, it was about making the drill look good.

Instead of getting the results out of the. Because the voice was so loud, always it would guide her in the, the drills in her workout and everything. And that voice is so loud that it takes so much energy out of you, that it takes the energy away that you're supposed to put in the movement. And at that level, it's, you know, it's the, it's the little thing.

It's that little, uh, extra attention that you can put in the movement that, that timing. Cause at that level, everything is timing. That timing we requires flow requires silence. And so the more I give her silence, the better our timing is. And so now she's doing 15, 20 minute conditioning workouts running that are better than what she was in season at her highest conditioning levels.

Wow. Why? Because it's quiet. This is silence. If nothing, no one is talking. She can just run. And when she can run, she runs within herself. She starts to move herself instead of moving the track. And that had made all the difference in the world. So it's an, any change your technique too, because she doesn't force off the track.

She moves herself. So it's better into, she got into flow and that has had massive changes on her technique, but because of the 

[01:05:07] Boomer: science. And so build this for me a little bit, because obviously she didn't start with, uh, the quietness, like was the identification process, was it similar to you on the Airine or.

How does it, how does that, yeah, 

[01:05:22] Julien: so we did, so yeah, so first time she's on the Aldine and, uh, she can go longer than I can. I do 10 minutes, but her, she can go, uh, longer. So I go on the Aldine and I get there she's minutes, seven, and she's all over the place. She's like this, you know, hands on the waist. So like, and looking like she, and I'm like, what are you doing?

All, put your hands back on the head, breathe, focus, just focus. Be like, don't be all over the place, just focus. And so she starts to go and then we, 55 was a bit too, uh, too fast for her. So we come down 52 and I'm like, all right, so now. Now that we find the number, just stay there and you could tell she wants to go everywhere else, but there, and I'm like, Hey, Hey, stay.

But she's someone who wants to speed up in between sets, who wants to do stuff. She cannot do one thing at a time. So it's more, you anxious stuff. Mm-hmm right. 

[01:06:07] Boomer: Sounds familiar to 

[01:06:08] Julien: me. So, and I'm like, stay with me. No, no. Stay with me. Use, stop pushing like this on the handle with your fingers. Cause she has a, her it's a triceps.

Me, her is triceps. It's like use your triceps, which makes you freak out. And so she wants to go over the place and now we're getting to minute 10 and I'm like, all right, so you getting better. You're getting under control, just do 15. And we, and we are done. And the second I say that she comes down and then at minute 12, she's so relaxed.

Same number 52, same number. She's so relaxed. Like, alright, finish two 13. You're done. And she's like, no, no, no, no. You say 15. Let me go to 15 number, like all, but then she spend the next two and a half minutes like this. With nothing, zero, like spending zero in and, well, she still had 52, same thing. She was five minutes ago dime.

And so then she gets out of the Airine and she goes, wait, so when I'm at tracking this and this and this it's the same thing, right? I was like, yes, exactly. She was like, oh, I get it. She started to realize how much energy she was spending, where there was no need. It would not make you run any faster. It doesn't do anything, but just having a very loud voice.

And that's when you realize we all do it to a degree where we all wanna train hub. So we finish the session wasted. Did you finish the session wasted because you physically wasted yourself or because you wasted your sense of self, which has very dark, which is a very dark. She did that a lot of time.

Well, in her mind, she had to push the hardest possible in order to have a Goodwin session. Cause she's so driven, but she took that drive to I'm gonna destroy my sense of self instead of I'm gonna get good at sprinting. And so you could see how that would get in the way. And so the key was to start with quieting down the voice.

So I put her on the Airine all the time. And at first, like it's the same story after minute four, she's like this. And I'm like, no, put your on proper grip, find a tricep. And she's like, okay. Okay. And then she start to focus. She wants to get off every time she wants to give me a one. I'm like, no, go faster.

Use your tricep. Just don't crash. Don't freak out. And so it starts like, um, it seems to me like the best analogy I could make is that. A lot of us, we want, for example, to solve issues when we talk where your mind is at a seven, right? Important issues like an email or whatever, but your body cannot understand what you're saying.

Cause you are seeing is not called, not warm. There's nothing around your welfare. Your body is at a one's sitting, it's chill and your mind is at seven. And there's a lack of communication between the two. That means that your system is not working well. So what I do is are dying is I allow your body to be at the same level that your mind is at, so that they can finally talk so that when you think about your problem, you feel it physically as much as you feel it mentally.

Now there is no somatic error and now we can move forward. Wow. 

[01:09:20] Boomer: Wow. There's a, there's a lot to unpack here, Julian. it's just, yeah, it it's fascinating. And I love, uh, love where you're taking this and like a, the results. 

[01:09:31] Julien: The results have been crazy, crazy. Like Nicole is sending me star, like it's, it's more than I ever thought.

I would like, it's crazy on myself too, by the way, the voice now that the voice is quiet, my training sessions are insanely. Uh I'm so, so by the way, the future training does not stop you from sauna. 

[01:09:48] Boomer: The, the volumes absolutely absurd to be fair. Like I just, I, I total it up every day and I'm like, wow, this is a lot of weight.

Uh, and, 

[01:09:58] Julien: and I don't even do isolation work. It's only compound movements now. It's insane. That's why I'm, I'm putting it on Instagram. So people to go like, yeah, I'm doing it. But, uh, I leave and mentally I'm fine. So as long as I'm fine, mentally, then I can go back to next day, go like, yeah, do this again.

Like physically I'm paying the price, don't get me wrong. But the results like, but it's is the, the, the results, like on the side is the, the not freaking out. The, not like being angry and not crashing. It's the, it's the silence outside of the gym also that I. It's working so well, it's crazy on my, with my one on ones.

I I've seen stuff. Like I had a guy, I had a plan with IPO, uh, because same thing in Betty was either on one or 10. So how you gonna make that work? If it's a one, then nothing happens. Right. And so we, we, we work that through with the Q training because suddenly knows where a six is like. Right, right. So you find the same pattern every time is you cannot give me a six.

So if you look in your stuff or you can't give me a six, that's the fail. All right. Let's do that. Let's give you the skill of a six exactly. In that thing. And once you do that, then the voice gets quiet and you go, oh, why could I do that in a first place? I think this, we, I think it's supposed to be silence.

Mm-hmm I think that's the problem. I don't think I'm fixing anything. I think I'm just bringing silence what it's supposed to be silent. Yeah. It's not supposed to 

[01:11:26] Boomer: be shy. So if somebody were to listen to this and say like, Hey, I I'm interested. Um, and they have like particular is the sort of first step to identify those particular behavior patterns that will not be helpful to them.

Uh, so for instance, with me, there's situations where I'm dealing with third parties and they'll say something, do something, not do something. And it will sync me, uh, almost sync me. Like I'll just get very tunnel visioned on it to the point where the other 20 priorities are kind of forgotten about, uh, is that the, the first step in the process to identify those things that you want?

[01:12:04] Julien: Or if, if, um, if I could, so let's say I take you on, right. So first what we do is, uh, we get a like tester and we. At those meanings and you give me like testing after each of those meetings, some will be lower than your thoughts. And then there'll be a few where we go, Ooh, that's the one. Then what we're gonna do is we are gonna find the form of cardio that you hate the most.

For me, the mm-hmm and gonna find that number where you're like, alright, shit is real. Right. And then I'm gonna keep you there because I know by minute five, you're gonna start to have the problems of not being able to maintain by crashing or getting so vision. You're like, yeah, but you're like, I can do 65 and I'll know from your behavior that you're starting to get that objective driven stuff that takes you too far.

And I'm like, no, I didn't say 15 minutes. I didn't say 66. I say 60 at 10. You'd be like, yeah, but it's not enough. I'm like, I know 60 at 10 don't gimme a 10, give a six. Oh, okay. And then suddenly you you'll find that middle gear that you like into the tunnel vision. so the key will be that is to find the stuff that wants to drive you to route that high gear and to keep you at the mineral gear and make you realize that it's not that bad.

And most likely you don't need the high gear. You can do the same amount of work at a much lower gear, which is performance mm-hmm . That's beautiful. So that's how I do it. And so that's why that, that morning ritual, which I don't count as a training session. So that's why on the topic. I just talk about it, but I don't put it is, cause I don't see it as a training session.

I see it as just setting up my day. And so 

[01:13:42] Boomer: all the difference in the, and so for somebody who, so Aine is an example, but like, let's say you just have a, so I have a car bike right behind me. It's just like a resistance bike. I could use the same thing and just sort of adjust the resistance accordingly. In order to get to that middle gear, if you will, um, 

[01:14:04] Julien: that test, right.

It would work well. So we, we find a number where you go, I can do that, but not like the ego of it. Like what truly can you do for me 10 minutes? I'm like, yeah, I can do 10 minutes. Cause nine minutes, some slots, 10 minutes is double digit. I like it. And I'm like, I can 10 minutes. Like I can come on. It's not the end of the world, like all 10 minutes.

And then I'm like, what is the speed? Where it means business, but not, it's not a training session. It's just, it means business. I'm gonna be out of breath. That, that very specific. I don't wanna hear my pounding cuz if my heart is pounding, then I'm too far. It makes me want to quit by the way. So I know at one 60 I'm too high.

So I was doing the star master the, of the day. Cause I was curious and one 40, how great was great. 

[01:14:47] Boomer: So it's slightly above zone two, essentially. It's sort of in that zone two zone three 

[01:14:52] Julien: area. On the star, there was one 40 I would've to test to see if that's the same on the, on the airline. So that's some testing we could do is to see, I know exactly what it feels like, but does that mean a specific heart rate or not?

I don't know yet. I haven't tested that though, but I know the feeling and I know the stem was one 40 heart hardware was exactly the feeling I've, I've done that on the elliptical. End of it was higher. I could go to 1 55, but once I get to one 60, uh, my hardware started, my heart started pounding in my chest and I didn't like 

[01:15:26] Boomer: it.

And then, uh, I'm just wondering if this is an impact thing would running make it like if it's lower. 

[01:15:32] Julien: Okay. Maybe there's something to be said. And the, the, the, the stair master, my caps were burning. So there's something there as well, where like you want to feel, but not too much on the electrical, there's almost no feeling of muscle, which was there is on the airline.

And there definitely is on the stem master for my caps. So there was, there seems to be a number of things there. Well that when you put all that sensitive, uh, like sensory input gets, there's a, a moment past that where it's just too much. So we stay right below that, but there there's a, an accumulation of, of a sensory input there.

That seems to be the key. 

[01:16:09] Boomer: All right, Julian. So just to kind of summarize a few key points for people first, if they wanna do this, uh, it's probably best to find a coach. Who's very familiar with the key training, because you do need somebody that's gonna pay attention to what you're doing, what you're not engaging, et cetera.

Um, lactate monitoring sounds absolutely essential. And then, and then, uh, you know, really just starting to engage in the awareness of your muscles in order to figure out what's not turning on or what are you refusing to go to. 

[01:16:45] Julien: Right. And even before that, what is your fail? Right. So that's gonna be the key at first is do you, um, like I've seen, for example, there's three types of anxiety.

When you look at the anxiety SENSIT sensitivity index, you have three types, you have physical symptoms, you have cognition and you have social symptoms, right? I've seen that the physical and the social, the cognitions are usually linked. So what do that mean from a training perspective is most of the time you are afraid that technique breaking down or whatever that movement is, will result in catastrophic injuries.

That might be a scenario that you're overplaying in your mind, but it doesn't matter. It's your. And so there's a specific movement when you do, when you feel your shoulder terms, you know, like your neck is gonna cry the next day or oh yeah. But back and that one basically explodes in your mind. Right? We cannot go there.

So the key at first is that is what, what is that place where we cannot go, we need to define where it is. And then once we define it, we build so that you never go there. And once we can stay within that fight and not flight, then I can do whatever I want with your training. Like, it doesn't matter. I'll just add sets.

And because you're not failing your capacity just went up because all our energy that you were spending crushing your sense of self, I can use it to crush your body instead. Mm-hmm so you can do so much more. That's the only reason I can do the volume I'm doing right now is because mentally doesn't touch me at all.

Physically Jesus 

[01:18:12] Boomer: Christ, Jillian. This is amazing. Uh, okay. So last time you got away with, because Richard was also in the room, not answering my sort of random questions, uh, but I need to. Kind of pick your brain here a little bit. Um, and maybe you actually did answer one of them. Uh, but what kind of role have, and maybe you can kind of go through some of your mentors, but what role have mentors played in your life?

[01:18:39] Julien: There, there, I always refer to niche as the first one. Mm-hmm because it was, uh, you know, beyond good and evil, moral. And of course those spikes, it was just, first of all, it was the genius of the men and everything in his capacity to books in, in a sentence. But, um, it came moment in my life where things were dark.

I was about 18, uh, like long history of by, uh, by childhood, by family, but it was also a, he talked about the secret gardens in this. Gene or moral. I think, I can't remember which one, but he talked about the, the secret gardens where he talked about philosophy just as a way to develop his inner world. And that's cold.

I mean that, and many other things struck or chord in the sense of what he allow me to understand is that I need to spend time to develop the inner world that the focus was not just the other world. Like I was told, you know, go to school, go get a job or stuff like, yeah. But there is a greater, uh, there greater riches to find inside first.

And if you can build that, then eventually the world will just follow. But that I needed to, to, to take my intelligence and make it into something, shape it into something and not, and because the, that idea that just having a job or a career, like, I'm sure we all went through that, but it was just not enough.

Mm-hmm I was like, I don't get it. Like, this is not. The goal of life. I mean, if it is shit and I'm, I'm out, I'm in trouble, you know what I mean? Cause I felt it. I was like, there's no way that life that they're telling me is the normal life. There's like, it sounds so empty to me. And I was like, I need more.

And that's what niche provided. It provided an entry to the secret governance, but not just all that stuff that I felt he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a way to build that to, to make it greater and, and better on everything. So there was the entire idea for me there that was at the time, save me literally, like it was the most important 

[01:20:48] Boomer: thing.

And do you, do you point people in terms of nature, do you point people to beyond good and evil thus spoke stra? Which one? Where 

[01:20:55] Julien: would you start with? Um, geneology of morals. Okay. I think okay. Beyond good and evil. I would go. And is, is a great, great one. Those bags are to Australia is, is almost poetic.

Yeah. He wrote it right before he died. And it's, uh, that's what really the book that touched me the most by, by far. But I, I think if he doesn't speak to you directly within the two first two paragraphs, um, then just go to beyond good and evil and see the CIA predicted the state of the Western civilization that it is.

Now, if you're gonna take anything out of it, go into geology or morals and stuff like that and see how is so exactly where we are right now and, and his viewer on existentialism, which is which I think we need a large dose off right now. I think we need the, the exam specialist to come back, honestly, uh, in Western civilization.

So that, that was a very important, uh, mentor after that, honestly, the Greeks. Where, eh, I read that extensively, like Socrates, you don't even need to agree or not, but, uh, cause plate is issued as well. But the, there was the, the fundamentals of logic was so important. Mm-hmm right. Of logical thinking is that tune needs to come back is, is so important.

Right? As a, if you wanted anything and I'm not talking science, like getting a PhD, I'm talking about just having the co way of looking at a problem. Cause that's what science is. It's a mindset. It's not a thing. Uh, the Greeks still developed that the first and we are still, they gave us the base for Western civilization from that.

So it went from the Greek fellow. So first the first degree mythology, I, I was such a student of all of that because it was a way of looking at the world. I was very specific to a need to make things work correctly. Right. So if you look that those were my mentors, really the people I'm like, all right, how do I do this?

Because at the end you need that. So it was niche. Like how do I build insight? And then after that, I was like, how do I build outside? So logical thinking is necessary. And then all my list of mentors really is the, the people that allow me to go to the next stage going, like, how do I build that one? The last one being called first, obviously.

So I was like, oh, that's how the system works. I get it. Then I can do this and I can do that. And then, so it was, it was always that at some point you need to figure out the stuff and make it work. So it's great to have functional segregation where people study things in, you know, in super small bubbles, but at some point you need to make the stuff work for people.

Like they have to be able to take your stuff and make it work. I'm guilty of being conceptual all the time, but I still try to put example out there so that people can try to see if they understand the concept and putting it into practice for themselves. And the Q training is really that if you look is like, it's all that work.

There has 40 plus years of my life that I'm putting it into a system going, look, if we do it like this, those are the results that I saw with my own people. We can do this. It just has to be applied a certain way. So they, those have always been my mentors, the people aware, obviously they're all geniuses.

Uh, but I had that helped main kind as they went. Mm-hmm final, 

[01:24:22] Boomer: final question here. Why or what got you interested in mental health? Because you take a very, uh, different path from many people in this field. What brought you into the interest of mental health and maybe it was NIET and all these 

[01:24:38] Julien: guys, but no, I saw it firsthand.

I saw, I saw the greatest mind that I've ever met my brother WASD away. Like he died when he was 40 suicide, but it took, it took, it took 40 years to die. Really? Like he had a. Uh, very difficult childhood wast mine. His mother was actually wast. Mine was my half brother. And, um, as I grew up, I saw the greatest mind that till this day I've ever met doing nothing with it being wasted away and gradually just, uh, and the last five years of his life being so crazy that it didn't even make sense anymore.

And I mean, but like he was really such a sharp mind and to see the dissent into health, drugs, all that stuff of such a great potential. Imagine what the world lost by not having him. Imagine if NCHE had the same model on my brother did. Uh, and I'm not developed himself to be who he was, the loss would've lost the world.

Would've lost so much. Right. And that's always what motivated me is like, how many of them did we lose? We lost my brother, but how many did we lose? How many ISAC Newtons there, bench time niche. How many of those did we lose just by letting them with their way? And never like, we've probably lost so many.

Yeah. 

[01:26:01] Boomer: And are in the process of probably losing a lot of people too 

[01:26:05] Julien: right now, especially right. And that stuff it's, it's stuff like that where I'm like, there has to be a way there, there is no way that an intelligence that strong cannot be, even if we, from a selfish perspective cannot be used for the greater or good there has like, there's no way, like you cannot be that smart, that sharp and not find a way to be maybe not happy, but cuz that might not be the role of life, but purposeful, like, you know, waking up in the morning, like driven to do something good for.

Mankind. Like there is no way we cannot find that there is no way there, there has to be a way. So, and I, I refuse to believe that anxiety and depression of diseases, like no, why would nature create diseases like that? That has no reason there has to be a function nature. Doesn't do anything without function.

There's no need to create what you create anxiety just to torture us. Is that like, to me, that's ego, that's ego in the Western world who thinks that because the soul is divine, therefore anxieties that the work of the devil or a way an egotistic way of looking at the purpose of the soul, know what I mean?

Whereas it has a function. We just don't understand it. Well, we're still suffering from thousand years of the Catholic church in a way, I think in a way we look at. The way the system is. And I think that's what standard doors is opening is that functioning integration that he talks. About's like he target with body recognition.

It's like, there is no brain without a body. We have to stop splitting the two. It doesn't work like that. The brain cannot sample a universe without a body. So that alone is the most for world. The most revolutionary thought the medical world has had probably ever that the brain cannot sample the body, the, the world without a body.

That alone takes you so far into that. And so for me, when I saw that, I was like, then there is no way there is like, then as a, as a human being, as a species, we have the, we have the duty to save those people. Like how many are we lost? And so that since I'm kid, since I'm like eight years old, seeing that I was like, there, there has to be a way to do this better.

What is this society that grinds people like that into that state? Why? And so I was like, I'll, I'll figure it out. Maybe not, but I need to understand, I need to understand why, what do you do? What 

[01:28:48] Boomer: Julian? I, I just wanna acknowledge you. Look at you've made training fun for me again, and you've also like you Richard ed, the crew have been, uh, very, very instrumental in how I've both approached my training, but also bringing that mental work into training.

So thank you for everything that you do now, where can everybody find. 

[01:29:15] Julien: On Instagram at strong fit one, or Julian do go on strong fit.com and then you can email me or go to the, go to the website and then you'll get all the info there 

[01:29:25] Boomer: and you have a community 

[01:29:29] Julien: right's yeah, I'm on my networks. Cause I try to get away from Facebook.

Thator is problem problem. So I ended up going on a platform called multi networks and on there you can finance other strong fit multiverse, which allowed me to put all my content in one place. So that was actually really cool. And I'm I'm nerd and a geek. So I could do everything. Dragon ball Z and stuff.

[01:29:51] Boomer: Very cool. All right, so we're gonna close out here for today, but uh, Mr. Pinnell, I do miss having you here in Amsterdam. It's. It was much easier to just walk over to your house and now I may have to fly to Rio. So I look forward to the day when that happens. 

[01:30:09] Julien: Exactly. It's a good place. 

[01:30:11] Boomer: Thank you for taking the time today.

[01:30:14] Julien: Pleasure. 

[01:30:16] Boomer: The show notes for this one. Again are decoded superhuman.com/strong fit two, as in the number two, if you enjoyed this podcast, head on over to apple podcast and leave a five star review, every one of those reviews just brings, oh, such a sweet smile to my face. If you're on YouTube, click subscribe.

And if you want access to the show notes, advanced notice of guests, as well as the ability to ask questions to these guests, head on over to the coding, superhuman.com and join the email list. Finally, this show does not provide any sort of medical advice. I'm not a doctor. I don't pretend to be a doctor.

And if you want a physician or medical advice, it's probably best you go speak to a doctor. This is really just sharing information and I hope you enjoy the sharing of that information. Thank you so much for your attention and have an absolutely excellent day.