ERIC HINMAN - Cold Exposure, Sauna, Ultra Fitness And Longevity - With 5x Ironman Triathlete,

7:29AM Feb 10, 2023

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Eric Hinman

Keywords:

sauna

infrared sauna

day

lifts

minutes

ironman

workout

generally

recovery

people

traditional

training

mental clarity

max heart rate

sleep

eric

cold

boost

moved

anaerobic

there's a direct correlation between muscle mass and longevity and healthspan and a direct correlation between co2 Max and lifespan and healthspan. So I think those are the things that you want to focus on

Hi, Friends, this is going to be a super fun episode today. Literally. Eric, my guest is such high energy. I loved this interview. We had so much fun recording it together. Eric is a five times Ironman triathlete, and he is ultra ultra fit. If you're not following Eric on on Instagram, go and check out Eric Hinman. Because his videos are insane. He inspires me every single day. Eric is massively into training, CrossFit, sauna cold therapy, but he just has this really infectious energy and mindset to go with it. And we talk about how sociable things like sauna can be and jumping in the cold and how it lifts your mood. So if you want something upbeat today, then you are definitely in the right place. And you'll also learn a tonne about biohacking alongside so without further delay. Let me introduce you now to the lovely Eric Inman. ARX amazing to be back together again. I think it was like what, four or five months ago that we did the Instagram live all about lumen time. Just go so fast. Happy New Year. First of all, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Angela. Yeah, it was back in October. That was back before we had snow in Colorado.

Yes, indeed. And I was just saying offline a moment ago, just how inspired by your posts. I was thinking like, you just looked so fit back in the summer, and you still do now and I watch you going outside, with very little clothing on and still doing it. And I'm really excited to dive into everything you do. Because you lift a phenomenal amount you are super fit. And I'm guessing that a huge part of that is your recovery protocol. I'm sure everyone looks at it and thinks, wow, how does he do this? But a massive part is to train hard, you've got to recover harder, right? And I'm just curious as to your, your views and your strategies on that.

Yeah, so I mean, first and foremost, sleep is the number one recovery tool. So if you can set yourself up for deep sleep every night, you know, that is the ultimate recovery tool that we all have access to without having to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a lot of the other tools that we all use use. And you know, exercise, nutrition, getting morning light, a lot of these things are going to help with that circadian rhythm and help you get that deep sleep. So I think that's the first thing to look at. But yeah, I'm 42 years old. My background is Ironman Triathlon, I competed at a high level from 2010 until 2015. And during that time period, I definitely racked up a lot of aches and pains from the high volume of running. And when I moved to Colorado in 2017, I found this facility called Denver sports recovery. They had an infrared sauna, a hot tub and a cold plunge. And for two years straight, I went there every single night at 6pm spent about two hours there, I would sit in the infrared sauna for 50 to 60 minutes. And then I would do three to four rounds of five minutes in a cold plunge around 50 degrees and five minutes in a hot tub. Contrast therapy. And after a two year period, all of those aches and pains from the Ironman years just they went away. And I also realised the benefits were far more than just the physical component of it. The stress resilience, the unlimited energy I had the mental clarity I had the emotional well being I had from doing that contrast therapy ultimately, is why I continued to do it today. It's much more for the mental and emotional benefits of you know, we all have these massive to do lists. And you know, we live in a state where there's just constant notifications and constant things that you can do. And, you know, I think many of us just our nervous system is inundated. And the hot and cold contrast therapy for me just really regulates my nervous system. And so, you know, I never feel stressed out. Whereas if I miss a few days, you know, I start to feel stressed out with all of my to dues and just life in general. So that's why I've continued to do it beyond just the physical benefits of of it. And now my typical routine is sitting in a sauna and about 200 degrees for 20 minutes and then getting into an ice barrel at about 40 degrees for five minutes. And I'll do two to three rounds of that every single night.

Every single night interesting and it's interesting what you say there about the stress so you found that that really helps you reduce stress does it

100% Yes. You know it's also boosting your serotonin levels when you do it. So that's that you know, feel good moment that you have afterwards. reds. And yeah, there's something to the cold specifically, that really just de stresses and D clutters your minds. I could be having the worst day ever, and I jump in a cold stream for two or three minutes or I roll in the snow for a few minutes. And afterwards, I just feel like the weight of the world is off my shoulders. It's a very unique feeling specific to cold exposure. So ultimately, that's why I enjoy doing it so much now, and the sauna, there's just, there's such a cool community behind sauna and the conversations that you have in the sauna are so deep and the relationships I'm able to form with people are so deep. And whenever someone reaches out to me, you know, asking if they can meet up, I invite them to come over to the house and sauna. That is my meeting place. That's where I enjoy having deep conversations with people. So you know, the sauna obviously, there's many physical benefits. But for me the sauna is the relationships, I develop the conversations I get to have with people, and a place where I can entertain and give people you know, that same feeling that I get with them not having to have any skill to do it like exercise or mountain biking, those are things I enjoy as well. But you need a certain level of skill before you start having fun or getting that endorphin rush after doing those things. Whereas the sauna and cold, you know, just a little mental grit. And all you have to do is say yes, it's something that anyone can do, and reap the tremendous benefits from it.

I love that. What made you choose to do that as a process in the evening as opposed to the morning? Well, it

just fit with my schedule. And I like training a lot throughout the day, I generally do at least two training sessions every day, yes, strength training session in the morning. And then some kind of outdoor aerobic so to cardio in the early afternoon. So it's just one it fit with my schedule, I'm very much a creature of habit. And I also like doing it with others. And I found that you know, our typical thing is come to the house from four to six, the song is going to be cranking the water is going to be cold. And that's typically when people here in Colorado are, you know, most free and able to come over and do it. So, you know it started with like this works with my schedule, but has really turned into this works with a lot of other people's schedules to

mazing. I'm coming out to Colorado actually in November for a biohacking retreat. Involved in Yeah, and speaking I'm really excited. I've never been to Colorado, really excited, beautiful place. They look stunning. And as I say, when I see your videos in your annual photos, let's talk about the training in just a moment. Because I think that's really interesting what you do there as well and how you organise your training. And I'd love to hear about your morning routine in a minute. You're very busy guy you fit a lot in with the sauna. Do you always just want to stick with that for a minute? Because I know it'd be an interesting topic for a lot of listeners. Do you always stick to a traditional hot sauna? Or do you use infrared sauna as well.

I use both. And it's changed over time, just what I have access to. I enjoy the traditional sauna more just because it gets a lot hotter. We have a sixth person, you can squeeze eight people in there. So going back to the community aspect of it, the traditional sauna that we have is much larger than our infrared sauna. So you know we can do larger community events in the traditional sauna. And the traditional sauna lends itself well to contrast therapy, because it is much hotter than any infrared sauna would get so that you can go back and forth between the hot and cold for several rounds. And you know completely heat up your core body temperature to the point where you're excited to get into cold water. Whereas the infrared sauna it it would take a while to reheat your core temperature to get excited to go back into the cold multiple times. And also with six or eight people going in and out. The traditional sauna stays very hot. Whereas all of those core body temperatures that are much cooler than a sauna and also much much cooler coming from the cold water, it's going to cool down an infrared sauna quite a bit. So for those reasons, that's why I typically use the traditional you know, there are some additional benefits with the light therapy coming from infrared sauna. But for me, I like the cardiovascular benefits of just really increasing my core body temperature in the traditional sauna, the heat shock proteins the boost and growth hormone that you get from the extreme heat. So for me, you know those physical benefits that you're getting from the traditional sauna seem to happen much faster than they would in an infrared sauna just because it's not quite as hot. When I travel though I got infrared saunas.

When you travel sorry you use infrared.

I do Just because it seems like they're more accessible than traditional sauna. So, you know, I don't not like it, I think you still get tremendous benefits from an infrared sauna. But if I have the choice between the two, I would do a traditional sauna more often.

It's interesting isn't because I have an infrared sauna here at home. And I love it. But as you say, it doesn't get hot enough. And but actually here in Europe is easier to access traditional saunas. So if you go to a health club or hotels, generally it's going to be traditional saunas. And, like you, what I noticed is when I go in the traditional sauna, I just get that mood boost so quickly, it just feels amazing. And you're much more ready to take on the cold as well. Right? Because you have heated up so much.

Yeah, yeah, so true. And I think, you know, we're all our own scientists, you know, a lot of people ask me about, you know, hey, what studies have been done on this, and I'll share what I know. But ultimately, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, like, if it feels good doing something, then it's probably good for you. You're your own scientists, just like if you eat something that doesn't agree with you, then it's probably not good for you, even if it might be good for someone else. So, you know, I think we need to all focus on that barometer of, Wow, I have this incredible mood boost after doing it. I know that there is some science behind it, showing that it's positively benefiting me. It's not like doing drugs where sure you might feel good in the moment, but it's not good for you, and you're probably not going to feel good afterwards. So I mean, that's my barometer for a lot of these things is, you know, is there a feeling associated with them? And if there is that hey, it's working well for me.

Yeah, for sure. If you're listening to this podcast, you're most likely interested in nutrition, fitness hormones, mindset, spirituality and biohacking for women. And it can be hard to get access to all of the information you want in one place. You can literally save hours of research in my membership, the fair mobile hacker collective. We've done all of the research for you and every week I go live with an in depth masterclass q&a Call or our loved monthly challenges to help you create your transformation. And when you join the collective you'll also unlock a whole bunch of masterclasses and biohacking toolkits, including some of our members favourites on metabolic flexibility, gut health, stress and resiliency, and stepping into your most empowered future self. To find out more, go to Angela foster.me, forward slash biohacker, or click the link below. That's Angela foster.me, forward slash biohacker. Or just click the link below. And I'll see you on the inside. So on the training, let's have a look at that because obviously very successful Ironman triathlete, and you really kind of like honed your training, you're extremely efficient with it in terms of what you do as well. You mentioned there that you do strength training, and obviously not competing now. But you do strength training in the morning, I think and then you do some zone two in the afternoon. Is that tell me about the strength training? Are you you look like you're lifting very heavy weights? To me. It looks no rep. heavy resistance. What have you found like because you're in incredible shape. I think many male listeners will be thinking how can they achieve that? Can you talk a bit more about your strength training fast?

Sure. So the strength training component I loosely follow Matt Frazier's programming, Matt Fraser, is, I think five or six time CrossFit Games champion, one of the best CrossFit athletes to ever compete in the sport. And his programming is percentage based. So figuring out your one rep maxes, and then, you know, you're you're building throughout cycles to gain strength from complex lifts. So, you know, typically a day would be a squatting day, another day would be a pressing day, another day would be a pulling day. And, you know, every single week, squatting at least twice a week deadlifting at least once a week, doing some kind of pressing movement, either bench or overhead pressing twice a week. And there's also a lot of anaerobic conditioning built into that too. So that could be CrossFit met cons that could be intervals on a fan bike intervals on a rower, a skier running intervals, but something that spikes your heart rate, and then you recover long enough to be able to spike your heart rate again, so boosting your lactate threshold. And then at the end, there's accessory lifts. So, you know, typical bodybuilding type movements that will strengthen the smaller tendons and ligaments. So I do that for about 90 minutes, five days a week in a gym. And that is the probably the hardest thing I'll do every day and that's why I prioritise it to be my first workout and the first thing I accomplish each day around 830 And then the zone two for me, especially coming from the endurance background that's so much easier mentally and physically for me to tackle going out for, you know, a mountain bike ride or road bike ride. I just got a fat tire bike that I've been riding in the snow which is really fun, trail running and rocking Again, I vary that zone to cardio quite a bit. But it's generally 60 to 90 minutes in the afternoon. And, you know, I very rarely go over 90 minutes, just like I've very rarely, like completely redlining in a workout with the things I do, even though it looks like I'm going really hard. It's very rare that I'm going at like a competition pace. And the reason for those things are, I'm doing this so much more now for just feeling good and longevity and health span than I am to compete at a high level. And I figured out the formula that works for me, the amount of volume I can put in each day, and then back it up again, the next day, and just feel good day in and day out where, you know, in the past, especially with Ironman, you know, there's some days where you're training seven, eight hours a day, and obviously, you don't feel great the next day after training at that high of a value. And same with competing in an Ironman or doing a CrossFit competition or a high rocks competition, you know, you go at such a high intensity or such a long duration, that the serotonin boost that you're going to get from that you're going to have a dip well below baseline afterwards. So you know, I think of a lot of these things is what can I do on a regular basis such that it doesn't affect my next day, I get that, you know, that high that mental clarity, that positive energy from the workout, but it's not affecting my ability to replicate it again the next day. You know, that's a lot of training, obviously, my lifestyle, my business, everything is built around it, you know, it's not necessary to do that much to be set. And my advice to someone who is just trying to be fit and feel good is lifting heavy weights three to five times per week doing those complex lifts, like squatting deadlifting, pressing movements. And then, you know, maybe two days a week doing some form of zone to cardio, and two to three days per week doing some form of anaerobic conditioning, that's going to boost your VO two, Max. You know, the studies I've seen there's a direct correlation between muscle mass and longevity and health span, and a direct correlation between co2 Max and lifespan and health span. So I think those are the things that you want to focus on, to do just be healthy and live a good life and feel good.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's very similar, actually, to what I do. And it's really interesting, isn't it. So I think people assume that to have a really strong via to max, they've got to do loads and loads of endurance cardio, but I'm the same as you I lift five days a week, and then I do some zone to probably largely because I've got dogs. So I'm out, you know, walking them a lot doing that zone two cardio, and with three kids, I'm moving around a lot. And then I'll pepper in, I tend to do it around the menstrual cycle just because for women, I think it's different, some of that anaerobic training, but really not that much. And I just have my vo two tested at the weekend. And it was excellent for my age. And I think people think they've got to do so much more to get in there. But really, it's about doing the right things. I'm curious with your resistance training there what you described, then, so you're left to heavy compound lifts, then you'll move into anaerobic and then you'll do your accessory list really? Or do you go between the compounds? That kind of sprint intervals back to the compound list? How do you organise that?

Yeah, no, it's typically about a 15 minute warm up, warming up the movement patterns for whatever that day's lifts are going to be. So it's a squatting day, I'm going to be doing a lot of things to open up my hips and prepare my hamstrings and quads for squatting. And then also get my heart rate up a little bit I generally of doing you know a little bit work on one of the machines, whether it's rowing, biking, scared to prepare your nervous system for the lifting. And then it's usually four or five warmup sets for the lift, and then you know, getting into the meat and potatoes of the lifting, you know, and that can range from three to eight sets, depending on how high of a percentage I'm going to that day. So the strength training component is usually about 30 minutes. And then after that is the anaerobic conditioning. And I found that by lifting heavy first, it really prepares my nervous system to take on the stress of across that Metcon or some kind of high intensity interval training. And then after the the interval training, that's generally when I would do the accessory lifts, maybe some gymnastics, time under tension type stuff. And yeah, that format has worked really well for me where you know, knock on wood in the last five or six years I've had zero injuries training like that.

Amazing. And when you're doing the kind of like conditioning stuff or the high intensity work, are you sticking to short intervals are you like sprint interval there where you're going really all out? Kind of Max or supramaximal training at sort of 15 to 20 seconds no more or are you doing intervals that kind of like 60 seconds,

some are longer I mean, you know, across fit Metcon could be anywhere from three to 20 minutes. And then the interval training generally is going to be around the same 15 to 20 minutes. But just like what you said, it's going very hard for 20 seconds to one minute, and then generally recovering at least the amount of work time, sometimes more, you know, if it's, if it's a 32nd interval, you know, sometimes I'm resting up to 90 seconds to be able to back that same effort up again, on like an assault bike or a fan bike. And CrossFit met cons, you know, that would be the longer duration, the lower percentage of my max heart rate, I'm going out, it's a three minute workout, then, yeah, pretty close to max heart rate for that entire three minutes. Whereas a 20 minute workout, you know, it might be 85 to 90% of max heart rate, but those are solid like intervals. Yeah, the goal is in 30 seconds to get to your max heart rate, and then recover long enough so that you can back that effort up five to 10 times.

And imagine your mitochondria, looking in pretty good shape, because this this type of training has been shown to enhance mitochondrial heart fastener. So imagine you're pretty high on energy.

Very high on energy. Yeah, I mean, prior to this has been a 14 year journey for me of to the place where I am now, 14 years ago is when I did my first triathlon. And prior to that, you know, I thought it was normal to have a wall in the afternoon where, you know, you needed to take a nap. And I thought it was normal, you know, not to always have incredible mental clarity and cognitive ability. And I thought it was normal to not get a good night sleeps every night. And, you know, this, this journey that I've been on made me realise that we all have this superhuman, within us, you just have to, you know, build day around self, build your day around self care protocols that allow you to be the best version of yourself. And, you know, each year I've picked something new to tackle, whether it's sleep or nutrition, or purposeful training or recovery. And, you know, just make that a habit. And year after year of habit stacking is ultimately what gets you to a place of, Wow, I feel damn good day in and day out. And I know what to do every day to feel that way.

I'm so glad you said that. Because I think so many people watch on the outside and they see someone at a certain point. And I think I want to replicate that. But it is, as you say it is those habits, right. It's one brick at a time, and it's stacking them on top of each other. And pretty soon, I think Will Smith said you'll have a perfect wall. I think that's the thing. If you're enjoying the show, you'll know that my mission is to empower as many women as possible to optimise their health, their longevity and their performance. And we want to continue to bring you the biggest guests in their field each and every week. And the bigger the show gets the bigger they guess. So if you haven't already, you can help support the show by hitting the Follow button. You'll also be notified as soon as each episode is released. And you'll be helping to inspire more women to optimal health and longevity. Let's talk about recovery. Then. How were you kind of you've talked about the sauna in the cold in the evening. What kind of other things you do. Are you doing any like meditation practices and SDR, anything like that?

Yeah, so I consider a lot of my running and mountain biking and the things I do outside that zone to cardio, I often do them alone, I consider them my moving meditation, I think it's so important to, you know, get out in nature and just create space for yourself where you're not inundated with notifications, and you're not inundated with options. So in that sense of the word meditation, that's my meditation is often moving, I do schedule a 90 minute massage every other week. And that's a time to really just like check out and reflect on life. And every single time I get a deep tissue massage, I mean, my nervous system feels so good afterwards. And I also afterwards have this tremendous, tremendous mental clarity of you know, all of these dots I've collected over time I'm able to make something of them. So I do think meditation, creating solitude, creating space is so so important. I do not nap. You know, I certainly have friends that do and and preach about the benefits of it. I just haven't implemented that into my routine. And then other recovery protocols I use, I do red light therapy. If I get injured generally my protocols for injury are starting with a deep tissue massage, and then I moved to cupping or scraping or chiropractic work, and then I moved to dry needling if the problem persists. That's my injury routine. But I mean doing the contrast therapy day in and day out really has reduced a lot of inflammation. and helped prevent injury for me. So that is my number one, you know, outside of sleep. That's, that's my number one deliberate recovery tool that I use.

What about your state? How you? How much do you find you need to sleep with all my activity?

Yeah, so I have a wind down routine around eight o'clock, it's generally like, you know, no more stimulus I might read or listen to a podcast, I'm in bed by nine o'clock, generally sleeping by 930. And then I get up around 530 to six, I don't set an alarm. So if I need the additional sleep, I get it. I don't schedule anything before 8am. So that I know that if I do need to sleep, I don't have to worry about any commitments early in the morning. I avoid early travel days. So I'm not booking early flights, I'm not booking red eye flights. I'm not doing very rarely doing anything stimulating in the evening. So I avoid like late night concerts, I avoid entertaining late at night, I avoid just being super on or being around really bright lights and highly stimulating environments late at night. For me, those things really affect my sleep. And yeah, I tried to stick to my sleep structure as best as possible, because I feel like sleep is such a routine thing that, you know, if you get three or four nights of bad sleep, that becomes the new routine. And it's so hard to get out of that bad routine. So I like sticking with my same sleep routine, my same pre sleep routine, regardless of where I am, and really try to control the environment as much as possible. I wear a sleep mask and wear earplugs, our temperature in our bedroom is set to 63 degrees at night. We have a cooling pad, we have a mattress that wicks away heat. So we do a lot of things that help prepare us for a restful night of sleep.

Awesome. What about your nutrition? Are you? How do you cover that? Those sort of bases? What is your kind of macro nutrient ratio look like? And your do you do intermittent fasting?

Yep, so the things I focus on are protein I weigh about 180 pounds, so I try to get around 180 grammes of protein per day. I don't track it, I just know loosely, that's approximately what I'm getting. I eat animal based so avoiding processed foods for the most part, avoiding any processed sugar for the most part, and I build my calories throughout the day. That works well for me because I've noticed that for me, there's a direct correlation between food volume and mental clarity. The more i e, the less mental clarity I have. So I generally have my largest meal in the evening because I don't need as much mental clarity before I go to bed. So, typical day would be in the morning, I have bone broth, I take my various supplements, colostrum, athletic greens, creatine, sometimes beta alanine, pre workout l citrulline, pre workout, beet powder, I like beats for the nitric oxide boosts specifically for endurance. And I make coffee and I put collagen in the coffee with a little honey. That's what I have before my workout, I'll bring a bar with me that has maybe 20 to 30 grammes of carbs. If it's a heavy lifting day or something where you know, I'm going to be going very anaerobic just so that I can make sure that my blood sugar levels are higher to just to have the glycogen in my muscles. And then after that first workout, I either do a smoothie back at the house, or I do eggs and maybe chicken sausage or turkey sausage. And then after my aerobic activity, same thing, I would probably do a smoothie. And then in the evening, it's generally either steak burgers, fish or chicken, and then some kind of carb, which is typically potatoes or rice. And then before bed, I might have a little nut butter just as my dessert with a little honey on it.

And have you noticed with with Luma, that if you're having a later meal and you go to bed like closer to when you've eaten, you're going to wake up on a higher number. That's something I've observed were five last time I woke up burning fat

off 100%. Yeah, direct correlation between large meal late at night and waking up with a high lumen number.

And no one wants the high lumen number. The other thing I've noticed as well, and I've noticed with many people that work with me is if you're really like stressed and kind of on it in the morning, you're going to score a high lumen as well. You need to kind of take some time to rest and even do a short meditation if necessary. And then you probably going to get and take a few deep breaths and again, nice number. So true. Yeah, assuming you've done all the other stuff that we're talking about. I guess there's just a couple more things that I'm really curious about. One is you have incredible output in terms of everything you do professionally. How does your work He built the life around it. So everything is supportive of your work. You know, you're in the health industry, you're also very optimised, you have high energy, I can imagine you're pretty productive when you are working, how do you slot your work in and around all the things that you're doing from a fitness, longevity and recovery?

Yeah, so I mean, my day is planned prepare, execute. That's kind of how I think of it. So in the morning, when I wake up, I'm planning out my day. So what content I need to create, looking to see what podcasts I have that day, and coming up with just creative concepts for for the day. And then I schedule all cognitive tasks after workouts or after recovery sessions, because I know that's when my brain is going to be firing on all cylinders. So my work blocks are generally from 1030 until about 12, or 1230, and then around 230 until four, and then sometimes I do a little bit in the evenings as well after that recovery routine. So two to three cognitive blocks, ranging from 60 to 90 minutes each day. And those cognitive blocks are reserved for creating content, doing podcasts, connecting people that's a big part of my day, is just connecting like minded people or helping brands build their ambassador programmes. So yeah, again, the the exercise for me at this point is so much more about the mental well being and the mental clarity and the energy that I get from it than it is to compete anymore. And I think that's, I think that's something that a lot of people from the outside may not realise for people in the fitness industry that so many of us are doing it for the feeling much more than for the look or the aesthetic that you're getting from the workouts. And then as far as you know, work life balance, I've been able to blend my life with my work. You know, I only work with brands that align with my values, I only work with brands whose products and services I enjoy using and can enter intertwine into my day. And I generally only work with brands where I've been able to develop a really good relationship with the executive team or the founder of the company. I'm big on relationships, and you know, I, I just feel like, I want to provide value for anyone I'm doing stuff with. And I don't want to, I don't want it to just feel transaction airy. So I really value relationships with anyone that I'm that I'm working with. So for me, yeah, I mean trading time for money is basically doing exactly what I would be doing every single day, if I wasn't making any money doing it.

I love that it's the same for me, I've just think the values are so, so important. And also what you said there around fitness, you know, the aesthetics and everything else and the fitness side of it, the the health is almost like a side effect of everything that you get from doing it. Because you get so many mental clarity benefits, you get so much motivation, you get those natural endorphins, serotonin and everything we're speaking about. And I'm the same as you, I feel like I'm so much more productive because I go to the gym. First thing before I take my kids from school, it's the first thing I do when I wake up. And what I found is I can skip a day because you have to I'm not going to exercise seven days a week, 365 days a year. So today was one of my days off and I went for a kind of faster dog walk with my eldest son, and I am itching to get back into tomorrow, I can hold over and have that productivity for a day. But then it just yeah, it's just becomes part of your life doesn't.

It? Sure does. And, you know, I think you you also touched on a good point of, you know, listen to your body, first and foremost, you know, if you're not feeling it, you know, then that's probably a good day to really back off and just go for a walk or go for a hike. And, you know, also, I think it's important to balance the excitement component of it. So for me, I'm excited every single day I go to the gym and just like you, the two days that I take off from the gym are really necessary, mentally to be able to get back in and be super excited about that workout. And for the same reason I vary the zone to work, you know, one day might be mountain biking one day might be trail running, one day might be rocking, and I continually look forward to it where, you know, in my Ironman days, I'm so glad that I lived that chapter. But it definitely got to a point where 80% of the time I was kind of dreading the workout because it was so monotonous and it was so much of the same. And there was so little variety. So, you know, again, glad I wrote that chapter. I would not discourage anyone from doing an Iron Man. I think it's it's going to teach you so many valuable life lessons. But you know, ultimately from a longevity standpoint of doing this, I think it's important to vary it some so that still remains high.

Grey. I guess my last question would be mindset to to do that many Ironman, you've got to have a very, very empowering mindset. You got to have a lot of grit What would you say would be your top tips around mindset? What have you found in terms of strategies? I mean, obviously, super high energy, super positive outlook. But what can you share that can help people really kind of maybe people have set themselves a goal this year of doing something that takes them beyond, you know, helps them step into their future self, what would your advice? Well?

Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, I think it's important that you enjoy the journey, and that you look forward to it each and every day, and that it's not just a checklist item. You know, for me, what I'm doing is never a checklist item, I truly enjoy the workouts that I do every single day. And they're hard, you know, no doubt in the moment, there's times where I'm like, God, this hurts. But I look forward to that in a weird way. Because I, I seek progress. I just, I love progress. Progress makes me happy. And I get progress from accomplishing all of those things they accomplish each day. And then I mean, as far as the Ironman, like, I had tremendous purpose during those years of doing it for myself to prove that I could, you know, be a high level athlete then make the Ironman World Championships. So for me, I mean, all of my training sessions, I was really visualising being at the Ironman World Championships and being amongst those best Ironman athletes in the world. And that pushed me to do it for five years and to be able to compete in Kona, two years. But, you know, ultimately, it came back to the feeling of you know, once that war away, once I accomplished my goals within the sport, I had to figure out why I was continuing to do it. And that was because of the feeling that I got from it every single day. And it was for me, it was so fulfilling. It made me happy. So I think it's important to do this for you not do it for others not do it because someone's telling you you should do it, like doing it because you feel like the best version of yourself with your routine that you have every day.

I love that. I love that. Any books that you would recommend that you've read that have inspired you on your journey?

Yeah, there's a lot I really like Ryan holidays books. dullness is the key. Without the obstacle is the way I I don't really think of setting goals. I think more of putting obstacles in my life. You know, whether it's an Ironman or doing the Leadville 100. I like having obstacles because it makes me live my days purposefully and execute each day in order to overcome that obstacle. So I like his his readings. From a relationship standpoint, I really like Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Tim Ferriss puts out great content. Gary Vaynerchuk. From a branding perspective, great content. Alexandre Mozi. I tend to listen to more podcasts now than anything Andrew Kuperman. has incredible content. So typically, that's where I'm getting my, my knowledge from is from listening to podcasts, or just generally talking to people having those sauna sessions every day, the unique people that pass through, like that's where I learned a lot is just from those conversations with people. I don't read or listen to the news. And in the traditional sense, I feel like it's very negative. So I really curate where my information comes from. Me to

amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been so much fun chatting to you. Where can people find you find more about you your Instagram superfan, but how can they connect with you, Eric Felicia?

Yeah, that's why he is Instagram. Just DM me if you guys have any questions, I love talking about this stuff. So I respond to everyone that messages me. And then my website is Eric hinman.com.

Amazing. We will link to all of that in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on the show. I've loved that conversation.

Thank you so much, Angela.

Thank you for listening to today's show and for your interest in health optimization for high performance. If you're new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that you can get a free health score and report complete with personalised recommendations on how to optimise your sleep, nutrition, fitness and resilience in the top link in the show notes below. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Links to everything we talked about are also in the show notes and if you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe for more