Recovery, Cold Plunges, and How Bloodwork shows Systemic Imflammation

We break down recovery as the real driver of strength and health, then show how chronic inflammation can quietly block progress even when training looks consistent. We connect daily signals like fatigue and resting heart rate with blood work markers so you can stop guessing and start adjusting with context. 
• recovery as returning to a physiological baseline across nervous system, hormones, and immune regulation 
• signs of poor recovery like persistent fatigue, sleep disturbances, stalled performance, elevated resting heart rate 
• systemic inflammation basics and why chronic inflammation harms tissue repair, hormone signalling, mitochondrial function 
• blood work markers to discuss with your doctor including CRP, ferritin, SHBG, free testosterone, fasting glucose, liver enzymes, vitamin D, cortisol rhythms 
• why free testosterone can matter more than total testosterone for performance and wellbeing 
• how often to test blood work and why baselines in younger years can change interpretation later 
• sleep as the highest priority recovery tool over cold plunges and saunas 
• anti-inflammatory nutrition basics including omega-3s, berries, olive oil, whole foods, less ultra-processed food and sugar 
• training balance with deload weeks and the principle that better is better than more 
• stress management tools like walks outdoors, breathwork, and optional meditation 
• gut health as an immune regulator and why testing beats self-diagnosing supplements 
• using a feedback loop with training logs, blood work, and one change at a time 
Check the show notes. You can email me. I will share. I have a doctor, Dr. Omar Ashtar, who is in North Austin, but we everything is virtual, so you don't have to as long as you live in Texas, you can work with him. 

Transcript

Why Recovery Deserves A Rethink

SPEAKER_00 0:04

You are listening to the Mindset Forge Podcast. I'm partnering Brian, your host. Today we are talking about recovery. Now, there's so many ways we can talk about this. I do want to do a bit of a deep dive, not just into like methodologies for recovering and what that means, why it's important, that kind of stuff. We I think a lot of us understand some of that. We're going to get a little bit into blood work too, and just understanding kind of what can be happening when you're having overall systemic inflammation and how that might be not allowing full recovery or the ability to optimize your recovery and therefore creating plateaus in your exercise or feeling just worn out and not feeling optimal while you're doing all the things that you should be doing to feel optimal. And so I've, you know, over the last year or two, just talking to a lot of people, and there's a lot of new information about recovery and different methodologies like ice, you know, cold plunge or ice baths and hot, you know, saunas and things like that. So there's I think it's an important topic. It's been discussed a bit. I don't want to just discuss the same things that everybody else is talking about, but I do feel like there's a context in which I can help you understand recovery maybe a little bit differently so that you can really dive in and understand your own and maybe get some ideas that could lead you to discovering more improved recovery for yourself. Because everybody's different. You know, you can't look at somebody and if he's in the gym and they're working out six days a week and like, well, if they can do it, I can do it because they're 50 and I'm 50. And like, it doesn't work that way. Everybody's different, everybody's system is different. And, you know, we really have to think about just from a day-to-day level like, are we recovering from our workouts? And then on a systemic level, is our nervous system recovering and our hormones and all the things that are part of that system and our body's kind of inner workings, are they in an optimal place so that we can improve our fitness level and our overall health?

What Recovery Really Looks Like

SPEAKER_00 2:09

And so, what I want to talk about today, let's start with is some key points. Recovery is really returning to a physiological baseline, you know, is it's if if you took a week and just kind of hung out at the beach and ate healthy food and and just like you know, took naps and chilled and hung out with people that you love, like the goal with that would be, you know, obviously have an amazing time, but also it is like you want to feel like you're just humming with recovery, like you just you you're really checking all the boxes in terms of like you're you feel good, you're you're well slept, you have no stress, that kind of stuff. And so when we're in our day-to-day life, we obviously don't have a beach normally to go to and hang out and spend several days at a time. So we we want to use rest days or use you know the evening time or what the weekend, whatever we have to get our body into a kind of baseline of physiological health and recovery. And so uh that includes your nervous system, that includes your hormones, that includes your immune system regulation. Uh, so poor recovery would look like persistent fatigue, even though you got you know eight hours of sleep or you ate well or you went to the gym today or went on a jog or whatever. So persistent fatigue, plateaued performance, so you're not getting stronger, you don't feel like you're improving in the gym, sleep disturbances, uh, so maybe waking up several times during the night, not being able to fall back asleep, just not feeling rested after a night's sleep, and then an elevated heart rate. So resting heart rate, uh, mine is usually around 49 or 50 when I wake up. If I'm, you know, if I experience a week of with a lot of stress or travel, one of the things I notice is that my resting heart rate has been elevated to like 52, 53. And even though that's just a couple of beats per minute, that that can be a sign that my body is not recovering well or it's in a state of stress. Uh, and something just a way to frame this. Uh, I like this quote, is it's uh you don't get stronger from training, you get stronger from recovering from training. I'll say that again. You don't get stronger from training. And another way to look at that, you don't get stronger working out. You don't, it's not the actual exercise that you do that makes you stronger. It's how you recover from that exercise that makes you stronger. So if you're trying to get stronger or healthier or adapt to exercise and be healthier, you really have to think about it's not actually what you did at the gym, it's what how you recover from that that makes all the difference. So that's as we think about that and use that as kind of a place to start from, let's let's remember that because again, you if you're going to the gym every single day or you're running every single day or you're doing anything every single day, you you might you might, unbeknownst to you, be not able, you're not recovering well. And so maybe you're actually over training, overworking, and not allowing your your system and your muscles and things like that to get the most out of the exercise or get the most out of the the program you're doing. So something to consider as we move forward. So

Inflammation Markers That Block Progress

SPEAKER_00 5:30

as we look at systemic inflammation, uh, there's a lot of ways to uh, there's a lot of like key biometrics or biomarkers you can look at. I'm gonna focus on two. Uh, one is your CRP, which is your C reactive protein. It's a primary inflammation marker in the blood. And then your pharinin, which is also can be elevated when you're in uh systemic inflammation. Uh so those are kind of the two. I mean, there's also like fasting glucose and insulin levels is is definitely a marker. Um, but uh, but I want to focus on those two just because I think for those of you who are going out and doing blood work, three every three to six months, that those could be some things you ask your doctor to look at. Uh the other one, and this is for men, is sex hormone binding globulin. So this sex hormone binding globulin is a is a marker that uh that actually attaches itself to the the receptor sites of testosterone hormone as it's in your blood. And so somebody could theoretically have a high total testosterone number, but the actual amount of free testosterone that it's being, you know, basically utilized by the body could be low. Uh, and that could be because your sex hormone binding globulin numbers are higher than they need to be. And so I'm not going to address how to fix those, but those can be things that you could look at as indicators of too much stress or systemic inflammation. So that's just something to kind of circle right there, especially guys um looking at those C-reactive protein, ferrinin, and sex hormone binding globulin. Um, so on that, when you're when you have a systemic inflammation or chronic inflammation, it can really be harmful. Acute inflammation, which is like soreness after you work out, is beneficial. That's like our body is like feeling the soreness or the pump or the you know fatigue. There's might even be some like like local swelling or local like burning, and the body's going there to repair it, fix it, and get stronger, adapt to it. So we want the the the acute inflammation, the chronic inflammation is harmful. That can slow um tissue repair, it can disrupt hormone uh signaling to to release testosterone or whatever the hormones that your body needs should be releasing, and it can impair your mitochondrial function. And I don't mean to get too scientific here, but the the point is like um mitochondrial function is the mitochondria is kind of the the powerhouse of the cell, and it helps to re uh repair and and and and uh you know kind of fix optimize your cells. And so if you have kind of weak or impaired mitochondrial function, you're just not optimal at being able to recover and reproduce your cells and kind of repair uh cells in your body. So those are things to think about. Um and you know, there's a lot more science and doctors, and and I think some of them are quacks and some of them are probably on to some of it is that inflammation is one of the root causes of chronic disease uh that we're seeing today. I think the the more and more people are looking at okay, why does this person have these chronic diseases, or why are these people, there's a group of people uh you know, predisposed to getting these types of diseases, besides just genetics. I think you're talking about chronic inflammation that's overtime from poor diet, lack of exercise, other environmental uh uh you know issues too could be part of that, but the systemic inflammation of the body over time creates a lot of these chronic diseases. So it's something you really have to be careful of. Um, I think some doctors and some you know pseudo pseudo-experts will will probably oversell that to then sell a supplement or a product, so be careful with that type of stuff. But but I do I do believe that that is um inherently a true statement. Okay, let's

What Good Blood Work Means

SPEAKER_00 9:38

talk about how blood work reflects recovery status. Um so what does good look like? Low to normal um C reactive protein levels, um normal sex home sex hormone binding globulin, which should also show a normal or slightly high free testosterone number, which uh is probably more important than your total testosterone. I know we we like to have like a testosterone number that matters most, but I think if you're looking at total testosterone and free testosterone, the way to look at it is like, okay, you might have a total testosterone number of 800, but if your free testosterone number is low, then you're not optimal, you're not able to utilize that testosterone that your body's creating in your in your testicles, and it's it's as if you had low testosterone because you're only utilizing a very small portion of it. So that's something to look at. So uh, and then the other one is just ferrinin levels. Ferrinin is is related to iron. So if you have a high ferrinin number, that can also show so um chronic inflammation if it's low or normal, fantastic. Uh we want to see adequate vitamin D levels too. Um we want to see balanced cortisol rhythms uh from sleep, you know, especially in the morning and then low in the evening, and then stable glucose throughout the day. Uh red flags, uh obviously elevated uh CRP, the the C reactive protein, um, and you can talk to your doctor about what that number looks like. Chronic um or high fast, chronically high fasting glucose. So you're not glucose after you ate a bunch of food, but glucose like when you just wake up in the morning you haven't eaten in eight or nine hours. So looking at that, low testosterone or hormone disruption uh in men, uh, and just elevated liver enzymes from stress, inflammation, that kind of thing. Uh so again, those are really conversations with your doctor. But I think we, you know, sometimes we'll go to doctors that are specialized in like advanced blood work and that kind of stuff. But if you're going to like just a general practitioner, you can always ask them to do like other to get other metrics, you know, like, hey, I want to know what my CRP is or my pharinin is or or what's my, you know, they might test your total testosterone and say everything looks good, but did they test free testosterone to look to see that that is also good? Because one can seem like a positive thing, and then but if you look deeper, you you you might find more. So sometimes you have to ask your doctor or or recommend that they also do those those testings, those extra testings, and they'll cost probably more money, and that's how this health uh insurance industry works. But uh, you know what? It's our health, it's our life, we gotta deal with that. Okay, let's move on a little bit. Uh, I don't want to ramble here. Um but I think you know, you if blood work, my opinion, every three months after 50. I mean, I think there's cases where you could say that for anyone who are after or 40. I think 40 to 49, maybe every six months before you're 40. I I always tell younger clients or people that that you know have a conversation with, like, find out what your testosterone is at 20 or 25 or whenever you're in your like like younger years, because you might you might have you might get to your 40s and then you're you're you finally test your testosterone and you find out it's 500. But if you had tested it 20 years before and it was 550, then that might just be an indicator of like your body functions really well at like an average testosterone ratio, like or a number. Like it doesn't like we assume that like 500 is like, oh my gosh, that's on the lower side. Like I must have like my testosterone's tanking, but we we don't actually know unless we test our those numbers when we're younger to see what baseline is, what's what's optimal for our body. And and sometimes you know, you might catch also catch some things early on that you didn't even realize you had, or you there might be an issue. So even you know, and if if adults listening to this who have kids, you know, you might, you know, as your son or daughter gets to be, you know, 18, 19, or 20, you might have them just do a full panel of blood work just to have that as like a baseline information. I think it's I think that again, these proactive measures to help people understand their health early and throughout their life is gonna be so valuable in terms of like uh how we see our health, you know, these younger people getting into their 40s and 50s and 20, 30 years, like they're gonna the whole idea of like health and proactive um longevity and all that kind of stuff is gonna be light years ahead of where we are right now. But whatever we can do right now to kind of find as much information and track it in a proactive way, I think is absolutely important. Okay,

Sleep Beats Every Recovery Hack

SPEAKER_00 14:48

so let's talk strategies. So let's talk strategy of reducing inflammation and improving our recovery. So, and this is gonna go to my my soapbox like get out of the cold plunge, get out of the sauna, and go sleep more. Uh, and that's not to say that cold plunges sauna aren't cool, fun, social things to do. I actually I think I like cold plunges sauna more because at my gym, lifetime, lifetime fitness, it's a very social thing. You get into the cold plunge, it's like a big uh jacuzzi, or there's a bunch of people in there like freezing their butts off, and we're like kind of high-fiving each other, and it's fun to be like tough. And then you go to the sauna and you sit there, and it's a whole bunch of people, and like conversations start up, and it's kind of a social hour, and all you're doing everyone is doing is kind of sweating and trying to recover. And so I think those are those are valuable pieces to recovery and just socialization and being are around other people. Cool, great. But when it comes to most important why you know, why you may or may not be recovering well, it's going to be sleep. And you know, I mean, there's everyone is different. Again, I I I hate, you know, there's no one size fits all. I seem to function really well with like eight to eight and a half hours of sleep. Um, I don't seem to function any better with nine or ten. Uh, so I always try to shoot for eight, and I I wear my Apple Watch in sleep mode every night to kind of track my sleep and see how much like core sleep and deep sleep I get and that kind of stuff because I'm a nerd like that. I like to see those things. Um, but yeah, seven to nine hours is kind of the general recommended time. You know your body though, and and that's also deep sleep, is where your growth hormone and testosterone and a lot of those recovery hormones are being released to help your body recover and get stronger from exercise. So remember, we get stronger by recovering from exercise. So the best way to recover from exercise is sleep, bar none. So the idea that you should wake up early, miss sleep to go recover is a completely ridiculous concept. You know, like waking up at 5 a.m. to go do a cold plunge instead of sleeping until 6 30 is silly and ridiculous. Um, so that's all I've said about that. Not to say cold plunge and those things aren't valuable and have a have a purpose, but they're just so low on the like priority level for for recovery. I don't even barely gonna talk about today. And uh Matthew Walker said uh sleep is the single most effective thing you can do to reset your brain and your body health. So getting your body back to normal sleep, trying to go to sleep around the same time every night, waking up around the same time every morning, getting to get that rhythm of sleep, huge deal. And Brian Johnson, the the big, you know, kind of like guy who's trying to like biohack his entire body, you know. Um, probably if you don't know who Brian Johnson is, he's he's kind of this multimillionaire that's just invested millions of dollars into like all these longevity protocols, and he's trying to like live forever. And but one of the things that he has said is uh when when asked on a podcast, what is the most important thing that he does, and it's he's goes to sleep at the same time every night, wakes up at the same time every morning as like a the best way to uh keep your body as healthy as possible.

Nutrition And Training Balance That Works

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Okay, nutrition uh for anti uh anti-inflammation. Uh omega-3 fatty acids, uh I actually train uh the wife of the leading um omega-3 fatty acids, like fish oil research scientists in the entire nation. Uh, and that he's helped um the FDA and and recently like just put like move omega-3 fatty acids and fish oils up to uh you know put them as more of a priority. And just there's seen so many impact impacts of somebody who supplements omega-3 fatty acids or eats fish, or you know, just finds a way to get those omega-3 fatty acids into their body on a daily uh or weekly basis. Um, just so many positive things for the brain, for the body, anti-inflammation, all that stuff, and potentially prevention of like um, you know, elderly diseases like uh dementia and things like that. So there's just so much positive that you can get from that. Uh berries and olive oils, um, a lot of uh anti-inflammation and kind of antioxidant effects to that, and just eating a whole food diet. We've heard that, you know. So you're also trying to minimize alter processed foods, excess sugar. Um I'm gonna not say seed oils because I'm I'm I'm I'm not convinced that's actually a problem, but uh um but it you know, processed foods, uh super super sugary foods, let's uh let's avoid you know that stuff. Okay, uh training balance. I think one of the things that were one of the reasons I think behind why people end up over training is they get into the game maybe after they're already really, really out of shape or really feeling unhealthy, or their doctor like scared them with like, dude, your cholesterol is 300 or what you know, and so and so there's this feeling of like I'm so far behind, I have to get work out, I have to do this every day. If I if not, I'm gonna fall back. Um, and it becomes a thing you can do to kind of feel like you're doing something right. But what we can easily do that when we do that is we can chronically overtrain because you just keep working out, we keep trying to push um more volume, more weight, we don't rest appropriately, and we don't incorporate D load weeks. This is something that I do specifically. I'm actually right in the middle of starting to do my D load week because I did about a seven-week uh squat deadlift um power cycle, you know, working up on like five sets of five on heavy squats, heavy deadlifts. And now I'm gonna spend a week deloading uh and just pulling way back on volume and weight, and just let the nervous system, let the body, let the joints recover. Uh, so incorporating a D-load week, uh, I always recommend somewhere in like the five to eight week range. If you're working out pretty heavy, pretty hard, I would say, you know, five to six weeks. If it's more volume, lighter weight, higher reps, maybe you can kind of get away with seven to eight weeks, but definitely take a deload week. Uh, you know, with my consistent clients that are that I see every week, we do that too. Um, as long as they're working out more than maybe twice a week. If you have if you're just working out like total body Monday, total body Thursday, um, and you're not really doing much the rest of the time, I don't know how impactful a D load week uh is going to be, uh, unless you're really pushing those workouts. Um But I I would say probably don't need it in that situation. Um, this is a great quote by Greg Glassman. He says, more is not better, better is better. And all that means is like more volume, more times at the gym is not better. It's a better use of the times that you go. Right. So when I was in my 40s, I would probably go to the gym. I was probably strength training six days a week. Felt fine. I was getting results, no issues. Now I'm down to four to five of strength training. Uh a day of yoga, maybe a day of like rucking with my wife or something like that, something that's still active. Uh family bike rides. We all got mountain bikes now. So we're going out and mountain biking on a Wednesday, on a Wednesday after school. Uh, but really strength training for sometimes five days a week. But right now with these heavy leg workouts, it's like it's like squat focused leg day, upper body day, rest. Deadlift focused leg day, upper body day, rest, rest. Right? That's kind of my rhythm. And so, and that's based on hey, I'm 51. It, I need more recovery. I need, I can't beat myself up as much at the gym. So, more is not better, better is better. Take that one uh and look at your life and see if there's an opportunity to be better at uh how you're programming yourself and how you're resting. Okay, uh, we're getting down to the nitty-gritty here. Uh let's let's uh 23 minutes, man. We're we're we're crushing here. Okay,

Stress Gut Health And Feedback Loops

SPEAKER_00 23:33

so stress management. Um chronic uh physiological stress uh is a big inflammation driver. So that's um you know, just stress on the body, stress on you know, from training, things like that. There's you know, there's breath work can be can be tools to help this time outside. I'm a big fine fan of like just going for walks, going around the block or going around the you know, walking to the park, biking in the park, you know, stuff that's really low cardiovascular output, but very kind of like I'm in nature, I'm with my family, we're going on a hike, we're exploring something and just kind of like tapping into that like time outdoors. Um breath work's a good one. When I'm performing, and like if I'm doing acting or in in in theater and things like that, I do a lot of breath work in preparation for getting on stage because it really settles down my my nervous system and and helps me process any nerves, anxiety, and be ready, focused, and and and uh present. So uh, but breath work can also really help you know kind of bring down psychological stress. So those are the and then meditation too, but uh that's kind of up to to somebody's kind of like you know desire to go deeper with like a meditation, but I think it can be great. Um all right, so gut health, um you know, gut is the as a major immune regulator. Um so you know, if you feel like something's up with your gut, I don't there's nothing wrong with there's nothing bad that could happen from just like you know having your gut biome checked. Again, I think there's a little bit of like woo-woo, you know, doctors out there that are gonna try to that may take some half-truths and then sell you a whole bunch of supplements to fix all these things that they decide are are wrong with you. But I think it's important is important to know that the gut isn't a big part of your immune system, and and if there is inflammation in your gut or things like that, then that can help. They're actually finding that some of the GLP1s are obviously good for weight loss and and diabetes and things like that, but they're also good for bringing down systemic inflammation in the gut. Um, so there's uh not that much research on it, but that's what they are finding utilizing uh GLP1s. So that would be like you know, the weight loss uh peptides as a way to decrease inflammation in your gut and in your like in the system of your body. Um all right, so um, we could talk about gut health, how do you improve it, fiber, you know, fermented foods, but like I just I think that's a conversation with your doctor once you find out if you had need any improvements in your gut. I definitely don't recommend like assuming that you have gut problems and then going and like self-diagnosing and then going and eating a bunch of foods or taking a bunch of supplements that you think are gonna help because you found them at Whole Foods for $30 a bottle. Don't do that. Go find out if you actually need something. All right. Um, so feedback loop approach. So the if you think about what we're doing, we're training, right? And in that training, we want to push the body into stress, into fatigue, you know, and then we recover intentionally from that training. And then in the macro level, we want to measure how we're doing with blood work um, you know, over every three months, and then we want to take that information. So if I'm tracking my training, let's say I'm doing seven weeks of like a build-up like strength program, and then I deload and I do that again. All right, and so that's eight weeks plus eight weeks, 16 weeks, like, and then from there, you know, maybe I do blood work at the end of that that second cycle of strength training, and then I get information from the from the blood work. I get I can look and see how much strength I've increased, or if I've like gained muscle, or if I've lost body fat, or whatever those metrics are, and then I can make a necessary adjustments based on those inputs. I think this is generally how you you know need to be looking at uh, you know, what how are you doing? Like, because if you're if your goal is to lose weight, like be healthy, but part of being healthy means losing weight, and you did everything you thought was right, and three months later you hadn't lost any weight, like that that would be a problem, right? Like, and you know, a lot of people were like, Well, I probably gained muscle, like, okay, maybe a little bit, but you know, you had a goal to get healthy and lose weight, and you didn't lose weight, and it took you three months and you didn't make any adjustments. So, same thing with training, like going to the gym and exercising is good, and going from not doing that to doing that will probably have a great impact on how you sleep and how you feel and all this kind of stuff. But if you were going to the gym for three months and made no improvements on your strength, like you gotta look at that and go, why? Why am I not getting stronger? Why does my blood work show a bunch of inflammatory markers that I didn't that you know, maybe maybe I need to look at, you know, the quantity of how much I'm training or or maybe I need to adjust some of these metrics and see if I can improve the outcome next time around. And it's okay to not be successful every you know, every time you check to see if you've improved in the gym, as long as you take that information and adjust it to make sure you you're successful next time. And sometimes that makes that makes you find a trainer like me, like go out and reach out to somebody who knows what they're doing and can guide you through. And that's totally fine too. I mean, we are you know, AI is not going to take over the training space because you know people that have the experience and know what's what's what, uh, and the the ability to motivate and create accountability and all that kind of stuff, that will never go away because people need accountability, people need the right and not just the right information, but the tools and and how to do that. So if you need a trainer, go find one. All right, last bit, common mistakes. Uh,

Mistakes To Avoid And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 29:59

we're gonna wrap this up here in a couple minutes here, but I want to talk about common mistakes, ignoring blood work entirely, right? A lot of us, like, you know, and I've gone to my uh general practitioner, got blood work done, and then I heard nothing, and I called and I said, Hey, I never got my blood work back. And then I kind of like heard, and then they transferred me to the nurse practitioner, and she got on the phone, she's like, Oh, everything looks good. And that was that was the answer. And I was like, What? No, no, no, no. I want to know what my cholesterol is. I want to know, like, is any like I want to know all this stuff. I want to know where these markers are. I want to see is there anything that's slightly elevated? Is there any, you know, counterindications to health? Like, I mean, we have to be the leaders of our health because oftentimes, you know, as busy as the um is the medical field is, they may not be giving time to you. And that's why the concierge doctors and things like that are very, very helpful these days and and you know, are oftentimes expensive, but maybe worth that cost because you get a lot more personal attention and focus, and you might even get a nutrition coach with with that doctor's uh support and lots of testing and all that kind of stuff. So um, but anyway, that's that's you want to know what your blood work is, and you gotta use that information to uh to make changes if necessary. Um over relying on supplements instead of fixing your lifestyle. And I would say over-relying on the cold plunge instead of fixing your sleep would be the other the the other way to say that. Um, so you know, less supplements, less, you know, shiny, cool uh gimmicks of of recovery, more sleep, better food, fix your lifestyle. Uh and training harder when recovery is the issue. So if recovery is your issue, then you probably need to figure out how you're you can better recover from what you are already doing versus training harder and expecting that to be the fix. And then chasing optimal numbers without context. Uh I just think this is is something that like you know, we all want to believe that you know, if we just do the the sets and the reps, we're gonna put 20 pounds on our bench press, or you know, hey, if I put if I if I tell chat DBT to build me a bench press program to get me from 200 to 225 in in eight weeks because I want to bench two plates, you know, at my you know summer hangout with my friends, like that that would be optimal. And some people might get there, but like that's not everybody, and like you have to be you have to understand yourself and how quickly you're able to get stronger. And you know, and you see, I have to understand there's context to everything, and we can't just keep chasing big bench numbers. That's how we get injured, that's how we you know we we make big mistakes and we regret them later. All right, last but not least, tech takeaways sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, and do your blood work. I'd say minimum twice a year, but I would if you're over 50, I'm just I promise you it will make a difference is ask for more comprehensive blood work and do it quarterly, quarterly, especially if you're exercising uh a lot and you really want to make sure the results in the gym and the results on the blood work are matching each other. Uh check your resting heart rate in the morning. Um, notice your energy levels when they're high, when they're low. Um, and just to make one change at a time. If you're like listening to all this, going like, oh my God, what do I do first? Just make one change at a time. Just decide I'm gonna get 30 extra minutes of sleep every night. Start there. That's probably the biggest fix for every, you know, if you're sleeping six hours a night, go to six and a half a night just consistently, and and that'll probably be a significant improvement in your overall health. And go to seven after that, and seven and a half or whatever, and then mess with some other things. But yeah. All right, people. I'm glad you uh you've uh you've been listening. Hey, this is uh this is kind of a deep dive here. We've been a little over 30 minutes, about 35 minutes in here. Hopefully, uh very effective for you. I will tell you a lot of this stuff is uh is also stuff that I had to learn. You know, I had to learn a little bit more about systemic fatigue and and why you know I wasn't getting stronger as fast as I wanted to. And I some of it was because I was getting older, but some of it also was like looking at my blood work. And I I'm a big stickler about doing um blood work every every three months. And you know, if my doctor and I make some choices on on like a medication or something like that, and then we will oftentimes check it a month or two later. Like I found out that I I was hypothyroid, and I, you know, at 50, all of a sudden I my my thyroid functions were low, and I got on a thyroid medication, and then we about a month and a half later, we checked to make sure the number was was optimal. It wasn't quite optimal, so we doubled the dose. We checked another month and a half later. So really great engagement with my doctor and I on like improving uh my thyroid function, getting that right, and uh and you know, kind of making sure we're moving forward in the right way. So if you don't have that type of relationship with your doctor, um check the the show notes. You can email me. I will share. I have a doctor, Dr. Omar Ashtar, who is in North Austin, but we everything is virtual, so you don't have to as long as you live in Texas, you can work with him. And he's not he's not expensive, and he is amazing. Uh so if you're looking for somebody who can do that type of blood work and really like sit with you and go through this stuff, I would highly recommend him. Anyway, thanks for listening to the Mindset Forge podcast. Let's uh let's let's you know let's have a great week here. If there's one thing you can do uh and you're already sleeping well, and that's that's they've you've nailed that part, and that's not the thing you need to add uh, you know, gonna add 30 minutes to find one extra thing and do it. Make one change at a time and see if you can start improving your overall recovery. All right, have a great week.