Can Back Squats Count As Cardio?

Welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast with Jerred Moon and Joe Courtney!
This week, Jerred and Joe dive into a fresh study titled "Cardiorespiratory and Aerobic Demands of Squat Exercise" to answer a long-standing question: Can squats actually count as cardio?

Spoiler: The answer is yes—but with an asterisk.

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💡 The Study: Do Squats Elevate Heart Rate Like Cardio?

Researchers looked at 22 resistance-trained men, split into high- and low-strength groups. Each participant performed:

• 5 sets of 10 back squats

• 65% of their one-rep max

• 3 minutes of rest between sets

Measurements: VO₂, heart rate, and perceived exertion (RPE)

Despite rest intervals, participants experienced significant cardiovascular demand—especially in later sets where RPE hit 10. Average VO₂ max levels were solid (around 47), showing these weren’t untrained athletes—and yet their bodies were still taxed aerobically.

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🔬 Jerred’s Take: Squats = Glycolytic Conditioning

While squats aren’t true aerobic training (they don’t hit the oxidative energy system like running or biking), this kind of protocol definitely hits the glycolytic system.

“Think of it like this: You’re training the same system you’d use in a hard 400-800 meter run. Not a marathon.”

That means this kind of lifting can replace threshold-style runs if programmed correctly. But it can’t replace long zone 2 endurance work.

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📊 Practical Takeaways for Hybrid Athletes

Jerred and Joe dive into how this study should influence concurrent or hybrid training plans. If you're lifting 3x/week and conditioning 3x/week, here’s a smart split:

• Strength Work: Includes taxing sets like 5x10 back squats at 65–75%

• Conditioning Days:

  • 1x Zone 2 (long, steady-state)

  • 1x Interval/sprint work

  • 1x Threshold training OR replace with glycolytic-style lifting

“Let your lifting sessions do double duty. If you're pushing hard enough, they might cover your ‘middle zone’ work.”

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🏋️‍♂️ Temperature Matters, Too

Joe adds another important variable: heat and humidity. In hot garages or muggy basements, your heart rate stays elevated longer, increasing the cardio demands of even simple strength workouts. That’s especially true during summer.

“In Bahrain, just doing strength work in 100+ degrees kept me in Zone 2 almost the entire time.”

Use a heart rate monitor to track what zones you’re really training in—especially if you’re trying to balance different energy systems.

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📈 Tactical Tips for Concurrent Training

1. Track your zones with a heart rate monitor

2. Adjust your splits to avoid doubling up on threshold training

3. Use rest intervals wisely—walk or move instead of full rest if targeting Zone 2

4. Match intensity to your goals—increase reps or load if squats feel too easy

5. Let one workout serve multiple goals when possible

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🧪 Bonus: Blood Work Q&A and Training Updates

In the second half of the episode, Jerred answers a community question about blood work, how to get it done, and which markers to track. He also shares:

• Why he uses a functional medicine doctor and InsideTracker

• What markers matter most (Testosterone, SHBG, inflammation, cholesterol)

• Why tracking trends over time is more important than one-off results

Joe and Jerred also share personal training updates, traveling routines, summer programming plans, and tips for training kids (hint: invite a friend over—it’s a dad hack).

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💥 Final Verdict: Squats Can Be Conditioning—But Only Part of It

Squats, especially high-rep sets with short rest, can tax your cardiovascular system and hit the glycolytic zone hard. But don’t skip out on true endurance work if you're aiming for full-spectrum conditioning.

“Think of it like cereal commercials from the 90s—this is part of a complete training program.”

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👊 Ready to Train Smart with Us?

Want to join a program that blends strength, conditioning, and recovery—without the guesswork?

👉 Start your free trial at GarageGymAthlete.com

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And remember: If you don’t kill comfort, comfort will kill you.

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: 

Jerred: [00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast. Jerred Moon here with Joe Courtney. How are you? How you doing, Joe? I am fantastic. Uh, we'll get right into it. We'll be doing some updates at the end of the podcast, also answering some questions about my recent blood work we got in the community.

So if you're interested in those kind of things, stick around to the end. Today we're gonna be covering a study that is called Cardio, respiratory and Aerobic Demands of Squat Exercise. It was done in the later part of 2024. And I'll just go over some of the basics, but the big idea here is. Do squats, count as cardio.

That's it. Like that's the, the question this study was trying to answer, which I think is kind of funny because anybody who likes to lift a lot more than they like cardio mm-hmm. Makes that joke all the time. And it's, it's a joke with a ton of truth in it. If you've ever done a back squat with any significant amount of reps, especially if you ever have done like a 20 rep max back squat, like [00:01:00] that's about as bad as like a seven minute.

2000 meter row, like in, in my opinion, they're very, very similar as as far as the demand. And so as an athlete you can just feel that. So is there any scientific backing to squats? Being cardio? So let's talk about the study. Big picture. I. 22 Healthy resistance trained young men. They're between the ages of 20 and 39.

They all had at least one year of experience squatting over 120% of their body weight, which I thought was pretty decent for a study. You know, being able to recruit people who are, are relatively strong, they were divided into high strength and low strength groups based on the squat one rep max relative to their body weight.

And they. Aimed to quantify aerobic demand of the back squat exercise, um, which is something that's considered anaerobic traditionally. We'll get into that more. Um, they measured oxygen consumption, so VO O2 and heart rate during five sets of [00:02:00] 10 reps at 65% of their one rep max, and they had three minute rest intervals between.

So the protocol is important if you're looking to implement this. So again, five sets, 10 reps, 65%, one rep max, three minutes, rest in between. It also explored whether relatively relative strength and influenced the cardio respiratory response. Uh, let's see. I'll just dive into how they did it and then we can kind of get into it.

So the first visit, they did VO two max testing on the treadmill, and then the second visit they did one rep max squat testing to establish their win rate max. And then the third visit, they did five squats at 65%. Three minute rest. And then they measured gas exchange and heart rate was tracked throughout and all of the measurements were VO two VC O2, heart rate and RPE during the sets.

And I think that's about all we need to talk about before we dive into it any further. Um, the key takeaways were that like, yes. There, [00:03:00] it, it, it does tax the cardiovascular system pretty hard. Could be considered conditioning, but like with a, with an asterisk. So, and, and I wanna dive into a lot more of the programming of this for our athletes and for anybody trying to do squats.

For cardio. Uh, Joe, what'd you think of the study on

something that I've been percolating in my head or thinking about, like, at least focusing on and targeting around training earlier this year. Something that I was thinking of doing, and that is just. Um, recording and measuring all of my workouts in all the zones that I'm in throughout.

Like normally I just, I do strength, I do strength, and then, uh, condition days is when I'm paying attention to those. But I wanted to, I, 'cause I got it in my head that thinking that like, okay, how much I. Strength stuff we do, and sometimes strength can be kind of intense. I'm definitely getting into zone two during those times.

So my thought process is, well, if I'm getting enough zone two during my strength days, then maybe I don't need to do as much on my condition days and condition days. I can focus on the higher end, uh, condition output. And the, so this study [00:04:00] sort of, um, may maybe go back and, and think about that again. I, I don't know how, if you ever, um.

I looked into that from a program standpoint or from from your own, uh, conditioning standpoint. Because I mean, to me it makes sense, but I know I'm a little bit out of, out of my depth in that regard.

Jerred: Yeah, I think that, and, and that's what something you would look at. And we've, we've talked about this because even with our programming, we're like, let's do a 40 minute, uh, you know, just grunt style workout. Not like a, not not a Metcon, but like, you know. Run on the treadmill, carry a sandbag, swing, a cattle bell, like all of these kind of things, and let's do it for 40, 50 minutes, stay in zone two.

Is that, is that okay? Is that still zone two conditioning and it And it absolutely is. And then it comes to the question of like, how much bleed over is there between all of these things? And so when I look at it, I'm looking at the three different energy systems because I think that they were asking a, a good question, but I think they were [00:05:00] looking at it wrong.

Because if we're looking at. How do we actually improve? There's always going to be some sort of, you know, time under tension or uh, just time on task, if you will, for endurance training. Like you have to spend a certain amount of time to do things. So squat, you know, ultimately them saying like, yeah, this is something that could ultimately be used as conditioning.

Um, it could double as conditioning. It's very true, but it has an asterisk. So what you're saying is like if I'm just doing a bunch of like low level strength training, could I say I'm in zone two and I think so, but I would like challenge the notion like your rest periods might need to be walking on a treadmill or walking around the gym.

Because I think if you come all the way down on the recovery, then you're not getting the same benefit that you would if you were to go do a long walk ruck, or you know. Mm. Low zone two run or something like [00:06:00] that, or you know, whatever, moderate intensity. Um, so I think, I think there's a lot of, uh, lot to unpack here.

So when I, anyway, going back to the energy systems, we have the a lactic glycolytic. Oxidative, right? And so the a lactic system is pretty much dominant for 10 seconds or less. Glycolytic 20 to 60 seconds, up to 90 seconds. And then the OC oxidative is the true aerobic system greater than 60 seconds. And this protocol specifically, if you just look at it, the sets were lasting about 30 seconds.

And by the, the fifth set, they were hitting an RPE of 10. So this is very taxing for them. Their VO two max was very, very escalated by the end of the sets, um, their oxygen consumption. And they even reported some of their, um, VO two max numbers, and I think the average was around 47 for all of these, uh, people in the study.

Which is not bad that that's not a bad VO two max because when I was looking at this, I was like. There's so much that you have to consider because if I [00:07:00] took some, like a true power lifter who never lifted more than three or four repetitions, um, never did any kind of conditioning, and I put, I made them do five sets of 10 or five sets of 20, yeah, it's gonna heavily tax their VO two maxis, but it's because they're in such bad shape, you know, it's like.

Almost anything is gonna tax that. But these people were in decent shape. They had a good, a decent vo, O2 max, high forties was the average. I think that's, that's pretty, pretty good overall. Um, and they were still getting taxed, but they weren't, what you're not training here at all is the oxidative system.

So I don't think it can truly replace the oxidative style of training if we're looking at those three energy systems. So you have to have all three to be a really well-rounded athlete. So I think that. What you're looking at here is like, yes, this could be some really decent glycolytic conditioning, not at like a level 10 glycolytic, but probably like a level seven, uh, glycolytic conditioning and could replace.

Other forms of conditioning that you [00:08:00] were gonna do for glycolytic in its place? Like if you're looking to put this in your program? Yeah, so sustaining

would be pretty important and um, it's sort of hard to extrapolate how much of the cardio like it, how, like what sort of cardio benefit that you would get for how, um, how long you're doing it or what you might define as like your cardio goal, whether it's just burning calories or like shooting for zones and stuff.

Um, so I, I. I, I, I, I would like to measure mine a little bit more just to, especially as the heat starts to coming on. Um, but it did also remind me of the, you know, you sort of mentioned it before, the mixed modal aerobic work that we've been doing on, on hard to kill is sort of like a hybrid on it. And, um, I know that like in, when it's, when it's really hot out, and I, I actually pulled some of my data from, from back when I was in Bahrain, is that like I would do some of these hard sets and then while you're recovering, you're not really recovering that much lower.

So. If you're, if, if some of the more intense sets that we're doing, sometimes we'll do like whether it's Supersets or [00:09:00] Trics, and if it's warm out and your heart rate is sustaining at a higher level, then. To me, you could kind of view this as bang for buck. As you know, if you're on your strength sessions and you'll go to look at your zones after your strength sessions and you're spending a lot of time in zone two, then maybe you can dedicate your actual conditioning sessions to like, okay, I'm gonna do these high, you know, a, the, a lactic sprints or, or whatever.

Instead of a zone two day, because this week I've already gotten all my zone two, or I've gotten a ton of zone two in, and what made me think about this is, you know, the, the dreaded. Garmin breakdown of your, of your zones. It always has like zone two is really, really high. My anaerobic is is optimal. But then like my higher aerobic is like just a little tiny sliver and I'm like, well how am I getting all of this zone two, like over overdoing the zone two work almost.

So how about how can I bring this down and then maybe focus on that part? So maybe I should shift instead of my zone two day to do those higher aerobic days. And that's kind of where. My brain was earlier, earlier this year and I was thinking of like, you know, maybe I'll have to wear a [00:10:00] heart rate monitor for every single workout, which would kind of suck, especially 'cause the chest ones can kind of chafe after a while.

But that's kind of how I was viewing and sort of a takeaway of the study. How it could be used is if we're doing more intense strength, uh, cycle or, or sets or what, whatever the programming might dictate it. You could view it as a, as a bank for your buck thing. Like, okay, well I'm gonna lean into, you know, sort of comboing getting a, a dual effect.

And then I'll, I'll use the time where I would've done something else to do to, to, uh, train something else.

Jerred: Yeah. And real quick, just like tactically on the, the Garmin thing, 'cause I've run into this issue before. I went on some sort of like lactate threshold run and I didn't have, um, this was before this watch, I think it was my previous watch. Yeah. And you know how the risk-based heart rate's like I. It's o it's okay.

Yeah. And I mean, on the newer model that I have, I feel like it's, it's a lot better. Like I don't wear chest, chest strap anymore. Um, but [00:11:00] it was like, it, it asks you sometimes after you have a really hard workout, like if you wanna adjust your max heart rate. I don't know if you've seen that before. Um, and I said yes, but it adjusted it to like 208 or something like that, like 208, 210, somewhere around there as my max heart rate.

Uh, and I was like, sure. I think 'cause it had, it had observed, observed something close, but I don't think that that my heart rate ever came close to that number. You know what I mean? Like, I think especially you, like, I don't know if you, you have a lower, lower heart rate anyway. Like, I don't know if you could ever get that high.

My, my point being is it was improper. It was an improper. Max heart rate listed in Garmin. And so that like middle tier orange that you're talking about, that like lactate threshold that it tries to measure is almost impossible to get now even when you're doing higher intensity work. So when you're doing higher intensity work, it's like, like say your heart rate's 1 78 and it's like, that's great, but this is still not, [00:12:00] you know, threshold work you.

Shit. It's not threshold work like it definitely is, right? So that, that's one thing with the Garmin thing is it's based so heavily on the max heart rate. You gotta make sure that that's very accurate. I look at mine pretty frequently now, ever since that because. That happened to me. It was like, it's like you're never, you're never training with any intensity.

I'm like, n yes I am. Like I'm doing like these crazy 400 meter intervals I can't even breathe after. And you're telling me like, I'm just in the green. Like, it's like, ah, moderate workout. And it's because my max heart rate was so far off. Um, so just something to keep in mind there. But what you're saying, and what I think this study hits on is my ultimate stu, my ultimate takeaway, and it's what I've been wanting to look at forever and I'm glad that like science is moving this direction, is, is this overlap in concurrent training?

So can lower base strength con, uh, strength work be considered Zone two yes. Could 'cause this, this is not that. This is, this was taxing them. [00:13:00] Like pretty heavily. This was taxing them in the glycolytic zone. Like they were having significant, um, response. They were consuming a lot of oxygen, right? Uh, like, just like you would if you were doing a VO two max workout.

And so they were in this glycolytic zone and it only got worse as things progressed, even though they had three minute rest and intervals, which tell tells me their body wasn't clearing the lactate, they weren't able to recover as quickly. So they, they didn't have the, these massive aerobic engines, but.

They were getting this glycolytic workout. So if I were to just go super practical, super tactical for somebody who wants to do a concurrent training, split a hybrid athlete split, let's call it six days per week, and you got three days lifting, three days running. That's what a lot of people are doing these days.

If you're doing any kind of like hybrid or concurrent training, that's not specifically like our take and our training. And so what you could. How you could look at this and, and, and if you're doing it properly, how you would lift those three days is up to you. Whether that's bodybuilding, power lifting, whatever.

You could do three full body splits. You could do an upper, lower accessory, whatever you want, [00:14:00] uh, on the strength side. But on the conditioning side, uh, the best split for three days a week in a concurrent training split would be having like a zone two day, having like a threshold day. Um, which would be like, like harder, like 15 minute runs, 20 minute runs, you know, something where it's like.

It's not a long run, but you're, you're still getting that like aerobic threshold training, right? And then you have like an interval day. So super short duration, speed work, whatever. Those are like the three days that you, you would typically do. And that's how people do it because they look at current concurrent training or ha, hybrid athlete training.

So black and white. And the thing I've been arguing for years is that you don't need to look at it that way. So if you did squats that were taxing you this hardcore, you could get away from having to do any of the middle, middle work. You wouldn't have to do the threshold work. You could just work on speed work in zone two work, and you could skip the other one.

That's because you're already covering it in your program. And so to do this like really taxing, uh, you know, back squat day and then the next day be like, whoa, to keep up with my run [00:15:00] program that I just copied from, like a elite endurance runner, I need to do my threshold day. It's like you, you already checked that box from a, from a, like a.

An energy systems training perspective, you already checked that box. You don't need to go do that again. And so that's, there's a lot of bleed over here. So if you did this kind of protocol, five sets 10 at 65%, three minutes rest. In all honesty. Um, and I'm not trying to like, I. You know, toot my own horn here.

I don't think this would be that taxing for me. I, I honestly don't. 65% is not a ton. 10 reps not a, not a crazy amount. You gimme three minutes, I'm gonna recover from just about anything. And so these were obviously strength athletes, not like true concurrent hybrid training athletes. So. If you're more like me or a concurrent training athlete already, you probably need to increase the percentage to 75% maybe, or increase the reps, keep it at 65, go up to 15, something like that, and do multiple sets for you to get that, that taxation.

And so if you were to to do that, do this, bleed over. You wouldn't have [00:16:00] to do all these different training modalities. And that's what we've been arguing the whole time is like, let's just make it all work together. Let's, let's just have these different modalities that we're hitting, but we're not hitting it with just having to run or just having to lift.

We're trying to combine a lot of different things across the month of our Hard Kill Pro program at least. Yeah. So

something, especially as we get into summer, I think it, it's really good to, to pay attention to how your heart raise is responding to your strength days. Um, 'cause you know, garage your mouth is if you're lifting in your garage and you're, um.

Uh, the weather is gonna get, is gonna bleed in. You're gonna have hot, muggy garages. I know my basement is, you know, it's, it's not super, super hot, like high, high, seventies ish in the summer, but like the humidity is like 80 plus percent. So it's really muggy down there with no breeze. So I'm, I, I know mine will get up a little bit higher.

And so when I was pulling my data from, uh, working out in Bahrain back in 2021, it was like it was over a hundred degrees when I was, when I was working out at 7, [00:17:00] 7 30 in the morning, getting up to 110 plus and. The, it was at it between that and lifting in October. It was my average heart rate was 15 beats higher and I burned about 300 more calories doing just the regular sort of strength days being in that ridiculously, and I remember like my heart rate just not fully recovering in between sets because it's so hot.

So that I'm. Pretty much stayed in zone too toward the end of the workout in between sets, even though it's just the same, uh, strength work. So, uh, yeah, definitely this is a feather in the cap for bang for your buck on, um, on workouts and having, having some overlap so that you can focus on other things.

Jerred: Yeah. And temperatures like huge. We talked about this back in the day when I would do Murph across the summer. It's like. My Murf times would get so much worse in the summer because I'm always doing it outside, outside and it's so hot. But then I would start to PR in the fall, in the winter because you were able to slug through all that, [00:18:00] like temperature stuff.

And like I actually look at that training-wise, like in the winter. I try and, I mean, for obvious reasons, I try and stay inside. I try and stay in the garage or whatever in the winter when it's cold outside. And that's not because like I'm scared of cold. It's because. I feel like I didn't work out. If I, if it's 30 degrees and I'm outside training, like you can, you can wear enough layers, but like.

I'll get a workout in, but you know, you, you don't start sweating until like minute 45 or at least me. I'm like, okay, now I'm breaking a sweat. Like, and I just don't like that. I like to, to sweat. So now it's getting warmer Here in Texas, my training's moving back outside. It's like, for the reasons you're talking about, it's like I want that extra taxation of my body having to cool itself, um, you know, additional sweat, all those kind of things.

'cause it is, it's all conditioning. It's all part of like your body improving and adapting to a stimulus. I'm

looking forward to my first winter coming up.

Jerred: Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be rough. Um, so anyway, big, big takeaway here is [00:19:00] this kind of training, uh, would probably. It would not suffice his true aerobic conditioning if you're looking to do this, but it would be good middle distance training. So like to put this very apples to apples. If you were to do this style of squat training, it might help you with 400 meter improvement, 800 meter improvement, maybe up to a mile.

It's not going, you can't do squats and go run a half marathon, right? Like that's, it doesn't go that far. But it does help with this middle distance conditioning, which is anything from like one to four laps around the track if you wanna put it into kind of pure running context. And that's why I think our program, one man Will barbell is like such a good strength and conditioning program.

'cause it checks this box like crazy. 'cause think about it, we're doing Emom work, we're not doing three minute rest. We're doing that protocol with more reps. And less rest time in the same percentages. Right? So like one-man, one barbell is very taxing. It's very high volume. But if you can [00:20:00] knock out women with barbell training and a lot, I know a lot of our athletes have, you get significant levels of conditioning from that.

I know when I was in the military and I was running nine minute mile and a halfs for the Air Force PT test. I was not running all that much. I was doing a lot of one-man when barbell work, occasional like mile times. I do some longer runs here and there. But a lot of it, like predominantly I'd say 70% of my training was strength work.

But it was one-man when barbell strength work, which is is not lazy strength work. It's hard as shit strength work. And that's what I was doing, um, when I was. Had a really high level of conditioning running, nine minute mile and a half is, is nothing to, uh, you know, to sneeze at. It's pretty, pretty solid time for somebody who's not like a true Dreams athlete,

just add, I'll add onto that.

So with the, with the Imam work on Strength Track, um, August is when we were doing the exponential Imam strength Protocol and just to give a little, a little preview of that. So on strength tie, that's what's, that's what it's gonna be for three weeks in August, but. Those sets go five [00:21:00] by five at 55%. This ist every minute on the minute.

Imam rest a minute, five by three at 60%, rest a minute, five by two at 65% rest a minute, and then you have four by one every 30 seconds at 75%, and then it just builds up from there each week.

Jerred: Theon exponential Emo method is always, killers is brutal. It's, it's definitely one of my

favorites, but it's, it's one of those where you just kind of look at and like, whew, you gotta mentally prepare, like really mentally prepare for this.

Jerred: Yeah. Gosh. I feel like I need to get on that strength cycle, but I'm enjoying hard to kill. Uh, but that, that's it for the study. Hopefully you got some takeaways there. Like, yes, it can be conditioning, but. Only a part of a well-rounded conditioning program. Um, you know, like they, they used say about like cereal commercials in the nineties.

It'd like

breakfast.

Jerred: This is part of a well-rounded part of this complete training program. I feel like that's a, that's my ultimate takeaway here. [00:22:00] Yeah. This, this method is only part of having a full healthy training method. Don't make it your true conditioning, but it can be part of it. Let's get into some.

Updates. I'll answer the question first. Uh, see John from the community was asking about blood work. So I did that recent podcast on, um, basically I was just talking about my testosterone, right? Um, and he was asking, here, lemme pull it up, he said, do you get your blood work done through your PCP? What exactly do you ask for?

What blood markers are you looking, are looking to, uh. Tracking all over time. And do you need to specify those when you ask for blood work? Yes. I, it's a, this is a great question because I, it, it often times like, I forget when you're in the traditional medical system or like a PCP or for instance, you Joe, like if you go to, uh, a military doc, they're.

Especially [00:23:00] in the military, they're gonna do like the bare minimum 'cause it costs them money. Right. And you don't have to pay anything for it, at least on, on the military side most of the time. So you have to like request specific things. And I, and most of the time people are relatively price sensitive moving away from the military.

So your doctor might only get like the bare minimum of like your metabolic function. Yeah, actually. And not anything else. I don't work with a doctor that, so just comment on

that. Like two months ago I just had mine done and I wanted, I, I called them like, Hey, I wanted to get blood work done. And they were like, okay, what blood work do you want?

And I, I want full blood panel and something else. And like testosterone. They're like, okay, cool. We have to set up an appointment with you and your PCM to talk about it first in order for him to, because he has to order it. And then, so I'd have a video call with him or a phone call with him and I told him just.

Like why and what was going on. And then he like, luckily mine here is like, really, really awesome. He's like, yeah, let's do it all. Let's do this, let's do this. I recommend this. And, and all that is great. And like, so, so mine is really awesome. But sometimes some of 'em could just be like, eh, you don't really need that yet until this age.

You don't need that until this age. Let's just do this kind of thing. So I can, it [00:24:00] depends on how, how good yours is and, and what your, maybe even your yeah, insurance works or, or whatever that is. But that's how mine works. So I had to get a pre-appointment before they even did that. And then I went and, and got my blood draw.

Jerred: Yeah. And, and that's what, that was my experience when I was in the military was like, and e and even after I got out, when I was just like trying to see a doctor through like insurance or whatever, it was always like this. They're like, yeah, well we'll tell you your cholesterol and your insulin. And there wasn't like a whole lot of like other things involved.

And now I get a full blood panel. So what you have to ask for, I won't go over like every single thing that you. Need, but I do blood work one of two ways. Um, I have the functional med doc here who is cash pay, and so there is no insurance involved in this. I have to pay to see her in cash, and then I have to pay for the blood work completely out of pocket.

My insurance doesn't cover it. Um, and I'm okay with doing that at least once, once per year. Um, and then she covers, I mean, she wants to know everything when she does the [00:25:00] blood work. So we're going over all the hormonal profiles. We're doing metabolic profiles, we're doing, uh, nutrient testing. She's like, how much?

B12 and all that other stuff. And then typical like red blood cells, white blood cells, like that kind of stuff. Um, but another place that you can do this that really tracks just about everything that she would typically track is inside Tracker, which I use. I kind of bounce back and forth, like if I don't have anything that I'm specifically trying to optimize with a doctor, I just want to get my blood work, I will go.

Just to do inside Tracker and you can have someone go to your house or you can go to like a Lab Corp and just get a, a blood draw and then they put it in a portal and they kind of break it down for you as well. But I like having a, a doctor look at things where I don't like, I. Just sit there and guess, or Google or chat GPT.

Like I wanna, I wanna talk to somebody who knows what's up and like, 'cause there's some things that might be like, I had one thing, uh, flagged and she's like, this isn't even clinical or clinically relevant. Like, it really doesn't matter for you. And so, like, you know, that's tho just, it's good to know those [00:26:00] things, right?

And so that's, that's how I typically do it. Inside Tracker's a great place. They test just about everything you'd wanna know. If you, if you're looking to get it pulled and then with your, your doctor, you really have to be very specific. So without going over, like, here are all the things that you wanna test, if you wanna do this through your doctor, maybe just go to Inside Tracker, get a list of what they check, and then just take that to your doctor and be like, at a minimum, here's what I want.

And then anything that you recommend, and a big reason I do this, um, I talked about on the, on the Testosterone podcast that like I was trying to optimize that, get that back up to where I wanted it, but. I'm just looking for trends and I'm gonna do this with my kids. Not yet. Um, but when they get closer to probably 18, somewhere around there, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make them be on annual blood draws.

It's something I wish I would've done, uh, that way you can see how you change, like, what fluctuates for you Because I, I go back to, you know, my testosterone, free testosterone being in the mid eight hundreds. [00:27:00] Some guys I know. Are in the four hundreds and they're operating great, and that's just for them.

But they were in the two hundreds and they doubled it. They got in the four hundreds, and then I know some guys who are in the nine hundreds. You know, like it's different for every single person. So when I was lower in the six sevens, I was feeling off. And it was because, but I had years of blood work to look back and be like, okay, here's where you typically feel good, and it's in the eight hundreds, and it's like, okay, that's the goal.

That's what I'm shooting for. But if I didn't have anything to look back on in the past, I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know what I'm optimizing for, or if anything was even different. So the bigger takeaway of blood work is to be on some sort of cadence. That's why a lot of people just do this stuff on your birthday where you don't have to remember.

It's just like, Hey. It's your birthday, congrats. Go to the dentist and also get some blood work done. You just like be on these, this cadence. Right. Um, so that's, that's a bigger thing with blood work, um, after you getting it done is to keep having it done. So you always have these baselines for yourself.

Yeah, I definitely dropped the ball for a couple years. Um, alright man. I, I, I, I just got done this year [00:28:00] and then the last time was, uh, 2018 or 2019. Luckily, I still saved the papers from when I got that done, like the hard copies of it. And so as the doctor was going through my results, I was, um, actually looking at like what it was in the past and telling him like what it was, what's changed, stuff like that.

So that was, that was pretty good.

Jerred: Yeah. And that's, that's another reason why I like the, uh. Going to a functional med doc too, because anoth, one thing that was flagged on me that was high was, uh, total cholesterol. Right. And, and that's just, that's, um, genetic for me it's, it's, you know, it's my family history. Like we, everybody has, uh, a lot of, or high cholesterol and.

She's like, but she goes over, she like runs this like analysis of like some, I, I forgot what it is. Some sort of like, uh, equation they do to see if it's actually dangerous. But then she's like, she's like, well, your triglycerides are basically like the lowest they could possibly be, which is, which is great.

Your [00:29:00] inflammation markers are damn near zero. Like, she's like, I'm really not concerned with having higher cholesterol. That's where the doctor comes in, right? Because like if I didn't have her, I'd be like, okay, well what so wish I be eating Cheerios or getting on some sort of medication? Um, you know, and so that's why it's always good to have not just a doctor, but like a functional med doc or somebody who's like, is 'cause cholesterol.

Like there's, there's so much stuff good and bad on it, but it's like if every other metabolic and inflammatory marker for me is. Optimized. Then it's like, how concerning is cholesterol? And she said that, um, she had a very interesting point when we went over my blood work. She was like, she used to be an ER doc before.

She does what she does now. And she said that she can't tell you how many times she saw people with perfect cholesterol markers who were coming in with heart attacks. Like, she's like, I, she's like, I'm just not a huge believer of this being like. The, the canary in the coal mine because like, [00:30:00] she's like, these people would have like stellar blood work on the cholesterol side, but then they're coming in.

To get a stent or like whatever to that, that they needed to do in an emergency situation. And, and she's like, so it's just not, I don't think

there's a

Jerred: much

correlation as people think the rest. Yeah. When I, I got my results, so like, we have an online portal then, and they would come through online and I could check 'em, but I didn't have my appointment for like three weeks and I was like, oh man, all my cholesterol markers were, were, were either bad or the good one was low.

And I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta make some changes. And you know, it's probably good to have a little bit of a gut check every once in a while, so I. I started looking up all these, uh, higher fiber foods. I switched from, you know, primarily chicken instead of like some of the pork and stuff we've been eating.

So I, I made a whole bunch of changes and three weeks in, you know, I, I, I had my appointment and the, my mine did that calculation too. He asked me like some questions. He went over a bunch of different markers and he was like, all right, you have a less than 2% chance of any heart-related incident.

Congratulations. Like, oh, okay, well I guess I don't need to worry that much, but I'll still keep on this path. But that's still, you know, kind of, kind of.[00:31:00]

Jerred: Yeah, that's, and that's why you have to have the doctor, like, I don't like the, the doctor Google. That's why I don't like the inside tracker sometimes too. Like I said, I'll, I'll do Inside Tracker. Like I said, I'm not trying to optimize anything or I'm not concerned about anything. But I'm also, it's not like my doctor's pissed that I, I didn't use her.

Like if I have get inside Tracker blood work and then I go see her, she's, I mean, she'd be fine with that. So like, I could be like, Hey, I'm a little concerned about this. So anyway. Um. That's it on blood work. Hopefully that's helpful. Uh, updates, man. How are you? How are you doing? How's this training? How's life?

So I went, since the last update, I think I went back to California for two weeks and then came back. So that's a nine hour difference. So jet lag both ways, because two weeks is just enough time to adjust over there and then come right back. And then here we go again. So basically at three weeks of jet lag training and.

For some reason this time of year at for, for this time. 'cause it hasn't happened in any five or six years that I've been going to my base in California. Allergies were absolutely horrendous. Like the worst I have [00:32:00] ever felt. And I did like one run day to try and prime myself 'cause I was getting ready for my P test and the run loop it like, it's a long, it's a really good path.

It goes through fields from the main part of base all the way to. Base housing, but it's all field. And then after I got done with that, I was, I was in bad shape from a, from a allergy standpoint, like from then on, it was just completely draining, itchy, sneezing. Um, and it, it was awful. So that definitely affected my runtime.

But for the, I was there for 13 full days, not accounting to travel days. And I still did some sort of activity or training, 12 of the 13 days. So I only actually took one rest day, which was. Pretty good for me. 'cause a lot of times when traveling, it's really hard to, especially jet lag. It's really hard to just not do something.

So I did it even like pretty much my goal starting off this training day was like, I'm just do 30, 30 minutes of something and like day one is always the worst from jet lag. You almost feel like it's almost those, and it's almost like those hangover [00:33:00] sweats to where you're, you're a little bit hotter than you should be.

You feel your sweat more than you should. You're a little bit. Even dizzy. And that was just a really easy 30 minutes of like, uh, incline walking. I got off, did some super sets, did some more incline walking just to do, and then I think it did help. But yeah, so training wise for that, I, I did better than I expected even if it wasn't that hard workouts.

And now I'm here, I'm back here back to normal. Uh, I did also to double tap on updates, play soccer this week for the first time in four years at. 37. Achilles and hamstrings still intact. No serious injuries. I did roll. I did roll my ankle once I, right goodness, just kind of weak ankles, especially going side to side, and when you make contact with somebody, you're just not used to that compensation.

But surprisingly, my conditioning for that was pretty spot on. I felt pretty good the entire time. I was still able to do like full field. Sprint, fast break from, from one end to the other. I was good. I still [00:34:00] kept going. Um, so that was great. It was just my skills that really, really were lacking. 'cause I haven't played in four years.

And uh, my shoes also fell apart. So that didn't help. But it went pretty well. Although super sore for the next two days. I was two days ago, so my groins still really sore. It's always the groin. Always the groin and hip flexors.

But it was fun. Yeah.

Jerred: Any athletic activity, uh, is gonna. Crush us as as time goes on. But, um, that's cool man. Yeah. You, when you were doing, when you had all the allergy problems, you weren't taking allergy meds, were you? 'cause it crushes your endurance.

Well, it gains, I don't, I didn't care about gains. I just wanted to, to be about what my baseline was before I went to Spain.

Maintain. Yeah. It did not return to that. Uh, it got a, it got better, more, more bearable. But it was still, it was still pretty pretty gang bag. Um. And then of course, always on the PT test day. It's super windy, so running into the wind, half the track is just terrible. So yeah.[00:35:00]

Jerred: Yeah, it's, uh, I remember the worst that was that ever was. And I think I told this podcast on this story years ago was when I was still in the reserves and I had to drive up to Wichita Falls, um, to do a PT test. And the wind kept blowing out of limits to where like, you're not allowed to take the PT test.

Um, and then it eventually, like it sustained above the wind level, you're allowed to like take the PT test and. I was like, dude, come on. Like I drove two hours up here. Like, I'm not one of those guys who's on the threshold to where the wind's gonna make or break a, a pass fail here. I was like, just let me do it.

And he like, I was the only one that he let do it. He let me do it. And it was one of the worst run times I ever had because also their, their track is a one mile loop. It's an actual track. I've never seen anything like it. Like I've never seen, you know, you're. The red rubber track with like white [00:36:00] lines, like it's one of those tracks, but it's one mile.

It's this like giant, uh, loop. And so, um, when you're running against the wind, it's four a half mile. Straight down. Then there's this like short turn and then it's at your back. Really helps on the, when it's at your back really sucks when you're running into it. And now that's the most I've ever seen an effect from wind, like in performance.

It's like, oh wow, this actually does matter. Like quite a bit. Uh, 'cause it was one of my worst times, but it, yeah, it was nowhere close to like failing it or anything. But that was a, that was psycho, um. As far as training for me, I've just been sticking to heart of kill track mostly. I was, uh, gone for a week.

My wife and I went on a, on a trip, uh, for our 15th, 15th wedding anniversary. Um, and so while I was out of town, I was just doing basic stuff. Like I worked out pretty much every day, but I'd either like just run a couple miles on the, on the treadmill at the, the gym they had there, or do, uh, like murf [00:37:00] reps.

5, 10, 15 till I felt good, you know, um, pullups, pushups, squats, those kind of things. I just kept it real simple doing like 30, 40 minute workouts just to get something in. Uh, but it was good, man. That's, that's basically it. It's about to be summer with the, the kids out of school. And so, um, I. They'll give me probably most of my activity, uh, on top of my training.

I just would like doing different sports with them and training them. So I'm really looking forward to it because that's what we do in the summer. I don't train my kids, uh, during the year they have a lot of sports, school, everything else going on. But then once summer hits, I take over their, their training, strength conditioning.

So that's about to kick up here in the next couple days, and I'm really looking forward to be

the same gym last year.

Jerred: Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I normally have them invite one or two friends. And this is, this is a pro tip for any, any dads out there who are looking to train their kids, uh, or have them work out. Invite a friend over if they have [00:38:00] another athletic friend whose parents are kind of into that or whatever. Have the friend come over every day that they train.

We have a. Basically a neighbor friend who's, uh, they've been on the same football team, uh, Graham and him for a number of years, and, uh, very athletic, wants to train. Parents are super into it, and I do it for free. I'm not charging these people right. And so they, they love that part of it as well. Um, but I actually get the most benefit out of that, not their kid.

My benefit is my kids won't give me any crap if a friend is over. They'll be competitive with the friend as opposed to like, if I'm like, Hey, do this hard thing for 30 seconds or whatever, they'll just complain to me about it. Right? And, and I, I don't wanna sit there and have to yell at him, but if they have a friend who's just willing to do it because he's there to listen and do the work, and I'm not his dad, they just compete with him.

There's no arguments. Like it's, it's a true hack because like he didn't show up a few times last summer, this, this kid, and how much harder it was to train my two boys when it's just me and them. [00:39:00] Exponentially, like 10 times harder. They just, they gimme so much crap, pushback, all this kind of stuff. So if you think that any of this is easy for me, it's absolutely not.

But I found a hack. You just invite the friend over and that takes care of, or something. So

yeah, it's, well, it's just funny. Like they, I don't know. They'll, they'll, they'll do a lot of things with some of the harder things. It's, it's, uh, it's hard to get them to, to push without having some sort of competition there. Uh, I think, I think that's about it for this one. Uh, good to catch up. And for all of our athletes, if you have any questions, uh, throw 'em in the community and happy to answer 'em here on the podcast.

Uh, but that's it for this one. If you wanna join our training, go to garage gym athlete.com, sign up for a free trial, and we'd love to have you remember. If you don't kill comfort, comfort will kill.