187: Logan Christopher on the Pyramid of Athleticism and Human Performance | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features Logan Christopher, strongman, author, owner of Legendary Strength and CEO of Lost Empire Herbs.  Logan previously appeared on episode 111 where he discussed mental training in depth, including the utilization of hypnosis and mental anchors. Alongside his athletic and business pursuits, Logan has also written several books including “Mental Muscle” and “Powered by Nature”, both of which I have found impactful reads.  Logan is a master of using the natural machinery of the body and our environment to help us reach our highest potential as humans. I wanted to get Logan back on the show for a few reasons.  One was that he lives only an hour and a half away from me in Santa Cruz, and I knew that it would be a blast to train with him prior to recording the show.  Secondly, I had took some inspiration from my past show with Logan and started using his mental training hypnosis tracks prior to my training sessions, along with using his herbs, primarily his “Phoenix” formula (containing herbs such as Ant Extract and Pine Pollen) as well as an adaptogenic mushroom tincture I put in my morning coffee.  The results, were profound.  Although I don’t like to pin training gains on one thing only, I managed to jump higher that year at age 35 than I had in the last 5 years.  My training and overall strength had found rapid improvement, and I knew there was something special to this process.  Finally, I had been reading Logan’s articles around the time I started using his herbs and came across a drawing he referred to as the “Pyramid of Strength” (see show notes), and with everything I head learned about training the last few years, this made perfect sense to me, so I wanted to explore it in depth. On today’s show, we cover just that, the Pyramid of strength, and get Logan’s take on each layer (Mental, Training, Sleep, Diet,Herbs/ Supplements, Spiritual) of what makes us thrive as athletes and human beings. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.  View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Key Points How awkward objects and kettlebells can add value to a training sessions The layout and inspiration behind Logan’s “Pyramid of Strength” How mental state in the gym and training filters over into one’s sport How Logan approaches sleep and recovery in his own training An overview of performance herbalism and how herbalism differs from chemically driven supplements The drawbacks of typical chemical pre-workouts and herbal alternatives to these The primary herbs to look at for athletic performance Logan’s coffee additives (or replacement) for a more natural energy source   “For most guys the color pink is actually going to weaken them” “Every single (training) system out there is a limited collection of movements and if we are looking at health, all around athleticism, the more different movements you’ll do, the better off you’ll be” “We are thinking and feeling beings; that involves everything we are doing.  There is often a cursory acknowledgement of mental aspects of training, but there often isn’t a dialing into that and a mental understanding” “For performance, diet is not the most important thing, because how many Olympic athletes are eating Cheetos and crap food?  Most of these athletes are younger guys, so there is a period you can do that, but if you want long term performance, that is not a sustainable thing” “I would say that everyone is visualizing before an exercise, but they may not be aware of it, period” “Often, people think of just getting to this ideal technique, but there are layers and layers of improving your internal technique and how you are talking to yourself, things that are going on inside, and that’s still all technique as well” “Music is used to control state,