RUNGA Radio

In today’s episode, I chat with Lieutenant Mark Cucuzzella, a professor at West Virginia University’s School of Medicine and the author of Run for Your Life. Mark is a national-level Masters runner who has won the Air Force Marathon twice and has more than one hundred marathon and ultramarathon finishes to his name. He’s also in charge of the US Air Force’s Efficient Running Project and has presented running workshops at over fifty military bases across the country.  We start our conversation with a discussion about the meaning of health and go on to explore a diverse range of topics, including childhood obesity, insulin resistance, the prevalence of junk food, and the amount of protein we should eat in our diets. We also talk about the healing power of nature and the grounding effect of walking barefoot on the earth.Support the show

This week, I welcome Dr. Dennis Rebelo back onto the show. In our previous podcast, we spoke about story-pathing and connecting to our purpose, and today, we discuss Dennis’s new book, ‘Story Like You Mean It’, which sets out how to build and use your personal narrative to illustrate who you really are. To make the storytelling process even more interesting and collaborative, Dennis has created a book club on the ‘Story Like You Mean It’ website so that readers can work through and share their personal stories in a community setting.We discuss how difficult it is for most people to talk about themselves and how taking the time to reflect on our lived experiences can help us understand who we truly are and make it easier for others to appreciate our value. Dennis explains how changing the stories we tell about ourselves can encourage us to develop a more positive mindset, challenge our limiting beliefs, and enable us to relate better to others. Support the show

Welcome to this week’s AMA episode, where I chat about some of the health, nutrition, and fitness issues I’ve been asked about lately. I also share the 5-day supplement program I’ll be using with the corporate guests attending our live Runga Event at Lake Austin this week. The supplement protocol focuses on maximizing sleep, hydration, and immunity and consists of two shots of Quicksilver’s Immune charge, three doses of Quicksilver’s Quinton 3.3 Hypertonic, and two tabs of Quicksilver’s H2 Elite Hydrogen per day. And (although they may not need it after a day of kettlebell training, yoga, and hot and cold immersion), our guests will be offered Quicksilver’s CBD Synergies and BiOptimizers’ Magnesium Breakthrough to improve the quality of their sleep. On a more general note, I also get into the benefits of a protein-forward, low-carb, no-sugar diet and explain how to do a 20-minute EMOM on a SkiErg.    Support the show

My guest today is Dr. Jason Sonners, a certified hyperbaric practitioner and regenerative medicine specialist. Jason is the Director of NJ HBOT, a clinic in New Jersey that supports patients with various autoimmune and neurological conditions. Jason combines hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) with nutrition, exercise, and detoxification programs to guide his patients through their health challenges.  As a chiropractor and an exercise physiologist, he also uses hyperbaric oxygen therapy to help athletes improve their performance and take their recovery to the next level. Jason explains how hyperbaric oxygen therapy works and sets out the conditions it can be used to treat. He also describes some breathing and breath-holding techniques that train the body to absorb, deliver, and recycle oxygen more efficiently.Support the show

On this Friday’s show, I’ve decided to share a twenty-minute workout that builds on the alternating EMOM of ten kettlebell swings and ten push-ups that I talked you through in Episode 101. However, this routine focuses on power, endurance, and stamina, and it has more of a metabolic component which means you’ll have to work a little harder this time. Today’s EMOM consists of ascending reps of five, ten, or twenty swings at station one, followed by ten push-ups (or preferably ten calories on a fan bike or SkiErg) at station two. If you’re doing the workout outside, you can substitute a 150-meter run or thirty steps of lightweight walking lunges for the time spent cycling, rowing, or skiing. Wherever you do the workout, remember to focus on your form. Make an effort to tighten your glutes, quads, and abs. And, as always, synchronize your breathing and try to breathe through your nose. Support the show

This week, I sit for a second time with Dr. Michael Rintala. Dr. Rintala is a chiropractor specializing in chiropractic sports medicine and rehabilitation. He’s also an international instructor for the Prague School of Rehabilitation who uses the principles of Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS) to help his patients recover from injury and improve their performance. Since DNS works by training the body to tap into the movement patterns that we learn instinctively as infants, we talk about the stages of movement that babies go through as they grow. As well as discussing developmental kinesiology and explaining how DNS helps improve stability and mobility, Dr. Rintala describes some of the simple mouth breathing techniques he teaches to align the diaphragm. To round off our discussion, we get into the health and performance benefits of kettlebell training, and Michael talks about his upcoming course on the Czech Get-Up, which begins on the 20th of April.Support the show

In this episode, I share the recent conversation I had with Strong Coffee founder Adam Von Rothfelder on his Up and Adam podcast. We talk about David Hawkins’ scale of consciousness and how negative emotions, such as fear, guilt, shame, and jealousy, keep us resonating at a lower vibration, whereas courage raises our levels of consciousness. As fathers and business owners, we compare notes on parenthood and reflect on the personal and economic challenges of the last year. We also emphasize the importance of speaking the truth (even when it isn’t what people want to hear), and I list the foods I think we should be eating more of as well as those we should be taking pains to avoid.Support the show

My guest today is conditioning and performance expert Joel Jamieson. Joel is an online educator who teaches fitness professionals how to write science-based conditioning programs that deliver real-world results. He is also the CEO and founder of Morpheus, the world’s first personal digital recovery system. Joel was one of the first people to realize the importance of using heart rate variability as a gauge to measure where a person sits on the scale of fitness and recovery. In addition to measuring heart rate variability, activity, and sleep, Joe’s latest app, Morpheus, can help you achieve your fitness goals by balancing your training and moving your body into the recovery zone. As well as geeking out on heart rate variability, we talk about managing stress and training the autonomic nervous system to move out of sympathetic dominance.  As a recovery specialist, Joel emphasizes that our health is affected by many factors (not just the time we spend training) and advises paying proper attention to our sleep, diet, and stress levels. Support the show

Today I want to talk about the therapeutic effects of exposing the body to hormetic stressors such as exercise, fasting, and extremes of heat and cold. It’s important to remember that the benefits of these practices come with consistency. In the case of cold water immersion, I recommend trying to establish a routine that includes at least five cold showers and one ice bath per week. The water doesn’t have to be freezing; any temperature that makes you uncomfortable should be enough to spark an adaptive response and help the body mobilize fat, regulate blood sugar levels, and build resilience. To obtain the optimal health benefits from heat exposure, I suggest taking four saunas per week and limiting each session to 19 minutes. In this episode, I also answer some of the questions I’ve been getting lately about nutrition and exercise and explain how to build the stability and strength required to do a successful pistol squat.Support the show

In today’s episode, I chat with my old friend Jeff Vernon, creator of the Trueform Runner, a treadmill designed to improve running form. Talking to Jeff reminded me of the first time I tried the TrueForm. As I recall, it was a somewhat awkward experience with a crowd of people looking on and making me feel self-conscious about my performance. The TrueForm Runner is self-powered, and it was unlike any treadmill I’d ever used before. You need to run with good form and technique to keep it moving, and it really shows up any quirks in your running style. In fact, it’s been called the ‘best lie detector in the gym’ for its ability to expose the flaws in your form.My second experience of using the TrueForm (in private as part of a running course) was much more satisfactory, and I quickly realized what an important tool it is for improving form and turning people into better runners. I believe that the secret to injury-free running is running well, and the TrueForm teaches you how to run at the right pace and in the correct position. What’s more, it dramatically reduces your likelihood of injury.Support the show