Once you learn to distill a complicated science into its essence, you’ve developed a transferrable process useful to deeply understanding other subjects. Having taught athletes to improve their performance by focusing on recovery, our guest this week became interested in the longevity industry. He began studying cellular renewal and a process called autophagy.
Episode highlights
You cannot take the aggregation of scientific studies and know it'll work for you. There's too much diversity between individuals Share on XThe HR monitor is the single most important piece of equipment you can use as a biohacker or athlete Share on X"You gain no benefit training in Zone 4 that you don't get in Zone 3" Share on XPodcast Sponsor Banner
About Don Moxley
Don Moxley is Director of Applied Science and Brand Development at Longevity Labs Inc. in the United States. Dedicated to helping people live vibrant, fulfilling lives at all ages, Moxley draws upon his career as an athlete, a sports scientist, and an instructor to lead and educate on the science of autophagy and longevity.
Focusing his work on the cell renewal benefits of spermidine supplementation, Don is a regarded longevity science leader known for making the complex simple.
Throughout his life and career, Moxley has applied science to enhancing well-being. A former captain and Big 10 Championship winner with the Ohio State University wrestling team, Don served as the university’s first sports scientist.
By giving athletes the ability to track their progress in strength, cardiovascular, and resilience training, he helped the wrestling team win a national title and three Big 10 Championships. He has helped athletes achieve two Olympic medals, four World Championships, seven National Championships, and 23 All-Americans.
A resident of Granville Ohio, Moxley has been married to his wife Laura since 1990. When he’s not sharing knowledge about spermidine, cell renewal or longevity, he’s studying human performance.
Top things you’ll learn from Don Moxley
- The power of the sauna for healing and recovery
- What he’s building at Longevity Labs
- Why you shouldn’t listen to music while exercising
- Heart rate monitoring is perhaps the most important measurement for health
- Contains a vast amount of information
- Learning to train in specific heart rate zones (5 zone system)
- Zone 1 is rest
- Zone 3 is the anaerobic threshold
- Zone 5 is max effort
- Zone training
- Athletes spend too much time in Zone 4, and not enough in Zones 2 & 3
- As you get older, there’s a lot of value in Zone 2 training
- “You gain no benefit training in Zone 4 that you don’t get in Zone 3”
- Heavy Zone 4 training comes at the cost of excess (degenerative) cortisol
- How Don has recovered from 8+ surgeries
- Even wrestled 11 days after one surgery
- Target inflammation
- MSM and sulfur-rich foods
- Get micronutrients with sprouting, micro-greens, and grass-fed meats
- The “High Information Diet”
- How Don practically uses HRV
- Accurately predict athletic performance and championship success by measuring the HRV of players
- “I knew who would make All-American and who wouldn’t based on their recovery scores going into the tournament”
- Suggests when firefighters or police should take assessments to avoid jeopardizing their entire career due to low HRV
- Measured 3.5 million HRV data points in 2017/2018
- We can measure the ability to super compensate and grow with HRV
- Fixing sleep is required to fix HRV
- Accurately predict athletic performance and championship success by measuring the HRV of players
- Without recovery, training is worse than pointless
- Best HRV tracking devices
- Don Moxley’s 4 pillars of longevity that go into your “jar of purpose”
- Movement (hack it with exercise)
- Food (hack it with supplements)
- Light (hack it with photobiomodulation)
- Sleep (hack it with naps)
- Why light exposure matters
- Light is one of the most powerful circadian cues
- Circadian rhythm influences virtually all biological processes
- 80% of the DNA in the nucleus of cells orients to circadian rhythm
- Growth must be contrasted with repair
- Heat, exercise, caloric restriction all increase cellular repair (autophagy)
- Senescent cells drain resources from the body and infect other cells
- Supplement called spermidine is one of the strongest cellular repair activators
- Longest live people (Blue Zones) consume diets rich in spermidine
- Spermidine is expected to achieve essential nutrient status (like vitamins and minerals)
- You can’t get the same effects from taking the widely beneficial essential amino acid supplements because we’re missing microbes in the gut that convert the amino into the polyamine
- Spermidine benefits
- “Metabolic 401K”
- Increased epithelial stem cell production
- Improved recovery from and transmission of highly virulent diseases
- Neuroenhancement and neuroprotective
- Improved immunity and cardiovascular function
- spermidineLIFE is the only product tested in humans
- Save 15% on high-quality clinical-grade spermidine with code URBAN15
- Potential TBI recovery protocol to research
- Get energy to the brain and lower inflammation
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy
- Creatine
- CBD
- Methylene Blue (I like TroScriptions)
- Exogenous ketones (I like KetoneAid)
Resources mentioned
- Supplement: spermidineLIFE (save 15% with code URBAN15)
- Book: Flow
- Book: Stealing Fire
- Book: Rise of Superhuman
- Book: Changing for Good
Connect with Don
This podcast is brought to you by
Nick Urban is a Biohacker, Data Scientist, Athlete, Founder of Outliyr, and the Host of the Mind Body Peak Performance Podcast. He is a Certified CHEK Practitioner, a Personal Trainer, and a Performance Health Coach. Nick is driven by curiosity which has led him to study ancient medical systems (Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hermetic Principles, German New Medicine, etc), and modern science.
Music by Luke Hall
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