Jocko Underground: You Are Accepting Too Much Weakness.
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This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 162. Sitting here with EC Echo Charlie. Let's get into it. Let's get some questions and provide some recommended courses of action. Let's go. First question. Jocko, three years ago I switched my career from 15 years in the medical field to law enforcement. I started in corrections and in two years...

Have just made our tactical team. I'm physically fit. I run and lift. I drink and eat great. But training with these younger guys is really showing my age. I'm not backing out of the fight, but it's painful getting up. My question is, is there anything that can help these 45-year-old joints something to get me off the mat faster? Stop the cramping or just keep fighting through it like I have been. Um...

First of all just straight up joint warfare super krill time war and creatine like I'm gonna go ahead and say that right there So I've been taking those supplements all the time for a really long time joint warfare super krill time war creatine awesome, I I believe that it has a lot to do with the longevity of performance so and in that vein

What is eating and drinking great?

Because you say you're eating and drinking great. What does that mean? There are people that think they're eating and drinking great and they're not like maybe you're on a maybe you're like a raw food guy or maybe you're a vegan guy or maybe you're a carnivore diet guy or maybe you're a standard American diet guy or maybe you're a low carb guy or maybe you're a low fat guy or maybe you know, there's a bunch of ways you could be eating that you think is great and maybe they're great for someone. Maybe they're great for your trainer. Maybe they're great for your wife or whatever, but

There's lots of choices. You got to kind of figure out what is good for you, right? Because you could be thinking you're eating great and you're eating food that doesn't really help you feel good, doesn't help you perform, doesn't help you recover. Another thing like mulch and greens, like those are really good. So I would start looking at your, like, what do you mean by eating great?

Steak and potatoes, cool. But maybe those potatoes you don't need or maybe you're going too heavy with the steak. You know what I'm saying? So you really need to start to pay attention to what you're putting in your body, paying attention to the fuel. You have to. If you eat like junk, you're going to feel like junk. But sometimes it's hard to know what junk is. And you might be missing some kind of nutrient in your system that you're just not getting. Maybe you're not getting the right fatty acids. Maybe you're not getting the right protein. Like there could be things that you're missing. Maybe you're not getting enough protein.

Like someone, if you're, you know, you're 200 pounder, you probably need 200 grams of protein a day. Are you getting that? You see what I'm saying? So it's really important that you do a deep dive on what you're putting in your body. Another thing is just like stretch, stretching and mobility work. Like that stuff is definitely, you don't need to do it when you're 20. But when you're, how old is this dude? 45? When you're 45, you got to get it. You got to get it done. You got to stretch. Okay.

You got to get that mobility activity going on. We have the expert over here on sleep and rest, Echo Charles, right? You got to get the rest. If you're shortchanging your sleep, if you're not sleeping enough, you're going to start to feel bad. What about the whole freaking sauna, ice bath, jacuzzi, like recovery type stuff? Do you have access to any of that stuff? Can you get in the cold showers?

Like what can you, from that perspective, are you walking? Like there's so many little things to do walking after you eat a meal. Road work. You've been doing a lot of road work. Echo Charles, your version of road work. But, you know, maybe just a little bit more road work makes you feel better. Maybe you need a full rest day, a full rest day where you don't do anything but eat steak. Rest and steak day. You see what I'm saying? So all those are kind of,

My initial sort of guesses or recommendations of things that you need to dial in. And here's the real deal. Go see a doctor. Get your blood work done. See where you're at. See how that freaking gut microbiome activity is. See how that endocrine system is working. Because you're 45 years old. I don't know what kind of life you lived. You were in the medical field. You don't know what's going on with your system.

So get checked out. See what's really up with your health. Health, right? You've got to get the blood work. And then once that blood work comes and you can say, oh, I've got too much of this. I don't have enough iron. I don't have enough vitamin D. You know, like there's a bunch of things that could be jamming you up. Never mind like actual hormonal problems that people run into. So I would go get that stuff checked out. And then I think what you probably need to do is you need to start dialing in.

You need to start just dialing things in. You got to start paying attention to everything. That's the reality. When I was 20 years old, freaking double extra cheese pizza for lunch and Wendy's for dinner, and I'm still going to go out there in the morning and get after it and not even feel a damn thing. Bad. Dude, if I eat a freaking...

If I eat a fast food right now, it's like you might as well come and hit me in the back of the head with a baseball bat. I just feel like junk. So you got to start paying attention to everything because people are getting it done at 45. People are getting it done at 50. People are getting it done at 55. People are getting it done at 60 and 65, dude. But it takes attention. It takes effort. It takes intelligence. And when I say intelligence, I'm not talking about you got to be smart. I'm talking about the kind of intelligence that you get in.

In the SEAL teams to go and conduct a mission. You got to find out what is happening. You see what I'm saying? You need Intel. You need to gather Intel. Where are you going to gather Intel from? Well, it's from, oh, maybe I need to check out how much food you're eating. Check out what your macros are. Because you might be thinking you're eating great because you're eating, you know,

Low fat diet or you're eating whole grains and you're only getting 80 grams of protein a day. No wonder you feel like ass. You know what I'm saying? You need some steak up in you. So I think that's what you need Intel. And the way you're going to get Intel is by doing reconnaissance. And the way you do reconnaissance is by paying attention to what's happening.

Paying attention to like, oh, what did I actually eat yesterday? Did I have a donut? Did I have two donuts? Did I eat a... Did I eat... I had a friend that was eating... I guess it's like a green juice that you could buy. It's like some kind of juice. And it looks like ultra healthy with the label. Yeah, hell yeah, the label. Bro, I picked it up. I looked at it. There was like... I want to say there was 62 grams of sugar. Yeah.

Think I know the one you're talking about 62 grams of sugar bro, you know, you know, it's like this size is a side of a hydrate It's like 16 ounces and it was like two servings like whatever 31 grams of sugar per serving and so do you know what that does to your insulin system when you got bomb when you drink you drink 62 grams of sugar

It's freaking awful. I was like bro. What are you doing? I was been I was in more indirect I was like to you. What are you getting out of that? Well, you know, it's got I think it's got the good greens in it. Okay, cool Let me look at the label for a second 62 grams of sugar stack 61 sugar cubes and eat them so people you know and I'm not that's just that you got it you got to use that Intel gotta get the knowledge of what's going on so that you can act and you can react and

and get this stuff squared away. You're 45, there's some stuff going on. You just gotta be more active, dude. And when I say active, I'm not talking move more, I'm talking more actively engaged in making sure that shit is squared away. And that's what I missed. Did I miss anything? Yeah, no, I wouldn't say miss, but I'd say this is something that I think comes to you very naturally to the point where we barely talked about it up until recently.

But this is a big, I believe, I firmly believe being someone who's over 45 years old is a big factor. And that is telling yourself that you're old, like, oh, I'm too old or I'm old. These young guys and I'm the old guy, you know? And therefore, so telling yourself that. It's literally making an excuse.

Yeah, but the excuse goes deeper than just like, okay, that's it. I think it goes into your physiology as well. So I feel like it's kind of like... We're getting into some mind-body connection. Trust me, I'm telling you. If you...

how we put it, don't accept that. Like for real, don't accept it. And it starts with like, okay, so, you know, we've, I've known the guy and I'm sure everyone has who does jujitsu where it's like the old guys in there. He's good at jujitsu, but he keeps talking about how old he is, you know, where it's like, yeah, pretty good for an old guy. And this is about the old guy and just how he's this old guy. So he's kind of like, he, he basically knocks down his standard of performance because yes, it is an excuse, but,

His whole body, his whole everything is following. Yeah. And it's following that excuse pattern. So now when we're like, we go through, I don't know, some drill or some training or whatever. And yeah, you get sore from it. Now, instead of not accepting, like, bro, I'm not accepting that I'm sore. I'm not going to like start limping up the stairs. You know how like, okay, here's what I will consciously keep myself from doing. And it's way easier now. You know, when you sit down for a long time, maybe you got some DOMS or whatever and go in.

you know, you do that. And do I do it all the time? No, but I'm just saying, if you can consciously be like, not accepting and be like, nope, don't care. Powering through, powering through, powering through. You'd be surprised like how little it affects you when you get used to that, you know? So anyway, that's like one of the, one of the versions of not accepting it. So if you,

do the opposite if you start saying hey like I'm the old guy I'm like this old body could use a this old body this I'm old I'm 45 whatever yeah but that's a step in the wrong direction ain't there yeah if you wake up and you're like dude I feel like a freaking animal today yeah whose neck am I gonna break training let's freaking go all day don't care how old I am don't care in fact

Good. Good. I got more experience, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, if age is like this negative thing or whatever, and you consciously tell yourself that, I think that's a step in the wrong direction. And I think most people where when they don't accept that, I think that they have a tendency to outperform everyone else at that age.

So I've witnessed an experience, too, though, because remember, you know, we talk about this with like lifting, for example. And there's a guy we train with. I forget his name. Anyways, he goes by Iron Man. But he said this as well, where it's like when you when you're lifting weights and stuff like that. And let's say you have a bad day of lifting and you're like over 40.

you start to tell yourself, well, you know, I'm, Hey, I had a good run. I'm older now. So now the next workout, you don't demand as much from yourself. So now you go a little bit less weight, you know, a little bit less, a little, a few, a little bit less sets, you know, I'm getting old. I don't have it anymore. And guess what? That's okay. That's you accepting it. Yeah.

when you should be saying like oh i felt a little weak today need to d load yeah d load recover more freaking really check my nutrition like the whole thing maybe even freaking work out this little kink right here no problem so i can get back in it and and make up for my my lack of performance so that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the jocko underground podcast so if you want to continue to listen go to jaco underground.com and subscribe and we're doing this

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