Transcript of #2568 - Ross Edgley New

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Thank you. My man brought 18-year-old— that's good. Woo! That's the real deal. 18-year-old single malt Scotch whiskey.

That's smoky.

That's delicious. That is smoky. I had a— this is a true story. I had a deal set up for a whiskey deal. Like, they wanted to do, you know, they do these things like with celebrities, and I was like, well, a lot of money. I guess I could do it. All right, let's do it. And so they said that they could help me like design the whiskey. I'm like, oh, that'd be really cool. So first I wanted to do it with Buffalo Trace, but Buffalo Trace was like, look, we love you, but the reality is Our whiskey takes like 8 years in a barrel, period. Like, this is the only way they do it. Oh, that makes sense. That's why it's so good. Okay, that makes sense. So I tried this whiskey and I was like, oh, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. I tried it, gave it to my friends, like, it's pretty good. And then I fucked up and I had some 18-year-old Scotch and it was so good. I'm like, I can't lie if I'll say this is my favorite whiskey, but that will be a lie because this is so much better.

This is— there's no substitute for that. No substitute for that. No, there's no substitute for time in those barrels.

That tastes like Scotland as well, doesn't it?

I remember one of the writers when I was on NewsRadio, he exposed me to this stuff. He said, do you like whiskey? I'm like, it's okay, it's kind of nasty. You just do it to get a buzz, right? He's like, no, no, you gotta like— he was like very specific. You have like a large cube of ice, and he's like, come on, let me buy you a— it's like a $200 whiskey. I'm like, what, $200 for a fucking glass? He's like, yeah, yeah, trust me, trust me. And so he bought me this glass. I was like, oh, oh, okay.

It was £200.

It's a different thing. It's a different thing. If you drink a 20-year-old whiskey, it's a very different thing. So it cost me who knows how much money because I got to get out of the deal. And they're like, what? And I was like, you didn't do it. No, like, I can't lie. I can't lie and say this is my favorite.

I respect that. I respect that.

I can't. I could if I was poor. Look, if I was broke, I could lie. But I have a lot of money, so I'm like, I'm not lying.

the sanctity of whiskey.

I love it. I respect that. 'Cause this is— there's— they figured it out. Like, the Irish and the Scotch— the Scots, they figured it out. In Scotland, this is like a religious thing.

Yeah, for sure.

They don't fuck around.

For sure.

You get some really old Scotch, man, really old Scotch whiskey has a very distinct taste. And they're willing to wait fucking 18 years to get that taste. That's crazy.

That just reminds me of Scotland.

We had to stop the podcast before the podcast even started because we were talking about so much cool shit. I'm like, I'm gonna leave the room because I don't want us to miss any of this. So first of all, you were telling me you swam around 60 hours in Loch Ness.

Yeah, yeah.

Speaking of Scotland.

Oh, because this is strange because obviously it was 7 years ago now when we caught up, when I swam around Great Britain. And then since then—

God, that was 7 years ago.

Weird, right? Wow. Right? And then, and then now I've just been on this kind of strange career trajectory, if you can call it a career in inverted commas. So we did, yeah, a 60-hour nonstop swim in Loch Ness. Was going well. So it was all for ocean conservation. We raised so much money. It was amazing. It was going well up until the 60-hour point. Started hallucinating, started seeing things. Basically, the only way I can describe it is you're like, you're looking through the eye of a needle. It's just getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And then it just went completely black. It just went completely dark.

Did you black out?

Yeah, blacked out. Basically, it was hypothermia mixed with cellulitis. So cellulitis is skin infection. Exactly. Exactly. From the wetsuit that was just getting into my bloodstream.

Oh, God. You had a staph infection, and at the same time you were hypothermic? Yeah. And at the same time you'd been up for 3 days?

Yeah, exactly. It was a bad place to be, Joe. It was a bad place to be.

That's so crazy. In the middle of— 60 hours of swimming is so insane. 60 hours of running is insane, but you could stop running and take a nap.

You know what I'm saying? It was so bad. With the Loch Ness Monster. It was bad. It was bad. Do you think that's real? Um, I mean, something touched my leg when I was in there. But you were hallucinating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. I'm not the best person to ask. But exactly what you just said there was strange because my skin was on fire from the cellulitis, but then I could feel in my bones I was getting so cold. Um, anyway, long story short, God, blacked out. I woke up and, um, just thought— Oh, there we go. Yeah, yeah. Oh, there you go.

Yeah, so you can see over your back and your neck. Yeah. Oh, so you're just ridden with staph infection.

Yeah, that's how bad it was.

Oh, that's horrible.

And I think it was, it was that coupled with the hypothermia. So this is gonna sound so strange, but, but it went completely black. I remember waking up and then I was in the hospital.

So did they have to scoop you out of the water?

Yeah, yeah.

How did they— did you have someone beside you, like with a net?

Yeah, yeah, we had a team. They were amazing. They scooped me up. I look, I basically opened my eyes. The next thing I know, I see my mum and my girlfriend at the head of the, the hospital bed, and I just went, oh, it's not gone well, has it? And they were like, Ross, no, it's not.

You woke up in the hospital room? Yeah. Wow. So the entire transport to the hospital, you were out cold?

Yeah. Yeah.

How long were you out cold for?

They think about 13 hours. Yeah.

You were out cold for 13 hours?

Coming in and out of it. I don't say it proudly, sort of coming in and out of consciousness. I still sort of remember little bits. But then, like I said, the main thing was just being there with my mum and my girlfriend. And they were just— they looked disappointed. I was like, I'm so sorry. So from there, what's interesting, a year later, uh, in Lake Trasimeno in Italy, We did another swim for charity. It was amazing. Everything was organized, but because of Italian bureaucracy, they said you have to do it on this particular day. Getting into the water, it was 36 degrees. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but hot. It was a bath, basically. We got caught in a heat wave. So going in there, I had hyperthermia before. Now I have hypothermia, so heat stroke. We swam—

So you're like swimming in a hot bath?

Basically, yeah.

What is 36 degrees in Fahrenheit? Is that like 90 degrees?

Yeah, 96.8.

96?! Holy shit, that's crazy! What, is there a fucking volcano under

there? This is insane. So they said it was the hottest month ever recorded in Italy. I got caught in this.

It's gotta kill fish, no?

Yeah, it was. I was swimming past fish that had been boiled alive.

Oh my God! Bro, by the way, go back to that picture of him. Jacked! Jacked, son! That was after all

I said.

You look like the real live Wolverine in that picture. It's like if Marvel Comics, if Wolverine, that's what it looked like.

You can see the chafing on my shoulder there, but no cellulitis, thankfully.

Yeah, thank God.

So this

is, um,

that was Iceland. Yeah, yeah. And I think what's interesting—

Why did you— why do you think you got cellulitis from the water in Scotland?

They think because it was fresh water,

right? Yeah, yes, that makes sense.

The swim around Iceland, for instance, just as bad. It was so bad, but equally You've just got saltwater.

Right, but it's not— doesn't have the bacteria content.

Is exactly it, yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Of course. Boy, freshwater's nasty. Yeah,

yeah.

It's nasty. But especially at— well, it wasn't 96 degrees, but if it was, imagine that.

Yeah.

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Well, I think what was interesting is from then— trust me, so I got rhabdomyolysis there, so that's just muscle breakdown basically.

You got rhabdo too?

Bad. Yeah, really bad.

Wait a minute, in Iceland or in Scotland?

Well, certainly in Iceland, but in Italy. Yeah, so I had hypothermia and cellulitis in Loch Ness. Fast forward a year, then I got rhabdomyolysis and heatstroke in Italy. What's so strange though, and this is, I'm aware this sounds a little bit twisted, but as a sports scientist, I'd obviously researched the theory and philosophy of all this, whereas actually subjecting my body to it, I was like, oh cool, you know, this is what hypothermia feels like. And it was the same with rhabdomyolysis. So basically sitting here right now, just chilling, you know, we've not been training or anything like that. Ah, creatine kinase. So that's an enzyme that's responsible for muscle breakdown. So when it's in your muscles, basically in your, in your blood, it says there's been some muscle breakdown. Sitting here right now, it might be about 80. If we had a hard workout, maybe 300. If you run a marathon, 1,000. If you run an ultramarathon, maybe getting up to 4,000, 5,000. At 10,000, your creatine kinase, they are rushing you to a hospital. At that point, they're really worried about your kidneys that are just working overtime to try to filter it out.

They said, Ross, yours is at 19,000, which is so weird for a sport where you are suspended in water. It's not even weight-bearing. You shouldn't have this amount of muscle breakdown. So I think thankfully my kidneys did an amazing job. Shout out to my kidneys, filled me out and got me out of the hospital in a few days. But I think what's so strange is that sort of a career then led me to swim around Iceland, where I just knew what rhabdomyolysis, hypothermia, cellulitis— I knew what all of those things were. So as a result, I kind of turned up in Iceland as this kind of bulletproof swimmer who was like, oh, it doesn't matter what it's gonna throw at me, I'm gonna understand.

Oh my God, dude, that is insane.

And then we swam 1,000 miles around Iceland, which was amazing.

When you were getting the hypothermia, they say that before people die, they get hot and they wanna take their clothes off. Did you have that feeling?

Exactly that. But I think part of that was the cellulitis as well, 'cause my skin felt like it was on fire. But then equally at the same time, like I could just, I was shivering. with my internal organs. It's a strange position to be in.

Did you take into consideration the possibility of cellulitis before you got into that freshwater? Did you know about it?

No, no. You didn't know about it? I became an expert afterwards.

I would want to research, like, like throw it in perplexity. Like, what are the cons? What's the worst thing that can happen here in the water? What are the physical dangers I have to worry about with freshwater versus saltwater?

Yeah, yeah.

Is the Loch Monster real?

I should have researched that. I think what's weird, and I'm glad we started you know, our catch-up like this, because I think so often people go, why do you do it? But I think now looking at the anthropology of us humans, the history of us humans across different cultures, different countries, we've always been doing this idea of self-discipline for self-discovery.

Yeah.

You know, you look at the, the marathon monks of Japan, for instance, over 7 years, over 1,000 days, will almost do a marathon a day.

Those guys in Mexico from the Born to Run book?

Exactly. Yeah. Tarahumara or whatever.

Yeah. They just, they run either barefoot or with small homemade shoes they make from rubber tires and shit. Exactly. They make like sandals out of like retreaded tires.

Exactly. I mean, it's weird as well, like even going back further as well. So I ended up doing a documentary ages ago, so like 20 years ago now. Did ayahuasca for a week in the Amazon jungle with the Jamanawa tribe. At the end of this week, as part of the initiation into manhood, um, we basically then— this is such a random story, but we— they, they kill the snake and you have to bite the tongue Out of the snake.

Pass. Hard pass. I'd rather be a boy forever. Fuck you. You can't tell me I have to eat a snake's tongue to be a man. Next thing you know, you gotta suck a pig's dick. You don't suck that pig's dick, you're not a real man. Says who? Says some fucking guy in the jungle who doesn't even have Starlink? Fuck you. Fuck you, buddy. How about you get a pair of Nikes? You don't even have shoes, you fucking idiot.

I was young and impressionable. I didn't question it, so I did it. I bit the tongue, John. Bit the tongue.

I would have bit the tongue too. I'm just fucking around. I would have definitely bit that tongue, especially if they brought me in and put face paint on me and shit.

That was it. I was caught up in the moment. I was caught up in the moment. We all do.

Sorry for sidetracking. What? I got sidetracked when I was looking up people biting tongues of snakes.

Men get high from cobra bite on tongue.

It says they got high for at least a month.

Oh my God. Imagine you hate your life so much you sign up to get high for a month by getting bit on the tongue by a cobra. You're like, fucking take me away. This job sucks. I just want to be high.

We've all done things we regret, you know.

Yeah, but that's off the charts. No, that's— Getting bit on the tongue by a cobra. I'd be like, is there a way? Can I just grab the cobra venom and put it on a fucking Q-tip? Oh, hold on.

Maybe a little better. It's after the astrologer's nightmare advice they did it.

Oh, after astrologer's nightmare advice.

This might be a different story.

Well, that's a different snake too, isn't that?

Performing a ritual. That was probably what I was doing. Yeah.

Deadly snakebite bit a man's tongue after an astrologer told him that performing a ritual with the serpent would stop his nightmares.

That is essentially what I did.

Bro, where's that guy from? Say that— say that name. Ross, you got it. Go for it.

Gobi Chechidu Palanyam.

That might be accurate. That's pretty goddamn good. That's a real-world traveler, ladies and gentlemen. That's how they pronounce things. They roll their Rs and shit.

Can you put that back up, please? Yeah, yeah, that was nuts.

This is crazy.

So this is the thing, so he wasn't lying.

So this is a different snake. This is the Russell's viper, one of the most common snakes to inflict bites on people in India. During the ritual, the man mimicked the snake's tongue flickering movements, which is when the incredibly deadly snake bit him on the tongue. Yo! After the snake bit the man, the priest attempted to make a cut in his tongue using a knife, which only worsened the pain. Shocker! I thought that would have fixed everything. The venom from the Russell's viper usually causes causes cardiovascular complications, hemostatic abnormalities, renal failure. And is renal failure— what is that?

Uh, essentially I think it's the kidneys basically no longer doing their job, shutting down. So internal organs just go—

So like rhabdo?

Yeah, very similar.

Very similar. Those who are bitten need treatment immediately. The man was rushed to a nearby medical center. Jesus Christ, did that guy even get high?

This was not that. This was in the same, uh—

Surgery was performed, probably for the cut on his tongue. Yeah, like, who the fuck did you let cut your tongue, dude?

Also in India, they get high off So it was a side-by-side story there.

So this is the same snake or the cobra?

Different, different, different. This is the top one.

This is the cobra.

Loads of people doing it.

So this— see,

this makes me feel better. But here's my question. It does make me feel better too. But here's my question. What is the venom like? Can't you just rub it on your tongue? Can't you put it on like a spatula or some shit?

There you go.

Oh boy, fella. Why?

No, no, I didn't do that. No, no, no.

Imagine this. But he's making out with this thing. Imagine you do that and then all of a sudden you're in front of God and God's explaining the nature of life and the universe. It's a continuous cycle and you've done this a million times before and you're getting better at it, but you're not done. And when you do get done, you will be God. Bye.

That's amazing. I wish I'd have had that experience.

Yeah, it lasts 3 days. For 3 days you're talking to God and God's coming out of a serpent's tongue.

That's amazing. But we did that. I think what was it? I didn't— some— ours was slightly different to that. So basically, after you had basically just, you know, tongued a snake, they turn to you and they go, okay, now you have the wisdom of the jungle, but you cannot speak for 24 hours. So everyone's just like that. Okay, we take a vow of silence. And then for the next 24 hours, one of the things that they had us do was climb a tree. So I disappear about 4 meters up this tree, holding on like that, completely naked, and they just start smacking the bottom of the tree.

Naked?

And I just get engulfed Engulfed in fire ants, but can't make a sound. You can't make a sound. And they said if you make a sound, the spirit of the snake will haunt you for the rest of your life. But if you don't make a sound, you'll be blessed with the wisdom of the jungle.

How old were you?

21. Yeah, 21.

Jesus. So was that the beginning of all this self-torture?

I think it might have been. This has turned into therapy.

How many times did you get bit by fire ants?

Oh, loads.

Did they get the nuggets? Did they get the whole thing?

They got everything?

Damn, son.

But I think it's interesting that when I talk about my, my swimsuit—

what, Jamie?

This kills fucking 60,000 people a year in India.

Oh, what? Oh my God.

I would say you're lucky to be alive, clearly, but wow.

Well, I don't know if it's the same snake.

This is from the— this is the Russell's viper,

right? But he didn't get a Russell's viper. He was in the Amazon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Indian thing seems Insane though. I don't know what's going on. They let it bite their tongue. I guess India, like in certain parts of it, life is so hard they're like, fuck it, I'll do anything. You know what I mean? Like you see some of this, the, the scenes online of India and the, the pollution in the rivers is so— it's so preposterous. You're like, how did it get this bad? Where like entire rivers are filled with plastic. Like you don't see any water at all, you just see plastic. And then you see people just dumping their stuff into that river. You're like, Is there no adults in the room? Like, how the fuck did this happen? There's no other way? There's no other way to do this than to dump all the plastic in the river and everyone's in agreement? This is crazy. Like, what the fuck? Give me the snake. I'll take that snake.

That's my way out.

Let's go. I want to talk to God. How many times do I have to do this? Forever? This is— how many times have I done it? Hundreds of thousands? Oh no, I thought I was unique.

Oh my god, there's pictures.

What do you got?

Oh, I don't want to—

Show me. Let's go. Oh no, necrosis of the tongue. Oh God, these assholes, they get their tongue rotted out because that's one of the things that venom does. That's why, like, when, when a rattlesnake bites you, it's so dangerous. It's not just the venom can kill you, but it also rots all the fucking tissue around where the bite is. I saw this poor guy, he got bitten and he had multiple reconstructions of his arm and he documented it all online. And this was quite a while ago. It was like the early days of the internet, but this guy did this documentation of what his arm looked like from the time he got bit by this rattlesnake to like 8 surgeries later. Crazy. Think DraftKings isn't available in your state? Think again. The cage is set and DraftKings keeps the full card at your fingertips in one sports app, live in all 50 states. Once the cage door closes, everybody has a pick. DraftKings keeps you close to the pay-per-view card from the first walkout to the final horn. Make your calls as the card unfolds. Download the DraftKings Sports app and use the code ROGAN.

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So this guy's doing it to his tongue. Oh.

But I think it's weird as well. This is gonna sound so strange, but I think sometimes that, granted, is strange because it's voluntary. But again, this is a weird example, but I was living with the— in Olenok, so in Siberia, with the Evenki herders out there. And I think so often we've become too civilized. We kind of have civilization over survival, you know, and there's certain things that they do, whether it's they rely on the reindeer, they kill them, they have them for their milk, butter, make all sorts out of them. This one particular story, I'm going to apologize in advance now, but to manage the amount of reindeer that they have in these huge herds, they basically said to us, look, we need to basically castrate some of the male reindeer because they're fighting. So we still need them, but we need to castrate them. I was like, okay, look, that's a bit off-key, but give me the knife and I'll do whatever you need to do. And they said, no, no, no, we'll stop you there, Ross. We actually do a form of, um, semi-castration. So we just want to make them slightly more docile so they're not fighting as much.

And they do it with the teeth?

Exactly that.

Yeah, they grab them from behind and they bite their nuts with their teeth.

That's exactly it. Yeah, so when I was out there, they said, would you like to perform it? I'm not proud of it. That's what I did.

I understand that they have to do that, like the way they geld horses, you know, they do that with horses as well. I understand it, but I don't want to be a part of that. I won't even do that to my dogs. Like, I went to a veterinarian once and she literally cradled my dog Johnny Cash I had this mastiff named Johnny Cash. He was the best. And this lady cradled his balls. She goes, what are these? Why are these here? I go, well, those are his testicles, and he was born with them, and that's how his body produces testosterone. And she's like, wouldn't it be responsible to have him neutered? And I was like, why would that be responsible? He's not having unnecessary babies. Mm-hmm. Why would— why do you want his body to not produce testosterone? Is it because there's a narrative? Is it because you profit off of it? Like, what— Fortunately for me, I had a doctor when I first moved to Los Angeles, a veterinarian who was an— I mean, this guy was an animal lover. I mean, he was like a dog whisperer. I brought my dog in and immediately he was like my dog's best friend.

And I said, should I get him fixed? He goes, no, there is no reason. He goes, you have a fence, your dog's not gonna hop out and make puppies that aren't gonna be taken care of. If you're a responsible dog owner, don't get your dog fixed. I go, really? I thought it was like for their health so they don't get cancer. He goes, Complete horseshit. Because if dogs get cancer, it's most likely probably from really bad food. They're eating shitty food, just like people get cancer. You know, not a lot of animals get cancer. It's not a lot of— well, Tasmanian devils do. Hmm, but they get cancer from biting each other. They're one of the weirdest cases of cancer. They have a transmissible cancer. Like Tasmanian Devil from the cartoon. You ever seen those fuckers in real life?

Yeah.

They have the craziest sounds. Anyway, my point is, don't cut your nuts off your dog if you're a responsible dog owner. They get tired. Even Huberman— we were talking about Huberman before— he did it to his bulldog and he felt bad, so he started giving his bulldog testosterone.

He said, yeah, when I caught up with him. Yeah. Is it true as well sharks don't get cancer as well? They've got these crazy immune systems. True. Yeah. Yeah, sharks

also, they don't have bones. It's like we're so distant from them. They're so old.

My God. So yeah, I went swimming with great whites. Of Tasmania. What? Oh my God. What?

Where?

Yeah, you'll be aware of this as well.

Tasmania? Yeah. So outside Australia? The real ones? Yeah. The real ones? Those are the OGs?

Yeah, yeah, they get big. They stop growing— the females certainly, they stop growing in length at a certain point and they just get bigger. It's just a submarine with teeth.

Like New Zealand rugby players.

Exactly, exactly like that. Exactly like that. It is nuts. So they, they explained to me, they basically said they have something called, um, the Ampulive Lorenzini, so they're able to pick up electrical impulses. Is your heart beating quick? Are you, are you twitching? Do you look like prey? Oh, Jesus Christ. I was down there with some very experienced divers as well. We dived and we swam with them. On the dive, when we went down about 40 feet, what was nuts is they immediately knew that I was the weakest link. They immediately knew that I, I was kind of out of my depth when it came to diving, and they all just started swimming towards me. Oh, no way. And they're just going, Ross, Ross, I'm not saying square up to it, but please stop breathing so heavy and acting like prey. So in that moment, it was just strange how we had a conversation, but it was obviously nonverbal and across species, that it was looking at me, came straight up to me. I sort of tried not to— again, I'm not saying I squared up to it, but kind of was like, can I help you?

And then it just went, all right, you're okay. And just—

Well, you didn't panic.

No.

And if you panicked, that might have been the end.

Yeah. But just the way that they just, like I said, described that Ampullae of Lorenzini, that they are just looking at me, there is It's an apex predator with just like thousands of years, and it's downloading data on me. And it just knew— 10 of us down there, and it knew that I was the weakest link. Yeah, great.

It's probably so obvious, right? Those other guys are so comfortable in the water. They've done it a million times, probably have a very low heart rate down there. It's a novel experience for you, and there's sharks.

Exactly that.

My good friend Adam Greentree, one of his buddies back home in Australia got his head bit off by a shark. He was, he was spearfishing, and he came out of a thing like, like a crevice or something in the reef, and a shark just took his head off.

Didn't even see it coming. Just

didn't even see it coming. Just popped out, and the shark saw something that looked like food that was coming out of the reef. Because they're, you know, they're, they're in the reefs looking for all sorts of whatever they eat, whatever fish fuck up and, you know, are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They're so damn scary.

Because they're ambush predators as well. Yeah, the tiger sharks off Bahamas, similarly. Yeah, swimming with them, and so often it's just enough to look at them. As long as they can see your eyes, they go, okay, you've seen me. But the amount of times sometimes when we were down there and they're like, Ross, have your head on a swivel, because they were just coming up behind me, and had I have not turned around, 100%, I wouldn't be speaking to you now.

Oh yeah, dude, in Hawaii they're a real problem, man. They're a real problem for the surfers. You know, whenever you hear about someone getting got, it's a tiger shark. There's a crazy video we played on here once of this guy. He's, uh, he's in a kayak and he's out in the middle of the ocean fishing, and a tiger shark just slams into his kayak. And you see its mouth wide open, this big fucking head, and it knocks the kayak sideways. It's terrifying. And he's screaming, tiger shark! Tiger shark! Just this— Here it is. Watch this. Watch this. Watch this.

The speed of them.

Watch this. Oh no, bro. Fuck that. Fuck all that.

That was a tiger. Yes.

Yeah, fuck all that. Look at this thing launch up. Imagine if he was in an inflatable. If he was in an inflatable, that's a wrap. You just got your shit popped by a tiger and now you're floating a mile offshore, whatever the fuck he is.

Oh, it's the same like bull sharks as well though. Bull sharks are just just angry. Experts, like friends of mine, have just said, like, they will just come over to you. With a white shark, they're curious, their taste buds are in their throats. They'll come over and nip you, and they'll just be like, oh, sorry, I didn't realize you weren't a seal. The only problem is you're bleeding out. Whereas a bull shark, they'll just be like, I'm just in a bad mood. I'm just gonna come over and just miss— yeah, exactly.

I talked to this dude in Florida, and he said he will not spearfish anymore. He said they live in central, like central Florida. He said when you're off the reefs, He said it's so fucking dangerous. He's like, the bull sharks are all over the place now.

Yeah.

'Cause everybody's like, sharks are amazing! Stop the shark fin soup! Fucking serve it up, okay? Serve up monster dick soup. It should be everywhere. What the fuck are you talking about? You want to eat beautiful things like cows that are sweet and kind? You want to eat veal, but you won't eat monsters? You should be eating monsters. Monsters should be on every menu. If you can get fucking veal scaloppini at an Italian restaurant, you should be able to get monster dick soup. They should sell that shit everywhere. They should become our food. Fuck them. Fuck sharks.

But further to that point, I would say that then I was completely out of my depth. I've never felt more vulnerable in that moment. The other— the only other time I felt vulnerable was, um, I broke the record for the world's longest nonstop river swim. So it was 510 kilometers, uh, 60 hours, all the way down the Yukon River. We hit these, uh, the Five Finger Rapids at one point. Uh, I basically kind of just got thrown against rocks, uh, cut up pretty bad.

So where does this start? In the Yukon?

Yeah, yes, it was Whitehorse to Dawson. I hope I've got that the right way around. Yeah.

So you're— are you in BC? Like, where are you in?

In Yukon.

What is Yukon? It's Alaska, right?

No, no, no, Canada.

Canada.

But it goes to Alaska. Yeah, yeah, if you continue with the Yukon River, it will eventually go to Alaska.

So does it come down— what part of Canada does it come through?

Oh, that's a good question.

So it's cold as fuck, though, is my point.

It's freezing. Yeah.

And what time are you going there?

We went like— Oh, here it goes.

Oh, amazing.

Yeah, we went July.

So the Northwest Territories, that's what they call it, right?

Yeah.

Is that what they call it?

Yeah. And we just— it was— it's just the wild, wild west out there. And I— we took off, like I said, we started. Um, basically what was so, so strange is for the first 24 hours, didn't see much in the way of wildlife. I got thrown against these whitewater rapids, got hit on the rocks, and that's why the back of my legs are still cut up now. And then from that, the rules are no one can touch you, you can't touch them. So I'm like, guys, look, I can't stop. So I just pull my leg out the water like this. And as I do, blood is just dripping out the end of my wetsuit. Literally like clockwork, as soon as that happened, bears, wolves, everything. I said, what's happening? And they said, Ross, they can smell the blood. You're like an ice cream van. You're just advertising yourself to all the wildlife now in the Yukon.

Really?

Yeah. Again, now the black bears, fine. As you know, they're skittish. And it was so— for me, strange Englishman, first time dealing with bears, The black bears were looking just like, what are you? I don't know, a bit skittish. The brown bears, nah.

They look at you very different. They look right through you.

So different. They're just almost like sitting there just kind of looking. And we had, like I said, a boat full of people. We had protection on there and stuff, but it just didn't care. It was— it was— I was so aware.

How big was the brown bear?

I would have no— as an Englishman who has no experience that I've done, just scarily big for me. Yeah, it was big. Yeah. And I just carried on swimming. It was interesting how it was almost like it was looking, going, you're not a salmon, but you're not a bear. I don't know. I wonder if you're hungry. And I just, I carried on. So I turned to the guys. I said, guys, am I okay? Am I safe? Shall I keep swimming? Thankfully, one of the team turned around. It wasn't even a gun. It was like a cannon. And they said, Ross, don't worry. If it gets too close to you, it'll end up in my freezer. I was like, right, that's what I wanted to hear. And we just carried on. Yeah, I know.

You know, statistically, you're more likely to get killed by a black bear Hmm. Well, no, that's not correct. Statistically, when a black bear attacks you, it's more likely in predation, whereas when a brown bear attacks you, it's more likely surprised and it's defending itself, or it's a mother with her cubs, which is the most dangerous. That's interesting. Just like in real life. You fuck with the lady's kids, like you fuck with— if you fuck with a grizzly bear and you come near its kids, they are terrifying. They run at you full clip. Most of the times when dudes get attacked and killed, that's, that's where you fucked up. You run into a 700-pound mama with her babies and a jaw that could just crush your head like a candy bar. Oh. Like, fuck you. Like, you, you can't— and you can't run away from her, and you can't climb up a tree. You can't do shit. And you just zigged when you should have zagged, and you got too close to her kids, and she doesn't want to take any chances, so you just just became food.

Yeah. What was kind of strange, that's kind of, it was so weird going from the Yukon and then a year later we did the Iceland swim and there were some of these old sort of modern-day Viking chiefs who basically were explaining about the concept of a berserker as well. Berserker obviously just meaning bear shirt, saying that these berserkers, these ancient Nordic warriors would so often just try to embody the spirit of the animal. And there was even the ulfhafnar, which are—

That's called bear shirts? That's what berserker means?

Yeah, bear pelt, bear shirt basically.

That's what berserker means. Wow, you learn something new every day, Jim.

So they would embody literally the spirit of the animal. Like I said, there was almost— from berserkers as well, there were almost like subcategories as well. So there were the— I hope I'm pronouncing it right— ulfhafnar, which were the wolf warriors, and they were Odin's chosen warriors. There, there's stories of them just running into battle, no armor, basically naked, painted, biting down onto their shields as well, and howling into the

You know, they were also doing mushrooms.

I know, right? Yeah.

That was, that was one of the things about those fellows. Berserker comes from the Old Norse berserkr, most likely meaning bear shirt, a warrior wearing a bearskin. Exact etymology is disputed. An alternative interpretation is bare shirt, referring to fighting without armor. Huh. In plain English, it means a frenzied warrior. I guess you have to be a pretty frenzied warrior to kill a fucking bear back then. You know, there was no rifle, son. You had to do it in an intimate fashion. If you're gonna kill a brown bear, you're gonna kill especially a male. The ones in— if you get to anywhere where the salmon live, they get gigantic. Which brought me to this terrible idea that I had that I really shouldn't put out there in the universe. But if you wanted to have like the ultimate really fucking dangerous jackass stunt, you would put these guys in salmon suits and make them swim through when those bears bears are like catching those salmon that are going up the waterfall. Oh, and those rivers where there's like 9, 10 of them.

I would watch it.

Yeah, put the Jackass guys— I shouldn't have said it. I shouldn't have said it because someone's gonna take— I could see Steve-O calling his fucking costume designer right now.

But it was so interesting as well because again, swimming around Iceland, you hear stories of berserkers. You know the famous one of Stamford Bridge?

No.

Oh, this was an amazing story. 1066, I believe, when the Norwegians were invading England, Stamford Bridge Basically, the Norwegians were retreating, and as they were, there was just this one lone berserker who just stood on the bridge with a massive ax and was just taking down just soldier after soldier. They just wave after wave and took them down. Eventually, it was somebody who actually went under the bridge and managed to stab him from underneath, but it was known as the Berserker of Stamford Bridge.

Stab him from under the bridge? That's how they got him?

Yeah, eventually. But he was just—

Was he like those guys in Iceland that win those strongman competitions? Just imagine one of those guys with a battle ax. You know, imagine like the Mountain from Game of Thrones with a giant wood and steel, wood and iron fucking huge shield in front of him, and an enormous battle ax that you couldn't even pick up, and he's just hacking through people. And everyone's watching their friends die, so they're all in a panic, and he's covered in blood, and he's £400.

It's so true. And I think even as well, I mean, I'm a huge fan of Gunnar Nelson as well. You know, you look at the history of just Icelandic athletes, warriors, and it's nuts.

Yeah, dude, Gunnar beat Jeff Monson in an absolute contest in Abu Dhabi. When Gunnar— Gunnar fought in the UFC, I only think he's fought as a welterweight, correct? I think he's only fought at 170. Jeff Monson's like 250. Do you know who Jeff Monson is?

Yeah, of course.

Okay, just— he's a muscle. He's like a— he's just muscle. His whole fucking body, like his, his His shoulders start at the top of his head. He's fucking enormous. And Monsson and him, they went into an absolute, which is there's no weight classes in grappling. They still allow that. And he beat him, which is fucking insane.

That is crazy. But it traces back to their culture as well. This is one thing that I loved when swimming around Iceland, that for instance, you know the story of Odin and Ragnarok? Do you know? Yes. At the end where, spoiler alert for those listening, Odin knew he was gonna die in Ragnarok, the Norse apocalypse, but ran in anyway. Spoiler alert, he got eaten by a giant wolf. But this is what I loved, that the Icelandic and Nordic folklore is like, look, you can't control fate. Everybody believed that you were destined. That's already written for you. But it's how you can control your attitude towards it. And I think that's the thing that I've certainly found from Icelandic culture, that it doesn't matter if you are Gunnar Nelson going up against a 250-pound monster, you will just run into battle anyway. Yeah. You know, you— that is your fate. but it's choosing your attitude towards it. Yeah,

yeah. Well, that's very attractive to most people. Most men, they wish they could be like that. Damn, it's

true.

I mean, how many goddamn Viking shows have there been? There's so many Viking shows and Viking movies. Have you seen The Northman, that movie?

Yeah, yeah, amazing. Yeah, and quite accurate apparently as well.

Yeah, I bet it's accurate. Well, except for the supernatural shit. Yeah, again, mushrooms. Yeah, yeah, yeah, high as fuck all the time on psilocybin. Who knows what they were seeing? And they, you know, they— that's what's interesting is because like people assume that mushrooms make you peaceful. That's why the whole thing's so confusing because they really, for most people, they make you like more connected to everyone around you. Mm-hmm. Possibly, but it's unproven. The idea is that berserkers ate mushrooms before battles, a popular theory, not an established historical fact. There's no solid archaeological or textual evidence demonstrating drug use. Okay, so what is the What is the— oh, it's Amanita muscaria. But I've heard it also be psilocybin. I've heard that being proposed. You know, it's in that Viking show, I think they— can you put that back up, please? I think in the Viking show they talk about us, or it looks like they're eating psilocybin. It doesn't look like Amanita muscaria. Amanita muscaria is like really obvious. It's a bright red with white dots on it. It looks like Santa Claus. Mm-hmm. Hmm. The red one with the white spots. Its effects don't nearly explain the battle fury.

It can cause delirium, twitching, drowsiness, while violent aggression isn't typical. Yeah, even the delirium, twitching, and drowsiness, the problem with this explanation is it's not really known what Amanita muscaria does. It's not like a— it's not a normal psychedelic, and it also doesn't seem to be as effective as it was at one point in time. So the theory is, like, Terence McKenna's theory was that it's very variable, like a lot of things are, like peppers are. Very variable in genetics, region, and maybe even seasonally. That you had to, like, get these mushrooms from a very specific area. It's like you want Cuban cigars. There's, like, some mushrooms in a very specific area that contained a much more potent version of whatever they do to you. Mm-hmm. You know, but it's unclear. The Amanita muscaria is unclear. Like psilocybin is very clear. Like no one eats that and goes, oh, I don't see it. Like you eat the psilocybin. But Amanita muscaria, it varies a lot. I've heard people having insane experiences on it. And I myself tried it and it was almost nothing. Very little. It made you feel weird.

But you're so right as well. That mixed with certainly being out in Iceland, when you hear stories of elves, trolls, you know, and then when you're out there, like I said, I started the swim. I had a blot ceremony. Basically just means that they blessed my journey as I swam around Iceland. And at the start they were talking about, you know, the different realms of Iceland as well. And do you know the story about the, the different guardians of Iceland?

What are the different guardians?

Oh, so basically the story goes that, um, back in the day there was a foreign king who wanted to invade Iceland. So he sent this sorcerer disguised as a whale to see where they could attack from, went over to the west coast. There was a huge bull that is representative of strength and power, said you can't attack there. there. Went around to the north coast. Over the north coast, huge eagle that represents vision, can see for miles. It was like, right, you can't attack there. East coast, uh, dragon, realm of the dragon. Basically, dragons love fast-flowing water, so there's loads of waterfalls. The East Icelandic Current guns down there. And then on the south coast, there was a massive giant as well. Upon hearing this at the start during the blot ceremony, I was like, okay, that's a cool story. You get around the top of Iceland and all of a sudden birds are just coming down dive-bombing me. Like, you get over to the east coast and you see some of the caves and the waterfalls, and I'm like, oh, for sure, if you were on mushrooms, I can 100% believe this. Yeah, it's amazing.

And even now as well, if you're in Iceland and you see a road that is just like inexplicably curved and goes around, I'm like, what, what's happening there? That road makes no sense. It should just be going straight. And with a completely straight face, a lot of locals will say, that's going through the elves' sacred land. We had to build around it. And I'll say, what do you mean? And they said, we were trying to build a road and then inexplicably The machines broke down, the bulldozer broke down, we got some more in. So there's a lot of people out there who still believe in that. And I'm like, yeah, on mushrooms, I couldn't believe it.

Well, think about— do you know the popular theory? There's a popular theory that consciousness is rendered, or rather reality is rendered by consciousness, and that consciousness renders reality much like a computer and a 3D game engine renders a So like, if you're playing a game, like say if you're playing Halo, it doesn't have to register— it doesn't have to render all these maps that you're not in. It's only rendering the map that you're in.

Right.

Right? So as you go into the new maps, then it starts to render it. So there's legitimate physicists that are entertaining the possibility that reality is not concrete and that reality is actually rendered By consciousness. And here's my thought. I don't know if this is accurate. I don't know if they're right. I don't know if they're wrong. It's weird and it makes sense, but reality doesn't make sense. Neither does the fact that the universe is infinite. So, let's put all that aside. And God made us all in his image. Great. But let's put that aside and just stop and think about what is real? What is consciousness capable of rendering when it has access to science? It has access to all these different university courses you can take on biology and evolution and the nature of the world and what causes the tide and what makes thunderstorms happen and all these different things that we know now. Now imagine if those things didn't exist and all you have is just super hyper-focused on nature primitive people. Who have gods as an explanation for everything, and they're on mushrooms. Like, if, if consciousness really does render reality, then, well, then the elves are real, right?

Because then— because if you've done enough mushrooms, you have encountered an entity. You've encountered something that doesn't seem like you're making it up. It seems like it's there all the time, but you don't have access to it. And then all of a sudden you're in front of it. And if you're in a world where there's no explanations for anything because no one knows how to read, okay? You might— you have a bunch of fucking weird grunts for your language. You have extra consonants and shit in all your words. Like, this is— and they're warrior people, and you're on mushrooms, and you're respecting the elf land so much so you move your road around.

100%. But I, I love that.

That sounds better than today.

No, I agree, I agree. I love what you said there as well, because I remember at the start of my swim, uh, I did a training swim. I'm toweling down afterwards, getting out of my wetsuit, and this like old, old guy, this old fisherman, just comes out of nowhere. First thing he says to me, under the Northern Lights— I'm looking up, they're amazing, they've just illuminated the entire sky. I'm like, wow, looking up. And he just comes over and just whispers in my ear, and he just said, they're probably deciding if you live or die. And I went, oh, excuse me?

Oh boy. I went, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This asshole keeps swimming for 60 hours at a time. He wants to die. They probably saw right through you. This guy's crazy.

I said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, what did you say? He goes, they're probably deciding if you live or die. I said, please, you're gonna have to explain. He said that we believe that in ancient Nordic folklore that basically the Northern Lights are the Valkyries, Odin's female warriors, and that is their shimmering shields and their swords as they're riding through the sky looking down at the fallen to see who makes it back back to Valhalla to dine with Odin. And I was, again, at the time, I was like, oh, that's a bit off-key. But then, what a funny way to describe it. 112 days later, we swim obviously through the, uh, through the summer, so there's less chance to see the Northern Lights because you get 24 hours of daylight. And then right at the very end, on the very, very, very last swim, Northern Lights come up again. It was weird. And I am on my back, just like, look, if— as the Valkyries, if Odin is listening, thank you so much.

Well, if you— again, if you live back then, you would think that your journey is complete. And so at the end of the video game, you get to see some cool montage of scenes and beautiful sights. And I mean, that's what happens in a movie. Like, this is the end of the movie. Yeah, yeah, you did it. That's what's weird Reality, like this idea that consciousness is rendering reality. Again, I really don't understand it. I don't know if it's— I don't even know if it makes sense.

Oh, there we go. Yeah.

In Iceland, respect the elves or else. Yeah, I'm respecting the fuck out of them elves. Okay.

This rock, they won't move.

I'm not touching that rock.

The elves don't want it moved.

Yeah, I think they're real, dude. 100%. I think they're real. I think you just can't see them normally.

It said news crews tried to film the rock, and every time they tried to film it, like, it wouldn't record. Good. Something like that.

Good. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fake news. Fake news. Don't film the rock. Yeah, the real news is there's fucking elves are real. They moved this. They moved the road. Even TV crews say their cameras failed to record anything when pointed at the rock. I bet I'd go over there and record the shit out of it with my iPhone. Fuck you. How's there a picture of it? Fuck off. You got You got a guy working for you that's an asshole, doesn't know how to use the— he's probably got his tongue bit by a cobra 2 days ago. The guy's tripping balls. Fuck off.

Yeah, well, they're not— that, that might have been a different rock.

It's just fun. It just looked fun. Like, whoever the guy was saying they're deciding whether you live or die, he's having fun.

Oh, it's a good time.

Who was that guy?

He was just an old fisherman.

Yeah, that old fisherman was fucking with this cocky jacked British guy. He's looking at you like, fuck you and your 6-pack. The elves are gonna kill you. He could have been Odin. He's fucking with you. That guy was fucking with you 100%.

I think he describes it— he disguises himself as an old man.

Or he's an asshole. He's an old fisherman, he's fucking drunk every night, he's tired of life. He sees this beautiful young Englishman with a fucking manly beard and a 6-pack, just looking jacked, ready to swim for days. He's like, fuck you, the elves are gonna kill you. He wanted you to be nervous. He's like, this fucking dork. Fuck him. 80%

in the survey. 80— over 80% of the respondents refused to deny the existence of elves.

Wow.

And 8% were certain they existed.

Well, those guys are dangerous. The 8% are certain— those are dangerous people. Those are religious fanatics. Put them back up, please. Those guys, they can't be trusted. How the fuck do you know? It's all about respect for nature, which is something Icelanders know is very much alive. I agree with that, said Gunnar. What an Iceland name. Guy's name is Gunnar. But when your house can be destroyed by an earthquake, when you could be blown over by the wind, when boiling water from your taps tells you there's lava not far beneath your feet, then you don't mess with nature. Holy shit, they get boiling water from their taps sometimes?

Yeah.

What the fuck, man?

Yes.

Can you imagine going to sleep, you know that there's so much lava underneath your house that water is boiling coming out of your tap, and you're like, can I No deal. I wonder what's on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills! You're fucking sitting there staring at Kim Kardashian and—

No way.

Caitlyn Jenner is on TV. Oh, they're all together again! And all this fucking lava under your feet.

But that's Icelandic people. They're just hard as nails. I said this, it's like, it's just a country that's trying to kill you. When we were there, actually, at the very end, So I basically, I made it back by 3 days for the birth of my first child.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much. That's awesome. Oh yeah.

That's a life changer, huh?

It was amazing. Yeah, it was. But at the end, for instance, so my girlfriend, she's amazing. We've been together 13 years. And basically the University of Iceland said, look, if you can collect eDNA samples, environmental DNA samples around the coast of Iceland, we can track biodiversity in a level of detail we've never seen before. So we had them on board, we had sponsors on board, we had a boat on board. And then we found out we were pregnant. So I was like, oh. So, you know, I said—

In America, we frown upon that. We are pregnant.

Oh, really?

We frown upon that.

She's pregnant?

Yeah, she's pregnant. I'm pregnant. You're definitely not pregnant. You definitely aren't pregnant. She's pregnant. And when I say in America, I mean me. I frown upon that kind of talk.

She's pregnant. Yeah. She, uh, she's amazing. She just said, look, you know, go, but you need to make it back. So we had that hard deadline.

That's a good thing to say. You need to live.

You need to survive.

The Valkyries. You have a baby, don't swim for 60 days, you fucking asshole. Oh my God. You have responsibilities.

Oh, I know. But I think, and I've heard you talk about, you know, fatherhood and stuff, it, it invoked something in me, a level of motivation that I've never experienced before. It was just at the end. So we got caught in, uh, Hurricane Erin was coming through the Atlantic, so that was over the East Coast. We had 100 miles to finish, and in Grindavík there was a volcano going off that had poisonous gas, so we couldn't get too close to that as well. Inhale it, you're dead. And then here there was one of Europe's largest glaciers that just sent shards of ice as big as this table. And at night you just couldn't see it. You're just hitting them.

Oh my God.

The team was like, look, Ross, I'm so sorry, we're gonna be here for 2 weeks. And I was like, no, no, I'm, I'm so sorry, I need, I need to get back, you know. And it was that, that form of motivation at the end, just knowing you had that hard deadline. Yeah. I just— I got jellyfish coming off my face, tongue falling off from saltwater exposure. It didn't matter. I was like, I'm not not being back for the birth of my son. And I made it back, like I said, by 3 days. Wow. Yeah, it got— but it got nuts.

Well, it's very— it's a very primal feeling. It ignites something in you that does not exist in people that don't have children, I don't think. I don't think. I mean, I am very careful about this. I do not think you have to have children. I don't like to shame people that don't want to have kids. I don't like shaming people who never had kids. I don't think it's— I think you can be a wonderful person and contribute to the world without children. But I could just say, for me, it changed who I am. It changed— it changed me in a very profound way. And I always bring up this Dave Chappelle quote, so I apologize to people who've heard it before, but he said something very profound once in the parking lot of The Comedy Store. He said, not only did having children change the amount of love that I have, he goes, it changed my capacity for love.

I love that.

Yeah, and it did that for me. And it also did for me this other very profound thing. It made me stop looking at people as a static thing. When I met— if I met a guy and he's 40 and he's an asshole, I'm like, fuck that guy, he's a fucking asshole. I don't think that way anymore. Now, I mean, sometimes I do. If I'm short-tempered, if I'm in a bad mood, if I'm, you know, I'm in a rush, under stress, I can have slips. I'm not perfect at this. But when I'm at peace, I look at that guy as a baby. That's a baby. That's someone's little boy, and shit didn't go well for him. Mm-hmm. There was a series of either bad decisions or bad experiences or bad parenting or bad judgment or bad luck. And now here he is, just a fucking mess. And that's why I have a hard time seeing homeless people. It genuinely bothers me. I never see homeless people and I'm— I go, fuck that guy. I'll go fuck that guy if they're like getting close to my kids and they're being aggressive and they're schizophrenic. But most of the time I think that was somebody's baby.

That's somebody's baby.

I'm exactly the same. It completely changes you. It changes your biochemistry. I was talking to Huberman about this, and I really, hormonally, I felt— I was always a bit selfish, a bit single-minded in my swims and stuff. As soon as he arrived, I was like, that's it, everything changes. It was crazy. I think as well it was strange for me because I lost my dad as well 4 years ago, and then I was becoming a dad myself. So the Iceland swim sort of existed in this strange world between the two. Um, and that was like really sort of big for me. I, I even said, you know, my new book, I talk about how it's, it's kind of this idea that, um, the swim was almost a tribute to everything that my dad had taught me, but equally a letter to my future son, you know. And I hope that they look at that and go, okay, yeah, all the values and everything that I was taught.

Well, just living the way you live, just by example, it would be an insane role model for your kid. I mean, you're a very unusual person. Your will is very odd. You know, the ability to do those kind of things, I respect greatly. I don't want to do it. I think it's retarded. But I respect it greatly. I agree. You know, I'm good friends with Cameron Haynes, and, you know, he runs a lot of these, like, really insane 200, 300-mile races. And I respect it. I don't think it's good for you, but I get what he's doing. He's trying to find out where his breaking point is. You know, he's trying to push himself to his breaking point.

That is exactly it.

Yeah, and I admire that greatly because that is a noble quest. Whether or not you think it's smart— I don't, I don't think it's smart, but I don't want to do it— but it is a noble quest. It is an absolutely noble quest, and he is different than me. We are all different, and everyone has this thing in their head that they need to sort out. And sometimes the way you sort it out is by doing something that's fucking insanely hard To find out who you really are.

I think that's it.

And I think I like to do it a little bit every day. That's my method. My method is do a little bit every day. When I say a little bit, like a couple hours. That's what I like. Couple hours of torture every day, find out who I am. And when I take a few days off, I get nervous, I get confused. Who am I? I don't know. I don't know if I could do this anymore. You know what I mean? You know those feelings? Yeah. I'm sure you even get those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As many times as you— if you take a few weeks off working out, And you start working out again, like, oh my God, am I really gonna put myself through this again?

Yeah, it's so true. Right?

Am I really gonna go swim for 6 days again? What the fuck is wrong with me?

You know? So true. But I was chatting to Huberman about this because I was just like, I'm so aware that my dopamine system probably works a little bit differently, you know, in that someone says, oh, let's go do a, you know, 24-hour swim. I go, yeah. And then they go, oh, 3 days past bears. I'm like, okay, hold my beer, I'm in. And I think that's what's so weird. But, but I know you and Huberman spoke about with your anterior midcingulate cortex cortex. And that's the only way that I can actually— for me, it was so interesting chatting to him because in my head, when your tongue is falling off or, or, you know, you're just chafing cellulitis, I, I think of it like weighing scales. And you kind of got grit or quit, pain and purpose. And at any point, the anterior midcingulate cortex, that part of your brain, is just weighing them up. Yeah. For me, you just need as much pain as it is, you just need to outweigh it with as enough purpose. Yeah, do that, you'll continue. If not— and I think it's so interesting, I mean, I love the UFC.

There are certain fighters who, if you did a scan, 100% their anterior midcingulate cortex would just be like this.

100%. This episode is brought to you by Visible. As fall hits, we enter another season of change. Time to shift gears, drop the dead weight, and upgrade the wardrobe for the drop in temperature. But one thing that doesn't need to change Change your phone. The smartest upgrade this season isn't a new phone, it's a better wireless plan. Switch to Visible, the ultimate wireless hack. You get unlimited 5G data and unlimited hotspot powered by Verizon for just $25 a month. That means keeping the phone you already have, ditching your overpriced phone bill, and pocketing some savings for yourself. All the perks of big wireless for half the price. the cost. Switch today at visible.com. The Visible plan starts at just $25 a month, or get the premium Visible Plus Pro plan and save $10 on your first month with promo code ROGAN. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. I was gonna bring this up earlier. One of the fighters got pulled from a card a few years back. I can't remember when, but it was because of exactly what you were talking about, like creatine levels in his blood. And I was like, what?

I was confused at the time. I didn't know like what that meant. I was like, why creatine? What does that mean? He took too much creatine? Like, no, his body's so broken down from training, it's not safe for him to fight. Like, how's that possible? Like, how does somebody show up at the actual fight day blown out? Junior Dos Santos: fighting is worth the health risk because it's everything to me. Was it Junior? Wow, he got pulled from a fight.

Yeah, so I think— there you go, rhabdomyolysis, breaking down. Yeah.

Oh, but I don't think that he got pulled from the fight. I think this is just what happened to him in that fight. So that fight—

So his was over—

So he had 2 fights with— well, he had 3 fights with Cain Velasquez. Cain Velasquez has the greatest cardio of any heavyweight that ever lived. They used to call him Cardio Cain. It was a freaky gift that he had. And it was also his understanding of management of cardio was incredible. He never threw anything full blast. Everything was like 60, 70%, but with perfect technique. And he would just never get tired. Like, never get tired. And the first fight, Junior Dos Santos caught him with a big right hand and knocked him out. It was on Fox. It was a big deal. Then they have this rematch. In the rematch, Cain's healthy. The first fight, he went into it with a blown-out knee. He had his knee wrapped up. He fucked up his meniscus, like, in training. and then in the second fight, he's fully healthy and he mauls Junior Dos Santos. And it's a war. It's a 5-round crazy war where it looks like they're both gonna— well, it looks like Junior's gonna die. It looks like he's gonna die. And then he does it again in the second fight. They have a third fight, rather, second rematch.

Second rematch, the same, same sort of result. Cain just mauls him. Like, Cain was just— Cain was on a completely different level to everybody else when it came to cardio. Guys would get this thousand-yard stare in the second round like, I can't do this for 5 rounds. I can't, I can't keep this guy off me. It's impossible. And so if he got rhabdo from that fight, I would not be surprised. Though I bet a lot of fighters get rhabdo after the fights because some of those fights, they're on death's fucking door. They're on death's door.

I think one of the worst got to be Lawler-McDonald, right?

Oh my god. Oh my god. I know. One of the craziest life-or-death fights in the history of the sport.

And they stared each other down in the final round.

I know, they're staring each other down, and blood is pouring out of both of their faces. Robbie's lip is split halfway open. The whole thing was nut— the end of it, when I was interviewing him, half of his lip is like open like a slice of pie. Oh, that's so awful. It's fucking insane. And he's saying how he's never gonna quit. I'm gonna keep coming and keep coming, and I'm never gonna stop. And I was like, holy shit. This guy just got through 5 rounds of the most violent shit ever. Look at the two of them just staring each other down.

It was unbelievable.

Like,

yeah,

life or death. Like, they got, they got to death's door. And Rory, when he collapsed, it's like his nose had been shattered and the pain just overwhelmed his brain. His body shut off and he just collapsed. He couldn't take it anymore. It was crazy too. Yeah, when they're staring at each other before the final round, like, Is that the worst? Look at Robbie screaming in the crowd with his arms up.

So what I think's going on there, there's a few things. I think there's like stress-induced analgesia, the way that like an injured animal will bite off its arm to get out of a trap. That must be going on. So just pain suppression, norepinephrine, everything.

There's a— there's also some fucking genetics. Robbie Lawler's got some caveman genes, son. He's got some warrior genes. That dude, that's in his DNA. I've been watching that kid fight since he was 20 years old. He's a fucking savage, like a savage to the core. One of the greatest knockouts in the history of sport happened when Robbie was fighting up a division. So he was fighting this guy Melvin Manhoef, and Melvin Manhoef is a kickboxer, a very high-level kickboxer who came out of Mike's gym in Amsterdam. Mike's gym in Amsterdam is legendary. Produced Badr Hari. Uh, there's like a, a series of like wicked kickboxers came out of Mike's gym, and Melvin Manhoef sort of epitomized that style. They were hyper-aggressive, and Melvin is built like you. Like, look at him. Oh my God. So Melvin, in this fight, Melvin is chewing up Robbie's legs. He keeps leg kicking him. I mean, he's punishing his legs. Melvin was so fast and so powerful, And they get in this exchange, and boom, Robbie hits him with one punch and knocks him out. If you— and he's just out cold. Like, look at— they zoom in on his face.

He's just— he's in the shadow realm right now. But if you go to earlier in the fight, like what Melvin was doing to him, it was a crazy comeback. Like, go earlier in the fight. Melvin is all over him. I mean, he's so dangerous and so fast. Like, Melvin was putting him in really bad spots. He kept rocking him. him. And when you talk about like high-level kickboxers, Melvin was elite. I'm like, like perfect technique, ridiculous power and athleticism, and just a warrior spirit. Just attack you from the— he would come out for his fights with a dog collar on, but he would have like a spiked dog collar and be dancing, getting ready for his fights. Terrifying human being.

He's, he's scary. But I think going back to the Berserker, um, There's such a parallel between him and Alex Pereira, you know, that idea like with the jaguar style. Yeah, embodying the spirit of an animal. I mean, I don't know about Melvin, I would be terrified if I was in the cage and I saw Pereira walking out.

Well, do you know the team, the Fighting Nerds?

Of course.

Okay, so the head dude, I can't— I'm blanking on his name, but I was just watching this video about Carlos Prates, who is one of my all-time favorites right now in the UFC in the welterweight division. And one of the things they were talking about is how he has his fighters mimic animals, and he studies animals and animals fighting to the death online, and that it's all about controlling the space. Like, you— they give an example of the mongoose and the cobra, and it's not that the mongoose is faster than the cobra or more deadly than the cobra, it's that the mongoose is a master of controlling space. The mongoose is like feinting, like as he's coming into the cobra, he's like moving in a little bit, bit. Yeah, Pablo. Pablo is a brilliant guy, and he's the one— I mean, they really are nerds. Like, they really do like data analytics, and they study all moves that work and moves that don't work and what happens at what percentage of time. Like, he's got a very data-driven approach to MMA training, but also like super open-minded because he's like considering animal movements.

That's amazing.

Yeah. And the things that he was talking about was mongooses and cobras, and they had this example And it shows, like, these mongooses, they're essentially, like, juking with the cobra. They're feinting. They're trying to get the cobra to react, and they move back when the cobra reacts. And they— but they're trying to draw this cobra in and get a sense of what the cobra's distance is.

That's crazy.

And all of his fighters, particularly Carlos, is a master at controlling distance. He's always pressing forward, and then when you come at him, he slides away, and he's pressing forward, and it's always— you're always in danger. You're constantly in danger. So you're always, like, on the defensive, and you're trying to get some offense, and it doesn't work, and then you're back on the defense. Masterful.

That's fascinating. Yeah. I think it's almost lost. It was the 17th-century writer, English writer, wasn't it? Samuel Johnson, who said, become a beast to get rid of the pain of being a man. Ooh. And I think so often we've lost that. Certainly for me, when swimming, in many ways, I was very much inspired by the shark. You know, when I was swimming, very much like the berserker, the bear. And I think some of the best athletes, like I said, I love Pereira and his jaguar style, you know, both feet on the floor, so constantly generating power. But yeah, Samuel Johnson, become a beast to get rid of the pain of being a man. I love that quote.

That's a great quote and very applicable, definitely. But for most people, like, the, the journey, the path is just too daunting. Just the idea of it is just, oh, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna start out a beginner and just get humiliated all the time? Fuck that. It's just like, doesn't seem fun at all. You know, and they don't want to do it. And so then they'll dismiss it and talk about— and then it becomes toxic masculinity, which is adorable. That was adorable.

I think also what I found so interesting is, again, I was chatting to Hooman about this, but the different parts of the brain. So your ventral striatum, the part of the brain that's almost involved in expectation, reward, and reality. So to use a fighting example, when things are going well for a fighter, fighter, what's happening, the ventral striatum is going, okay, I've done this and that, and I'm winning. It's prime Conor McGregor, it's prime Anderson Silva, it's modern-day Ilia Topuria, you know, that everything's going well. But as soon as that goes wrong, something goes wrong, all of a sudden dopamine plummets, ventral striatum goes, okay, that behavior is now not working. And I think it's been so interesting seeing fighters the same way that when I'm swimming, I can get caught in a counter-current. There's been times where I swim and they Ross, you got to swim for 4 hours to swim out of this massive whirlpool. I swim for 4 hours, head down, head down like that. My alarm goes off. I look at my watch. I go, guys, how far have we swum? And they go, Ross, you've been swimming on the same spot.

You've not moved. You've just been swimming on the same spot for 4 hours. And I think it's interesting that it's not just losing. It's actually like the brain, the biochemistry just implodes. And I think you kind of saw that. Like I said, I think—

What happened in your mind when you found out you were in the same spot for 4 hours?

I mean, it's like I said, it's not just a loss. Understand the neuroscience of it. Basically, the ventral striatum going, this isn't working. Dopamine is no longer released. All of a sudden, it is just like a dark biochemical cloud. And when you understand that, you can start to try to process out of it.

How'd you get out of that?

I'm glad you asked. There's another part of the brain as well called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and that's involved in strategy. So essentially, when you are completely losing, ventral striatum goes, this isn't working. working. So when I'm swimming, tongue's falling off, neck's chafing, cellulitis— ventral striatum, this is not working. And then you've got 2 options. Again, this is an oversimplification, but in my head, this is how I basically, um, map it out. Anterior midcingulate cortex, grit or quit, pain and purpose, discipline. You just do it because you said you were going to do it. You just grit your teeth and get through it. Or dorsolateral prefrontal cortex over here, which is more strategy. And sometimes you can just completely reframe what you're doing. You can change technique and everything as well when you're swimming, but sometimes just reframing that suffering. You know, a great man said, be the hero of your own movie. And I think looking at the hero's journey as well, um, I think that's so interesting where Joseph Campbell talks about that idea of just kind of the, the hero slaying your dragon, innermost cave battling. So I think sometimes that strategy is just reframing your suffering when you're constantly

And how long did it take you to get out of that whirlpool?

I think we were— we were there for most of that day. Most of that day. And then with the tide— because basically over the top of Iceland, it's like a giant bay, so you get counter-currents, whirlpools. And eventually, with everything that's happening, you'll eventually be able to swim out of it.

Eventually?

Yeah.

Yeah, but you can.

Yeah.

Jamie's dead.

I'm dead too,

bitch. I'm dead too, bitch. What? How much can you swim? Can you swim good?

Yeah. Come on. I don't— I mean, what's— what do you mean?

What do you mean, like in a fucking whirlpool in the middle of the ocean, dog?

It's 20 degrees out. I could probably hand— I don't know how strong of an underdog. I've never been—

I'd be dead in 15 minutes.

I probably am underwater in the ocean. I could probably save someone.

You could save someone?

Depending on the waves.

Jay, you know who saved somebody? Greg Fitzsimmons. Did you ever hear that story? Didn't he tell it on the podcast? Yeah.

I wouldn't go out though. I wouldn't test my—

Some lady was on vacation. Some lady was drowning. He jumped in the water and rescued her. Oh yeah, yeah. She was offshore and I guess the riptide caught her. Mm-hmm. And Greg risked his fucking life, went out there and grabbed her and helped her.

What a legend.

Legend. I was like, damn, dude. I'm like, did you think at one point— because his family was there too, he's on vacation. I was like, do you Did you think that maybe you wouldn't be able to make it back? Did you worry about that? He's like, yeah.

Because it's crazy. People don't understand. Like, certainly—

Drowning people are dangerous. Yeah, because they'll hold on to you and you won't be able to like get them to relax. Yeah, and then they won't let go of you and then you're both drowning.

Exactly. It's in Iceland on the south coast. It's called Reynisfjörður. It's considered like literally one of the most dangerous beaches in the world, and they have these sneaker waves that just come from nowhere. And we were there and And I think it was a family. I think it was a little girl who lost her life. But witnessing it as well, there were so many tourists who thought it was fun to run up as close as they could. And as the waves crash over, they get a selfie and they run. And I was like, I don't want to be like, oh, here we go.

What the fuck, dude? That's like some shit right out of Lord of the Rings. Look at that. That doesn't even look real.

That looks like Mordor. The sneaker waves from there, they will come from nowhere and they will just absolutely— yeah.

Fuck you.

You see the tourists there.

I don't go anywhere near that shit. Fuck you.

Oh, there you go. Yeah, so you'd have tourists when we were there, and I felt I was so conflicted because I was like, look, I don't want to be a killjoy or anything. There's people taking pictures while sitting on those rocks, and then you just saw massive waves. We left, and then an hour later we saw helicopters overhead, we heard ambulances, and we knew the worst.

Yeah, you can die. You can die doing that. That is— a guy who was a WWE wrestler died a few years ago. He got caught in a ripcord, a riptide, right? Is that what happened to him?

That's what I was thinking of, I was saying, Like, I think that was like on Venice Beach or Santa Monica.

I think you're right. I think it was in Venice. Yeah, man, it's fucking terrifying if you don't know how to swim. The ocean is a monster, man.

Oh yeah, even on certain parts as well, when you get wind over tide, that's the worst. The tide's going one way, wind's going the other, and we get what's called the overfalls. And swimming over there, it was nuts. There's the waves, they're not rolling anymore, they're detonating. That's the only way I can describe it. It's just going off around you. And when you're swimming in there as well, what's happening underneath is all the jellyfish are just getting smashed on the rocks. So as you're swimming, jellyfish tentacles are literally going up your nose, in your ear. You're inhaling them as well.

Oh great, that's got to be good for you. Jellyfish can fuck you up too. Yeah, yeah, they'll sting the shit out of you, especially the wrong ones.

The ones in Iceland are all right, but I think after you take maybe like 5 or 6, they start attacking your lymph nodes. You start scratching under your armpits, sort of your groin.

My youngest daughter got a little bit, just a touch from a jellyfish in Costa Rica. And oh my God, it was horrible. She was in agony. It was terrible. And they keep like stuff on the beach that you pour on them because it happens so often and people get zapped by jelly. It's not— they're not dangerous, they don't kill you, but they fucking hurt like hell.

Yeah, yeah.

Dude, the ocean itself is just like— like, what's interesting about all those people in that photograph, that's in that video, they're watching and standing Isn't it fascinating how people are drawn to that abyss? They're drawn to the, the majesty of that water, just the vastness of it. There's something about that that I think is really good for people. I think it's one of the reasons why people like going to the ocean and sitting on the beach. I think there's something about that that just calms people the fuck down because it puts you into perspective. It's like, hey, bitch, look out at all that fucking water, okay? You can't live in any of that. All right? You are so nothing. And that's why I think beach towns are so chill. Mm-hmm. Like, beach towns are not like— like, why is downtown Manhattan so beep beep, fuck you? Everybody's like hyped up. It's because they're surrounded by people-created shit. If you're just standing there staring at the vastness of the ocean, you're like, all right, relax. And then at nighttime you see the stars too. You see the fucking Milky Way, and then there's the ocean. Like, all right, this This is clearly— I'm not that important.

100%.

I'm barely anything.

100%. And like we said with Iceland, with some mushrooms under the Northern

Lights, especially on the last day of your swim, it's like the universe letting you know you did it. You, you completed your journey. Fucking bananas, man.

This is exactly it. But I love what you said there as well. I mean, certainly on the swim, it was so interesting. Sometimes I, I tried to swim with gratitude as much as I can, you know, swim with a smile and you're just grateful to be there. Because I love David Goggins and I've tried his form of motivation where he's, you know, man up, grit your teeth, get through this. But for me personally, after, you know, 100 days, I can't keep calling myself a bitch. I'm just like, oh, have a day off.

Listen, David is a very unique character. I don't know anybody like him and I don't recommend it. I don't recommend you becoming him. Good fucking luck. You have to have that demon inside of you like that guy does. He's a sweetheart of a guy though. I love him to death. But that dude, that fire ain't going out. No. He's 50 years old. That fire is not going out. He does things where people aren't watching. That's what's crazy about David. It's not all these like things where people get to see. It's not— no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He calls it being in the lab. Like every day he's doing it. Like, dude, every day he's out there running 20 miles. He runs with a weight vest on. He gets in from that, he does weights, he does chin-ups and push-ups. Like, it's not— it doesn't stop, it doesn't end. And then the next day it's another thing, it's another fucking insane thing, and it never ends. And no one's watching. No one's watching. It's not being documented. He's, he's just doing it. Exactly. And then every now and then he'll go out and run some fucking 200-mile race and everybody's like, what What the fuck, man?

Like, what are you— and he's also got no knees. His knees are completely blown apart. He's got bone on bone on both of his fucking knees. He's had multiple operations where they had to actually— his bone had grown so fucked up that they had to chop his fucking leg in half and pull it down so they could make it level. Because the, the bone, it's, it's like called— what is it called? Wolff syndrome or some shit? Where you're— they grind against each other, so your body tries to protect itself by building extra bone. Mm-hmm. And when it builds it, it fucks up the geometry of the knee. They don't work correctly. So then you're running like bone on bone with fucked up geometry, and you get back pain, all kinds of— so he had his fucking knee sawed off and shifted downward and then screwed into place. And you know what he did? He just got on a fucking bicycle and he started using a bicycle then. And so he's fucking indoor cycling all day for 5, 6 hours.

I had something similar, actually. Yes, subacromial decompression with my shoulder. Which, um, so often weightlifters will get it, but they said we've never really seen it in a swimmer. But it was exactly the same. I needed to have the, the bone shaved down to make room again. Holy shit. Yeah, yeah, that was that left shoulder. The right's always been fine.

So when they shaved down the bone, did they have to— is your cartilage okay?

Yeah, cartilage was fine. And it was, you know, it was just the bone keyhole. Yeah, just there. Yeah, just went in, shaved down the bone.

How much bone did they shave down?

A good amount. Yeah. And did you get like a little cup of it to save? I should have asked. Shouldn't I?

You should save that.

But I love what you said there as well, because I just think Goggins taps into something that, that so few people want to almost address. Carl Jung talked about it with your shadow self, you know, that part of your psyche that you don't want to reveal to the world. Are you aggressive, jealous, hyper-competitive? Um, again, it was, it was Nietzsche, wasn't it? Uh, whoever fights monsters should see to it that they too don't become a monster, right? If you stare into the abyss too long, the abyss will stare back into you.

Yeah.

And I think that's what Goggins does brilliantly, or Jordan Peterson as well. You know, the, the problem isn't having a monster, it's making sure you can't put it back in the cage.

Yeah.

And I think that's what Goggins does so well. And I did take inspiration from that on certain swims as well, where, you know, reading a few comments online, people go, he's never gonna do this swim, he's too big to be a swimmer, this is gonna fail badly.

That is the weird thing about you though. Like, most endurance athletes aren't that heavily muscled.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? That is very odd. And I've shown pictures I've shown pictures of you to my friends. And I would like, I'll talk about people who've done crazy shit. And I've detailed some of the insane things you've done, some of the insane swims. And they're like, how is he doing that when he's that jacked? I'm like, that is weird, right?

Yeah, I think there's a few different things to unpack. So, so the first is, you just need bulk. So going back to biomimicry, and we're talking about that a lot now. But I think what's so interesting is I want to become more whale-like. You know, I think absolutely, you look at a pool swimmer, they are poetic in the water. They're amazing. they look like dolphins, a mako shark. That would be useless for me when caught in an Arctic storm.

So I need strength.

Strength and bulk. Yeah, muscle mass being thermic, so I can generate heat. Right. Um, but equally on top of that, I think it's also really interesting that through my strength training— it's called mechanotransduction— just basically means people think of strength training as improving the, the strength of the muscles, but it's connective tissue, ligaments and tendons, that respond to that mechanical stimulus. So for me, when swimming, I need the connective tissue, my, the tendons in my rotator cuff need to be bulletproof. Because that's what's going to give up. This swim isn't going to stop because of my VO2 or lactic threshold, right? It's going to stop because something tears. So that's why being like this, I'm not as fast. But I sacrifice that for being more physically robust.

That makes sense.

And I think finally, this is something as well, which is really interesting at the moment. So I'm a huge fan of Cam McEvoy. He's the 50-meter world record holder for freestyle. And he's just rewritten the rulebook on swimming. Basically, there's a direct correlation between your 1 rep max on pull-ups and your swim sprint speed. And he's— Really? Yeah, really, real strong correlation. So he's now basically doing 1 rep max with pull-ups with 80, 90 kilos, and just speed reps as well, Joe, just ripping. And you see what he's done, he's but he's barely swimming in terms of—

90 kilos?

Yeah, he's an absolute savage.

Isn't that like £185 or some shit?

What is that? Yeah, yeah, it's on his Instagram recently, did it with 80. He's, he's an absolute specimen.

And how many, how many chin-ups is he doing that way?

I think he was doing about 3. He's an absolute specimen. Yeah, and watch— Jesus. So that's, that's swimming, that's, that's sprinting. So obviously that's, that's not endurance, but taking inspiration from that, you have what's your strength reserve. So strength reserve just basically means if you are capable of doing a pull-up with 100 kilos, that means your own body weight is basically a smaller percentage of what you're capable of. Here we go.

Is that him? There he goes.

Uh, 80 kilos.

That's insane. And what is it? What is it, Jamie? Did we figure out what that is? I'll ask my phone.

2.2, so it's like 176, I think.

What is 80 kilograms in pounds?

But look how straight and how casual.

Yeah, 176. That's crazy.

He's amazing. And he's completely rewritten the rule books when it comes to— like I said, 50, um, world record holder at the moment.

Oh, that's crazy. He's doing that 3 sets of 5 with 50 kilograms. And so this is just to generate strength for the sprinting aspect. Exactly that.

You think about it, if your 1 rep max on pull-ups is so good, every stroke is almost like a unilateral, a single limb pulldown. So he's just ripping through the water like that. Wow. But what's been really interesting is traditionally, you used to just swim for miles and miles. It was almost, we call it like garbage yardage, that you're just swimming, swimming, swimming. He was swimming sometimes in his sets like 800 meters, which is my warmup, but it was just all flat out. So he's revolutionized swimming. So that's sprinting. But what I've taken from it, like I said, your strength reserve, basically, if you're capable of a huge 1 rep max on pull-ups, it means that every single stroke that you take is a smaller percentage of what you're capable of. I think the best example I can think of like this is a good friend of mine, Eddie Hall, World's Strongest Man, first guy to deadlift 500 kilos. He entered a CrossFit competition. And there was a particular WOD, it was 60 kilos. There's a brilliant video if you've seen it, Jamie, but there's— it's 60 kilos. And you see these CrossFitters, they're up to overhead, and it's a clean, and it's a beautiful push press.

But because Eddie is so strong, and he's got such a big strength reserve, he basically, as you're about to see now, just— I mean, that's a front delt raise mixed with a row. Did you see what I mean?

That's crazy. If you don't know, that is so much harder to do it that way.

60 kilos, I believe. 60 kilos. And so, like I said, the CrossFitters, perfect technique. They clean it to the chest, And then they are bending their knees.

Bro, that shit ain't even touching his chest. That's crazy.

It's a front delt raise, kind of with a row.

That's literally insane. If you don't know, that's literally insane.

But my point here is, I mean, Eddie's an absolute specimen, but my point here is, is he doesn't train for this. This is completely— he doesn't— this isn't his thing.

Clearly, because he doesn't do that movement at all. If he did that movement, he wouldn't be doing it that way.

But he's got an immense strength reserve. And so that's my point.

That's crazy, dude. There we go.

Actual time, he broke the record.

That is so insane. That's so insane that he did that that way. Now watch a regular CrossFitter do it. Can you show a regular CrossFitter do it? It's not on this video. Regular— well, you can find it. Regular CrossFitters, they catch it on their chest.

Exactly.

And then they step back.

It's a poetic technique. And so that, that's my point. So coming back to the swim swimming, that as strong as I get when I'm strength training, it just means that every single stroke over the Arctic Circle is a smaller fraction of what I'm capable of.

That makes sense. That makes sense. And then you have to be able to have that fine line between endurance and bulk. It's exactly muscular endurance. And, you know, but also having strength.

Is exactly it. I think also what was really interesting, an MRI scan revealed— so you have slow-twitch fibers that are very resistant to fatigue. They're your ultramarathon runners. Then you have your fast-twitch fibers that are sprint speed, power. And, and what was so strange is on my MRI they said, Ross, you have an unusual proportion of fast oxidative glycolytic fibers. So they're basically in between the two. They're able to produce a lot of force, but they're very resistant to fatigue as well.

Is that cultivated?

Interesting. They said, I think I had a genetic predisposition for that, but with the amount of training I've done, I've also nurtured Interesting.

Now, how do they know that you have a genetic predisposition for it if they didn't examine you before you started all this training?

It was all theory. Yeah, they said—

Yeah, but that's my question is I wonder how much of it is adaptable. I wonder how much of what we say, oh, he has a genetic advantage, like, are we sure? Or did this guy's body change because of necessity?

It made intuitive sense when they said it.

What would you call that, a clean press?

The— oh,

what Eddie Hall did?

Uh, no, it's— there's a rep—

it's part of a workout called the Azabat. There we go.

It's called the Isabella.

Oh, here we go. So this is Noah Ohlsen, who's an absolute specimen, by the way.

Yeah, I think he's competed in more catching it and then using his legs to complete it. So he's doing it awesome. This is perfect technique. Look at that, catching it. Also, they're not catching it on their chest. No, so

that's

like a snatch press kind of something.

Okay, so he's— so it's called the Isabella,

but you see the rest, I suppose, between sets compared to the, right, the deltoids. And like I said, Noah's a good friend. He's an absolute specimen.

What is, what is the term WOD? What does that stand for?

Workout of the

day.

What is it? Workout of the day? And EMOMs is reps per minute, right? Mm-hmm. Isn't that what it is?

Where are we?

Okay, so this workout of the day is a whole bunch of these.

Oh, 30 snatches. I think this one's different, actually. It might be different.

Yeah, well, the— why did that— he said that he did that particular Isabelle benchmark workout in 50 seconds. So I think that's— I mean, that's just what I'm going off of. I was trying to find—

interesting.

If it's something different, my bad. But

no, but yeah, but it does illustrate—

Interesting, beating the previous male record previously associated with figures like Rich Froning. But Rich Froning's like way smaller than him. Yeah, which is crazy. that he could do that because it's the same weight, right? Mm-hmm. Is it the same weight they're all using?

Yeah, yeah, will be 60. Yeah,

that's even nuts that Rich Froning could do that with— because I don't think his body weight is anywhere even close to that. Eddie Hall's 300-plus pounds.

Yeah, he's got a bit leaner now.

Yeah, he's getting smaller. Well, he's done some MMA fights and shit.

Yeah, with Tommy as well. He did— see, went the distance as well with Tommy Fury.

Yes, crazy.

I think they both won that fight. It was amazing in Crazy. You know, yeah, no one expected him to go that far.

You know what I was really impressed with? When he had a boxing match with the Mountain. And what I was really impressed with was the Mountain— I never say his name correctly. How do you say his name?

Thor Bjornsson.

Bjornsson. Bjornsson.

Thor Bjornsson.

Yeah, he didn't use his strength. Like, he was throwing punches like with perfect technique. He was throwing punches like a boxer. Like, he learned how to do— whoever trained him They did an amazing job because the guy's obviously got ridiculous power, but he, he's like throwing punches correctly, and he dropped Eddie Hall a few times, whereas Eddie Hall's just winging at him with these wild power shots. Thor is moving around him, and look, see how he's throwing his technique? It's very clean, man. Even his jab, look at that. It's— he's not overextending. Mm-hmm. I mean, he clearly is like a new boxer, but a very good athlete. and is figuring out how to use his, his technique and, and recognize that the power is always going to be there because he's so fucking huge. He dropped him a few times in that, at least once in that fight.

I find that amazing when sometimes like the laws of martial arts sometimes need to be slightly bent for people that size, you know. Again, having rolled with certain people, like you get an armbar and they just stand up with you.

Yeah, well, that's a problem. Like there's certain techniques. Marcelo Garcia who's the giant killer, he famously would just go for necks, like, because he felt like kimura— like, he obviously, he knew how to use a kimura. He's a very high-level black belt, one of the greatest grapplers of all time, if not the greatest. And Marcelo never hit kimuras. He would just get necks. So he became a neck specialist. So his whole thing was high elbow guillotine and rear naked choke. If he got your back, you're fucked. And that was how he was able to defeat much larger opponents. Mm-hmm. because you can't really defend. If he can get that rear naked choke around your neck and stop the blood to your brain, that's it. You go to sleep. Like, you, you cannot tap if someone gets you in an armbar. You could allow your arm to get broken, and I've seen it happen a lot of times. But what you can't do is stop a guy from choking you unconscious. And so Marcelo, being as smart as he is and being a small guy— he's like £160— he just figured, okay, I'll just get everybody's neck.

And he just became a neck specialist.

See, I love what you said there as well, because I, I often I think, you know, the best athletes are the best at doing what they do best. And what I mean by that, whether it's ultramarathon running, whether it is CrossFit, World's Strongest Man, it doesn't matter. You lean into what you're really good at. You sort of— Khabib wrestling, uh, you know, Pereira striking.

Sure.

It's just, you just drill what you're really good at. I think for me, swimming, certainly that's what I've sort of honed in on. I'm like, look, I'm not going to be built like Michael Phelps. I don't have this poetic, nice stroke. But what I can do is just get crazy strong for an endurance So my strength reserve is so much bigger.

And do something really insane like swimming for 3 fucking days.

Exactly.

That's the thing is like most of these guys are just not gonna be willing to do that. They're willing to do a race because in a race you just go all out and, you know, it only lasts for a few seconds and when it's over, it's over. But, you know,

yeah,

yeah, you do that and you can turn around, the shore's right there. Like, you have to keep going. You have many days in front of you, and that's just a completely different thing, you know.

I think that's it, because I've always— I was brought up with my dad and my granddad telling me stories, one, of athletes, but two, you know, the heroic age of Antarctic exploration when Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, Shackleton were trying to get to the South Pole. Yeah. And you know about Robert Falcon Scott and Amundsen, the, the contrast in what they did. Mm-hmm. You know, with Amundsen, just Norwegian efficiency to get to the South Pole. So turns up, he's learned so much from the those indigenous in the Arctic, learnt about dogs. All of the crew were gifted in cross-country skiing. In comparison, the British guy Robert Falcon Scott brought ponies that fell through the ice, mechanical sleds that broke down, tinned food, terrible. What was so interesting, as they got there, Amundsen even knew, as he got to the South Pole, he had a certain amount of dogs. And then on the way back, he knew he could start systematically eating the dogs on the way back. Whereas the British, Robert Falcon Scott, refused to do that. They were just handling, manhandling all of their sleds. And when they got there to the South Pole, they saw the Norwegian flag there already, then were forced to trek back.

And I mean, one of the most harrowing, it was Lawrence Oates, um, whose foot was, you know, badly injured. And he just knew that he was holding up the team. And then famously, as they were caught in a, in a blizzard, he just turned to the team and just said, gentlemen, I'm going for a short walk. I might be a while. while. And he just walked to his death to try to make sure that his team made it. Oh my God. And they didn't. They didn't, unfortunately. Yeah. And I think it's that idea of kind of like, you know, civilization and survival. You know, you have to go to a strange place sometimes to actually make it. And I think that's— that was almost the appeal for my career, in inverted commas, if you could call it.

Well, that's the appeal to people that are watching for sure, that you're clearly going to some strange place where you could die, you know, and that's why people like watching your— what would you call it? I almost said stunts, but that's disrespectful. I'd say, but they're not stunts. They're, you know, journeys.

Yeah, they are. Yeah, they are in some ways.

Quests is a noble way of saying it.

I appreciate that. Yeah, no, no, you're quite right. It is. I always say they're almost these sporting spectacles that we use as a Trojan horse to deliver ocean conservation. So I don't mind stunt at all.

Well, that's good that you're doing that. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's good. You know, I mean, I think that there's one area of the world that we really are disrespecting, and that's our oceans. And when I say that, I mean, we can't keep pulling fish out at the rate we're doing. It's nuts. If you talk to fishermen and if you talk like the people that have done surveys, and obviously the ocean is enormous, it's very hard to understand But the, the middle of it is not where everything is. Most of the life on the ocean is near the shores, and— or at least reasonably close to the shores. 90 fucking percent of all big fish aren't in the ocean anymore. Like, all these tuna men that used to fish tuna way back in the day and catch thousands— it's a lot less now. Right. It's— and no one is even thinking about it, and And, you know, there's regulations that some countries have on the way they're allowed to fish, but some countries don't follow any of those fucking regulations. You know, I mean, it's— and what we've done to the— you know, fun fact, this is how Somalians became pirates.

So Somalians became pirates because they were fishermen, and they were all just fishermen. They were just peaceful fishermen living in Somalia, and these different countries were dumping toxic waste off their shore, and it was killing all the fish. And so they first started kidnapping these people who were dumping these boats filled with toxic sludge or whatever the fuck they were dumping, nuclear waste, whatever they're dumping into the ocean, and demanding a ransom because these people have caused them so much loss because their fish are all dead. And then they thought about it and said, well, fuck this, why don't we just kidnap people? And so that became their new sport. So the fish are all dead, And they were on that— what is that stuff called? Kat? Is that what it's called? So there's a narcotic that they take called Kat, and it's a leaf that you chew. Is it a nut? Is it a nut? No, it's a leaf. It's a leaf? Um, whatever it is, it's something that you chew that gives you like an amphetamine-like state. Like, look at me, I'm the captain now. Like, that's Kat. You're fucking— you're methed up, you weigh £80, you've been up for 7 days.

days, and now you're kidnapping people. And so that's, that's literally Somalia's history. So when you look at like the Somalian scams that are happening in America, and you look at like this stuff that's going on in Minnesota, like, well, how do all these Somalians get involved in all these scams? It all goes back to Europeans poisoning their water. Wow. Yep. Yeah, Russian, I think, I think Russia poisoned— I don't know, I don't want to blame any countries, but someone was dumping toxic waste in their water, and that's what started it all off. That's true, right? I think they call themselves the People's Coast Guard of Somalia. That's how they started off. Wow. They don't have a long history of pirates. They're not like Blackbeard or any shit like that. This is a fairly recent in human history turn for their culture, and it probably led to a lot of other criminal activity if you think about it. Like, if the, the core nature of your civilization gets shut off. The core nature is you're fishermen, right? You live in a village, you all catch fish, that's what you live off of. All that gets shut down, people go into desperation mode, people start taking cat— they're probably taking cat already, but they, they, they're doing amphetamines, and then they're kidnapping folks.

Next thing you know, you're getting machine guns, you get all that money, now you got a fucking— you got carbines, you got a .50 cal.

Is that cat legal? Can I take that when I'm to test it all.

I don't think it is. I think it's— I think it's illegal. I don't know what it is in America. We probably have it Schedule 1. How Somalian fishermen became pirates.

Yeah, old. It's 2009. This mostly just says that once they lost their government, it became a free-for-all right here.

I do think that was part of it as well.

Fishermen just kind of got pissed.

I think that was part of it as well, but I think there was an aspect of it about poisoning the water.

I'm sure it probably came up later, because this is still 2009. This is right, right when it was kicking off, really. At this time when this article was written, it said they had 18 cargo ships being held.

Okay, this is— but see, I think this is everything had already started to fall apart. I think it started to fall apart when the fish went away. If I remember correctly, this was quite a long time ago I read this, but see if you can put it into perplexity. Say, is there a connection between Somali pirates and offshore dumping of toxic waste that led to depleting of their fishing grounds.

I didn't ask that exact question. I just asked what was the reason they started taking ransoms.

But see if that factors in. See if it says that, if you say, was there an aspect of it where they were kidnapping people who had poisoned their water? Kidnapping people who poisoned their water. Sweet dude, isn't AI wonderful? I know it's gonna kill us all. Not necessarily. People they kidnapped were not all people poisoned in the water, right? But initially there were serious reports and allegations of foreign companies dumping hazardous waste off of Somalia. However, a UN environmental OCHA account said 2 years earlier UN fact-checking missions found no evidence, probably because the UN was dumping, and its post-tsunami inquiries did not identify specific dumping sites. So they were kidnapping people, poisoning their water is much more definitive than the evidence supports. Yeah, I don't know if we know. Um, the problem with AI is it's pulling from all these different sources online. That might be biased already. Yeah, maybe the story I read was biased as well, but the story that I read was a sort of a sympathetic take on why there's so many pirates. I don't— not sympathetic, But an understanding take. Like, they're saying, like, you need to understand that this is a chain of consequences, a chain of events that took place.

And one of those things was people dump— like, for sure someone's dumped toxic shit into the ocean. We know they do that. And so it doesn't seem that far of a stretch to imagine that that initially started off a crash in their economy if their fishing lands were— or fishing was poisoned. Do you want to do a swim there?

Go and try and sort it out. I'll do a swim there.

Don't do that. Yeah, swim and dress up like a dollar bill.

I think I could. Over there or what, straight up on the news?

In a gold boat. Get yourself in a gold boat and put a sign that says, we have no guns, and go have fun.

That would be amazing.

I re-asked and it gave a different answer.

Yes, some Somali pirates explicitly described their attacks as retaliation for toxic waste dumping, not just illegal fishing. Previous answer understated the reporting behind that claim, but it does not establish that the crews they kidnapped themselves dumping waste. Right, they probably just found people offshore and said, you were dumping, I'm the captain now. And to— okay, 2008 pirate spokesman. Oh, they have a spokesman? I wonder if he was elected. I wonder how he became spokesman. You think he had a campaign? You think people had like signs on their lawns? Elect Juana Ali Jama for spokesman of the pirates. Thank you. Described a ransom demand as a way of reacting to the toxic waste that's been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years. Oh shit, 20 years is a long fucking time, but I believe that. The report connected that claim to the captured MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks and military equipment not a vessel identified in the report as dumping waste. But what a great ship to bust. Imagine you get a fucking boat that's got tanks and military equipment. Now you got yourself a motherfucking army dog. Environmental accusations weren't solely a private invention.

In that reporting, UN envoy— boy, say that guy's name. Help me out.

No, I'm not even gonna attempt that one.

Al-Madhu Olud Abdallah. said the UN had reliable information that European and Asian companies were dumping toxic waste off Somalia. UNEP spokesman Nick Natale described Somalia as a hazardous waste dumping ground, but said insecurity prevented a proper scientific assessment of the problem's extent. Well, listen, man, people love to dump shit in the ocean, these fucking assholes. Like, you know, you remember when that kid got killed in Egypt? He was at a resort in Egypt and he got killed by a shark.

I think I saw the video.

It's a horrible video because he's screaming for his father. He's screaming for his father. So what we had heard, and we looked into it, it's not conclusive, but it seems like they were dumping sheep carcasses in the ocean. Like when they had sheep carcasses, they didn't want them just laying around rotting, so they would put them in a boat, take them out to sea, and dump them in the water. So what did that attract?

What do you think that attracted?

Some sharks! And these sharks were in that area, and people— there was a really beautiful resort. People go take their families, go on vacation, and a fucking monster soup. Yeah, monster soup right out there. I'll tell you, make fucking soup out of their dicks. Take— pull them out of the water, serve it up. We need to go back to shark's fin soup. These fucking people think sharks are their friends.

Do you want— so do I need to swim in Somalia and sort that out then?

I don't think you do. I think you should probably stay out of that. Maybe that'll be the one that kills you. No, whatever the fuck is in that water, whatever the 20 years of toxic dumping, that's not good. You don't want that in your skin.

No deal. No deal. Yeah, going back to the cardio, I wanted to ask your opinion on this. Best cardio in the UFC or MMA actually in history? I'm gonna go— I'm gonna put some up there. Merab.

Merab's probably— yeah, Bisping had phenomenal cardio. Bisping would melt people. I remember his fight with Jason Mayhem Miller, who was very talented. Yeah, Bisping just melted him. Just his pace was insane.

Nick Diaz.

Nick Diaz, insane pace.

Yep.

Nate Diaz also. Yeah, also incredible cardio. Yeah, there's a lot of these guys now. It's like, it's— we're in a realm now of athletes. Joshua Van, insane cardio. Insane cardio. Joshua Van, who's the flyweight champion, the 5th round fights like he's in the 1st round. Insane. The level now is at an all-time high.

That's why Cain Velasquez was so weird because it just didn't make sense. Didn't make sense. Demetrius Johnson and smaller guys, you're just kind of like, yeah, you're not inhibited by gravity the same way. But with Cain Velasquez, you're like, that just— you shouldn't— you should be able to do that.

DC told me Cain would take a couple months off of training, like he had an injury, had to take time off of training, come back 3 months later, fuck everybody up at the gym. He said in cardio drills, he said it was nuts. Oh, it was nuts. He said his, his base was just, just insane. Meanwhile, he lost the title to Fabricio Werdum in Mexico City at altitude because he was only there for 2 weeks. And Fabricio Werdum, he got a place to train in the mountains above Mexico City. So Fabricio was living at like, I think it was like 9,000+ feet above sea level and training up there. Mm. And so he had phenomenal cardio, and Cain actually gassed out in that fight, and Fabricio caught him in a guillotine to win the title.

I remember. Yeah,

yeah, man, that was a big moment because nobody had ever not just beaten Cain that way, but beaten Cain with like where Cain was tired. Like, you never saw Cain tired. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it just shows you that altitude training is fucking critical, man, if you want to compete at altitude. I was showing you the hypoxia chamber that we have here, the Exalt— I think it's called the Exalt X- hypoxia trainer. It is so hard to work out at altitude, but if you can do it— I did it in preparation for this hunt that I did in Utah, and so I did it for 2 months, and I was very rigorous about it. I was very regular. I was doing 2 really hard cardio workouts inside that thing a week, and that's all they recommend. Mm-hmm. They said don't do more than that because you'll get to a point where you can't recover. Like, you want 2, maybe 3 Once you've built up, but I never got to 3. Made a giant difference. Giant difference. Like, I could really— because I go to the same place every year, and at the highest point it's probably 9,000 feet.

Sometimes you're at 5,000, 7,000, but you know, you're walking up like very steep, loose dirt at 5,000, 7,000 feet. It's hard. It's really hard.

So you could feel it physiologically? 100%. Hemoglobin.

I could feel that I had more gas. 100%. Yeah, a big difference, big difference. And I only got to do it for 2 months, and now I'm thinking I'm getting ready for next September. I'm like, if I can do it for a whole year, if I could do that twice a week for a year, that'll make a giant difference by the time September rolls around.

100%.

I think that's gonna change a lot of the way— I think that particular type of training, when you're training at like that machine, can crank you up to above 20,000 feet above sea level. I've only done 14. I've done 14.5. That's the highest I've done. It's, it's insanity. There's no air in there, man. There's no fucking air in there. And you're doing sprints on the air-dyne machine, you're doing sprints on the treadmill, and doing kettlebell swings. And it's like, when you get out of there, man, it's like your body gets this rush of oxygen. Oh. As soon as you open the door, you're like, oh my God. But then once you recover from it, the next time it's a little bit easier. easier, and the next time it's a little bit easier. It's like you feel your body adapting because it's like, oh shit, we got to do this. So in a real-world scenario like what we are here, like, what is the sea level here? What's the altitude here? Nothing. It's nothing. You feel like there's so much fucking air you can run through a building. That's what it feels like. And I think that's a game changer.

And so many of these, like, really high-level camps have chosen to train at altitude. You know, you have a bunch of them. Obviously the Dagestanis, they train— I don't know what— what is Dagestan? What is Dagestan above sea level? I got it, it's in the mountains.

Yeah.

I gotta say they're probably 4,500, 5,000 feet. You know, obviously they have the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. I think that's above 5,000 feet, you know, and

They have actually both. They go— they have areas below sea level that are down by the Caspian coast, and they have mountain peaks that average elevation is 500 meters though. Interesting. So it's like 1,500, 1,600 feet.

Yeah, that's enough for adaptation.

Max is what?

That's a peak, that's a mountain peak, is 14,000.

Max is 14,000. But these, some of these mountain towns like where Khabib is, where's he at? I know they do runs. They do runs at altitude, you know, as does like the guys in Denver.

High spot—

what's that,

2,000 meters above? So 6,500 or so. Yes.

Okay, so he's pretty high. 6,000 feet is high. So if you're training at that altitude, that's, that's akin to Colorado Springs or a lot of these places, you know. Justin Gaethje's coach Trevor Wittman, he has a lot of his guys, they do runs in the mountains mountains. They do these runs uphill in the mountains.

And on limited water as well. There's some good stuff around dehydration training.

That's Justin's big thing. He will not drink water while he's training.

Controlled dehydration. Yeah.

Oh Jesus, look at Khabib up there. That view is insane.

So there is a— this is a weird story. I've got a— there is a method that could make you a faster runner, and I'm gonna apologize now, this is a little bit left field, but I was in Namibia. I was learning from the San Bushmen out there, so How do you organize

that?

Yeah, that was a documentary.

WhatsApp.

Yeah, so we are out there doing like a marathon a day, we— for the entire week, barely any water. It was horrible. One particular guy out there, and they're amazing, they're just gliding across the sand basically as well. I'm just like heavy running trying to keep up with them. And there was one particular guy in the tribe as well who was— could trace his ancestry back to the Curling tribes. Did you know about the Curling tribe? No.

No.

So it's basically an ethnic group specific to Kenya. You are— you've already smashed yours. I'm still working on mine. Come on, dog. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Talking shit. Let's go.

Sorry. So basically, um, Kurujan tribe, ethnic group specific to Kenya, produce, uh, more amazing marathon runners than anywhere else. It's disproportionate just how good they are with this particular group of people. Um, and as we're sitting around the campfire, they turned to me and they said, uh, this guy goes, Ross, do you know why we're so good? You know why the Kurdistans are so good at running? And I said altitude, and he went nope. And I was like, barefoot running, so beautiful biomechanics. Nope.

Circumcision.

Oh, you know it.

Yeah, and crawling through needles.

Oh, you know it.

Crawling through thorns.

You're right, and they put them in the mud as well?

Yeah.

And they don't pass on, yeah, so it's basically—

Yeah, circumcision as a grown boy with no, nothing, no water, no cleanliness, no anesthesia, just they cut it. he's— these— a knife, right? Or a sharp rock?

Well, the theory goes that he was saying that basically with the circumcision, you're basically as a young man in front of the entire tribe. They all come out and they put clay, like mud, on your face. And so you have to like just sit there. And then basically the guy takes— the chief of the tribe takes your tackle. And then with essentially—

Tackle, I like that.

Takes your tackle, circumcises you. You cannot flinch. If you flinch and the mud cracks, all of a sudden in the tribe everyone will be like, oh, are, he's not very desirable. So you don't basically find a girl, you don't have kids, and only those where the mud doesn't crack, they're considered desirable and they pass on their genetics. So generation after generation, you're passing on this pain tolerance, and then in the end you end up Kerelijan tribe, just unbelievable runners. Yeah, I mean, he looked across and said, Ross, do you want to be faster? Pulled out a knife and I was like, I'm good. Yeah,

what if you're already circumcised? What is he going to do, take it back an inch? Fuck, dude. What does he do then? Like, I want in, but the problem is they did me when I was a kid. Didn't even help. I didn't have to crawl through thorns, nothing. Yeah, you have to crawl through thorns with your bloody dick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you can't wince, can't make any noise.

That's the whole point. Yeah. And then—

Yeah, you can't react to the pain.

Those who don't react are considered desirable. They pass on their genetics generation after generation. You just get this incredible—

Are you gonna show me a video, Jamie? How dare you?

I just paused. I just— that's what they look like with the mud on their faces, I think.

Oh boy, getting ready.

Some lady talking about it.

Yeah,

yeah, fun times.

And then you just got to remain there.

All that just to run.

Yeah. One of my things—

I hope somebody beats him that doesn't do that.

Well, it's funny you said that, actually. So do you know about Emil Zatopek?

No.

Oh my god, this guy, he— the greatest endurance runner, in my opinion, to ever exist. He's amazing. So basically, to this day, no one's ever done what he did at the Olympics. Helsinki Olympics, won the 5,000, won the 10,000, and then turned to his coach and he just went, um, I think I will run marathon tomorrow. And his coach was like, no, no, this is a terrible idea. You should not run the marathon. It's completely different events, you know, over twice as far. Emil, this is a terrible, uh, an idea. And he turns and Emil just goes, who, who is the favorite? And it was a British guy. So it was the British guy. He's he's— everybody thinks he's gonna win. And Emil goes, okay, no problem. What I do, I will run on his shoulder, and then just at the end before we get into stadium, I go boop and I run around and I will finish. And the coach is like, please, Emil, this is just— you've got 2 gold medals, please let's just leave it there. And he goes, no, no, no, no. This documentary is amazing. It then cuts to the British guy who's older and he's recounting this, this entire race.

And he says, I am, uh, I'm running and, uh, things are going And then I feel on my shoulder, I see this Emil just pops up on my shoulder and Emil turns to me and goes, I'm so sorry, I've never run marathon before, so I don't know if it's too fast or too slow. And I thought to myself, you shit, I'm gonna mess with you, I'm gonna mess with your head. So I turned and I said, no, no, no, this is far too slow, we're in trouble, thinking that would break him. And Emil just turned and went, no problem, I will see you at finish line, and ran and won. won 3 gold medals, Helsinki Olympics. The reason I tell that story as well is not many people know. So his training, next time you're down an athletics track, he used to do 100 400-meter sprints.

What?

Yeah, a sprint in a marathon.

In a day?

Yeah, well, not a day, but he pioneered interval training. People didn't think you could train that hard. There he is. Wow. Look, and what I love as well is how he ran. He ran like he'd been shot in the leg. That's not Emil. He was just— there he is. So he runs like he's been shot. Ugly technique.

Bad form.

Yeah. This, again, I think this is the marathon. So this is after he's already won the 5,000 and the 10,000. And here he is.

He looks like he's in agony.

Yeah. Yeah. So, and the story goes with that as well. And this is what I love. So with somebody like him, 100 400-meter sprints, but his wife was an amazing javelin thrower as well. So date night for them is they'd go out and his wife would just like launch the javelin and he would go and get it like a dog. I'd be like, here you go, babe. She'd be like, thanks, babe. That's hilarious. He used to, uh, run with his wife on his back through the woods. And then sometimes when he wasn't able to run because it was snowing too much or condition wouldn't allow, uh, famously he would get in the bath and just basically just tread on, on dirty laundry as well, just to try to just— wow. As well. So Emil Zatopek, to your point, I always find it fascinating that sometimes when you talk about people who are, you know, I've been training so hard, I've sacrificed so much. I'm like, yeah, that's great, but I don't want to go against Emil Zatopek, someone who just loves it, someone who just date night is running out their intervals, bringing back.

Well, have you heard of that race they do where it's a race until everyone else drops out?

Of course, backyard ultras.

Yeah, yeah. But there can only be one. One person can win.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's amazing. You must— I think Chris Williamson was talking about, you know, a mutual friend of ours talking about Mark Dowdle, who was just basically like hunting and like just stalking the competition. And it was called the Last Soul Ultra. Yeah, so Mark Dowdle, when this guy stopped to like tie his shoelace, Mark was behind him and just hunting him like prey. And they had them on the, the night vision and they're like, what is going on? It's just mind games.

And so one person eventually doesn't quit.

Exactly.

Everybody else quits.

Yeah, exactly.

How long did they go?

These guys, I think I think there's the current record. I swear somebody did something like 91 hours. Yeah, it's just, it's just nuts. It's just nuts. I swear. Yeah. Oh my God. I think it was Phil, Jamie, if you find it. But he recently— yeah. Oh, here you go. Mark Dowdle. That's when he won the Last Soul Ultra.

95 laps, 636.5 kilometers. The man's Last Soul Ultra. Oh my God.

But he talks about it as well. What I love is he talks about actually collecting their souls. So, so at the end, you're basically given a trinket which has got everybody's soul on it, and he's there like some ancient warrior holding it up.

In a way, he's kind of right.

Oh, there you go. Yeah.

He ran for 94 straight hours without sleep to win the Last Soul Ultra. 94 hours is crazy. Like, what was he seeing? What was he seeing at hour 92? How many elves did he come into contact with? contact with. For sure he saw elves, right?

For sure.

For sure.

There he is. There's him on Loop 72.

Yeah. Oh my God. And the thing about him too is he's kind of a bigger guy.

I believe his background was lacrosse as well. So he weight trains, which goes back to what I was talking about before about mechanotransduction, strength reserve, that you're— that you'd say that doesn't make sense for an ultra endurance athlete. But again, I would argue that his biomechanics are just perfect and they won't break down compared to somebody who doesn't have that strength background. So there actually is the— there's a backyard ultra where he's actually doing it at the moment, I think.

94 hours is bananas.

Oh, that was an update from now.

What's that?

That video I just played was— Yeah, they're doing it now.

So I think it's Team America.

Oh, it's happening right now?

Yeah, on Loop 54 right now, or this one 2 hours ago.

And he's just on social media just talking through everything as well.

Loop 54. How many days ago was that? This is 20 hours ago.

Yeah, this is right now. He talked about like on the first 24 hours, he's just like, that's just your ticket, you know, that just gets you in the race. It's now it begins. And that's after 24 hours.

Oh my God.

What a legend.

Oh my God.

Yeah, I think— and it was 24 hours.

It's crazy.

It's nuts. It's not— I mean, for me on some of my swims as well, just those hallucinations Like when they start— like, probably one of my worst was Loch Ness, and that was before everything went really bad. Loch Ness is basically really narrow, um, and when you look up at night, it looked like there was loads of trees, but the trees almost formed the silhouette of, uh, like a cruise ship. I remember being like, that's really weird. I'm eating a banana and I'm looking up, and all of a sudden the branches start waving. And to me at the time, I was like, it looks like people have come to the side of the cruise ship to support me. So my girlfriend's watching and all the crew, and I'm just there eating a banana, and I'm going, guys, thank you so much, your support means especially 2 o'clock in the morning. God bless you guys. Thank you. Like that. And my girlfriend's like, oh, he's, he's talking to the trees, like he's thanking them for their support.

So sometimes—

oh, here you go.

Yeah, that's when he's—

that's when he's stalking him.

He's just waiting behind him.

And he's like, what are you doing? What I love, it's all mind games at this point. I think the reason I love Mark as well is because he's bringing a level of gamesmanship and mind games that wasn't really seen in ultra endurance.

Right. They're all supposed to be super supportive of each other.

Exactly. And I think you see it in other sports as well.

Yeah, but you can't be super supportive if there's only going to be one person standing.

Exactly, exactly. I mean, one of my favorite examples in MMA was Yair and Pereira, where they were talking about no Shamanic ritual. And I'm like, look, whatever.

Uri was saying, don't use any voodoo, please. Don't use any magic.

I was like, this is the greatest time in the UFC when someone's going, you're not allowed to use magic.

I want a clean fight, no magic.

It's amazing. I mean, on that note, who do you think is the best at mind games, uh, in UFC history? Chael Sonnen?

Chael Sonnen is really good, but Conor McGregor is pretty damn good Conor McGregor, when he fought Jose Aldo, he had Jose Aldo in a funk because Aldo was a legend and he was respected by everyone, and Conor was just continually disrespecting him and just mocking him. He stole his belt famously at the press conference. He was in his fucking head, you know. But obviously that backfired against Khabib because that shit didn't work on Khabib. Khabib was on top of him, punched him in the face, saying, let's talk now, let's talk now. He just punched him in the face. Let's talk now. And Conor was trying to say it's only business. He's like, come on, we're talking.

This is what I find so strange, that if aliens came down to this world and you had to explain to them, like, who is the best mixed martial artist, you'd go, okay, so here's Khabib, uh, devout Muslim, uh, doesn't drink, uh, you know, lives in the mountains. And you go, oh cool, so that's the blueprint. And you go, ah, well, no, sorry, so there's a guy, Jon Jones, over here.

He does coke and fucks everybody up. Well, there's outliers. There's outliers. There's outliers, you know?

That's exactly it, yeah.

There's always like these Bo Jackson characters that could do anything. There's, there's, there's people out there in the world that are outliers, and it's very unusual when you stumble across them. It's one of the things we love watching, an outlier. We love watching someone who's just like so unique and different than everyone else. Like, wow.

Mm-hmm.

We love that. Like a Michael Jordan, a Tiger Woods, or someone who's just like above and beyond. You're like, wow, I love that.

That was it, definitely looking at like the hero's journey with Joseph Campbell, good versus evil. And with the whole Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones rivalry, I was like, oh, this is it, this is amazing, this is, you know, the good and evil. And this is— and then you have something like Jon Jones who just goes, oh no, that's, that's not— for me in boxing as well, it was Mayweather, and I loved Ricky Hatton as well. So when you saw Mayweather there, like, if it doesn't make money, it doesn't make sense, on the bags, and then you've got Ricky Hatton having a cup of tea with his grandma and you're like, oh, this is it. That's so wholesome.

That's a little bit of bullshit though. Ricky was a fucking animal. He was an animal. Ricky had separated a lot of people from their consciousness. He was an animal. That was just a skill thing.

Right, okay, but Daniel Cormier is a good one. They're teaching kids wrestling and you're like, oh, this is amazing. And then— Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, Jon's not a bad guy. He's just an animal. I mean, he's, he's cut from a different cloth. You know, there's, there's people in this world that are just wilder, you know, and it's one of the reasons why he's so good. There's a certain element if you want to be a professional cage fighter, you have to— there's a certain amount of— you have to have all these things to be the GOAT like Jon. You have to have all these things, like perfect technique, incredible work ethic when he does work, amazing talent, and an IQ for it. It's— that's a really underrated factor. Because Jon knows what to do with each— famously will not take a fight on short notice, even with a guy like Chael Sonnen, who on paper you could wake Jon up at 3 o'clock in the morning, he's gonna fuck Chael Sonnen up. On paper. No disrespect to Chael, he's a great fighter, but there's levels. And I think Jon is just on a complete— and he's a larger man, right? Chael did some of his best work, almost won the title against Anderson Silva at 185. Mm-hmm. Jon is never making 185.

He's a much bigger man. And Jon would not take a fight with Chael Sonnen on short notice. And when, when he did take a fight with Chael Sonnen, he fucked him up in the first round. He just annihilated him.

Even with a bad toe.

And well, he smashed his toe in the process. He was pushing off the ground so hard that he twisted his own fucking toe around. I think we isolated it in a replay where we could see the moment where his toe snapped, and it was because he was delivering ground and pound with such force that as he was pushing off, he snapped his own toe and turned it around. And to this day, when he fights, he has to tape those toes together. To this day.

One of my favorite Jon Jones is the, the armbar with Vitor Belfort.

Oh yeah, yeah, completely hyperextended. Oh, but it's another example of like, guys won't tap if you break their arm, you know, they will hang on. And then he wound up winning that fight by kimura in the next round. Yeah, he got through that where most people would have tapped. His arm was fucked, and he couldn't fight for a long time after that because he had to rehabilitate that arm. His arm was fucked.

Yeah, going back to the—

look at that. I mean, that is— and also that's Vitor, who was a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Carlson Gracie, elite armbar, and then he wound up tapping Vitor in the next round.

Even with his fight with Gustafsson as well, it just— like, going back to that anterior cingulate cortex, it just must be massive in him as well. Oh, yeah. Who do you think— I mean, there's obviously Gaethje. Who do you think is one of the most durable, one of the most—

Gaethje's probably the most durable guy ever, which is, like, incredible that Max Holloway knocked him out like that. But other guys had stopped him before too. But that's just a part of being a human being. If you're a human being and you get hit by the greatest fighters in the world, you get stopped. It's just how it is. It's just like there's— if you get hit clean, no matter who you are— some guys are more durable than other guys, but no matter who you are, If somebody head kicks you, if somebody hits you with a wheel kick or something like that, you're most likely gonna go unconscious or close to it.

Yeah.

That's just a part of the game. A flying knee, very few people can survive that. It's just— it's like one of those things where you get hit and you just step— Did you see the fight this weekend, or 2 weekends ago, rather, with Johnny Walker?

Oh, no.

Yeah. Johnny Walker hit this dude with a knee from the Thai clinch. A heavyweight. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just separated him from his consciousness. Like, and this guy's a massive 265-pound man that he did it to. And it just proves my point. It's like, no matter who you are, there's certain things, if you get hit with them, you just can't take it. Yeah. You just can't take it. And with, you know, the Max Holloway fight with Justin, that was in a 5-round war. He had been beaten up because he got hit with a jump spinning back kick to the face at the end of the first round, shattered his nose. So his nose bone was broken, so he's compromised from the end of the first round on. And then Max is hitting him with all these shots, and then finally in the 5th round, in a fight that Max is winning, Max points to the ground and says, let's just stand and throw. And they just wail on each other, and Max famously knocks him out. Like, one of the greatest. But that's not indicative of how durable he is. It's like, most people would have never made it to that 5th round.

Mm-hmm. He's insanely durable. And that's why you saw that fight with Ilia Topuria. He weathered that second round and came back strong in the third. He's insanely durable. Mm-hmm. Like, maybe the most durable guy in the sport and the most calm under fire. Like, he never— it never changes his expression. He never looks lost. Even when he's getting hurt, he never looks out of it. He just looks hurt, but he's always like— like, he went back to his corner after the second round with Topuria DePoria dropped him with a liver shot. He goes, nice liver shot. He said nice liver shot. He got me with a nice body shot. He was like complimenting his opponent for hitting him in a good spot. He was like that calm. Like, that was nice, nice liver shot.

I feel it's almost that Emil Zatopek. It's genuine. You've seen in the corner, he's having the best time. Uh-huh. I'm just like, oh, you're wired different.

He's wired different. Justin's wired very different. He's wired very different. He's very smart. Like, he's a smart meathead. Like, people think of him as being a dumbass because he's like silly and he does backflips, and uh-uh, he's thought it out. Like, he's— he knows what he's doing. Mm-hmm. Like, he's— he's doing things that are very intelligent in there, and he has a bunch of things that he does that he does better than anybody else. And one of them is the uppercut from the collar tie. He does this collar tie uppercut, and he hits everybody with it 'cause he's a really good wrestler. Mm-hmm. Even though he doesn't use his wrestling in MMA, MMA. He started out as a wrestler, and he's a very good athlete, and he's got this collar tie uppercut that he catches everybody with, and he pulls you into that uppercut, man. He fucks a lot of guys up with that. That's one of his signature moves.

But you've spoke about as well with his wrestling in the past. I think this is so interesting, going back to what we said about the, the ventral striatum, the part of the brain that when things aren't going well, it almost implodes. Like, losing feels so, so bad. But I think wrestlers are just used to just getting beaten up, beaten up. Yeah. One of the best examples on the swim— I have a friend who's in the Special Forces. Um, I was just every single tide, every single swim, I was just behind, I was behind. It was just, again, like I said, just biochemically, neuroscience, I was just imploding. And he turned to me, and this, this really helped to sort of change my perspective on things. He said, Ross, in the Special Forces, uh, we're not seeing how well you can win, we're seeing how well you can lose. Time and them again. I said, well, what do you mean? He goes, there was one particular exercise that we did. Basically, you're on the assault bike, heart rate over 180, and they're checking heart rate monitor. So you are redlining, coughing up a lung, breathing. They get you off the assault bike, they take you into a room.

There's a guy there who's like 6'6, just huge. And then there's a door behind him, and they say, okay, you need to get past him, behind that door. Your friends, your platoon, regiment are over the other side of the door. So they just run in. This guy, 6 foot 6, is there just holding you. And then there's a guy with a clipboard in the corner. Guy with clipboard gives a nod, bang, knocks them clean out. He's out cold. The next thing he knows, he's being brought back round with smelling salts, and he gets up like that, and there's in his face going, do you want to quit? Do you want to quit? And my friend at the time was just like, no, no, I'm good. And they said they let him up, he goes again, starts wrestling. This massive 6 foot 6 guy waits for the signal. Guy with the clipboard nods. Bang, knocked down again. Did it 3 times, brought them back round. And then, and then they go, okay, you passed, you passed. What was interesting is my friend said one guy actually made it past and got to the door only to find it was bolted shut.

You were never going to win, like ever. But that's not what they were testing. They were testing your ability to lose time and time again.

Oh, that's terrible for you.

But that idea of just sheer adversity.

The idea is interesting. However, concussions, repeated concussions, can change a person's life

for sure.

Yeah, you knock a guy out, a big giant guy knocks you out 3 times, that's a terrible idea for sure. You sure he was punching them? He was punching them in the face?

The way that the story was told to me, yeah. Oh, I know that. I mean, there's some brutal selection. Some of my friends in the Special Forces, some of the stories they tell me about selection, I'm like, that is brutal. But then you, you realize that's why they mentally bulletproof. Do

you know who Mr. Ballen is on YouTube? No. Really interesting guy. He's got a great YouTube channel where he tells all these crazy spooky mystery stories, but he's a Navy SEAL and former Navy SEAL. And one of the things that he said about what the people that make it through BUD/S— 2 people that do really well, 2 groups of people— one of them is wrestlers because they're just mentally tough. They're like, they're, they're training and constantly being dehydrated and tired and just pushing and, and taking satisfaction being the most miserable. That's one of the things that wrestlers do. They take satisfaction suffering the most. They do really well. And then water polo players. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And then I was like, wow, why water polo? And then I didn't know that water polo players never touch the ground. They're constantly treading water while they're playing that fucking game. Like, you have to be an insane child to be in water polo. Yes. I never would have thought of water polo.

Did you know that was my background, by the way? I didn't. Yeah, so I played England schoolboys all the way through to international.

Well, that makes sense.

No, no, no, but I love that you brought that up because it's absolutely true. Again, there's, um, there's a famous, very famous match. It was basically called Blood in the Water, and it was the Hungarians versus the Soviets. And basically, there was— they were at war. Yeah, so they were, they were actually at war. The Hungarians were training under gunfire, bombs going and everything. They then drew each other. I can't remember the name. It might have been the Melbourne Olympics, I believe, in the semifinals. They drew each other. There's famous pictures where basically the water just went red. Blood in the Water, that's what it was called, the match. And they just go at it. Um,

so they were at war with each other in real life?

Yeah. And then they drew each other.

So the Hungarians were at war with the Russians, and then they went to war in volleyball, in water polo?

In water polo. They got— yeah, they They got put against each other and they just go at it. It's nuts. I mean, even like, you can't see, but under my tongue, it's all a little bit of a mess under there. Because I remember I was playing water polo. We were in the south of France, I come over the top like that. And as I do, I catch an elbow. And I just like bite down, my tongue must have been out. And so it cut my tongue in half. And then I remember you then have to defend, kind of like basketball, constantly back and forth. Like, it's that quick.

Why you got a mouthful? Blood.

Oh, there we go. Yeah.

Blood in the water. Yeah.

Wow.

So they're just fighting each other.

Yeah, I think Hungary won, I believe 4-0.

You have to be in insane shape.

Yeah.

To do that, that game.

They're trained. I always found this interesting because I made the England schoolboys squad at 13 and I was playing against under-18. So I was, I was the wrong side of puberty and I was just like playing against these just like men who were trained in like water jiu-jitsu. So I would throw a punch and then I'd just be under the water.

You fight all the time in that?

All the time.

So it's like hockey?

It's exactly—

yeah, hockey in the water.

It's exactly that. Yeah, yeah. So one guy's—

My new favorite sport. Are they still allowed to fight?

Yeah, yeah. If you put on YouTube, just put underwater fights, water polo, just put it on and they'll have cameras at the Olympics. And it's absolutely— I mean, also

in the Olympics currently, you're still allowed to fight?

For sure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, some of the women— Are they allowed to

fight in the Olympics in

Oh, I don't know.

That's weak, weak sauce. That's part of the game.

I mean, I come

at boxing— you have boxing in the Olympics, you won't let people fight in hockey? That's what— that's whack.

Agreed. But I guess back to my tongue, I come over the top.

Would you say, Jamie?

Strictly prohibited in Olympics.

Strictly. Certainly not in water polo. You still see it. And

the women's water polo, they still— they still get after it.

The women's game's worse as well because obviously they've got more of have a suit to grab hold of as well.

Oh, pulling boobs out.

There are boobs that come out. There are indeed. But I, yeah, come over the top, bang, take basically, and it splits my tongue in half. And I remember I then sprinted back to defend because they were, Ross, defend, defend! So I sprint all the way back, and you can imagine now blood is just pumping around my body, my heart is going nuts. And I stop and there's just blood everywhere, like the whole water has just turned red around me. But I don't notice, I think it's somebody else. So I go, guys, guys, stop, stop, someone's been hit. And then I look and everyone in the stands is looking at me. And as they did, I remember it's almost like, you know, when you've got like toffee or something in your mouth stuck in your teeth? Well, that was my tongue. So I was like, I was going like this, trying to spit whatever it was out. And then I looked and it was just flapping. And they were like, no, no, you're done. And I got out. They sewed it up. That's why it's a mess underneath. Yeah.

How long does that take to heal?

Well, weirdly, the tongue heals really Yeah, so it wasn't, wasn't too long. I was good in about a week. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it was pretty bad. But it's the same in Malta as well. So it's huge in Malta. But out there, they will just put goals in the middle of the sea and just start playing. So we would go out and if you're in goal and jellyfish come over, that is, that is just part of the game.

Warrior people. Let me see water polo fights.

I'm honest, it's not that exciting.

Not that exciting? We'd have to curate. I mean, it's hard to find a good one.

It's really small. It's moving very slowly because it's underwater,

right? Let me see.

And it's also in slow-mo.

Oh, it's slow-mo. Also, they're showing these guys hitting each other in slow-mo.

It's really hard to catch it, I think, as fast movements happening, because

it's just the amount of endurance that you have to have to play a game like this. How long are your periods? Like, how long are you playing for?

4 quarters. Depends on the age group, but yeah, 4-minute quarters, 4 or 5-minute quarters.

So for 4 minutes, you're treading water and sprinting.

It's weird. You're exactly right. It's swimming mixed with BJJ.

Whoa, people are fighting.

It's swimming mixed with like— yeah, I mean, Hungary are amazing.

Oh, they're smacking each other in the face and shit? Oh, that guy's choking that guy. Oh, they literally hold on to each other. Yeah, and then they swing it. Oh. Oh, this is crazy.

Yeah, there we go.

Oh my God, this is crazy.

It's pretty standard. This is just— yeah, this is normal at a local competition. That's pretty standard.

No wonder why these guys make good SEALs.

Yeah, yeah, it's— it is— you're literally drown-proofing yourself. Like, there's sometimes when I'm caught in an Arctic storm, I'm like, it's not as bad as playing Hungary. Like, the amount of times I was— I was so close to drowning. It was nuts.

That's crazy.

Yeah, and I think especially as well, I was always so young. Like I said, I made the under-18 England schoolboys team when I was 13, so I was the wrong side of puberty. And, and we were playing against Malta at the time, and they were just like big, like beards, playing against Hungary. And I just learned very quickly to be comfortable being uncomfortable, you know, that, that Justin Gaethje stress inoculation training. Yeah. Ever since, when I swim now and they're like, Ross, there's an Arctic storm, I go, Still got my tongue. Fuck, dude. Not too fat.

You know, we were talking about Carlos Prates in that video that I was watching about the fighting nerds, about how the guy like emulates animals and stuff. One of the things that they were talking about is how Carlos had a losing record early in his career. He's like, or close to, it's like 5 wins, 4 losses or something like that. He wasn't doing well the first 9 fights of his career, and then he decides to go to Thailand and he flies to Thailand And the only way to make any money in Thailand is you have to fight. So he winds up fighting, like, every week. So he fights, like, 6 times in a month, and he's, like, fighting constantly. But because of that constant fighting, then he gets, like, really accustomed and calm fighting. He has over 100 Muay Thai fights. Mm. So he's fighting all the time, and it just becomes relaxed to him. And so when you see him fight, he's always smiling and having fun in there. It's 'cause he's fought so many times, that he's sort of that fear of whatever that experience is like. For most people, it's like this daunting thing.

They lock the cage door. Holy shit. This guy is smoking cigarettes the week of the fight, smoking cigarettes the day of the fight, drinking, partying, just dead relaxed when he gets in there, and fucking everybody up. Like, literally, world-class fighters like Jack Della Maddalena, who was the former world champion, Mm-hmm. beat the fuck out of him. of him at— in— at his— in his home country of Australia, just beats his ass in a, like, a ferocious way where you're watching like, wow, like the level— the gap between them is so vast. And he's just essentially a product of that, of just like being in the fire for so long. You just get forged, like constantly fighting.

See, I love that. That goes back to like the ancient Stoics Epictetus famously— I love this term— he said getting wintered. He said that wars were fought in the summer, but what you do in the winter has a profound impact on how well prepared you'd be. So they would just be doing a cold, hard winter's training. The Spartans as well famously would be given essentially a loincloth and just been told to endure the winter to fight, you know, for your food, you know. So you just create these crazy warriors. And I think now we're getting modern versions. I think the, the closest, you know, our mutual friend Liam but he's just— he's wired different, you know?

Yeah, I told him he fights like he has rabies.

Absolutely. That's the best way to put it.

He's like a little demon.

But what I love about Liam as well, if anyone's ever spent any time around him, and he won't mind me saying this, but he's like vibrating. He's definitely got ADHD. But now there's so many studies with fighters saying those with ADHD actually process things so much quicker.

I don't even believe in ADHD.

Oh, you don't?

No. I don't think it's— Or that your dopamine— I don't think it's a disorder. I think it's a superpower. I think we are conditioning children to sit in a classroom and do something that's insanely boring, and some people can endure it, and God bless them, and some people are not designed for it, and I'm one of them. And I don't think ADHD is a problem at all. Oh, I agree. I think it's a superpower. I think it gives you the ability to concentrate on things that you to an extent that most people cannot fathom. Mm-hmm.

Oh, you

get obsessed at things. I could play pool for 10 hours in a row, and I don't eat. I just drink coffee and play pool, and I don't have any problem with that. And everybody else wants to quit. I want to keep going forever. I— that's ADHD. Yeah, and I see it in other people that are great at things. Gordon Ryan, for sure, he's got it. He fucking trains 365 days a year. It's both things. It's discipline, but it's also this obsession that comes from— if you were in school, they would say you have a disorder. There's something wrong with you. Why can't you sit down and do this boring shit all day? Well, 'cause I don't like that. But if you sit those kids down in front of a computer and let them play video games, look at all the concentration they have. Look at all the focus they have. Look at how locked in they are in what they're doing. I don't believe in it. I believe it's a thing. I don't believe it's a disorder. And by the way, I'm not unsympathetic to the varying degrees that people suffer from all sorts of disorders.

I think for some people it probably is some sort of a real genuine issue, right, where they can't focus it and it's not something they can concentrate on other things that they love. They're just constantly scattered. I'm not talking about that. I think it's entirely overdiagnosed. Mm-hmm. And I think there's a lot of people that are just people that are just not wired to follow the standard norm of what I think is a very boring structure of most schoolwork and most, most school— like, most of what you have to endure when you're a young kid is sitting down when you have the most energy. You just woke up, okay? You, you're fully rested, you ate breakfast, it's probably filled with sugar, and you're just fucking piping. You're sitting in that chair going, Jesus Christ, I don't give a fuck about Hitler. Why am I in this class learning about World War II? I'm 10. I want to go outside. I want to play ball. I want to run around with my friends. friends. I want to do fun things. This sucks. And they'll tell you you need to get on Ritalin, you know. They'll say, Billy can't concentrate.

Billy doesn't know how to count.

I completely— because I think to that point, exactly, friends of mine have said, like, Ross, you have, you know, definitely traits of ADHD. And again, I'm the same as you. I don't like that term because I always just say my dopamine works a little bit differently. And what I mean by that sometimes as well is even understanding the sort of biochemistry on 400 milligrams caffeine, and then maybe like Cognizin for acetylcholine as well. So I'm— What

is Cognizin?

Um, it basically is a, a supplement, a nootropic that will positively interact with acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter that is less jacked up. You're just kind of dialed in and focused. Um, that and alpha-GPC. If I take that combination, I am just dialed in and just swimming every single stroke. I'm just there like going, good, high elbow, good. And so—

Are you like constantly filling up in that stuff? Are you like replenishing your stock? Are

Yeah, Alpha GPC, you— I know Huberman talks about you have to cycle that, so that I will. But certainly with caffeine, Cognizin, I'll be having that pretty much on most swims.

Alpha GPC, you have to cycle in terms of like how often can you take it?

Huberman talks about every 2 days and then 3 days off. I think that's sort of— yeah, you can build up a very quick tolerance to it.

Interesting. 2 days and then 3 days off. But this other stuff, Cognizin, you said— so what is in that?

So that's the ingredient. That's the nootropic. I hope I'm getting this right.

So it is an actual— it's not a combination? No, no, no, no. And that I

think Affects acetylcholine, which is amazing just for their focus.

Do you ever take acetylcholine by itself?

No, so that's the neuro—

Or alpha-GPC, do you ever take that?

Uh, alpha-GPC, yeah, there you go.

So that's a patented branded form of citicoline, um, a natural brain nutrient and nootropic ingredient used in dietary supplements, energy drinks, and functional beverages. I like that term, functional beverages. Isn't every beverage functional? You know, you're getting hydrated, you're getting drunk. You get caffeinated, but those are functional.

But will you do that as well? Whether you're training or dialed in on something, you'll know how your brain runs. You'll say, yeah, yeah.

You know what really helps me is creatine. Creatine is a big one, and I only become aware of that over the last, I don't know, a few years or so, that how much of an effect it has on mental focus. And one of the things that they've shown is people with sleep deprivation, that when you have sleep deprivation when you take— I think it's 10 or 20 milligrams.

It's a lot, right?

Yeah, 20. Is it 20 grams? Is it? So whatever it is, I believe it's 20 grams or above. Whatever it is, whatever the number— let's find out what the number is just so we could help people.

Yeah.

Um, it severely mitigates the negative aspects of sleep deprivation in terms of cognitive function, memory, all those different things. And I find that. You know, I've done a bunch of podcasts where, you know, like I said, I play pool a lot. I have a real problem. And sometimes I'll come home from the comedy club and it'll be, you know, midnight and I'm wired from, you know, hanging out. And

oh,

25, 30 grams for many adults.

Small study.

Strongest acute study is large. Okay, not a normal daily maintenance dose. Okay, so, so if you're tired, take 25 to 30 grams and then that's the response. And normally I take 10 or 20. That's my normal.

And you— and that's cognitively, then you'll be back to baseline?

Allegedly. It's hard to know, you know. I mean, we all vary daily. I have days where I come in, I'm like, oh, I'm firing today. And then other days where I'm like, I can't even remember words. Like, how the fuck am I doing this for a living? Yeah, you know, your brain is very— it's, it's, it's like the fucking Earth's temperature. It fucking fluctuates a lot.

That is exactly it. And certainly on my longest ones now, creatine, I actually didn't do that during the Yukon swim. So weirdly, there's just a part of me that does want to go back just to actually trial that, because towards the end of the Yukon swim, I was in pieces. So I would love to see if I could actually, you know, supplement to go that much further. And I think creatine was one that, that I would love to add to the arsenal.

So here's what Jamie just pulled up. It says, as part of the study, 15 test subjects were kept awake overnight and had to solve cognitive tasks during this time. Sleep deprivation tends to change a leads rather to changes in brain metabolism that promote the cellular uptake of creatine. Beforehand, the test subjects have received a high single dose of creatine, an important metabolic product that is found in food and can also be produced by the body itself. 3 hours after taking the creatine, a positive effect on the brain metabolism and cognitive performance of the test subjects could already be observed. The effect reached its peak after 4 hours and lasted up to 9 hours. In particular, the improvements in processing capacity and short-term memory were seen The results suggested that a single but high dose of creatine enhances thinking capacity and causes changing— changes rather in the brain's energy reserves during sleep deprivation. I wonder what it does if you're not sleep deprived. Like, what if you're a kid and you have to take your ACTs or something like that? Like, what would that do for you?

That is interesting because I think that's the next frontier almost as well. Like, I think we've known—

Small test subject. Right? But it's still— if you get a significant result from 15 people and you can measure the changes, I'd like to see it on a large study, but it's interesting.

What are a lot of the athletes using now in the UFC supplement-wise? Creatine?

Creatine's for sure one of them, but the issue with creatine is also it helps you put mass on, and a lot of these guys are trying to lose weight. So I don't know what, what they're doing in terms of like— there's some guys that are extreme weight cutters. There's guys that are cutting, you know, £20, £30 the week of the fight. It's really— and, and rehydrating to a ridiculous extent, like before the fight. Like Alex Pereira is the greatest example. Alex would gain £40 when he was fighting at £185. So he's fighting at 185 and he would weigh in on fight day at 225, 226, which is nuts.

Yeah, I always love Rob Whittaker. Who let this guy in?

Very strange.

So it's also saying don't take that much

Right, don't take that much.

Even once, it says. Oh, even once it's bad? Because it can put a heavy strain on the kidneys.

It says, for the time being, however, it's not advisable for people to take such a high dose of creatine at home, at home, as high doses of the substance put a heavy strain on the kidneys and can cause health risks. I wonder if you can mitigate that strain by hyper—

It was temporary too.

It's temporary. Yeah, for sure. It says 4 hours. But what's temporary?

The gain of cognitive effects?

Well, for the large dose, right? For sleep-deprived people.

It just seems risky.

Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, I don't think— but I think one dose is probably akin to one night of drinking. Like, I don't think it's that bad. I think, I think the real problem is you can't take that amount every day. No, like, what is— I know people that take 20 grams a day though. Mm-hmm. There's so many people though that are just redlining. And the thing is, it's like their, their biology might be different than your biology. You know, some people, like, they don't have a problem drinking every day. Like Shane Gillis can just drink every day. He's— he got his liver tested, he's fine. And we were all like, what?

I'm fascinated by this. Like I said, for future swims, I think, you know, certainly at 41 years old, I'm kind of as fit as I'm gonna be. You know, is that— this is the new frontier for me. Yeah. You know, looking at nutrition I know where—

I bet hypoxia training too.

You think? Yeah, that could add.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really do. I think it just, it raises your capacity. I think it changes the red blood cell count in your body.

I see it.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, just like EPO does, right?

Aggregation of marginal gains. Now I'm just at a point where I'm like, right, where can I just get like 1% here? There.

Are you using sauna regularly?

Not as often as I should be.

Yeah, that should be a daily for you.

You think? And even doing my cardio in there as Well,

yeah, you can. I mean, that's one of the aspects of the Exalt chamber. So they do 2 different types of training in it. One type of training is high altitude, the other type is high heat. So I'll do sessions in there at 100 degrees. And so, yeah, and so, but it's not high altitude, it's like, it's regular altitude. It's counterproductive to do the 2 of them together.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, because it's blood

plasma, according to the guys who are Yeah, the, the thing you're doing is when you are at high altitude, your heartbeat is naturally lower. It's difficult to get your heartbeat that high because there's no oxygen in the air. When you're at high heat, your heart rate is high immediately. Mm-hmm. Like, one of the things that I do, I'll do bag work. I do heavy bag rounds, and then after the rounds, I jump right into the sauna. So I go from being exhausted, I give myself just so I'm not dying, so I could breathe normal. Like, at the end of the rounds, I'm usually like really breathing heavy. I drink some electrolytes. I always bring a big 64-ounce jug of water with ice and electrolytes in it. And then I go in 196 degrees, and I sit in there for 20, 25 minutes. And I wear one of those straps, one of those heart rate monitors, and my shit will be at like 147, 148 the entire time I'm sitting there. There, because I never— it never got to go down. So it's jacked up from the workout, right? And then I go right in, and it— I might be at 100 when I step in there, and it goes right back up, right back up.

So like 10, 15 minutes in there, I'm just sitting there, and I'm at 140, especially when I start doing heavy stretches, which is why I do a lot of— I find that you can do stretches when you're in that 195-degree, 196-degree heat that you're just not gonna be able to pull off. And so I force my tissue to just force it into position and hold it, and that really jacks your heart rate up. Then I'll get into the 150s.

Because I love to go on a bit of a tangent as well. Like, now there's so many good meta studies on— so studies of lots of studies of ultra endurance athletes, but some of the best now, these aren't guys just like hanging in there. These guys are winning between 35 up to You know, those like grizzly old guys and old women who are just amazing.

Don't you think that's mental though? Like, your, your mind gets harder as you get older.

This is exactly what I was about to jump on. So I think there's a few things. One is capillary density, mitochondrial efficiency that you only get after like years and years and years. So it's like when you're younger, VO2, lactic threshold, elasticity of tendons, all of those things absolutely are better when you're younger. And that's why you see so many 100-meter, know, champions and sprinters, they're always younger. But now I think all of those things that you're talking about now, heat adaptation, hyperbaric chambers, everything like that, and hypoxic chambers, sorry, everything like that is just trying to create, I think, now a new generation of older athletes. And we're even seeing it, 39 years old, Alex Pereira.

Yes.

Yoh Romero, 49.

Yeah, yeah. But he is, well, he's off the charts.

He makes no sense.

That's an outlier. He's, he's an outlier. He's another guy.

He is.

Yeah, he's so unusual. When you look at him, he doesn't seem like he's aging. It's, it's insane, you know? And he still moves like a cat at 49 years old. Did you see his bare-knuckle fight that he had with Darren Till? Yeah, crazy. I know, knocked Darren Till down. Arguably could have won that fight. I know, you know, it's a very close fight, but arguably you could have given the— a lot of people online thought Yoel won that fight. Yeah, 49.

Yeah, I think we're seeing it across the board now as well, like Kipchoge Yogi won the very recent marathon. Was it Melbourne? I can't remember. You got Messi, you got Ronaldo. Messi's only just retired. Ronaldo, LeBron. I think LeBron makes no sense because everything that I just described there, your proportion of fast-twitch fibers reduces as you get older, elasticity of tendons.

Yeah.

How? So I understand if you're Messi, who's just amazing, his vision of the game and everything, he can sit there in midfield just spraying the ball. But LeBron makes no sense.

Well, LeBron is meticulous in his rehabilitation. Meticulous. He spends an incredible amount of time, like famously spends millions of dollars just on rehabilitating his body every year. Wow. On massage and all the different therapies. And I mean, he's doing everything. And I'm sure he's— I don't know what the rules are in the NBA with peptides and all that other jazz, but I'm sure he's on all that stuff too. Right. I mean, if he's not, I'd be stunned. Like, why wouldn't you be? That's crazy. You know, why wouldn't you be on BPC-157 and TB500. And he's— and if you're allowed to be, you should definitely be on testosterone and definitely be on some sort of human growth hormone, either something that pumps it up like somatrolene, which like naturally makes your body produce more testosterone or more human growth hormone, something that allows his body to regenerate tissue and heal quicker. He has to be on something. Mm-hmm. I mean, I would imagine, otherwise it's crazy that he could perform Because one of the things that we talk about a lot, or I talk about a lot with Ciryl Gane, who's the UFC heavyweight champion, is that Ciryl has a background in basketball.

And I think that's a factor because I think his movement, his ability to move, his— it's like basketball, you're doing plyometrics all the time.

Peptides are banned.

What's the rules? Synthetic and growth hormone-releasing peptides are banned in the NBA. Are they testing them? What is banned? Growth hormone-releasing peptides growth hormone secretagogues— how do you say that word? Secretagogues? Secretagogues and other synthetic compounds designed to stimulate growth hormone or enhance recovery are strictly prohibited. But what about BPC-157?

Specifically that one.

BPC-157 was weird because it was allowed by WADA and then it was banned.

It should be allowed. All it does is regenerate tissue, or rather help heal tissue. It's banned Yeah. Banned in the NBA. It's classified as an unapproved substance on the World Anti-Doping Agency's prohibited list and follows broader anti-doping policies against unapproved peptides and experimental drugs. Listen, man, there's zero studies that show there's any negative effects of BPC-157, and there's a lot of at least anecdotal evidence, first and foremost, that it's very beneficial for people recovering from injuries. But then there's other also studies that indicate that it really is helpful for people. So someone was suspended.

No, I was looking this up because last year this player was on the Lakers, Luka Dončić, very famously got hurt right before the playoffs started, and he went to Spain to get treated and did not get better. And what that treatment was was not really publicly talked about. People were saying, you know, get him on stem cells, get him on BPC-157, right, back in there, get him back so he can play. that— I don't know if they are doing it. They have to take time off so they can hide, you know, from—

Right, sort of like Conor did when he broke his leg, right? He got out of the doping pool, right? Yeah. And then got jacked. They came Wolverine, super jacked, looked like you. All of a sudden he weighed £220, fucking jacked. I don't know if he got that big, but point is, like, I think at least peptides that help injury Listen, you're dealing with a sport where your primary goal is to create an injury on your opponent, and you're practicing injuring each other all day long. Like, you're gonna get injuries. And anything that would help these athletes get to the finish line, like get to the cage in reasonable health, because they're always banged up. Like, whenever you see, even at a world championship level, when you see a guy who looks awesome, guarantee that guy's dealing with some shit. Mm-hmm. Guarantee that guy's got a sore hand, a fucked-up shoulder, his knee hurts, something's wrong. There's no way you get through a 12-week camp with a bunch of fucking trained assassins and you don't get banged up. You're getting banged up. And BPC-157 would help those people. Mm-hmm. But they're also doing— there's a lot of stuff these guys are doing now.

A lot of guys are invested in hyperbaric chambers. They're doing a lot of hyperbaric therapy, which really does accelerate healing from injuries and Just general, just general overall recovery from just life itself. I mean, it's incredible.

They were amazing for me. Like we were talking about earlier, when I tore most of the tendons in my rotator cuff, that was after the Yukon. And the doctor was like, how, how did you not know? And I was like, well, I had hypothermia and I was trying to dodge bears. I had other stuff on my mind at the time.

If I was a doctor, I'd be so pumped to talk to you. I'd be like, whoa. Like, look, this is an interesting study.

Right, right.

Like, what? What did you say?

But it was— stem cells were amazing. And then hyperbaric, red light therapy. I did everything. And that got me back to the start line, ready for Iceland. I think without it, I might have needed them reattached with surgery. So that's how good they were for me.

Yeah, it's extraordinary what they can do now. And it keeps getting better. And, you know, in this country, there's There's this battle between pharmaceutical drug companies that want to patent these peptides and they want to profit off of them. And then there's also a lot of people who don't want people taking these therapies because it will cost them money in terms of the amount of orthopedic surgeries they get. Mm-hmm. That's a real thing and they have influence and it's a real problem. And unfortunately, people are willing to sacrifice the greater health and recovery of the entire for their own personal gain. And that's dark but accurate.

Agreed. Yeah.

And if we were really smart, we would be investing an incredible amount of money into studying these things. And there's not just that— they're helping people with neurological conditions, they're helping people recover from like Parkinson's syndrome or Parkinson's symptoms. You know, they're doing them intranasally for people that have lung disorders. Like, there's a lot of like really good work that's being done with stem cells. Does it mean they all are the same and they all work great? No. There's like, there's shady places. This is also part of the problem. Like, if you're traveling to some godforsaken part of the world to go do this therapy because it's not legal in America, okay, well, you got to be real careful where you're going. You know, there's some places like the CPI, which is in Tijuana, that's very ethical and they do everything really great. But there's other places where I've heard people get infected. They have like horrible disease, you know, they get staph infections and wind up almost paralyzed. A lot of fucked up things can happen when you're doing this stuff if you don't go to a good place.

Yeah.

But it— the bottom line is though, that's a problem with all medical interventions. That's a problem with surgery. That's a problem with like— it's a big— one of the main killers in this country. I think we talked about this recently. It's like the number 3 killer in this country is medical mishaps. taps, like, is either misdiagnosis or bad treatment or some sort of a mistake that someone makes. It's a problem, you know. So it's a problem. It's like human beings are very vulnerable, and, you know, so it's not a cure-all, but it is a very promising therapy. And for people that have had incredible results, and I'm one of them, from stem cells, like, I'm screaming from the rooftops. Like, like, hey, let's not just throw the baby out with the bathwater with this stuff. This, this should be— you should— we can help a lot of folks who have a lot of like real serious problems with this shit.

That's what they said to me. They were like, Ross, you know, this would have been a death sentence for your career. You know, you'd have swum around Great Britain, you've just done the Yukon, you're good, you're done. You know, whereas it's amazing now I've seen it that it's just managed to extend my career, you know, just a little bit more. I think that's—

And just also for people that aren't professional athletes, Just extend your health. Like, so many people that have had like these injuries— like, a good friend of mine had a knee problem, and you know, he's not an athlete, he's just a guy who runs, and his knee was in pain all the time. I brought him into Wastewell, he got a shot in his knee. This was 2 years ago, and he's like, I run all the time, it never bothers me now. I'm like, that's nuts, man. That didn't exist before. Agreed. That didn't exist.

Agreed.

And I think this is just the beginning. I think we're at the beginning of this stuff. They keep coming out with new innovations and, and new therapies that are even more effective. Mu stem cells being one of the greatest ones that's more recent.

I agree.

They need more studies, more stuff, more work. This is gonna help a lot of fucking people, man. And, you know, we have to be really careful as to what influence we're receiving as to why this is a bad thing. You know, I think this is a real problem in this country in particular because this country is like so ate up with money. You know, money influences so many narratives in this country. It distorts reality. You're looking at everything through a funhouse mirror lens. You know, it's hard to tell what's what. Yeah, what's good for you, what's bad for you, what should be recommended, what should be never taken. You know.

My hospital visit on that note was, was so bad at the end. The rotator cuff was also like the—

How bad was the food?

It was pretty good actually. In Canada, in the Yukon, it was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, pancakes.

Moose meat and pancakes.

Genuinely did. Did they give you moose? Yeah, yeah, and jerky as well.

Really?

Oh, it was so good.

That's incredible. Yeah, it was amazing.

Fuck yeah, Canada. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Indeed.

America, you'd get fucking Froot Loops. Bowl of Froot Loops to recover.

It was amazing. But we— oh, I'm gonna apologize now for this story, but basically during the Yukon swim, I had a specially made wetsuit. So because I can't touch the boat, no one can touch me, I can't touch land. Going to the toilet was obviously problematic.

Oh boy.

Right, right.

So you'd have like one of them hatches out the back?

Exactly. Yeah, we had a poo flap made, like just this zip. Yeah, poo flap made. So we had a poo flap made on the suit. It worked in training. We then, we took it on the swim. To this day, I think we were honestly about 6 hours into what was a 60-hour swim. 6 hours in.

I didn't even think about pooping.

Yeah, you don't know, do you? That's what will— the whole expedition will come unstuck because of that. We're 6 So I was in, to this day, I still don't know if the poo flap was in the wrong place or my bumhole is in the wrong place. But I end up going to the toilet. And it doesn't work. Like what was meant to clear the wetsuit doesn't clear the wetsuit.

So it's filling your suit up with poop.

Exactly that. Yeah, yeah. I'm then faced with a decision. And this goes back to what we were talking about your anterior midcingulate cortex. In that moment, pain versus purpose, grit or quit. I'm like, Ross, if you quit, you are going to be known as the guy who soiled himself and gave up in the Or do you zip it up and just— and keep going? So I zipped it up. I kept going.

Oh, you're swimming in your own poop.

But it was even worse. It was a black wetsuit as well, so it was essentially just baking, you know, like a slow cooker.

So none of it got out? All of it was in there?

Um, I would say 90% remained.

90%? Could you reach in and grab it as you're swimming?

No, no, no, no, no.

Clean out the—

No, no, no, no, no. There was no reaching in. I'm so sorry, Jamie. I'm so sorry. So anyway, yeah, at the end of the swim when they're taking me to hospital, I turn to everybody and I just go, you know, guys— and again, the people in Canada, the team that we had, are amazing. They're from the Yukon, you know, they kill bears, they gut wolves, they've seen everything. And they're like, Ross, don't you worry. And I said, no, guys, I'm going to apologize now. I've soiled myself in my wetsuit and it's been baking for what has been 55 hours. Oh, wow. They cut me out of my wetsuit. They cut me out and they go, Ross, don't worry, we're We're a brotherhood. We've been through so much. They did. They did. They did. They went, we're here. Oh, God. And they bolt. So I'm left there with a flannel just covering myself.

Oh, and you just baked poo all over you.

Yeah. So like I said, when they said, how did you not realize you'd torn your tendons in your rotator cuff? I was like, because I soiled myself because bears and wolves were after me. That

is a very reasonable explanation for why you didn't notice that you were in pain. Does that help us staff in any way, shape, or form? 100%. It really did. Probably sepsis. Sepsis. Who knows what that does to you? That's got to be terrible. You're scratching yourself and then there's poo all over your butt. Oh, the inside of your legs. Would you have carried on? Good Lord. I don't know. I hope so. I hope I'd be as strong as you. No one knows until you do it, right? Well, I think that's one of the things that the kind of events that you participate in really genuinely does. Like, it changes people's expectations. of what's physically and humanly possible. And they all have to look at themselves and say, okay, maybe I can do more than I think I can. And I think even though these are extremes and I think most people are not going to swim for 60 hours, what they're going to get out of that is this understanding that you're capable of so much more than you think you are. And just raising of expectations or at least raising of the limits of the possible— what is possible.

And I think that alone is like a great benefit to people.

I'm so glad you said that. That's exactly what I say when I say I don't recommend my lifestyle to anyone. You know, it's a terrible lifestyle choice. It's terrible. It's terrible. But, but I say that that's not my purpose, I don't think. I think my purpose is people, to get them to shift their barometer, their own personal barometer, just one degree.

Yeah.

What they think they're capable of.

Yes.

You know, and if, if that's what I managed to do, then, you know, I will continue to soar I think you

have done that. I think you have done that. So congratulations and continue on, sir. Thank you very much, brother. It's very good to see you again.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Always good to see you. You're a freak. You're one of a kind, man. I appreciate you very much.

That was awesome, by the way.

Oh, you like it? It was good. Well, thank you, man. You brought it.

Yeah, but you crushed far more than me. I was trying.

We're having fun. Thank you. It's fun. Thank you. Bye, everybody.