Brandon Olin is the founder of Deskbound and the host of the Deskbound Podcast, where he helps busy professionals to undo the damage of sitting so they can live a long and healthy life.
Check out Brandon’s shop where he offers high quality standing desks and other health tools. Use code “HIT” to get $50 OFF – Click Here
In this episode, Brandon and I discuss his own journey as a high intensity training trainee, including how he became very interested in HIT and how he achieved excellent results. We also take a detour into how to optimise diet, sleep, productivity, creativity, and much, much more!
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Show Notes
Click the link below to listen from the exact time stamp on Overcast:
- What convinced Brandon of the effectiveness of HIT? [4:50]
- Brandon’s challenges finding high quality personal training in Medellin, Colombia [6:50]
- Why does Brandon prefer doing high intensity training at home? [8:20]
- Has HIT helped awaken the active genome in Brandon? [12:05]
- The main reasons why Brandon is likely to do HIT for life [16:10]
- How much body fat has Brandon lost and how much muscle and strength has he gained? [19:40]
- How has Brandon’s training changed over time? [20:30]
- What does Brandon think is lacking in the HIT industry to support people like him? [25:50]
- Great tip for personal trainers [32:45]
- How has Brandon’s diet evolved over time to help him get results? [34:40]
- How to optimise sleep and productivity [49:00]
- How important is movement? [1:08:11]
- Tips for dealing with information overwhelm and improving creativity [1:17:18]
- Final thoughts and Brandon’s projects [1:25:40]
Selected Links from the Episode
- High intensity training
- Episode 4 – High Intensity in Training and Life with Lawrence Neal
- The Importance of One New Habit At A Time, The Slow Carb Diet and High Intensity Training (same as above, just published on the Corporate Warrior Podcast)
- High intensity interval training
- Project Kratos
- Insulin Resistance
- Paleo Diet & Strength Training Biochemistry | Doug McGuff M.D. | Full Length HD
- Body by Science: A Research Based Program for Strength Training, Body building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week by Dr Doug McGuff and John R. Little
- Big-5
- Iron gym chin-up bar (total upper body workout)
- Push up handles
- Medellín, Colombia
- Ultimate Frisbee
- Buffalo, New York
- The Skulpt Scanner
- CrossFit
- Discover Strength
- Intermittent Fasting
- Wired to Eat: Turn Off Cravings, Rewire Your Appetite for Weight Loss, and Determine the Foods That Work for You by Robb Wolf
- The Carnivore Cast
- Scott Myslinski – A High Intensity Training Critique and Carnivore Diet Q&A (#186)
- Lighten Up! Wake up light
- Lumie Bodyclock Active 250 Wake-Up Light
- Joe Rogan Experience #1267 – Gary Taubes & Stephan Guyenet
- Obesity: the protein leverage hypothesis
- Episode 16 – A Call to Reason in the Dialogue Around Health with Tyler Cartwright
- Dr Ted Naiman’s infographic on causes of obesity
- Joe Rogan Experience #1109 – Matthew Walker
- Episode 11 – Healthy Sleep Habits with Dr. Nerina Ramlakhan
- Episode 20 – Your Sleep Solution with Dr. W. Chris Winterd
- Tired but Wired: How to Overcome Sleep Problems: The Essential Sleep Toolkit by Nerina Ramlakhan
- How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You
- Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
- Newsfeed eradicator for Facebook
- Episode 21 – Joint Friendly Exercise with Bill Desimone
- American Health Association
- Mad Men
- Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
- David Allen, The Greatest Productivity Expert on the Planet
- Pareto principle
- Parkinson’s law
- iCal
- Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World by Dr Kelly Starrett
- Margin Call
People Mentioned
- Drew Baye (Listen to my episodes with Drew here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7)
- Dr Doug McGuff (Listen to my episodes with Doug here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5)
- Dr James Fisher (Listen to my episodes with James here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6)
- Arthur Jones
- Luke Carlson (Listen to my podcasts with Luke here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6)
- L. Amber O’Hearn
- Ivor Cummins (Listen to my episode with Ivor here)
- Dave Feldman
- Bill Lagakos PhD
- Robb Wolf (Listen to my episode with Robb here)
- Scott Myslinski (Listen to my episode with Scott here)
- Dr Ted Naiman (Listen to my episodes with Ted here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)
- Stephan Guyenet PhD
- Gary Taubes (Listen to my episode with Gary here)
- Matthew Walker PhD
- Dr. Nerina Ramlakhan
- Dr. W. Chris Winterd
- Cal Newport
- Bill DeSimone (Listen to my episodes with Bill here: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)
- Paul Dudley White
- Tim Ferriss
- Jon Hamm
- Albert Einstein
- David Allen (Listen to our episode here)
- Katy Bowmen
- Ben Greenfield
- Jeremy Irons
429 – A Deep Dive into Joint-Friendly Fitness with Bill DeSimone: A New Paradigm in Exercise Safety
426 – Dr Doug McGuff — Expanding ‘Ultimate Exercise’, Navigating the Realities of Running a HIT Studio on Autopilot, Crafting the Ultimate Client Workout Experience, and Delving into Muscle Hypertrophy and Steroid Side Effects
422 – HIT Collision: David Landau and Lawrence Neal’s Explosive Showdown!
The phrase you’re looking for from David Allen is: “your head is for having ideas, not holding them.”
Funny about Stephan Guyenet – I actually went to high school with him. My older brother was good friends with him. That debate on Joe Rogan was painful to watch. It seemed to be much more about their bad blood than helping people to understand nutrition. The issue seems to be that most people don’t care about the academics and nuance that much. I think the majority of people would say something like, “just tell me what works, and I’ll do it.” There’s a role of academics and precision of understanding, but that debate really didn’t seem like it would have helped anyone to make decisions about what food will work for them.
On overworking and the benefits to productivity of incorporating rest, there’s a podcast called The Art of Manliness, episode #350 that discusses this. Just like in High Intensity Training we have stimulus and recovery, so too, in work, do we have the work and the time away from work. “Something” happens in the brain when we’re away from work / resting that contributes to successful work, more ideas, more creativity, etc.
Hey Matt,
Yeah, Lawrence brought up that point too, that it was designed to be more of an academic discussion than something for listeners to get takeaways from. It just irks me when someone who has decided to enter the public discussion on these issues can so childish and unprofessional. The truth is he’s probably right about most of what he says, but when he acts that way he runs the risk of pushing people away who might be interested in this stuff when they previously weren’t.
He said very cutting things towards Gary, then when Gary spoke up for himself (justifiably so) acted like a child and said things like “it’s my turn to talk now”. It’s like a juvenile yelling insults at their classmate or pushing them down, then hiding behind the teacher and adopting the role of the victim when the target of their abuse fights back.
Awesome, I’m a big fan of The Art of Manliness! Came across it back in my early 20s and learned a great deal, haven’t kept up with it in a while. Will definitely give that episode a listen!
Thanks, Brandon.
I agree, the Guyenet / Taubes debate on Joe Rogan really didn’t help. The whole point of nutrition is supposed to be getting people to feel better so they can be better in the world.
There’s too many podcasts out there to keep up with them!
Ah that’s it! Thanks Matt.
Yes the Guyanet vs Taubes debate got a little silly.
Appreciate the podcast suggestion. It’s a common theme across all productivity experts like Cal Newport, David Allen, Richard Koch, etc. You have to give the brain a break to be optimal and balanced.
Excellent transformation Brandon and great podcast by you and Lawrence! I really enjoyed it and thought you touched on some veryinteresting topics.
With regards to the cortisol point, Brandon makes an interesting point that acute “spikes” in the morning may be due to alarm clocks and poor sleep hygiene. I agree with this point.
Regardless, cortisol ramps up (not “spikes”) starting ~3am. This is completely natural and part of a normal circadian rhythm. Google “cortisol circadian rhythm” or check out the link below:
https://www.google.com/search?q=cortisol+circadian+rhythm&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihsY2O0MHhAhUBwlkKHQWtDmQQ_AUIDigB&biw=1536&bih=722#imgrc=Cpsoki8Sp02rVM:
Very true. It does increase quite dramatically, though I think it’s worth noting that while the increase does happen and appears relatively steep, that graph show an increase over approximately a 6 hour period, which is a solid 1/4 of any given day. It’s not nothing (and I’m probably splitting hairs here), but I feel it’s discerning between a gradual increase and “spike”, so to speak.
However, something I’m particularly curious about now having looked at this graph, is what it might look like for someone with an inconsistent sleep schedule. I imagine that this is what it looks like “in a vacuum” with someone, or many people, who are relatively consistent in their sleep habits. But inconsistent sleep schedules seem to be more and more common these days, particularly among the younger generation (think weekend warriors).
Scott, have you seen any research done on this subject? Would be very interested to hear about anything you’ve found!