On this episode of the Get Better Project I have the privilege of talking with ultra running, ultra running coach, and author David Roche!
Show notes
David started the SWAP team in 2013, with the premise that he could help athletes learn to live like puppies and run like rockstars while not giving a f#ck about things that aren’t important.
Davie’s website is “powered by love and pizza”!
Questions:
* What’s your story (I love getting to know what made you the way you are) – where did you grow up – did you play sports – etc.
* How did you get into running/fitness?
* What is your favorite kind of running/fitness (ex. trail, road, ultra, all of above…)
* How long have you been running (and coaching), and have you been competitive about it the whole time?
* What are your current fitness goals (and/or coaching/life goals)?
* How many hours a day do you spend training (or recommend athletes spend training)?
* How much of this is accessory/mobility work, vs running, vs strength?
* What is your favorite recovery method (or methods) that you think gives you the most benefit?
* How would you explain your diet habits?
* How often do you “cheat” on your diet?
* Do you take any supplements?
* What experiments have you tried in the past (diet, training modalities, recovery, etc) that did or didn’t work for you?
* What aspects of being a high level athlete/coach are the most difficult for you?
* What aspects are the most fun?
* Have you ever been injured (or had to deal with your athletes being injured)?
* Do you ever feel like giving up? And if so, what keeps you going when you feel like quitting?
* What do you do in life outside the gym/trail/road (work, family, business, etc.)?
* When someone asks you about advice on getting to the Games, what do you tell them?
* Is there anything that you think is important for listeners to know that we didn’t already talk about?
* How can people find and follow you? Self promote the heck out of yourself!
Resources and links mentioned in this podcast
– The Happy Runner Book – Get on Amazon (released on Nov 29th 2018)
– Twitter
– David’s website
Partners for this podcast
– InsideTracker – Use code ALLAROUNDJOE for a discount.
*above could be affiliate links. I get a small commission if you click through them and buy, but they in no way make the products cost anymore. If you decide to use them please let me know so I can thank you. Affiliate Disclosure
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If you would like to read instead of listen… here’s the transcript
Joe Bauer:
Welcome did get better project. I am your host job today. I’m extremely excited to be talking with David Roche today, but forward jumped right into that. I want you to know that this podcast is brought to you by inside tracker. Inside tracker is a company that has helped me to figure out that I had super high iron levels without knowing it and that I wasn’t maximizing my energy or my lean body mass or body fat levels, so what I did is I figured out that through inside trackers help that I was very high end sword Ferritin and or sort iron, which is ferritin just by doing a quick 15 minute blood tests. Super easy. Go to a blood analysis for a company in your area. They test your blood, you get a readout on the Internet, comes to you via email. You log into their site. You know what your blood results are, what you should be eating, what you should be supplementing, what lifestyle choices you should be making. When I did that, like I said, my energy levels went through the roof. My body fat levels dropped. If you would like to try that, which I recommend all my family and friends do, and your friend for sure, if you’re listening to the show or watching it go to insidetracker.com and use the code, get better. That’s insidetracker.com. Use Code. Get better to get yourself 10 percent off. Any of the programs are going to be helpful for you. I usually do the ultimate program, but if you start with even their basic program, it is going to be very beneficial. So do what’s right for your budget. Get started today. I highly recommend that all my athletes, family and friends do inside tracker. So without further ado, let’s get into this show with David Roche.
Joe Bauer:
Welcome to the get better project where I’m excited to have ultra runner rider for places like trail runner magazine and soon to be book author and coach David Roche. On the show, David, how are you doing today? My man.
David Roche:
So good. Excited to get to know you and your audience. Can’t wait for this opportunity.
Joe Bauer:
Oh Man, I’m excited too. I’m not sure if my audience at this podcast actually knows, but I am a runner at heart even though I play with throwing around weights these days. But a runner running is where my heart is, my, you know, my parents and my grandparents were runners so I really have a lot of interests and respect and excitement to get to know about you and the people that you coach and what you’re up to. So.
David Roche:
Awesome. Yeah. Why have also have to learn how you balance things that well. Sure. We’ll get into all of that.
Joe Bauer:
Very cool. Very cool. And I actually wanted to start off with something that I found on your website. I hope you don’t mind it. And it says with. So it starts by saying David’s team. Do you say SWAP? SWAP. How do you like to pronounce that? Okay, so this says David started SWAP the SWAP team in 2013 with the premise that he could help athletes learn to live like puppies and run like rockstars will not giving a bleep about things that aren’t important. So I read that and I was like, this is my kind of person. I’m super excited to talk with them and get to know him better. So let’s jump right into it and I would love to hear your background, how you grew up, how you got to where you are and anything else that you know, we decided to talk about in between or you feel like is, is cool to talk about.
David Roche:
Awesome. Yet. Well I guess first when you were mentioning the website, so SWAP stands for some work, all play, but it was recently brought my wife coaches with me too and she’s an md and she, it was brought to our attention that SWAP like has a, has a connotation for life swapping and husbands.
David Roche:
Oh man, we really thought we were more clever than we are with that acronym. We probably ran that through Google first. Um, but yeah, no, thanks so much and yeah, there’s a lot behind that statement that I’m sure we’ll get into. But basically when I came to coaching I was always the.. I used to play as crazy as this sounds like now if you guys see me, I came to this, I was a football player when I went to college. I was like, I’m a strong power lifter type sprinter. And I, even when I played those sports I was always the type of person that I was always fulfilled by the other people on the team’s results. Like that was always what brought me joy. So it’s not like I’m being selfish or anything. It really came from that is what motivated me. And then my wife played field hockey at Duke and she was the same way. And so, um, we were always just, I think dustin to coach though football didn’t stick very long in college. Um, and now I probably couldn’t lift the telephone book without a spotter to.
David Roche:
But yeah. So that’s basically like how, how I got into endurance sports and then after football ended, after I quit, started biking and from there running and then it was just a, a long path to where we are now. Okay. Very interesting.
Joe Bauer:
And when you were growing up, did your family always pursue sports for you or like how did that drive come about?
David Roche:
Yeah, any, you nailed it, right? Like it almost always comes from there. Um, my dad was always the sports coach in our area, so he was called coach approach, um, you know, and it rhymes. So, you know, it was destiny really funny in retrospect because I grew up in a very rural location where none of the sports teams were, were ever good or anything like that.
David Roche:
And then when my generation came through, I think my dad really helped play a big role in all of these teams getting really good and um, a lot of kids getting recruited because like from the, from a very young age, he just emphasized the play aspect of all this. And he was really like, he coached football, baseball, basketball, soccer, like all in all of these kids that went on to be really good players with idea of like we’re just out here just doing something that we love and if it feels like work, like if that’s all it is, then you’re never going to improve. Um, so yeah, he’s, my dad’s a character, but he’s definitely what led to led to sports and then probably about the coaching later.
Joe Bauer:
Okay. Very cool. And you said so. Well actually let’s, let’s jump back. How big and how much did you weigh when you were playing football?
David Roche:
Awesome. Yeah. So I am a generous 5:11. Um, and I was 205 in football. Yeah.
Joe Bauer:
And what do you weigh now?
David Roche:
Probably 135. There was definitely a body transformation. Yeah. So when, this is really embarrassing, but when I turned I guess 25 or something, my mom had some old home videos put onto like some computer program. And so my wife, my now wife and I, she wasn’t, my wife then went home, we watched a few of them and one of them was the weight lifting video that was like requested by a high school football or college football coaches that summer before college where they were like trying to see how your product we are progressing and I’m in it like the most embarrassing part is before, like the part that you sent. I flexed in the camera and in looking at it now like, like the, almost like the axe body spray, like you can smell it through the screen, but in that video I bench to 225, 12 times, which isn’t insane, but it’s a lot considering now.
David Roche:
I probably couldn’t bench like 125. I don’t know. I have no concept. Um, so yeah, in other words like the, it was a long process of losing a lot of upper body muscle essentially in lower body muscle to go from narrative right now.
Joe Bauer:
Yeah. And I’m really interested to dig into that. Like what was the, so obviously would you say you are passionate about football? Is that safe to say?
David Roche:
I was passionate about training.
Joe Bauer:
Okay. Okay. Okay. I, I completely can relate to that. I am passionate as well about the training that, you know, competition and whatnot that comes secondary, the training, the lifestyle behind it. It’s just what gets me going. So I’m curious, how did that transition into the next phase? Did you say writing or biking and then running?
David Roche:
Yeah. So my dad biked on his own. That was what he did. And so, you know, I grew up watching things like the Tour de France or whatever. And um, yeah, so like that was, I guess when I quit football I had grand designs if, oh, I’m going to go do this sport and of course I went in and immediately made a fool of myself and had like, crashed so much as a biker because I approached it the same way as I did like these power sports and um, you know, it was definitely a learning process, but I would say, and I, I, I’ll never forget that. So okay. Quit football, bike for like six months or whatever and don’t run during that time. And I go back to run for the first time since I quit and I had lost a fair bit of weight at this point, so it was probably, you know, 40 pounds heavier name now. And I got 200 yards before I had to stop. I was so winded, it was hard, it was terrible. I couldn’t see why anyone liked running. And I always try to remember that day because that’s what a lot of people think of when they think of running that same like labored feeling. And it took a while to get past that. I mean, honestly, it took years to really feel the effortless transcendence that people talk about. Um, and not think that that’s all bs. Um, was, it was actually really nice to go from that go in that way. Like not to have the preconceived notions of being the, like the one that was the fast endurance instructor at the start. Um, because nothing seemed obvious to me. And I think that’s a main reason. One of the big things we brought into coaching.
Joe Bauer:
And what was it about the, the biking or was it just that your dad was into it, that, that got you into the biking or was it another competitive outlet you were looking for the training? What was the passion that led into it?
David Roche:
I mean in retrospect. That’s a great question. I’ve never been asked that. I think it was all the training in retrospect. So even now, you know, the first thing I think of when I wake up is like coaching and stuff. But then like the first thing I do is like I just wait for things to digest and then go for my, like the morning activity. Um, and for me it’s just the best way to structure the day. I don’t know what my personality would be like without all that stuff. Um, my guess is I would probably be prone to things like anxiety and um, so for me it’s always been just, it’s been a constant companion. Even when I, when I played football, when, before that, but even when I was like seven or eight s on those little sports teams, I cared a lot about like just the process of going out to like shoot basketball hoops or you know, hit off the tee or something like that. Like that was like, that brought the structure and purpose to my day. And as I’ve gotten older I’ve thought in, I mean the whole premise of our coaching is like thinking a lot about why that actually is what’s healthy about that and what’s not and trying to tease out the good stuff and the bad stuff.
David Roche:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, so that we don’t forget to talk about it. How do you, how do you think that happens? I love the psychology of it and, and I love inspiring people to try and get joy out of the training and the fitness and whatever you know, it is that they can grasp onto. And since you’ve been coaching so many people, how do you go about that? And we’ll get back into your story of getting into running a second, but how do you go about that and what have you learned when trying to get people to love it like you and I do?
David Roche:
Well, I mean, I think the first requirement is to tease out the. Like the results from the process, which is cliche, but that cliche has a point. You know what I’ve been telling people recently was just a line from our book, which is your best will never be enough unless it’s always enough and you know what I see as in all these high performers, not just in running or sports, but in everything in life. It’s the moving, the moving goal line problem where you reach one end point, one goal and it’s just the next thing and it nothing ever bring sticky happiness growth. In fact, reaching goals can often lead to dissatisfaction and unhappiness and you coaching some of the best athletes in this sport, in the charminade sport in the world, and seeing that behind the scenes in that process. It’s like, oh wow.
David Roche:
So there’s nothing. There’s no outcome that will ever be enough. And um, you know, in the face of that developing a framework where you are enough unconditionally, even when you’re, like, no one will ever tell, be able to tell you that. So, um, yeah, the way that, the way that works in practice is essentially knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing and if why what you’re doing is what, why you’re doing something is a, is external evaluation, external judgment, whatever, whatever that may be. Um, it’s almost always going to lead down the path of, um, kind of self destruction and self-loathing. Um, so instead to try to find these internal positive factors of motivation, which can vary a ton by the person. And uh, you know, for me it might be one thing for another person, it might be something totally different, but unless that stuff is internally internal and positive, it’s going to like, I think, I guess one way to put it is that the competitive fire that will always burn someone alive eventually if that is the driving force.
David Roche:
So, um, it needs to be something a little bit more positive and a little bit more room temperature than that.
Joe Bauer:
So I love it. And how do you usually take people down the path of finding out what that is for themselves?
David Roche:
Yeah, I mean, and that’s the hardest question of all for everything in life, right? Because it has, it’s, it’s weird to immediately go to like existential questions, but I feel like this because what we’re talking about is a lifestyle. It’s so tied up in how we conceive of our own existence in the world. And so if someone doesn’t think about their why they do anything they do what? Like how are they going to conceive of what they, what they’re running is. So, I mean we’re, we’re talking about topics like spirituality, mortality, like the really deep, deep stuff is incredibly important to understand here. And that varies so much by the person. But um, the, the main thing I like to ask people is just like, what, what, what brings you joy each day?
David Roche:
You know, as simple as that is finding that like that perfect day that they have and then finding a framework in which that perfect day leads them to a longterm process of growth that they care about. That’s where it’s at, you know, um, because there is no light at the end of the tunnel, there’s just more tunnel. So I want people to try to enjoy the tunnel as much as they can. Um, and yeah, it’s, it’s about finding that, like that joy in that process.
Joe Bauer:
Yeah. David, I’m. This is so good. This stuff is awesome. And uh, from a coach, I just love geeking out on it. I’m going to keep digging deeper here. Um, what if you have the person, and I’ve run into this occasionally where they’re like, they have never thought about what their perfect is, looks like and how do you get them to start identifying that? Like when you take on a client, do you have like a set of questions that you go through with them and when you ask them that question of like, are trying to figure this thing out, what happens when they’re like, uh, you know, I’ve been in the nine to five job for the last 20 years and I don’t really think about that.
David Roche:
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s an impossibly hard question. I think it’s something that can only come, like honest exploration of it can only come through a relationship developed over time between coach and athlete. I’m just because we all have answers that we’d say in interviews or podcasts even. Um, and that might be, that might differ from who we actually are behind the scenes. And so this is a little bit of a tangent, but I mean the biggest thing that probably any coach can, can talk to, but especially coaches that really do emphasize this, like existential happiness or whatever, or mental health framework is that the difference, the offset between like what you’ll see on social media and what you’ll see behind the scenes in real life. But what’s actually happening. And that’s kind of similar to if you asked someone this question of like, oh, well what’s your perfect day? You’ll get a dating website answer as opposed to like the honest answer. Um, so my main thing is I am, I try to be unconditionally supportive of anything that they say. But if someone ventures down like this, this path where they’re elevating results or outcomes or metrics of self judgment. Like, you know, whether that’s times or places or whatever. As a runner, I’m all immediately say, look, we got to talk about this. I one, you know, I don’t give a f about any of this stuff you’re talking about like, it doesn’t matter to me. Um, and so if that’s what matters to you, we’re going to need to reset this, recalibrate this relationship entirely. Um, and usually from there, like you start to open it, you start to build up some vulnerability from both sides and get to a point where like you can agree on paths forward.
David Roche:
But yeah, I mean it like I think all of a lot of human behavior, but a lot of this stuff comes from a place of insecurity essentially for all of us. You know, we all are, we all have our moments of insecurity and trying to find a place where like you are unconditionally self accepting so that this other stuff kind of.., You find the groove as it relates to your own personality. But that is not for everyone because I have definitely had people bristle against that over time, including other people within, you know, they’re running coaching sector. So as you know, I’m sure you feel you faced the same thing. It’s, it’s, it’s one of those things that there isn’t, there are no universal answers. Um, and I think anyone that acts like they have the answers is probably not someone you should trust with your social security number and credit card.
Joe Bauer:
Oh totally. And I certainly hope that all of my CrossFit listeners are not bypassing this podcast and I’m going to push it to them because something that I got out of that and it was such a huge takeaway what you just said, that in CrossFit we measure everything and I’m sure that in competitive running you’re measuring a lot of pretty much everything as well. And there is a common thing in CrossFit for people to get really caught up with like, oh, I beat so and so’s score. I beat my last personal record or whatever it may be. And I’ve always been trying to get people back that I coached to will. Let’s not focus on that, but let’s focus on did you give 100 percent of your effort and you know, what can we analyze about that and let’s not get the gratification from like pointing and saying like, Oh, I bench press more than David today. You know, it’s like, who really cares? Did I give my hundred percent effort and did, was that the best that I could do today? And was I satisfied with that? And how does that make me feel? Um, and if I can do that, then I believe that I’m going to progress, you know, further as a human and, you know, hopefully in the sport as well.
David Roche:
So fascinating. Narrows, like thinking about, well, if someone makes CrossFit games, regionals, I, I know very, uh, you know, just a minor amount about the sport but enough to be dangerous. So if someone does progress to the point that they make that great, if someone wins the CrossFit games, great. Those people are just as deeply unhappy and dealing with same issues as everyone else. Um, and often more, more so. And so I think it’s really important that people think through that, that what, what you’re actually aiming for isn’t to bench press more than the person on the street or um, you know, it, it get the score that advances you to regionals because that won’t matter to you once you actually do it. All that matters is the atmosphere of growth along the way. Um, not that atmosphere of growth can be independent of what your number is actually the atmosphere growth is the getting out there in the morning or get, you know, if your, if your CrossFit gym or you meet with your coach at like 6:00 AM, it’s getting there and it’s doing it and he’s trying to do it and being honest with yourself and all this other stuff that goes into a human life. Um, and like as, as it always written, necessitate zooming out because yeah, that’s a great goal to have to like get to CrossFit regionals. You get there, you won’t be happy. Um, but let’s say you do get there and it does make you happy. Eventually. You’re not going to be able to bench press as much or to as many of these activities once you start aging. Um, you know, like aging, past the point of when power peak power starts to decrease, which is actually pretty young, younger than people think. And then what happens? Well, if you, if you put yourself on this like self serious pedestal the whole time, I mean, you’re just, it’s gonna launch you down, you’re gonna, you’re gonna fall off that path and whether you’re doing CrossFit or running or any of this stuff, if it’s not a framework that is sustainable longterm, then you know, it’s just a, it’s a short term hobby and that’s fine, but that’s not gonna like appreciably changed your longterm happiness or anything like that. So all this stuff is like a really. I realized that there might be people out there making like a rolling their eyes and making dismissive flanking gestures, gestures at that. But um, you know, I, it is just important to think about. You’re essentially like essentially your own mortality when you make these decisions and not think that like today matters that much in the grand scheme of things.
Joe Bauer:
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I love it. I love it. I’m just, I, I’m sure we’re going to circle around back to this, but just so that I can continue to learn more about you and how your life has progressed and whatnot. How did biking lead into running and the passion that you have now?
David Roche:
I wasn’t a very good bike handler, so, and I’m still not so like, but if I had biked continually, I would have been thinking about my mortality very often. So yeah, no, it was, I, I had so many crashes and a small number of relatively small, a couple of years at bike racing that which it, which wasn’t all me, but it was, it was, um, that it kind of necessitated another outlet. And then also I started to get to the point of biking where I realized what it took to be a, you know, to continue progressing as a cyclist in the amount of time and put that it requires is more than I could give ’em no matter what decisions I made, you know, like the guys in the Tour de France or training 30 hours a week sometimes. And that’s just not something that I one, that wasn’t fulfilling to me into, um, like it just wasn’t working at that stage in my life in terms of where I was and education and stuff. So, um, yeah, running it always been there too.
David Roche:
And I remember for me it wasn’t until I saw I’d run, I started running a little bit, not much. And then I did just a random trail race outside Philadelphia, just, I, I don’t even know why they’re. And I remember like, oh, this makes sense. I get why people like this. Whereas I never got that running on roads or anything like that. And Yeah. So from there I was like, oh, this is what I want to do. Of course it wasn’t a straight line from there to like everything else. I mean the thing with running as it is higher injury risk and you know, I went through and I didn’t know how to train at all. So I went through every single mistake in the book. And um, yeah, like I’m sure your listeners know about like IT band syndrome and uh, every other overuse injury known demand, especially bigger people that get into running for the first time we, I was and um, chat.
David Roche:
So I was injured a lot in that too and had had to learn all of the, like the frameworks of training and um, you know, work through all the ups and downs along the way is. So that was pretty much the rest of college was getting to the point where I could run and one not go too hard all the time, which is the biggest problem. And to genuinely enjoy it without like wishing it was always over. Yeah. And it took me to, to graduate school, which is where I met my wife and you know, she was in a similar boat finishing, like she was still in field hockey but finishing up and then it just kind of blossom together and it was great to have the person that, like that partner in crime to help grow from there.
Joe Bauer:
Awesome. And what, what kept you going and what kept you inspired when you were having these injuries and going down that road?
David Roche:
Any stubbornness has to be a characteristic of any athlete, whether it’s an endurance or not? Um, yeah, so, I mean another cliche, but like failure is the only teacher that we all have. I mean, it almost everyone you don’t learn from success as bad as that is like if you, if you have success, you’ll just continue doing what you’re doing, which is natural. Like why wouldn’t you? Um, so you have to get comfortable with failure as a teacher in anything in life but especially athletics. Um, because like if you don’t fail, you’re just never going to change behavior. Um, so I think I am very comfortable with failure. Uh, it does get me down too much and I don’t know why that is. Now we’re talking about it. I think part of it is just, um, you know, inability to kind of see the forest through the trees, like almost to a fault.
David Roche:
Um, but yeah, I mean, Gosh, like I haven’t having coaching a number of the top runners in trail running like everyone has. Like life is a series of feathers interspersed with a novelist and momentary success is, it really feels like that at a certain point, especially when you’re talking about athletics. I mean, and you have these, um, you know, these like workouts and things like that. So if, if you’re not ready to adapt and like have fun in that arena, the arena of failure and pain and like things that might be considered more negative emotions than athletics probably isn’t for you. You know, you should do something like, I dunno knitting, but nearly stabbed yourself with the that when you did, I don’t know.
Joe Bauer:
Alright guys,if we’re rubbing you the wrong way. Knitting podcast, I’ll put a link in the show notes,
David Roche:
There probably is a knitting podcasts and I’m just angry emails. I bet.
Joe Bauer:
I’m sure it is. They’re probably a running knitters too.
David Roche:
That would be a sport.
Joe Bauer:
So when you’re teaching people that want to be good at running, how to deal with these injuries and failure along the way, what is your strategy? I know because I have a lot of people that I’ve coached and injuries I try and tell them or just as part of being an athlete and like you said, you learn a lot from it. I’ve had major back injuries before that I learned so much about myself when I went through and I wouldn’t give those away. You know, I love it now. Um, but how do you approach that? His, I don’t know that I always have the right approach. And, and have you found anything that really works well?
David Roche:
I mean I think you’re right on the first step which is accepting that injury is a natural, like it’s an essential part of being an athlete because it all gets back to the physiological processes behind adaptation. Like you have to introduce stress that causes breakdown, which then causes things to build back up. I mean it for runners, you know, even the bones, you know, you start with your bone density in a certain place, stress it a little bit, and the same thing that might cause a stress fracture in your Tibia also causes your Tibia to get stronger and actually thicker over time. So in other words, you’re towing that line between injury and positive adaptations. And like, sometimes you’re going to screw that up, you know, sometimes you’re over stressed at work and that’ll bleed into your athletics and you’ll, you’ll get it, you’ll do everything right as an athlete. And so we’re going to interview. Um, so the first thing is just taking out that there’s that self judgment that’s inherent, that all athletes goes like, what did I do wrong? Why am I different than the person that didn’t get injured? All that stuff. It’s like that is the part of the process and you can’t beat yourself up about it, but you need to do everything in your power to prevent that. And so, um, I mean, I think this is a big thing that beginner athletes really don’t really understand and I was in that boat too, which is injury prevention in any sport is more important than the sport, uh, and you know, leaving out knitting because I’m sure that the sport to a but they probably get carpal tunnel. Um, so, but no, it’s like interest preventing is just essential. Like it should be, you know, you shouldn’t do your primary activity until you’ve checked the boxes that you need to do for prevent injury prevention. So that probably is massively different CrossFit than it is running, but it’s essential into his ear on the side of class.
David Roche:
Um, there’s a cult of like self. I’m like essentially self destruction where the goal for some people is to feel pain is to push themselves beyond what they think they’re capable of all these different things. And it’s like, that’s great in moderation. But most of what you do should be relatively like under control. You should be able to repeat it, whether it’s CrossFit or running. And especially with running like almost everything you do should be easy. Um, and it, there is a temptation to always be like push and I knew I was like this when I started, like, you always want to push up against the line, whatever your little line is, um, of like pain and discomfort, but that’s not where the body adapts. That’s where the body breaks down. Um, so you want to style it back a couple of notches and then yeah, you do want to introduce big stimuli sometimes, but those stimuli should not be the focus of training.
David Roche:
The focus of training is the inbetween times we stopped those in between times. Those stimuli just caused, like breakdown.
Joe Bauer:
Another huge nugget for CrossFitters should be listening to this. You don’t need to go to the red line all the time and you shouldn’t.
David Roche:
It’s not even that, right? So a hard workout doesn’t make you stronger. It makes you weaker. As you all know, you finish a workout and you’re, you know, you’re a puddle of essentially cross. Especially CrossFit workout was just impossible. I’m a, you’re a puddle on the floor, so where you get stronger is in the, in between times, not just the rest periods, but like the lighter workouts, the, those things, that’s where you actually build back stronger and so the emphasis shouldn’t be on the hard workouts because you do those hard workouts and you’re just, you’re just eventually a puddle on the floor and puddles on the floor. Can’t lift crap, um, or run for crap. So you want to, you definitely want to be focused much more on the, on the gradual gain like strength pro development process as opposed to the, the breakdown process.
David Roche:
Totally, totally. Great Nugget there. How did you decide that trail running was your thing in? Would you even say that? Like is that your dominant thing?
David Roche:
Yeah, it’s definitely, definitely the dominant thing. I mean I coach a couple of champion obstacle course racing athletes, but that has such a large writing component and you know, these athletes have the type of athletes that would probably be great if, you know, like I’m not, I’m not the one developing their climbing skills or whatever. Um, so yeah, I mean for me it was the, where I found the most piece was in I’m kind of getting outside my own brain while running.
David Roche:
Um, so when I’m, when I used to lift a lot and stuff, I liked it a lot, but I burned myself out a little bit with the intensity. Um, you know, as, as making a joke before the podcast started about like putting on disturbed and then like, you know, they come in with a down with the sickness and then you do the lift. That was good. But I think after a certain point like my personality maybe tends towards a little bit too much. Like I imagine if I didn’t have this stuff I would be pretty anxious and fortunately I’m all that stuff’s good for now. Um, and so for me that ended up contributing to that. But meanwhile running was a chance to explore. And I think the ultimate thing is I went to college in New York City and like trail running was the chance to get off that. And then because it develops such positive connotation does like Pavlov’s dog eventually, where it was, it became the my outlet and you know, I think everyone can identify that with that, right? Like even if you’re not a trail runner, you’ve probably gone on hikes on trails and experienced that and there is a certain amount of like it’s really hard to stand at the lip of the Grand Canyon and look down and be like, oh, I’m important. I really matter. I should take myself serious, you know? And so I really loved that. But that feeling small in nature element and that’s like, that’s running.
David Roche:
And then, um, you know, I also just liked the fact that with running you eat a lot. Like, and you know, all the little things too. I mean, I talk about a lot of these, like super big elevated ideas. But I love the fact that you eat a lot. You have to go to sleep early. I’m not a partier. I never was like, that was never my personality. This gave me an x, like all the little lifestyle things. It also suits me more. Um, and then it, I mean, I think it also makes sense that when I met my wife Meghan and when she was, when we were at Duke, she, um, was like, wanted to go down the same path and so we, so essentially we were able to do it together and that, and that probably emphasizes the importance of community, which, you know, CrossFit is amazing for us because it’s all structured around that. And so it was in running can be too. But um, yeah, so that, that’s how it became the thing. And then like, once it became the thing, I mean, I think both my wife and I, like whatever the thing is, becomes the thing, um, we’re not generalists really in life.
David Roche:
And so, um, which, you know, if it’s a blessing and a curse, um, and so yeah, we experienced the blessing and curses together.
Joe Bauer:
Very cool. And I know that this is a little bit deep, but what, or maybe it’s not, well you could just dismiss it, but um, when you’re out on a trail, there’s something different about being on the road. And I always wonder, is there something more that I don’t understand about being out in the trees and on the trail that maybe you figured out, I don’t know, or is it that we have, we don’t know yet, but there’s something different for me.
David Roche:
Yeah, I mean obviously there’s the or not obviously there’s the spiritual elements that are like who he essentially but like thoreau at Walden pond, like all that crap. And I say that as, you know, my life before coaching was as an environmental person. So, um, you say that kind of a tongue in cheek. But um, I think the other part is just much more mechanical and something that might appeal to some listeners, which is, um, when, when you’re running on roads, you’re a machine essentially you’re in anything about like, let’s say how a road race works. I’ve read marathon or something. The goal is to pace yourself evenly so that you just get to the finish line and you keel over and you are that puddle on the grounds that is unable to move another step. Um, and so your machine, you know, it’s just like a machine using its fuel in the exact way, whereas on trails it’s so much more like mixed, it’s diverse. Your body interacts with, you know, the activity in such a more holistic way. And I think that’s what really appeals to me as a coach to coaching style.
David Roche:
But then like that element of not just like thinking of yourself in terms of your performance outputs is like super appealing to someone like me that would default to the self judgment probably if I was running in loops on the road every day in evaluating that as it goes. And um, yeah, and I mean I think a lot of athletes see that there’s like in what you see with road running over in you see this especially with college athletes is like people that run on their college track teams. Like from my, my wife’s, my wife ran after she was done feeling like just ran for a year of her teammates, one of the best teams in the country I think 2 run seriously now out of like 20. Um, and both of them are on trails and I could, but like I think that that’s a story that’s told a lot because eventually this, this the intensity element, the machine element, not it can wear down on a person, especially in the context of a normal life, which is something that is another thing we all need to think about our athletic life within the context of his work, family, all the other things that make up a full life.
David Roche:
And so yeah, you want it to be recess and not just another clock punch for work. Um, and that’s one reason I love CrossFit because for athletes sometimes is because it does have a recess element. Like my brother in law does cross it pretty seriously and I was with him when he got his workout for the next day. I guess we’re at a day or he was so pumped and then that he didn’t like dark, you know what I mean? It’s like that’s resets. It’s like, what are we playing at recess today? Um, as opposed to like, okay, lunch pail time, punch the clock, get out there, come back in.
Joe Bauer:
Yup. Absolutely, absolutely. And so how does this connect for you with the competitive side of it?
David Roche:
Yeah, so I mean I’m a broken record with like I don’t give a crap about your results. I’ll say that to athletes. I mean I care about the results in so far as they fit in the like bring fulfillment for others, but the competitiveness of it, like the, all that stuff is dust in the wind and in that goes for my own competitiveness too. Like I’ve, I’ve learned over time that the competition is just like community as opposed to competition being enemies. It’s not war. This is, it’s a big team. It’s a big deal. And so by reframing it as opposed to like me versus them and it’s just like all of us together versus this thing or this concept, it becomes much more sustainable and also less like mentally draining. Um, if we’re, if we’re evolutionary pr, evolutionarily programmed to be connected to our community and our tribe and all that, God, we should try to draw our lines of community as big as we possibly can because every time you, you narrow that framework, you’re just introducing more negative emotions into your life.
David Roche:
Um, and so it definitely goes for something like CrossFit where like everyone that does CrossFit you should root for unless like they really have a reason not to reframe it, in which case that’s really fun to like, you know, it goes with running. It also goes with life and work and like, you know, politics and all this stuff. And I mean it frames so many discussions. It’s like almost throughout history, whichever group or idea is drew drawn the most broadly to support them like, to, to bring in the most number of people is the one the history proves to be the best. Like the idea that is best for humanity as a whole too. And the individuals within it. And I think it’s just important to think of your, your athletics within that framework of like, Oh, you know, that that person is a part of my journey too, and their success is my success and you do that and that everything is your success and it’s freaking awesome.
Joe Bauer:
I couldn’t agree more. And like you said, CrossFit is the same way and I’ve had the same experience whenever I do trail races too, which is amazing. And for people that I don’t know, maybe I don’t want to speak badly about it, but when I’ve done road races, I haven’t had this same experience and I don’t know why that is. Maybe that’s just me and maybe I’m completely offline, but when I’ve done trail races, people are like cheering you on and I’m cheering people. They passed me. I’m like, good job. You know, you must feel better than I do right now. And I’m happy for you about that.
David Roche:
I totally agree. And I think it’s not, it’s not like the people or anything. It’s the activity. And it gets to your question in that in trail running and CrossFit is probably like trail running. And so in road running, if you versus a cock essentially, um, it really like almost every one of you have time roles because it provides current pacing, you develop like that is your framework for, for judgment. So you’re like, other people are not in it with you like that they’re separate. Whereas in trails and CrossFit, like in trails, it’s you versus the terrain to finish into the process of the race itself. Um, and for CrossFit, I imagine it’s like whatever the workout is, whatever the activity is for most things, I’m sure there’s exceptions and as a result, like there’s camaraderie, we’re all going through the same thing. We’re not wrapped up in our own little worlds like the, the world, like the universe between two years are to each of ours for years. Is it like dark and scary place for a lot of. I mean a lot of people and a lot of times but like easy mount and it becomes a lot. Like it really develops community. It develops your own ability to see past your failures. All these other things we’re talking about and like zooming out is much easier.
Joe Bauer:
And something like trail running than it is when you know you have a clock telling you whether you’re worthless, worthless or not. Yeah, absolutely. And just like a quick little story to like reiterate that I had to back when I was trying to do a lot of ultra marathons or really into it. I had a race actually out in bear mountain in New York, was doing a north face endurance challenge 50 miler and I had a hip flexor injury about halfway through. And there was a guy that I went literally, I went literally from being, trying to get like top 10 in this race to I’m going to just going to try and finish. And there was a guy that literally ran next to me for the whole second half of the race to get me through it. And I don’t, I wish I would have still be friends with this guy. So if he happened, if, if you are this guy watching this podcast are listening, please reach out to me so that we can be friends. Um, because that it was just the coolest thing.
David Roche:
For listeners that don’t know. I mean, that’s a really intense 50 mile rides. That’s not like just covering, that’s like rocks, mountains, tough east coast, like gnarly running. Yeah, no, I mean that’s so cool. And it actually just last week I was, you know, I don’t really care about my own athletics so much anymore, but I still race because I love training so I, you know, do all that at the time still. And so this race had a lot of money in it. It was, it was a trail marathon and in Aspen, Colorado. And so I was at halfway, I had a big lead. It’s kind of my style. I’m the old sprinter, so, you know, I always, I, I fade really hard and the second half, so I’m doing, I’m executing my perfect like hard fade at the end. Um, and right on the last little downhill I was a runner comes on past me, so there’s a lot of money involved in this race. Um, and the, the runner, he comes up alongside me try like, you know, tries to, he tries to encourage me, slows down a little bit to run with me for a second, and when he realizes that I’m not in the, in the state of mind to run with him for a little bit, then he goes in, mean, you know, he’s like, that’s money on the line too. So that, that community element of it was, was pretty crazy though. Maybe maybe I looked so bad that he knew that there wasn’t a chance I would come back to when it. Um, but yeah, I mean that’s. So that is, that applies to everywhere in the, in the sport usually, which I really love.
Joe Bauer:
It’s so cool. It’s so cool. And how did your running turn into this passion for coaching?
David Roche:
Yeah, so it was really weird. I mean it was never the plan to be a coach. So I went to law school and did a master’s degree in environmental stuff. And so that was always the idea was going down that path and I was with my wife and I were just in our little 250 square foot studio apartment. And um, we’re like, wait, why don’t we just coach. I mean, there was no moment of epiphany, but it was never meant to be like a job or even financial. So when we started out it was free and then it was $20 a month. Eventually when we learned it was taking a little bit of our time. Um, and, you know, so in other words, it took, like it was a process before we even valued ourselves as like an ender even understood the, the extent of like how big coaching actually is and all that.
David Roche:
So yeah, we did everything backwards in some ways. Our website was embarrassing until recently. Um, you know, we didn’t have the corporates like all that stuff in place. So, um, yeah, it was one of those, I mean, it gets back to like a lot of these stories, not, not with coaching per se, but like anything that people find, it’s like you doing what you really enjoy, like the side hustle element of it. And then it’s like, oh my God, this is actually pretty cool. Like what do we do from here? And then filling in the gaps. Um, so like, you know, we like, I guess we had like what figured out or why figured out, so we had why, because our why was, oh we love trying to help people and support people and we’ve got other successes and you know, we’ve gone through a lot of like our own failures and these processes and maybe we can help them.
David Roche:
Um, so we had why but we didn’t have like what, who, when, where, how, you know, any of those questions answered and they got answered over time. Probably still answer on some of them many years later. But, um, you know, and I think that that goes for a lot of anything like the way we coach is we check in with every athlete every day, um, and so even on weekends and Christmas and stuff, but as a result, like you develop really close relationships with Simon. So we see a lot of people go through life and have these big decisions not just related to profession but what they’re doing and what we’ve really seen as if you have that why figured out and you’re truthful about that. Why, like you’re not saying the why that you would say on a dating website or an interview or whatever, but a why that is like, it takes in all your faults too, you know, which I’ve, which I have many.
Speaker 3:
Um, then then like almost no matter what the rest of the answers are like that is the path to go. Um, and yeah, I mean I don’t want to ramble on too much longer, but it’s, it’s so evident in like, so my background in particular in lawyer like um, there are, we’re like all these brilliant kids that then went to big firms where they hate life and that’s because they have every question answered except why, um, as opposed to have go starting at the y and then then go into those questions and that’s not to say working in a big firms bad. Like for some people it’s, it’s perfect for them. But um, you know, lawyers are generally an unhappy bunch for a reason.
Joe Bauer:
Yeah. And I completely agree with you and I think that it just, you know, opened up the podcast. So like everybody, because everybody I feel like would be beneficial to figure out what their why is and understand, you know,
David Roche:
I don’t have any wisdom. I think that’s also important to emphasize for people that haven’t heard you talk before. I don’t know crap. I’m fortunate in that like I’ve gotten to see a lot of people live lives behind the scenes and have been told by them things. But like a lot of these things I say I am not like, you know, I screw up all the time. Um, so, but I mean, I guess that’s part of it too is like understanding. And one thing I am good at is understanding that those scripts are okay and you know, even if I like all this stuff seems a little bit like there’s a right and a wrong answer. There’s not. And um, yeah, just do the, doing the best you can and I cutting yourself and others as much slack as possible because they’re all going through the same stuff to.
Joe Bauer:
Yup. Yup. Absolutely. What are your current goals, whether they are for yourself in the fitness rhelm or as a coach?
David Roche:
Yeah. So, I mean, pretty much all my goals revolve around coaching. I mean, so the, for those that don’t know, the team is essentially like, it has a lot of the top pros out there. Um, but it also has a lot of other people. And like a lot of people that might not be like professional runners, but you think about it in a very similar way. Or even if they train last are trained differently, um, and it’s like that to see those people like develop over time and in the small scale and then the broad scale like try to just support, like provide unconditional support however I can to, to people within the team, but also the general community.
David Roche:
Um, which is why I was so pumped about this because like I talk a lot to the running community but not much to outside of that. Um, and yeah, like I think offering that support and empathy to people is something that we can all strive to do and basically fit that within the framework of whatever our professions are we live in, we do in our lives. It’s like, okay, I’m a lawyer. Well, how can I support, you know, both people within my firm and outside or blah, blah, blah. We’re on a coach and how can I support my athletes and others and all that. He has. You know, there’s, it sounds high minded like you’re helping, um, these like you’re offering, you’re altruistically elevating the human species, all that crap. But really it also reflects back onto you. And I mean, I think people that do this see it like that, all of this, I mean, it’s very confused, confusion, um, these types of ideas. But all of this, all of this stuff has some spiritual basis is that it all reflects back. So you know, you’re, your own happiness will be supported so much by reflecting as much of that, those positive emotions as you can. Um, so yeah, that’s my goal. And apparently my other goals, long rambling podcast answers. So mark there.
Joe Bauer:
Well, the long rambling podcast answers are working for me. I’m, I’m deep dived into what you’re saying here. Um, and I, I would love to hear what you do and what you think of as support because I’m sitting here listening to you and I’m a green and I feel like maybe some people don’t understand what that, like they understand what you’re saying but they don’t understand what the actual things are that you personally would do to support somebody. And if you could explain that, I think it would be powerful.
David Roche:
So I guess the main thing, and it’s not just coaching, it’s presence on not physical presence, but just emotional presence that someone knows that you like no matter what, you’ll support them. Like, and it’s super simple. Basically you can just say it to people. You can say like, look, I support you no matter what, um, or it can just be a part of who you are and develop that open in a relationship over time. It doesn’t even have to be someone that’s that close to you. Like just to be the type of person that they can open up to you without judgment. You’ll never like what a good example is. Just how we do it with athletes is like we know, they know that there’s, they could never do wrong in our eyes because we don’t really ascribe to idea that there is wrong. Like, you know, aside from like her harming someone else, like, you know, we’re all just figuring this out.
David Roche:
So being that, being that person that, you know, we all have those people in our lives like, okay, think about this morbid, but think of like a tragedy happened to let’s say you have a pet like, or a family member or whatever. Who Do you call it, you know, maybe it’s your partner, um, but if not, then who else? Like that’s the type of person that we all can be. Um, even for people that were not particularly close to on a daily basis, I’m the person that will just be there and not be like, you know, worry too much about like, um, I dunno appearances or being cool, like playing it cool. I think playing it cool is like the worst thing you can do for other people or Ronic detachment and all these things that are often elevated and things like, I dunno, like if you’ll get like a dating manual or something, you don’t want to be that person. You want to be the enthusiastic, engaged person that lifts others up. Even if it’s not cool, it’ll definitely be the best for you long term. Um, and maybe an example would be a, not for, not for me, but I was just this morning I met a woman who’s at the reason I mentioned the pet is her dog just died, very public. She’s a public figure, a professional runner, and she was talking about, Oh, well her strength coach, which is the reason I’m bringing this up because I think it’s similar to cross fit in what she does in some of her crush training side. Um, her strength coach told her these things that then helped her work through. It didn’t tell her, oh, this is how you should feel. Just was like, oh, it sucks and like, this is what, you know, here’s my thoughts and like tell me how you feel and stuff like that. And that strength coach made. I mean that was the person that made a massive. They’re one of the people that made a massive difference for her. And so yeah, so being there just means like being open to like not basically withholding judgment ever that people, people can be awesome. Like you can tell everyone they’re awesome. You don’t have to tell like awesome. It does not mean that someone like is the, the only person in the world that I dunno can knit while running like a four minute mile or whatever we were talking about earlier. Awesome is just your. Everyone’s sorry. Freaking awesome. I’m like, they just are. And to let them know that and to, to let to have them know that you know that and once that relationship is established, like then you can have like lots of really like beautiful things come from that or not, you know, like that’s not every relationship, but when it does happen it can be pretty magical.
Joe Bauer:
Wow. So a couple of things here. First is that I think as soon as we get done here, I’m going to go and text message about 10 or more people and just tell them that they’re awesome because I think that’s, that’s awesome. And I would challenge other people listening to this to do something the same go tell 10 people that they’re awesome. Just because I’m. And the other thing is you are a high level running coach, but it sounds to me like you, you could also be, or you also are a life coach. I mean, have you ever had anybody hire you for that?
David Roche:
No, I just stick with running mean I think running is an avenue into that because it is, it strips down athletics in general. CrossFit two strips down who you are to your physical nature. And I think when you have to grapple with your physical nature, you also grapple with a lot of these big ideas. We’re talking about these even if you don’t think about death, like what is failure in a workout or aging or all these things other than a reminder of where this regression line ultimately ends. Um, if you’re not thinking about that stuff like consciously, I mean I think that’s normal too, but on a certain level you like, your brain gets it like that. All of these different things is a sign of your own fragility as a human being. I’m in. So like emotionally, I mean we’ve all had that. It strips you are, as an athlete, you are in a different boat than people that don’t explore their bones. And gristle essentially, um, you know, and don’t understand that about themselves. And so as a result, it leads to a lot of these places, not by like, I don’t think any coach really have avoids these topics.
David Roche:
I mean there’s a reason that the best coaches, like in basketball, like Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr and all of these people also are the ones that are like or Phil Jackson back in the day. The, the Buddhas of their, you know, they have so much philosophy going on. It’s not because that’s who they are. It may be, but it’s more because that’s how you develop. If you’re paying attention, if you’re, I mean, if you’re oblivious to it, yeah, you don’t have to deal with it. Um, so yeah, I mean that’s basically, it is like if you, I mean like we are as, this sounds like it’d be something on a 1970 like cocaine fueled disco hit. But um, you know, we are stardust with delusions of grandeur. Even if you have a spiritual grounding with that, which is amazing, um, you know, we, we objectively are just exploded stars that then, you know, go out there and lift weights or run or whatever and you run athletes understand that, like you understand that when you’re stripped down to your physical core.
David Roche:
So I think it’s, it’s a natural byproduct of paying attention in these areas and I think it’s something, it’s really hard for everyone. Um, and no matter how secure someone feels in that, they, they probably up some mornings and have their doubts. And so, um, yeah, I mean that’s kind of where the, the philosophy of love and stuff for us at least comes in is like, man, think about your worst enemy is also going through the same crap. Like even if it seems from the outside, like they’re not experiencing it in the same way. Like man, cut them some slack too. Like, you know, and especially the people close to you. Like if someone says the wrong thing or does something to offend you or whatever, it’s like, all right, let’s jump like everyone. We’re all trying to get through this thing, like just try to try to support those people too.
David Roche:
And eventually like if you just kind of let you know the old duck off of water’s water, off a duck’s back type stuff, um, it life becomes a little simpler. Even wellbeing, infinitely more complex.
Joe Bauer:
Love it. Love it. The. So before we move on your. Do you have a hard stop today?
David Roche:
A, no hard stop.
Joe Bauer:
Okay, cool. This is great stuff and I’ve got so many interesting questions for you and I’d like to kind of shift gears into the training side of things in like how you handle particular clients. And the first question that I have is when you take in a new client and they say that they want to, let’s say, I would imagine somebody would come to you and say, Hey, you know, let’s say myself, I want to get back into ultra running. And I’m like, all right, David, I want to be as best as I can at ultra running, let’s say, or even let’s say I want to do a, a 50 miler and um, you know, like to progress on that, how do you decide how many hours a day they should be running or, you know, what do you, what process do you have for like hours of day, how much of that is running versus, you know, other types of training, whether it be way train or mobility or, or whatnot. And then even the last part of it is the dietary structure. So I know that this is a really big question.
David Roche:
The best question. Um, yeah. So it all gets back to how running adaptation happens and how physical adaptation happens generally, which is minor stresses accumulating over a long period of time. Um, and so it’s especially important with running. So, you know, no matter what your background, if you jump up a lot, you’re going to get injured very rapidly. Um, you know, running is like, that’s putting your hand on the stove. It’ll be hot. Um, so the, basically everyone starts where they are, where whatever that entails. So it’s zero, you start just running a few times a week. If it’s more than that, you start there focusing on consistency and frequency over volume. So instead of like total amount each day or week, it’s much more based on spreading out what you do as much as you possibly can so that the stresses are as minor as possible to avoid that breakdown. And also that’s how it roebuck development happens too. So what that actually means in is like, I’m like, well everyone should get to the point where they’re running five days a week if they want to be a runner and athlete spot is weak. I’m not so like basically five or six days a week and um, you, that can be as little as 10 minutes if the person starting out in 10 minutes of running and walking, you know, like mixing it up, um, or it can be, you know, someone that has already at 50 or 60 miles a week. They could be doing, get to a point where eventually they’re running 70 to 100 miles a week, but through gradual building, but the key is to keep most of that easy in easy defined as not the absence of pain as a PA because that’s not necessarily physiological easy, easy being like there is no resistance. You’re well below aerobic threshold. You’re basically out there doing a glorified stroll in the park. Um, and so basically for almost any athlete, 80 percent of what they do as a runner should be this, this very generous definition of easy and it’s anticlimactic. It’s ego destroying because, you know, professional runner, professional male runners, I coach often train it eight minutes plus mile pace for a lot of their miles, um, which is fast for a normal person, but it, when you’re there racing under five minute miles, it’s not so fast and it feels. But that is where the magic happens because that’s where the body produces capillaries to trend transfer energy to working muscles. And it’s where you can continually run without breaking down and all these other things. So basically it’s spread it out. Understand your easy and only then progressed beyond that to increasing.
David Roche:
So how much should a person do like it depends, but with running, the good thing about it is it really doesn’t take that much time and mean someone that is, you know, relatively like 30 minutes is a great number to think about when someone is like getting into running or developing as a runner, um, and anywhere up to 90 minutes later on five or six times a week. And then only building above that when you’re, you have big goals and you’re doing long runs and things like that. But um, so much of the magic of running comes from the daily grind of it as opposed to the specific things. Like if you’re training for a 50 miler, that 25 mile trail run you do is really irrelevant compared to all of the one hour trial runs or one hour runs. You. Did that, let that 25 miles happened.
David Roche:
Um, but yeah, so you’re basically, it’s all about forming the base or like probably the better way to say it is like the baseline or drum drum beat on which you play a sweet guitar Solo, but the Guitar Solo is not the song, the Corsara. So there’s just like a little part of it.
Joe Bauer:
I love it. I love it. And how much of that training or how much, let’s say that somebody’s building themselves up since we’ve talked about injury and such, do you also advocate for mobility or cross training at all?
David Roche:
Basically we, the lower body first and January don’t want to recruit fast twitch muscle fibers to often as a runner because they’re less proficient and endurance exercise. So bodyweight stuff with lower body and we have routines that um, I’ve written about before in places but essentially tons of lunges. One legged step ups you can do this stuff to failure. I mean we have a mountain lakes routine that I’ve, I’ve now noticed that a lot of other groups use to, um, where you’re just one leg on a, on a two steps up or whatever. I guess traditional step up. But essentially you go up and down on that same leg in rapid fire for a few up to two minutes at a time. And if you do that, like any of your listeners, like even the really elite athletes, like it’s gonna hurt. But like in other words, it’s not that we don’t discourage it, we just like, you can get this without putting weights on your back for a runner because we’re not training to do weights, we’re training to run, um, though, you know, for very advanced runners like squats and dead lifts and things can make a difference. Problem is most don’t have the time and stress despair to, to do it though.
David Roche:
If someone’s like a hybrid athlete, it can have a big place in a program. The key is just not to recruit too many fast twitch muscle fibers. So the anaerobic, um, you know, essentially lower weight stuff is almost always been more beneficial or extremely higher weight stuff where you’re using when you’re using different energy systems. So then for upper body, I mean athletes can have fun with that a little bit more. It is not the sexy thing to say, but for runners, upper body doesn’t really matter. Uh, you know, it’s upper body just gets in the way. So, um, it’s great for hormones and probably overall health and so we do encourage it, especially for athletes or 40, but, um, for like the typical pro athlete, especially the pro male, like every bicep muscle that you have, it’s just a bicep. You have to carry over a mountain.
David Roche:
So, you know, it’s good to be strong. It’s not so good to be like beach ready. Um, so yeah, so in other words, but you don’t want to be weak, weak as bad running as a power sport, even if it seems like it’s not. Um, but you know, bulk in the upper body is never is not like, um, yeah, essentially. I mean, my, my story probably says says that a little bit like me as a 10 year old, this number keeps going down because I’ve thought about this. Me As a 10 year old could beat me as a 30 year old up like 10 times at least. Um, and you know, that’s for a reason probably.
Joe Bauer:
Is there any component or programming towards the mobility side of things that you’re really into?
David Roche:
Yeah, so I mean the general consensus now is that stretching is not productive for subsequent power output, whether it’s running or lifting or anything like that. Um, that being said, dynamic stuff is. So, um, we love lunges. Um, basically anything that looks like something Jane Fonda would have done on the workout video in the seventies. So the nyrtle routine, if you’re athlete, if anyone on the is interesting because this can benefit even non runners to, um, feel more stable in their hips and core. So n y t e r l, which is by coach Jay Johnson. Um, then he like leg swings to things to open up the hips. Um, and then as much as it’s like maybe not supported by every ounce of research, we have found that, um, the like calf, calf stretching and light stretching of quads and hamstrings, especially after, after activity can help, don’t hold any stretch really long except maybe the calves because they’re not powered generators when you run.
David Roche:
Um, but that little, like if you go, if you, I’ve gone to enough like elite racist to know that the pros often we’ll do a little bit of stretching, um, even if the research might not agree with that. So it’s just about balancing that and not having it be the focus. But um, yeah, like we all the neglect, it’s really easy to neglect stability essentially. Um, and it, it doesn’t hurt as much. It’s not as sexy, but it really matters for health. Health almost, no matter what activity, any activity you’re doing that involves your posture essentially.
Joe Bauer:
Absolutely. And let’s, let’s bite into the Diet thing. Oh yeah. What’s your philosophy?
David Roche:
So my philosophy is the lot diet where you just eat a lot. Um, like I guess part of this gets back to I think a, I mean it depends on the person, but eating is one of the best parts of training and two over planet or to over, um, make it too much. Strategy can take some of the fun out of the whole process. Um, so one, at least for a runner, it’s not that important. It’s important in the sense that you get enough, but once you’re actually eating is less important than like the fact that you have energy availability. Um, so like what obviously the perfect diet would be whole foods, um, you know, good, bad, like plenty of protein, um, which is like a, something that runners often miss, like you’ll, I’ll talk to a vendor and they’ll get 20 grams of protein in their diet, which is not a good thing. Um, but you know, even then it’s not like a ton of protein or anything. Um, high fat, extremely important for runners always. So every when I coach I want to have a high fat diet, no matter what their dietary restrictions are. Um, and then you know, enough carbs too.
David Roche:
So, um, as weird as it is, like for this might be an issue in CrossFit, I’m actually not sure you can, you can fill me in, but I’m like body image is. And how that relates to longterm happiness is a massive issue for runners. Like if what you see in the mirror is not something that you’re accepting of. Life is much more difficult. And so developing a framework where like you’re, you’re just as kind to yourself in the mirror as you are to yourself inside your own head makes life a lot easier. And as that relates to food, like if you like basically overplanning dot nutrition for a lot of people is almost always a slippery slope to not liking who they are, their physical existence, who they are as a person, um, especially for female athletes. And so trying to like stop that at the, at the like, right away, which is look your diet, your body is perfect no matter what it looks like.
David Roche:
Um, and your, you’re, when it relates to nutrition, the goal is to enjoy it and not eat like total crap. Like you don’t want to die of a heart attack in those two bounds. Like a million different things work. And I guess that’s also, that’s another point that is essential to understand is there are people in CrossFit and running that have really idiosyncratic diets and nutrition. They are not successful because of that diet or nutrition strategy. They’re successful because of their training and because of their genetics, who their parents were, they could be successful if they ate all watermelon or whatever. I’m not just if they were fat adapted or you know, low carb, high fat or high protein or whatever, any of the numerous diets out there. Um, and so like I think there’s a tendency for all of us to want to exert control over what we become essentially a nutrition. Is that an obvious choice because how could it not have a massive role in what we’re, what we, what are our outcomes are. But I have seen pro athletes eat and running and in other sports and some are weird with it, not weird, but like have strategy with it that’s really well thought out, but most just eat whatever’s put in front of him and it works. And they would with that, those same athletes would be great if they did high carb, low fat or low carb, high fat. Um, and so yeah, in other words, not to like draw big conclusions from any n equals one or even any equals 10 because those people will often get the same results from other outcomes, other interventions to, um, and I know it’s a problem, not a problem, but I know it’s something like CrossFit also is like often Paleo, it’s associated with that. I’m in ultra running can, can go down that path too. So, but I’ve seen athletes go from low carb high fat to essentially high carb and it’s like it was never changes too much unless they weren’t getting enough fuel at any of the stages.
Joe Bauer:
Interesting. This kind of leads me into a fun question that we’re both interested in is the whole blood testing side of this and like how that relates and if you have the philosophy that the diet is basically like what I’m getting gaining from this is that like you need to eat enough food and you need to have enough protein, enough fat, enough carbohydrates. Um, how do you link in the blood testing then? Is it like more like, oh, I might be deficient in iron. So I need to have more of this or vitamin D. and is that the focus of, of that for you?
David Roche:
Yeah, it’s just to understand how the body reacts to an athletic life essentially and our own personal genetics because I think if there’s anything that like every single coach can learn after awhile and has learned is that every individual can have massively different reactions to the same stimulus. And I love talking like scientific study. So I’m up to my neck and scientific studies all the time as a coach and writer and all this other stuff. And what is, if you read the study, um, something that, let’s say something has a positive impact, like we talked about stretching, negative impact. So almost every study on stretching says it decreases subsequent power output. If you go back to that study, let’s say the study has 30 people in it, five people might be helped by stretching, 10 might be hurt by it and the rest are about the same.
David Roche:
You know, I’m not sure what the statistical significance there would actually be, but the point is there are people it’s beneficial for. And there are people, it’s negative four and then there’s people that doesn’t matter for it. So even when something has like a consensus, you might not be within the consensus though, I think, you know, usually people are like, we have more DNA, all that stuff. And, but it’s just important to understand that every body in every response to external to add it adaptive stimuli can be massively different. And that’s kind of where blood tests come in and that like the same two people can eat and do the same things and have the same bodies, um, but you know, just be not, not twins but everything other than that and that you get these blood tests back and it’s like totally different results to the, to like a shocking level.
David Roche:
And so, um, the basically these blood tests take some of the guesswork out of all that where you can then I’m like, get to a point where you have some certainty in here, your nutrition strategy, especially your implementation strategy. So for runners, and probably for CrossFit athletes too, I mean most women, some of them with iron for example. Um, and have to otherwise or not have to, but their performance will decrease massively. Vitamin D, I’m also very important and this goes for both women and men, but especially in running iron, I doubt that would be as much magnesium, um, and blood tests allow you to understand where you fall within the spectrum of different physiologies and responses.
David Roche:
Um, so yeah, I mean I think while I don’t like people to over quantify their lives because numbers are a slippery slope to thinking you are inadequate, like optimizing your, your physical potential does require you to understand what actually, you know, to look under the hood and what tests are an easy way to look into.
Joe Bauer:
Yeah, absolutely. I’m a huge advocate of that and that is much as I think that I can understand how things are working for me. If, you know, getting a quick blood test every three to six months is just been extremely helpful.
David Roche:
You know, I don’t have any affiliation with like inside tracker for example, but we, we got everyone to go there and it’s not. You can go to other places too, but like, but it’s because as a coach I have seen it makes such a massive difference and so I May, I want to maintain that flexibility and I know people at different places, but um, the point is just like it doesn’t hurt and it can really help. So like getting to know that info about yourself is good because you can’t tell without like, you can’t just guess. Um, and yeah, I needed, I’m sure you’ve seen like before and after stories of people being like, oh, I feel like a new human after I figured out what I can see, what’s, what was deficient or what was not, what I had too much of even.
Joe Bauer:
Yep. Absolutely. I had actually too much iron and I had to get rid of some.
David Roche:
So like CrossFit athletes, honestly, especially if there’s like a large quantity of meat in diet, I assume to build muscle though, I’m sure everyone’s different, but yeah, like male runner. So with running, there’s footscray, Kamala Harris where you essentially lose iron through, um, blood cell breakdown when foot hits the ground. So runners are going to be more male, runners, will be more efficient than female or no female, no male runners more than male CrossFitters or something like that on a general population scale. Um, so runners have to think about it a little bit more perhaps. And then, but you know, it depends on the person.
Joe Bauer:
Interesting. I did not know that about foot strike. That’s very interesting.
David Roche:
Use a little bit of sweat Zubik CrossFitters sweat.
Joe Bauer:
Definitely. So a lot of these questions I got from asking people what they wanted to know about top high level people like yourself and one of the questions that came up and always put it down towards the end is do you ever feel like giving up with your pursuit of what you’re doing? And if so, how do you deal with that?
David Roche:
So that’s an awesome question. I mean I think partially it gets back to like we all have those low energy mornings, right? Like, it’s a weird thing, but like you wake up and you’re just like, you think about what you have to do that day and you’re like, oh yeah, I mean, and this probably goes for everyone in the world, like no matter what their, what their background is. And so I, I’m not immune to that. Everyone has that. I think I’m, I’m, I’m fortunate to have found something that I really do love. Um, and in like, Ooh, love, in a way. It’s not like, I mean I literally did it for free for two years before or like a year and a half before charging. So like that part of it I feel pretty self assured, assured with. But I mean, you know, we’re all, we all have like the moments of doubt about what we’re doing. Um, and like that’s totally normal. I guess like what would I always try to convey to athletes and people is that moments of doubt are essential.
David Roche:
Like you need to have your crisis. If you don’t have your crisis, you’ll, you’re gonna fold as soon as you hit real adversity. And so an analogy that might people might be able to apply to anything in life but probably not is I like so automatic fleets do 100 mile races, which is mind blowing to someone that isn’t in this sport, but it’s very common in the sport and, but it’s, it’s, it’s an objectively ridiculous thing to do to your body. And I say that with love and that it’s an amazing thing to do as well. Um, but I try to like get an athlete to have a crisis two to four weeks before they’re like, I’m like, why are you doing this? And what is like, what drives you to do this? You realize it’s kind of crazy. Like these types of questions that I don’t normally ask where usually the questions I asked her a much more positive and supportive. These are critical and questioning. And the point is because I want them to go through whatever emotional crisis that are going to go through then as opposed to at mile 60 these, if you go through to my 60 years, most people like I know I would stop.
David Roche:
Um, and so that applies to anything in life, right? Like if you need to go through the full process of thinking something through like um, like my, my wife was making a big decision recently and we had a discussion and um, you know, like usually like it ends up in like, oh, not an argument but a disagreement essentially. And then we came to a place of agreement, you know, it, it’s essential to go through that growth process.
David Roche:
And so yeah, when it relates to your athletics was that the crises come, like embrace that stuff, play around in those waters you do that, you splash around a little bit with crises and with like motivation and like questioning. That’s when you can get to the point of being secure and you know, fully a part of your identity within these sports or within whatever you do.
Joe Bauer:
I love it. I love it and I think that I would completely agree with that and I possibly think that people don’t necessarily have that perspective a lot of times, but hopefully after listening to this they will have or the next time that that comes up because it comes up regularly for a lot of us that are trying to really better ourselves and it’s okay. Right? Yeah.
David Roche:
What I would say to people is get outside your own head whenever you can. I’m like, the road inside your two years is weird sometimes and if you’re spending all your time there like the you come up with might be a little bit weird too. Um, and so that can be writing things down and it’s one reason the coaches great because like it’s something to some place to write it down, but it can be to yourself. It can be things like affirmations, it can be talking to a therapist that can be talking to loved ones about everything. But like, um, I think it’s essential to not just think through things yourself. Um, because like, like it gets back to, we don’t have the answers, but when you look in dialogue and interaction you can help get closer to that.
David Roche:
Um, so I, I urge everyone to like journal or write about how they feel or talk to someone about it, about athletics, but also other things because chances are you will gain a lot of comfort in the expunging of this stuff from your neurons and into paper or someone else’s neurons and it can be really positive and it’s also good for building community and that sort of thing.
Joe Bauer:
Yeah. And I think that as well, I don’t know for myself, that was always hard. So I’ve since started doing that, writing and journaling and talking about my feelings even though it was uncomfortable at first. And I think that there’s probably a lot of people out there that are very uncomfortable with that and I know that I run into my friends even a lot of times and I try and help them out with what I’ve got with my failures. Right. Um, that I failed at these things and how that is so much better to write things down or to talk with someone about just what you’re feeling and it’s amazing that you don’t think about how much better will make you feel or how freeing it makes you feel until you do it. Yeah. And then once you do, it’s awesome.
David Roche:
For sure. And I mean, I think all this stuff is especially complicated in the social media world. Um, and it’s just something to always remember is that the social media world is not the real world and it’s, I think it’s great. It can be a place of community and uplifting and all this other things, but if it is a place for self judgment for you, like if you’re looking at others and find yourself comparing like one, if you can step back and understand that even people that are being honest on social media are not sharing their whole lives because their whole lives would be boring or depressing or whatever. Um, you know, so they’re being honest, but it’s still not the whole picture. So if you can do that, that’s great. If you can’t get off social media because like if you find yourself comparing to others and not seeing, um, that the perspective in it then like it can eat you alive in a way that um, you know, I, I see it with a lot of athletes behind the scenes and even the pro athletes.
David Roche:
Um, and so yeah, to kind of be aware of how you’re interacting and how that impacts yourself work like what you actually like. If something adds to how you value yourself and your self worth, then it is almost always positive if it takes away from it. Like see if you can get rid of that thing where they’re even like honestly even relationships and things like if, if someone makes you feel worse about yourself, that person like maybe shouldn’t be like a friend essentially or a workout partner or whatever. Um, and to understand, just trying to understand like who lifts you up and who pushes you down in what lifts you up and which pushes you down more than pill.
Joe Bauer:
I don’t even know. I was at a loss for words there because I was thinking to myself, holy smokes, I always preached that you are a component of the five people that you hang around or listen to or read the most. So pick those people very carefully and.
David Roche:
Yeah, and I guess to like understand that even if you do all this and you’re still going to. Tim Ferriss has a, has it been 10 percent of people essentially suck or hears or whatever and no matter how, who you are, like the broader you draw your circle, the more people are gonna fall within that 10 percent. So the flip side of this thing where I’m like, oh, well make your computer it broad, like be supportive. All this stuff. Like you’re just going to bring more of that, but that’s okay. Just understand that that doesn’t like, don’t be like, oh that 10 percent is the majority or is like even it just doesn’t put it in. Keep it in context. Um, and yeah, so that’s, that’s a hard part, especially for pro athletes. Like, oh my God, the comment sections on their instagrams, it’s crazy. But um, yeah, like cut yourself slack whenever anyone doesn’t agree with you or knocks you down or whatever because usually that just means they fall in that 10 percent of people that you cannot help.
Joe Bauer:
Sure, absolutely. So what do you say to somebody, David, that comes to you and says, Hey, I want to be a pro runner or any type of athlete that, you know, you would coach. What kind of, you know, I understand that’s a huge question, but how do you answer that?
David Roche:
Well, I mean asking about what, like essentially one, what sacrifices they’re willing to make and in the broader scale of their lives too, like what happens next? I make them think through not just the process of getting there, but the process of staying there and then the process of like, whether that actually matters because a lot of this stuff seems glamorous but it’s really not, um, you know, for pro runners. A lot of them are making, like are essentially living out of bands and scraping by to get by. We’re scraping by and go through all of the same stuff, all the same existential crises thing.
David Roche:
So in other words, there is, it gets back to the tunnel comment, just knowing that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, like is that tunnel one that you want to travel down and not just want to travel down because like it’ll be good for your ego is when you want to travel down because it’s fun, it’s a cool tunnel, whatever, and often like the way that you reach the way that these conversations conclude is let’s just wait and see, you know, but it’s just do it, put in the work, see where it leads us because as much as we want to be like, oh, it’s about how hard we work and all this other stuff. You can do everything right and be kept out by your circumstances in genetics in a way that is beyond your control. And so you can like, a good example is probably something like the CrossFit games, like, um, and this is just guessing. So I forgive me any churches listening, but among the elite, the best people at the CrossFit games, they probably all work equally hard, like an equally smart, um, to a certain level. So what separates them is probably a mixture of genetics, luck and life circumstances like, and so in other words like the, that whole like elevating what they accomplish is elevating things that they had no say in particularly are barely anything. Um, and so understanding that is really important that like you can, like we’re all just playing with the hand we’re dealt and you don’t know where that would have had hand actually is like none of us know that. Um, so you’re just kind of waiting over time to see what it is and eventually find out, but it doesn’t matter that much anyway, there are no winners in this game of poker. Like everyone ends up with the same number of chips and everyone ends up with zero at the end. So like, you know, since we’re all, no one wins this game. Like it’s kind of just about finding the joy in the playing of it.
Joe Bauer:
Well, great, great answer. Um, and you know, as have been talking with you here, um, I’m sitting here thinking to myself, wow, this research on you before this and I saw that you were other podcasts multiple times and I’m sitting here going, wow, we’re going to have to do this again because there’s so many more things and we’ve already been at this for an hour and a half and I don’t want to take up your whole day. Um, so I just have two more questions for you. And the first one is, is there anything that you think is important for the listeners to know about you that we didn’t talk about?
David Roche:
Um, I have. My dog is pretty freaking awesome option to all these rules that she like is she wins. Not, I’m just kidding though. I think she, she him right now I’m pretty much, I try to be an open book. So yeah, I think like if anyone didn’t, if anyone got this far then they probably know all about me.
Joe Bauer:
No, I think that there will be a lot of people they get this far just because the information is really interesting and the people that are actually searching for the keys to high level performance are going to just soak this up, you know, I think that that’s very, very apparent. Um, and lastly, promote the heck out of yourself, man. Like what do you have going on? How can people find you? What do you want to sell?
David Roche:
Oh, that’s such a nice question. I love that you ended that is I would say nothing like just email me and if you want, if there’s anything I can help with, but the exception now is that my wife and I wrote a book which is all on this stuff and, and other and our dog is a coauthor because she talks in all caps and is way funnier and um, but it’s called the Happy Runner. So put in the appy Runner and to Google and it’s available for pre order from Amazon. It’s going to come out on November 27th of this year. So, um, it’s, yeah, I think the goal was to make a book that kind of gets that 10 percent rule that like 10 percent of people hate with a burning passion. Um, and I think we accomplished that. And so you might, if you, if you’re among that 10 percent buy it to hate, read it and like it’ll be good. But it basically just covers like how do so the, the first line in the book is super, I’m like dark and Cliche at the same time, but every runner has the same finish line, death and then it comes and then it makes a lot of jokes. It’s all trying to be funny if you ever read my writing and then it ends with talking all about unconditional self acceptance and the book is about trying to navigate between those two points as an athlete. Um, so how do you go from this understanding of your fragility and all of the insecurities that that entails? Whether it’s related to that directly or not to a point of like, you know what, I am enough, not just like, you are awesome but I am awesome. And like getting there and all the complications that come with that. So, um, yeah, the happy runner and hopefully it doesn’t suck. Probably partially sucks, but you know what, it’s our first book. So we’re going to cut ourselves some slack like we, like we suggested.
Joe Bauer:
I love it. I love it. I’m David. This has been awesome. Even far better than I would have even expected. So thank you so much for your time. And uh, like I said, uh, we’re just, if you’ll do it again, I’ll definitely do it again at some point in the future because this has been fantastic.
David Roche:
So I’m back on and pick your brain because I have a lot to learn from you and I always feel awkward on these things because I want to ask question, but I’ve been told you shouldn’t do that too much, so let’s make it more. I’ll pick your brain a little bit.
Joe Bauer:
Hey, I’d love that. We can just have an open conversation. I’m totally down with that and uh, we’ll, we’ll tee up some topics but within athletics and outside and I’d love to love to go to town with you.
Joe Bauer:
Cool. Let’s do it man. And uh, yeah. Have a great rest of your day.
David Roche:
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Joe Bauer:
Thanks for listening. Slash watching that show. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. David is fantastic. I could literally talk to that guy for hours on all kinds of stuff. Training, philosophy, life, whatever it may be. It was just a fantastic interview. I’m definitely going to have to have them back on the show. If you’d like to check out the show notes, go to. TheGetBetterProject.com/DavidRoche as d a v I, D r o c h e David Roche, and I’m going to put all the information. Even if you’d like to read, I’m going to have the transcript there as well. If you’re a reader rather than a listener, that you probably would just be backing up what you heard there.
Joe Bauer:
If you’re going to do that, and I wanted to let you know that this show is brought to you by inside tracker. We talked a little bit about on the podcast, but even somebody like myself that basically obsesses about what’s going on, thinks about everything as much as possible writes about it, takes notes, journals about it, tracks everything. I can’t figure out what’s going on in my body without doing a thorough test. Right? Like a blood test inside tracker does and that’s exactly what inside tracker does and a few years back I didn’t realize it, but I was totally full of iron overloaded with iron and what it did is it made me lethargic and I didn’t even realize it. So after I do an inside tracker, I adjusted my diet. I actually took out a whole bunch of red meat, changed them, supplements around, and my energy levels went through the roof. My body fat actually dove down even more than what it is or what it was then. So I’m even leaner, more energy leaner. What more could you want? And I wouldn’t have known that otherwise I couldn’t have figured it out. I test different diets. I test different. No red meat, no red meat, Vegan, vegetarian. I haven’t gone full Vegan. I don’t know that that would be for me necessarily, but I’ve tested a lot of things. You get it and I couldn’t figure it out without doing the blood tests, so I highly recommend inside tracker. I try and have all my family and friends do it on a regular basis. Why would you not want to know what’s going on inside of your body? It is so important and you don’t know. You can’t tell otherwise. You can’t just sit here and say, oh, I feel pretty good. It doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry. You might luck out and you actually do feel good and you’re healthy. But someone like me that tries to be as healthy as possible, I couldn’t figure it out, so I recommend that you go to inside tracker and use the code. Get Better to get yourself a discount. So go to insidetracker.com. Use the code, get better to support the show and get yourself a sweet discount. So that’s what I got. What I have for you today. Like I said, the show notes over@thegetbetterproject.com slash David Roach, and if you liked this podcast, please give us a review on itunes. Every five star review that we get helps us to get the show out to more people and as you can see, we want to help as many people as possible.
Joe Bauer:
So there it is. I hope y’all have a great day.