Still Getting Faster in his 60s — The Marginal Gains System | Greg Benning, 64

Speaker: Greg, I always start with this question, which is, where are you right now and what did you have for breakfast this morning? 

Speaker 2: I am, sitting in my, my home office outside of Boston. And this morning for breakfast, before my workout I had a banana, a slice of sourdough, and I covered it with honey.

So it was a nice kind of pre fueling 60 gram carb dose. 

Speaker: I love it. [00:01:00] Sourdough bread with some honey. 

Speaker 2: Sounds like, the right energy intensive start light, but, but good fuel for your 

workout. Yeah, , I'm guessing we'll get to this later on, but one of the, one of the things that I've been newer to is the idea of, you know, of pre refueling and post fueling and matching the carbon intake around the, the hard days in particular, and energy availability and stuff like that.

And that's actually something that I've only come to in the last few years. I used to, if you'd asked me this question before, I would've say I, , I train in the morning and I do it face and facet and caffeinated, it. I've, I've, I've, I've changed that pattern and, I feel a lot better for it.

Speaker: Greg, it is such a joy to have you on the show. one of the most fun things. maybe the best thing about the show in a way is that I get to learn about not only people performing in the sports I know, but all these other sports and top performers like yourself. So yeah. It is so cool to have you.

before we get started, for those who may not [00:02:00] know, who are you, how do you describe yourself these days? 

Speaker 2: I'm a single scholar, so I compete, in, in, in one person rowing shells. my specialty is head racing, which are distances between, 20 and 40 minutes. I am a, I'm a long distance rower.

It's mostly flat water rowing. And,with Boston, it's one of the cities on the East coast that has a, a significant rowing culture. so in some ways, what I describe to people is it's something I do on the way to work. yeah, I've been, I started it, started as a novice walkon in university.

And, as my life and my professional life evolved, I was able to get to a place where I was able to, to sort of fit it in, in a consistent way. And, yeah, I've been, I've been competing actively as a master's level single scholar for 35 years now. Wow. Most recently, most recently racing over in Amsterdam, two and three weeks ago in separate regattas.

Speaker: Greg. Hang on. So I sometimes commute on my bicycle to work. Yeah. Are you actually going to [00:03:00] your office? 

Speaker 2: no, but I know people that have done that. you know, during, I think it was, either, I think it was during, nine 11, 25 years ago, the highways were all shut down.

and there was one doctor who worked at the, at Massachusetts General who lived in Cambridge, and he would get into his boat in Cambridge Row all the way down to the Mass General, pull the boat out, put it on shore, and go to work, and then row home. So I know people that have done that, but now my, my situation is I live, I live out outside of, I 95 in Boston.

So I'm about 15 miles from my office, and the boathouse is about five miles from my office. So if I get up early in the morning, I can beat all of the traffic. and it's just one of those things where you say, you know, what are, what are things in life that, that, that really make a difference? One of them for me is not sitting in traffic.

So get up early, get in there, get on the water,train on the river, or do weights at the boathouse or train indoors during the winter, and then you're inside all of the commuter traffic. And I, you know, I'm usually at my desk by, 8, 8 15 in the morning. So, you know, you, only [00:04:00] thing that's trick is you gotta make sure you, you know, you, you get to bed on time at night.

and, yeah, that's, so that's why I say it's on the way to work. I just fit it in. I fit it in, before the front end of the workday. 

Speaker: Sounds like a, finely tuned approach and maybe things that you have refined over the years in order to balance what could be. A full-time sport given the level you compete at, but you also happen to have pursued, from what I understand, a serious career in banking and also raise a family along the way.

So sounds like part of your secret, which really isn't a secret, is the way you've been able to find efficiencies and craft your day to be able to do all of these things. Greg, I wanna preface before we go too far ahead, I will be, yeah. I'll be honest and express my ignorance to mm-hmm. The type of sport and its nuances.

My, my background in rowing is very simple. [00:05:00] I don't have a background. I have done, a bit of kayaking off and on, so, so that's what I know. Would you mind giving us a quick. Explainer on the kind of rowing that you do? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, so my, my, my original sport was running. and you go way back when and, I remember seeing the, you know, the 72 Olympics and that fall, there was a fun run in my, you know, in my elementary school.

And I went out and I got a t-shirt after it. And I, I did pretty well and it was kinda like, this is fun. So I, I ran middle and long distances all through high school. Rowing is what you would generally characterize as a late entry sport in that it's a sport that tends to favor tall people, and it tends to favor people with long limb to torso ratios.

it's fundamentally about gearing and leverage. and it's also a power endurance sport. if you think about it, you compare and contrast it to cycling or running or swimming. You've got an entry point where the blade goes in the water. You've got a power generation cycle where you're, you're developing a force curve [00:06:00] across the kinetic chain.

You've got a, a power transfer at the end of the cycle when the or comes out of the water and you feather it. and then you've got a reload cycle where you're, you're moving across the water, you're drawing the boat underneath you, and you're getting ready to stick the yours in the water again. the races that I do.

Cadence is roughly, 32 to 34 strokes per minute. So the oars go in and come out of the water, roughly every two seconds. if you compare and contrast that to the sprint racing that you would see at the Olympics, they're typically rowing, 40 strokes, a minute. head racing is, is a little bit more about,work over time and efficiency and just squeezing out,you know, inches and feet here and there.

you race in a, a relatively light, carbon fiber,boat. you're using the oars to push your body and then pull the boat and,it's a, you know, it's a power endurance sport.

I, I've had a long, dialogue, since the training Bibles came out, in the early nineties by Joe Friel, and [00:07:00] when I've run into him, I've said, this theory, everything rowing. He goes, I don't know anything about rowing. And I'm like, oh, no, no. you know a lot about rowing. it's, it's basically cyclic and it's power endurance.

the lactate levels, in terms of the perceived effort, can get pretty high. I would say, you know, if you're, . Anaerobic threshold is, you know, is four mls and that's where you're starting to, your breathing rhythm is becoming noticeably different. And you don't want ha you can talk, but only in short words.

you know, a rowing race, you're typically up at 10 to 12, ols, so it hurts. and it's, it, or it's not, it's not so much pain, it's more like discomfort. So you have to, I mean, one of the tricks to the sport is being able to hit your technical cues, at a high level of exertion. and, in that ways I, I, I mean the sports that I find to be.

I watch to be really similar are things like 5K, 5K track races, longer distance, speed skating, longer distance swimming, cycling. and, you know, those are also sports that have an awful lot more research than rowing does. So I've, [00:08:00] I've learned a lot of things from those sports that I've kind of crossed over into my, rowing training and my, my first rowing training plan, he just died recently.

Jeff Galloway, the guy that wrote for Runner's World, I cribbed one of his, you wanna run your first 10 k training plans from Runner's World. and I translated it directly over into, workouts in the boat. So it's different to some people, but it actually has a lot in common with things that people know pretty well.

Speaker: That is so helpful, especially drawing these parallels with some other sports like running and cycling that a lot of people, I think can grasp and Yes. I'm not surprised that the sport is that technical. To me. It seems like sometimes, you know, in some ways I guess the more pure the simpler sport it is on the outside, the more technical it can get because then you have a chance to really, explore the opportunities to find refinements.

Let me ask you this question, which is

what makes the sport so addictive? 



Speaker 2: that's a, [00:09:00] that's an interesting question. In some ways, the head of the Charles every year, which is my A race, they'll, the regatta will tell you that there are, 350, 400,000 people that show up to watch that. the races that we were doing in Amsterdam two weeks ago, the, the Dutch have.

They, they row on rivers that have dikes next to them. And the dikes are all bike paths, right? So when you're, when you're racing in the Netherlands, there's a pack of people on bikes following the race, and they're all yelling at you the whole race, which is really, which is kind of fun most of the time though, you're out in the boat by yourself.

This isn't a single. and I think in, if you're rowing as a, as an adult, with family or professional obligations, you can't necessarily coordinate schedules with other people for,team boats, it would be a group run versus going, just going out your front door and getting in a, getting in, you know, a workout.

I think for me, my favorite day of the year is, is summer, solstice. so late June, and I chase the sunrise. you know, as we get into that part of the year, so the sun comes up earlier and earlier, I'll get up earlier and [00:10:00] earlier, and what that puts you into a position to do is have in a huge urban environment, have the entire river all to yourself.

you know, just in terms of the balance and being out in a big open space, there's a lot of zen. you know, the, the rowing motion in terms of the rhythmic aspect of it is,is also, very, addictive. and what you were saying earlier about all of the opportunities for marginal gains,and efficiencies when you do something and I don't like to over obsess on the data, but when you do something and you do it well, You can see it. there's a lot of satisfaction that comes out of working on something and just getting better at it over the years. my whole thing, so I'm 60, four this year. My whole thing for the last, 15 years has been can I find some way to get marginally better that will offset, biomarker decline.

so if I'm getting older, can I get more efficient? And if I can get more efficient, can I stay at the same speed? It, it gets more challenging every year, but, it's a fun game to play with yourself, 

Speaker: Greg. [00:11:00] I can see some of that appeal. Yes. You, you painted this the cinematic I think expression of what drawing can feel like I can imagine.

so this is my favorite day of the year as well. And I can imagine being early out in the water, maybe before the sun has even come up, and then maybe the sun comes up and then you sort of see the, the sunlight shimmering over the water as maybe you have the Boston skyline behind you, behind you. I mean, it makes me actually think of , surfing in San Francisco early morning, like that whole like contrast between being in the open water and the urbanity behind you and the environment.

It's like being out there catching a perfect set and having nobody else there. 

Speaker: yes. that is what I think a lot of us live for. That sounds magical too. the other thing I'm, I'm guessing is that yes, you talked about, the chores.

This iconic event happens in Boston, but then it seems to also take you to these other parts of the world. [00:12:00] 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker: Totally makes sense that Amsterdam is, a hotspot given how flat and how densely run by water that country is. 

Speaker 2: Well, they're also, they're also the, as a nation, they're, it's the tallest nation in the world.

Speaker: That is true. Yes. you made an interesting point earlier about how it favors later to life entrance, because once the body has come into a shape, your taller and you have the opportunity What is your favorite place to, to row at? I'm guessing Boston is probably number one.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well I think that particular day of the year in Boston,, that's,one place,the, yeah, I think the top of the race course in, in Amsterdam is a second favorite place, the third place that I tend to find really addictive, in November, after the Charles, I'll go over there.

There's usually a work conference in November, so I'll go over for the work conference and then, then I'll shoot down to Tur to Turrin, and there's an 11 kilometer, head raise in Turrin that I've been doing since 2007. and I've been tracking all my [00:13:00] times. So at that one, that's one where I've been comparing myself against myself for 20 years now.

that might have been where all this stuff started, but when you're up at the top, when you're up at the top of the turn of the course, it's a stake course. So it's an out and back kind of thing. when you're out at the top and you turn around, you can see the Alps, and Oh wow,that's really cool.

There are a few venues in rowing that are just, iconic in terms of, places. and, you know, the major race courses, the finish lines, yeah. They're all these spots that are just so loaded up with memories.

yeah, again, when you get there, when you get, when you're there and you're by yourself, it's a, it's a different kind of a reflective sort of, thing. you know, when you, when you look out across the water and you know, you see, you know, you see people,, racing,there there's a lot of, lot of visualizing, that goes on.

Speaker: Greg, you mentioned about how there's a lot of spectator interest. In these events, like some of them seem to set up 

Speaker 2: like select, select selectively. Yeah. 

Speaker: Okay. Selectively, [00:14:00] like you painted this, picture of the event in Amsterdam with like the bike path teaming the people. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker: And yeah, these, these races seem to be like big deals.

And wondering if you can take us to maybe your favorite race, your favorite event, if there is one, and you can take us into those moments at the starting line and what it feels like to be there and what's going in your head before you start pumping. 

Speaker 2: the races that I think have meant the most to me were back in my undergraduate days when you get to the final of a collegiate championship and you've been working together with a team and you know, you've got a chance of doing something special.

And it's that point where you've got both hopes and fears. and I really don't like being on the starting line. I just want it to get going. so the whole, you know, all of the anxiety and, and, and stuff that goes on, on the start on the start line,is [00:15:00] special in its own way.

the, the next more special thing is that point in a race where you have a breakthrough. And, I still get these in, in, in, in my head, racing in a single. but you know, if I go back to when I was racing aids in university, that moment where, you execute something together and your bow ball gets out in the front and you know, you've just accomplished something that you could never do on your own, right?

you know, all of the teamwork and, you know, all of the, the work to race ratio is like 999 to one in terms of the time investment. but those moments where you have, where you, where, where, where something happens and it's a shared experience. and it may just be with the eight, the other eight guys in the boat, right?

Or it might just be by yourself. but that moment where there's a breakthrough and something that you've trained for. Comes together. I'd say that's the second most thing. The finish line. The finish line at that point, I mean, I've had situations where we've won in the last stroke. I've had situations where we've lost in the last stroke.

so you definitely develop an ethos that says you can, you can't stop until you're, you know, until you're fully through the finish [00:16:00] line. 

Speaker: You know, when I have seen footage of the group events, you know, the, the events with multiple people on a boat, it just looks like this, like a, like this perfectly orchestrated dance. You have these people, you know? Yeah. With battles moving in, in, in unison to me sometimes I, it makes me think of something like,synchronized swimming or figure skating.

Again, this is my naive outsider's view, but this beauty that comes with watching this performed. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker: Dance or sport. let me ask you this, so I.

So I can see that this is a big community sport and you have people of all ages. 

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Are there many women doing the sport as well? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd, I'd, I'd say it's actually like our club. I think it's actually more, more, at this point it's probably more women than men. okay. One [00:17:00] of the things that's driven that, particularly at the younger levels is,the impact of Title ix.

you know, in a nutshell, if you're spending a bunch of money on football right, you have to create an equal number of opportunities and spend an equal amount of money on, on, on, women athletes, you know, in a US university. so 

Speaker: Got 

Speaker 2: it. Yeah. You can only spend so much money on a soccer ball and, 

A rowing shell costs, like $70,000 for a co, for a top, for a top level, eight person shell. Lot. You say that 

Speaker: that's the boat. That's 

Speaker 2: the boat. A shadow boat. 

Speaker: The boat. Okay. 

Speaker 2: Okay. So a lot of the D one football programs have large women's rowing programs and like 50, 60 athletes. and on the other side, with the men's teams, you know, they might carry, 30 athletes.

what that's done is it's created a lot of women rowers, right. So, so they graduate and, and then they, you know, in Boston we have, a large, grad school community and, a large professional services and medical community. So a lot of these, college rowers that wind up in Boston [00:18:00] find their way to the river.

and, yeah, it's great. It's, you know, it's, it's a sheer experience. I mean, you're all doing the same thing in terms of trying to figure out how to make the boat go fast. 



Speaker: one thing you said earlier about how this sport favors people with. Lanier bodies. 

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: I'm curious, is there a big difference in, let's say, performance of men versus women in the sport?

Or are women able to compensate for sometimes being a little bit shorter than men? 



Speaker 2: in, in terms of that whole, what's the efficiency of your leverage or what's your power to weight ratio or all that gender specific that plays out, whether it's men or women now, the interesting question is if you take how big somebody is, and you go from men to lightweight men, so a hundred kilograms down to 70 kilograms, 

the a hundred kilogram guy can generate more watts in terms of, of kilograms over, over distance, but on when the oars out of the [00:19:00] water that a hundred kilogram guy sinks the boat more, so there's more drag. And it would be analogous to a, you know, like a big guy on a bike, right?

or,you know, a, you know, a bigger body mast in the pool. so the longer the race is, the more competitive,the lightweight guys are. And,they also gives the lightweight guy, the lightweight rower, an opportunity to show if they're technically better than the bigger guy, you know, how much more efficient they are at, at, at generating power or transferring or moving masks through, you know, across the water.

Both in the, in the men's and the women's events. lightweights can be extremely competitive with heavyweight, with open weights or heavyweights, particularly as the distance gets longer. So in these 5K and 10 K races that I do, some of the top athletes are lightweights. when you cross over from men to women, it's sort of similar to track and field in that, Masters men, younger masters men often train with elite women, because they're comparable speed. 

at a woman single scholar [00:20:00] versus a a, a man single scholar over two KI would say the Olympic gold medalists, the man's probably 50 seconds faster than the woman. but, I mean, when I go to, when I go to Silver Skiff, you know, I, last year I got beat by three, three women that in Paris. so, you know, and I wanna beat them, right?

like I said, it, the experience becomes common at some point where it's like, okay, yeah, this one coach said to me, talk was talking to this kid who won, like rowing machine championships, and he walked up to him one day and he said, so Roman, what do you wanna do today?

Pointed at the guy next to him and said, I wanna beat him.

Speaker: No, I, I can see this, this, kind of parallel where the longer the distances. One is the weight starts mattering a lot more. And again, this is just my very spontaneous crude observation that sometimes the longer distances also women's performance starts approximating men I can see that from the sport of ultra running, like the very long, runs, I mean, women do really well and yeah, I'm sure there's a whole [00:21:00] biology aspect to that.

Greg, Yeah, I'm really curious about your consistency and your training to get to where you are. And before I get there though, I'm curious, when you started out in the sport and you talked about how well you are. On the taller side of things, do you, did you find that you had some other kind of natural advantages that allowed you to prosper because you came from like a running background, I think.

Yeah. And then you took to the sport. 

Speaker 2: So, I'm six five and when I 

Speaker: Oh wow. 

Speaker 2: When, when I showed, when I, when I showed up at university, I weighed 159 pounds. Whoa. So when I, when I walked, it's always a beam pole, right? and when I walked onto the rowing team, it was as a lightweight, and the heavyweight coach called me into his office a couple of weeks after, after the season started, and said, how much do you weigh?

and he shakes his head and says, do you even wanna look at a beer while you're in college? And, he said, report to the heavyweight, co report to the heavyweight coach, Monday, [00:22:00] and start focusing on, on, carbs and protein. So when I graduated, I was 196 pounds. and whoa. yeah.

but the thing I think that, that I differentiated myself on early was the rowing machine. because they used that for, testing to see, what kind of score you can get over a certain amount of time, of a certain amount of resistance factor. And, because I had been running the 800 and the thousand and 5K cross country, I knew how to pace myself a lot of the other, guys that, you know, came on.

I don't think in team boats it's necessarily the best thing, for developing an aerobic base. Because particularly in high school, you've gotta spend a lot of time rowing. If it's an eight person shell, you have to spend a lot of time rowing by fours and sixes. 'cause the other two guys hold, keep the boat stable because the other, the people don't know how to control how their body is moving.

So the boat flops around. I think running in high school was better for my aerobic base conditioning. And it's actually something if I was talking to somebody today and they said, you know, they said, what are the most important things? I [00:23:00] mean consistency is I think a large degree of function of lifestyle.

But I think the next most important thing is, is focusing on your aerobic base. 

Speaker: I would have also thought that, there is a strong muscular component to the sport. Yeah. Because you are constantly working. I. Because I know that if I have a long session out in a kayak, I know that my entire torso is, is worked actually, I can feel that in my arms, in my back, in my chest.

I can feel that in my abdominals. I can also kind of feel that in my glute. So I would think that you are building muscle or you need muscle to succeed. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a, it's a power endurance sport. and it's watts per kilogram. And if you look at the kinetic chain, about probably 60% of the, of the, of the forest generation comes from your legs.

so, you know, when you think about, from the tips of your toes to the top of your head, and back of your elbows, and, and all of the accelerations of the different parts of the body, and which muscles are you firing and which ones are in opposition and which ones are stabilizing.

You know, the whole [00:24:00] active versus relaxation thing, in terms of power generation,and trying to efficiently express yourself, and not fight yourself while you're trying to like, make something happen. I've been spending a lot of time in the last few years focusing on what does relaxation mean, in a high performance context, whether it's physiology or strength or, you know, or, 

Recovery,nutrition,how do you apply something effectively? and, and stop fighting yourself? Don't do things that are counterproductive like in the boat. If you fire your arms away too fast, you're throwing force back at where you were coming from rather than direction you're going.

there's strength in a pure context. but then there's net strength. so some of it is around, yeah, I do three days a week, so three days a week of, of very targeted strength work. I'm, I have to be really careful about it because I've got an injury history and I've gotta, I've gotta keep it in the window , where it's additive and not, not putting me at risk.

but, there's adding strength. and that also obviously factors into nutrition. and then [00:25:00] there's, trying to reduce your muscle activity where it's counterproductive.

Speaker: Got it. I wanna, I wanna explore that a bit more. But when you came to the rowing sport, you were in your one fifties and then you gained what, an odd 40 pounds? 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker: Had 

Speaker 2: four years. Yeah. 

Speaker: Yeah. It could ha 

Speaker 2: and I, and I, and I weigh about, so I got up to 1 96 in university and, and yeah, I raced in Amsterdam at about, 180 8.

Speaker: Okay. 

Speaker 2: so 

Speaker: very consistent. So, so it couldn't have been just, carbs and protein, you must have done something else. Was it just a, a, a heavy diet of growing in addition to the foods or did they also put you through again, weights in the weight room and something else to help you add? 

Speaker 2: Oh yeah.

So it's, it's 

Speaker: 25 more percent body weight. 

Speaker 2: one thing that has kind of come outta some of my recent number crunching is for me to put on lean muscle mass. I need to have an adequate amount of [00:26:00] protein. So like during the winter, I averaged about 2.1 grams per kg.

which is fine, right? But the other thing that became apparent was that I was. Going too light on the carbs on the hard days. So if I had a day where my training impulse score was in the low nineties, the chances were two outta three of those days, I probably wasn't pre fueling enough and I probably wasn't, you know, loading in carbs post-workout.

So in particular, in the front half of the day, I was under fueling on carbs. and what that was doing was creating a, an energy,excessive an an ener, an EA index that was some 32 thirds of the time and it should be 35 to 40. So my body was reacting to that in a stressed out way.

you know, and it was creating inflammation, which was reducing the ability to synthesize protein, which was also increasing cortisol, which was increasing body fat. I think one of the things I've gotten [00:27:00] recently is I, it's sort of paradoxical. If you wanna put on muscle mass, you need, you need to eat more carbs.

so that, that's something that around my hard days and around my strength days, I've gotten much more focused on properly dosing protein and carbs around the stress. but yeah, I mean, , my typical week during base training is, two to three dumbbell workouts a week. and it can be a mix of bo dumbbells and body weight stuff just like that.

Just stick 

Speaker: with your diet for a second. Greg. yes. Protein and carbs. So can you maybe talk for a second about what is a typical , days, diet for you when you are in your training phase and may maybe how that's changed over the years? 

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if I'm trying to get in, so if I weigh, 88 K and I flip between pounds and metric, I've gotta get about 150 grams of carbs a day.

And I try to spread that across four or five,intakes, feeding intakes, my dinner,it's chef's choice, [00:28:00] you know, in, in our house, which basically means my wife makes dinner and she gets to cook what she wants. yeah, it tends to be, it tends to be plant forward and, you know, there'll probably be 20 or 30 grams of protein with dinner and it'll probably be 500 to 600 calories.

So I can count on that,for dinner. you know, what I'll do is, I'll, I'll, try to prefu with,with, depending on the workout,40 to 80 grams of carbs. and we talked about the, the, the, the fruit and the honey and the bread and that kind of stuff.

I'll try to jam down, 30 or 40 grams of protein as soon as I come off the water. And that can, that, ideally that's something like sliced chicken breast or it could be, a protein bar. and I'll also try to, put down some additional carbs, within an hour of coming off the water.

and, and that's then I get to the office and, you know, I'll, I'll have, oatmeal or, a, you know, a bagel or, stuff like that. lunch is usually. Walking up and down the street, and there's some mix of like a whole food oriented place, like a Chipotle [00:29:00] layer, a dig in, or a sweet green where you can get some, you can get some fast food, but it's not junk.

and then, occasionally if it's a stressed out day, I'll dose with protein powder. you know, or I'll take some carbs in and like plant cherry juice to get the inflammation down and get the potassium up. but, you know, I, yeah, I try to get most of that done. and I, I use, I track it on a, on a, on a MyFitness Pal app.

and then, you know, every, every 30 days I'll download all of the numbers and I'll upload 'em into my, training program and, cross reference that against the, the training numbers that I have and the recovery numbers that I have, and tell the model to sort of tell me what the answer is.

but , the thing that really came across during base training this year was that I was, that whole idea that I was, in terms of energy availability, that I was under fueling on, on, on the medium and the hard days. and the total carbs were fine, but I wasn't matching it to the workout as well as I should have.

one of the reasons that matters for me is, so [00:30:00] there's the whole lean muscle mass development, right? Like, you know, like, like if, if I, if I can match it better, or I should, like, during my, this last three months, I put on a kilogram of muscle and I lost a kilogram on a half of fat.

Okay. So that's good, right? but the deficit that I was having on the hard days, I think was cranking up the inflammation a little bit. And I've got a pretty compromised lower back. Where inflammation shows up is in my lower back. and, I, so I think there's a, a strength dynamic to this, but there's also, you know, a, a, you know, a, a musculoskeletal dynamic.

There's, there's, there's a muscular dynamic, but there's also a skeletal dynamic. 

Speaker: yes. 

Speaker 2: Sorry if I'm getting 

Speaker: too radical, I'm actually amazed. I'm, I know. , I am amazed in a, in a good way on how quantified you are. I mean, not just with your training, we haven't talked about that, but with your diet yes.

I wonder if this has been part of your secret with, just your longevity and then also being able to really keep [00:31:00] winning. 

Speaker 2: I think this is something that's come in, in the last one to two to three years in particular. and, you know, like three years ago it was like, I need to start focusing on this.

And then two years ago I started having some insights and then, you know, these co this idea about carb fueling inadequacy and having your, having your, you know, like how you feel, in terms of of of, lower back health. that's something that's even more recent than that.

And, and, and, and honestly it's something that came out of having AI crunched through my, my, my data trackers. 

Speaker: Oh, wow. 

Speaker 2: Like the spotting, spotting the correlation where I was stressing, where I was stacking stresses where I was. Having a hard day of work. And then maybe I was traveling for business and then I was having a crummy night of sleep, and then I was going out to dinner and you know, that's, my diet was all messed up.

And then I was having a couple of drinks with a client. and what that was doing in terms of suppressing heart rate variability and, and, and inflammation and cranking inflammation. That was something that I never put together until I ran it through the, the LLM.

Speaker: It sounds like you have been quite [00:32:00] diligent with tracking your data. how do you track 

Speaker 2: on, on, on, on and off? 

Speaker: for the 

Speaker 2: sport like drawing, I'll, I'll do it and I'll, I'll, I'll do it and I'll figure out what sort of behaviors are good and then I'll just, then I'll just execute on the behaviors.

I, I try to really not obsess on this stuff. 

Speaker: for sure. So, so what is like this template you have for tracking. Your data for your food intake. Is it, are you, are you manually noting down what you're eating and then, I don't know, you uploading in info, you're like, entering information into an app.

And then are you pitting that against these numbers you have on your sleep performance, your HRV, and that against maybe some other way you are tracking your performance in the sport as well? Like you talked earlier about, you know, measuring like strokes and other types of data. So like, is there a way, like how does that come together?

Speaker 2: it's like, okay, can I do this and only spend five or 10 minutes a day on it and then come back and look at it every week or two and, and, and, and, you know, and the, and look at the trends. the basic tracking tools that I've got, I've [00:33:00] got a, I've got a polar vantage. Okay.

I've got a MyFitnessPal app. so this gets you the, the training stress scores and the heart rate and the sleep data. this, you sit down at the end of the day and you say, what I eat today? And you just go, boom, boom, like boom. and then,the one other thing that I'll use, is,a is a finger based, heart rate variability,elite HRV, tool.

and that's because what this tells you is a four hour overnight HRV and what the thing in the morning tells you is waking HRV and those can be very different. and, Particularly in and around the issue of if you had a, if you had one drink or two drinks, or three drinks, and how fast is the alcohol clear and how did that impact the quality of your sleep and your heart rate variability.

So, , which really sobers you up pretty fast when you realize how significant it is. so those are the, so it's, it's the watch, it's the phone, and then in the boat, there's a data logger. and it records all the data from the workout, and then you can upload the [00:34:00] workouts, you know, whenever you want to.

So I, I record this stuff, it's there,I enter this stuff and then I just turn the data logger on when I'm in the boat. And then once, once a week or once every two weeks, I go in and I pull it all together and then I, and I upload it. you know, in terms of what would you get out of, doing it, much more frequently than that.

mean, the one thing I would think is like when your heart rate variability and your resting pulse, are screwed up, or when the rate of perceived exertion for a workout seems to be a lot higher than it should be,sometimes it's a pretty clear indicator that you're about to get sick.

so that can be useful. But generally speaking, I like, I, I capture the data and then I look at it once a week or so. 

Speaker: Super. No, that, thank you for, taking us into some of these details and sounds like you have done a, a good job of like looking at that data, but like not obsessing over it because that can also be the other end of that, like constantly looking at the data to, to try to explain things.[00:35:00] 

So again, maybe just a high level question, Greg. Like what. any other things that have helped you just stay at the top for so long? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I mean, I joked about it at the beginning of this, it's on the way to work. if the gym is in between your house and your office, the odds of you using it are going to go way up, right?

if all you have, if you're running to work or running home, the odds of you running are gonna go way up, right? I've had the same job for the last 15 years. I've had the same commute for the last 15 years. I, my kids are at a point right now where they've been out of the house for about 10 years.

so in, in terms of consistency, I think that, I think I've been able to be, you know, , the circumstances that I'm living in. have, have been enabling of consistency. and, you know, if you're only training two or three times a week,you should have a good time doing it, but you're not doing it enough where you're really able to get any kind of training effect because, you know it, it's just it.

But I've been able to get [00:36:00] in, eight to 10 to 12 hours a week, for the last 15 years. and when I look at my peer group,you know, some of them don't live, live near a river. job changes, major life changes. Honestly, at some point, it, it starts coming down to if you're, if you're lucky from a health standpoint.

so I think the consistency has been a huge part of it. aside from, so Nutrition's gotten a lot more serious in the last three years. Strength training has gotten a lot more serious in the last five years. the other thing that I've, gotten much better at, and it's hard to do this if you have small children, is sleep.

if I'm getting up at four 30 in the morning, I can pretty much get myself into bed at eight to start reading and turn the lights out at nine. And,I've also been able to kind of correlate that as your training load goes up, you, your recovery needs need to go up and you need to think about, the different.

Ways that you're trying to stack the stress. But, you know, the amount and quality of sleep is a [00:37:00] huge thing. I think nutrition strength training, approach to, sleep and, sustained consistency are kind of all that's sort of a formula.

Speaker: Sure. Yes. 

Speaker 2: I'm guessing this, I'm guessing this rhymes with some other people that you talk to. 

Speaker: yeah. It absolutely does. It absolutely does. I think the themes here are, let's say, designing an environment around you that allows you to To train and do your sport. I mean, it could be something like, climbers will have a home gym or a home ball.

It could be living by the ocean if you're a surfer. So it's, some of those things are parallel and then, 

Speaker 2: and, and that, and that community dynamic. so I'm guessing, I'm guessing you've heard of Steve Seiler. So he's a, an endurance, researcher. Texas guy lives in Norway, and he was doing a podcast with somebody about, about the Norwegian, distance sport,cross country skiing, triathlon, middle distance running.

And he, he was talking about how the culture in Norway [00:38:00] is extremely supportive of power, endurance sports, and, the idea of being in a club that. Of 600 people that cares about rowing and the idea of being in a city that has, where rowing has a very visible presence. I mean, this is a, it's a big part of, I mean, on the one hand you like to do it for yourself, but on the other hand, you, you, you like feeling like you're part of, something, you know, little bit bigger.

Speaker: Absolutely. I'm so glad you pointed the aspect out. I would say that is absolutely universal across all of these sports and across individuals who have been doing that sport for a long time. I know that for myself, there are days when I don't really wanna move or go and train, but the idea of seeing like one friend, you know, which.

Access, accountability, and also just, a source of just joy. I think that helps me at least across that threshold. 

Speaker 2: Towards, yeah, the, the, the, yeah, the locker room. The locker room at the boat club. If you're not there on a, like the next time, the next day when you're there, somebody was like, Hey, you okay, why aren't you here yesterday?

You know? 

Speaker: Ah, [00:39:00] yeah. Yeah. 

Speaker 2: And you go out, you go out and you're single and you do the workout on your own. But, right. People check in on themselves, check in on each other in the locker room. 

Speaker: That makes absolute sense. Let's take a second and talk about what a, a week's worth of training looks like.

We talked about the diet. Mm-hmm. And are you trying to row, let's say almost every day that you go into work and you stop and row, is it an everyday thing? Is it. Is it, where you follow that kind of stack where like one day you are rowing a lot, other day you are in the weight room, Yeah. Yeah.

Describe to us what that week looks like. 

Speaker 2: So there's a, there's a macro cycle, right? So there's a, a full 52 week and it gears around, you know, the A races. and I, I only try to peak once a year. So I, I, I, focus on, you know, on late October, early November. you finish those races. You have a few weeks where you just only do what you feel like doing.

And then, at the beginning of December, I pick it back up again and start [00:40:00] base training for the next year. So December through the end of March. His base training and,it's typically, you know, it's a, monthly pattern where it's build, build, you know, cut,build, cut,build, cut, and you're looking at total training load.

and, I'll track it for both cardio and, you know, a, a strength premium, from the, for the weight workouts. But a typical week would be,on a Saturday you do your VO two max work. So it's short intervals kind of stuff. Sunday you do a long cross training day. so it's a, 

Speaker: I'm sorry.

when you talk about intervals cost, you're talking about this is time in the water. 

Speaker 2: well in the, in the base training, it's December, so you, you know, you're off the water, you're indoors. oh, so you're on the rowing machine. 

Speaker: Okay. Oh, on the rowing machine. Okay. 

Speaker 2: yeah, yeah. So you do your, you do your speed, you do your speed work on the rowing machine, and, if you're familiar with interval workouts, this is, typically a OT workout.

So it's one-to-one work rest at your maximum five minute pace. So it's, it's, you know, [00:41:00] it's pretty hard. It's zone five. It's pretty hard stuff, and it's a durability focused workout. so you do your hard workout on Saturday, Saturday afternoon, you take a long nap. Sunday is a, a long, low active recovery plus dumbbell day.

Monday is a big day at work, so Monday is typically my rest day. Tuesday would be a, a ut two day,and maybe dumbbells. Wednesday would be a threshold day. Thursday would be a UT one day and maybe, sorry, what does 

Speaker: ut 

Speaker 2: ut one day? So, yeah, so within the aerobic zone, there's, you know, and this is generally conversational pace, so you know, for me, like UT three is, the lowest one.

And you can do it without breaking a sweat, right? 

Speaker: Ah, oh, 

Speaker 2: UT two, UT two is 

Speaker: UT zone. Okay, got it. 

Speaker 2: Its UT two. You can have a nice long conversation ut one you can speak in full sentences. 

Speaker: Right. 

Speaker 2: So these are all, these are all sub two MMOL aerobic kind of mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Condition. And that's, yeah, and [00:42:00] that's terminology I think that's used.

Across sports. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's across sport. And you know, what you're generally looking at is what kind of power can you produce without having too much cardiac drift. 

Speaker: yeah. 

Speaker 2: so you don't want your heart rate going up, you just wanna be doing steady state. so. the bulk of the work is in terms of total time, is in that aerobic zone.

and then there's a threshold day in the middle. rest day ut two threshold, ut one another kind of ut two day and then back Saturday, and you're doing the VO two max stuff. as the weeks go on, you'll add more time,at the lower intensities. So it might go from eight to nine to 10 to 11 hours, like one week, two week three, week four, and then you cut it back down to eight hours and you go again and you cut it back down and you go again.

But my idea with winter base training is to just pile in a bunch of aerobic training, get in two to three strength workouts a week, do one day a threshold, one day of VO two max, and come out of winter. in relatively good shape. And the reward that we give ourselves [00:43:00] is this, is, are these races in Amsterdam.

so we put up with all of this slogging through the ice and snow to get to the boathouse and when we start doing the count, we being, 'cause we go over there at eight, so it's everybody. So we'll, we'll start counting down the weeks. Yeah. and, and that gets us through base training and right around now is when you're getting back onto the water.

so, then it'll get sports specific and most of the time, between now and October we'll be in the boat. it's a similar sort of workout pattern where you're mixing energy zones and Got it. Strength workouts and a lot always an emphasis on technical skills. 

Speaker: Got it.

Greg, , sounds like a lot of the training is either. Or it's with a rowing machine to simulate perhaps the same kind of muscular 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker: Stress. What about, and you mentioned that you use dumbbells, for a second there. Yeah. So what type of training are you doing, which is not rowing specific? 

Speaker 2: there's, and this has also stepped up quite a bit in the last one to [00:44:00] three to five years,a lot of, mobility work.

a lot of functional, what is that like? 

Speaker: What's the mobility work like? What's the functional stuff? Like what type of weight are you throwing around? 

Speaker 2: Well, let's just say one, one thing that might suggest that you're good for rowing is you aren't very good at, at anything that involves a ball and a right.

So it, it, it rowers. Rowers generally don't have the best reputation for hand-eye coordination. I think the whole idea of, of, dynamic mobility and flow exercises and, breath training, and, brain endurance training in terms of stimulus response, speed of response, variability of response, rate of correct response.

'cause these all translate back into balance in the boat and being able to execute a, execute something you know, faster and faster. And if, you know, if it's a six minute race and it's a stroke every two seconds and you can shave, two tenths of a second off of dead space in the stroke, that's a lot of time that you can transfer over into time that the OA is pushing the [00:45:00] boat through the water.

So there's some. Cross training around, like I said, around mobility speed skills, you know, the dumbbell work. a lot of it is for me is tied to what's going on in my lower back. I've had two shoulder surgeries and I've blown four discs.

I can train, but I've got a narrow margin for error. So what that means is no heavy lifts. a lot of lighter lifts with a focus on velocity. and I also tend to, if the water is lousy because there's a lot of wind and waves and it's a high intensity day,I'll, I'll, I'll go on the rowing machine and, and stay out of the boat.

'cause the boat bounces around underneath you a lot. And that can, that can, that can give you a back injury. so, yeah, I mean, if you are a runner or a swimmer or a cyclist and you were looking at, at, you know, any of the cross training mixes, it's, it's the same. Although, you know, I, I can do running and swimming and cycling, you know, as part of my rowing cross training.

So, it's all about, I'm in the zone and proprioceptive skills and, application of [00:46:00] strength and, trying to minimize counterproductive things. 

Speaker: Very helpful. And yes. the last thing, yeah, minimizing things that don't contribute and take things away. 

Speaker 2: Oh, there's a lot of that. I, I mean, it's, I think it's, I think it's constructive.

. Take fewer bad strokes, right? suck less. , It's not negative. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's inversion thinking, right? You know, you're, you're saying, you know, a, a less negative is positive.

Speaker: Greg, do you work with a coach? Like how have you learned how to design and refine this program? 

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that's a, that's an interesting question. This year in particular, with this, because I've created a virtual high performance committee for myself. and typically at the master's level, coaches like masters because they can afford to pay coaching fees, but they like juniors because juniors get better, right?

And, the college coaches, their job is coaching, you know, , their teams. The high school coaches, their job is coaching their teams and rower, masters, rowers tend to [00:47:00] practice when they can practice based on lifestyle stuff. So getting consistent coaching can be a challenge.

So what you'll wind up doing is turning yourself into a self coach. and you spend a lot of time talking to coaches, but not in the context of them having eyes on you in the boat. I mean, occasionally they'll be out there, they'll film some video and they'll send you and they'll say, here's what I see.

But a lot of times, like, you know, today I had some interaction with, a university coach around, this, this topic of relaxation. and he had asked me what did I think it meant to me? And I went away and I thought about it, and I'm coming back at him with. The functional points of view of a high performance committee.

So here's what a physiologist would say it is. Here's what a, a strength coach would say it is. Here's what a mechanic would say it is. Here's what a sports psychiatrist, sports psychologist would say it is. you know, and 

Speaker: hang on on, you said this is a, a virtual committee, so did you just like 

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Create this with tragedy gt? 

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So what I did was I, I was developing my tracker, right? And I was inputting all this stuff. [00:48:00] And then, I was reading an article about. The high performance committee that was connected with one of the Tour de France teams all of the specialists that were involved.

And I think in particular, I was listening to a podcast, by a guy named, Ingo, who's at,, university of Colorado Boulder. And he, he's a, he's an expert in lactate testing and he focuses on the UAE cycling team. But he is, his other life is, he applies this into metabolic disease and in particular, diabetes and cancer.

And his argument is you gotta focus on high performing physiology so you can understand what goes on in a disease state. So, okay, that's interesting. But, you know, the, the podcaster was asking him about who else was on the committee. And I, I've been involved in, in Rowing's, national governing body. I was on the board of US rowing for a few years and, we had a high performance committee and I'd sit in on their meetings.

It was typically a bunch of coaches, but I said, so what's a gold standard? I went on to, chat GPT and I said, what's the composition of a gold standard high performance committee for a power endurance Olympic sport? And it said, [00:49:00] you've got a per a high performance director.

You've gotta start there. You've got a physiologist, you've got a strength trainer, you've got a nutritionist, you've got a recovery specialist, you've got a medical doctor, you've got a mechanic, you've got a sport. I says, sports psychologist already you've got, and you've got a data analyst. And I said, okay, go through.

And for power endurance sports, look at people that have a large amount of published, research. Who are in, involved in and around power, endurance sports. Could be quadrupedal. It could be bipedal. So it could be, it could be rowing, it could be swimming, it could be cycling, it could be running, it could be cross country skiing.

It could be a gimme four names. and who do I start with? And I said, start with the high performance director. So I picked one. I said, okay, gimme a physiologist. Pick one, gimme a strength trainer. Pick one, on down the list. Right? and some of the names overlapped and I excluded them in one rule.

And then I said, okay, I want these people to all stay in their lanes in terms of their functional expertise. I want everything that they say to be cross-referenced, back to their [00:50:00] research and to peer group research that would be, you know, supportable in a, in a third party review.

And I started feeding the data sheet into that group and saying, what are you seeing from each of your perspectives? That's where the insight, that's where the insight about stacking stress factors on hard days came from. because, and, and, and then I got the, the, the, the virtual committee members talking to each other.

I said, debate this between the two of you. I said, okay, now put together a paper that's that's at a caliber that, that where you could submit it for a professional peer group review. it's like, and you ask these questions and, and it only takes it like a minute to give you the answer, right?

And you're kind of like, oh, that's cool. That's pretty cool. yeah, I think just in terms of, So from, in terms of who am I getting coaching tips from, in terms of my approach to trying to make my body feel better,and, I asked. When I was doing lactate testing.

So that, that's one where you get on a rowing machine and you do a series of four minute steps, right? It's like you're [00:51:00] going in for a stress test at a hospital, right? And you're rowing on the machine. And they say, okay, do this wattage. And then you take a break, they prick your ear, they draw blood, and then they say, okay, take it up 20 watts, take it up 20 watts, take it up 20 watts.

And what they're trying to do is see where you're crossing aerobic and anaerobic threshold. And, so I did it in December and then I uploaded all my data and I said to the committee, okay, what should, what should the watt target lodges be for the March test? And it said, we recommend you do this.

and it was up 20%. And I went into the, the coach that was doing the test, and I said, okay, here are the wattages. I'm gonna do that. And he goes, well what's the basis for that? And I, and I said, like. This or the other thing. Trust me, I'm trying to, I'm trying to refine the shape of the curve.

I'm not trying to figure out what my, if I, what, how much I could suffer at the highest level. And, I, I nailed the numbers that the thing predicted. and it was a 10% improvement off of the December test. So if you're 64 years old and you can improve your wattage at aerobic threshold by 10% in 90 [00:52:00] days, that's, that, that's like, that's better than like, like most things they say, oh, it'll improve your performance by one to 3%.

Right? you know, it, this was not some incidental claim. It was like, hmm, okay, yes, 

Speaker: Craig, like for a power endurance sport, the common belief is that once you get to a certain age, you can only at best maintain, but. But you are improving. 

Speaker 2: Well, that over that 90 day period. 

Speaker: right.

Speaker 2: You know, you know, again, what matters is in October and you know, you gotta, like if I was critiquing my performance in and around this, this March race, I don't think I managed my taper very well. Like, I decided to jam in a hard workout right before I got in the plane. And then I get over there and I'm like, why did you do that?

You know? So, that's, but 

Speaker: Greg, 

Speaker 2: that's a place, that's a place where a real coach would be helpful. 'cause a real coach would sit on you. 

Speaker: sure. but Greg, what about like, yeah, I get it. This was over the 90 day period, but what about over the years and the dec decades? Like how does your performance today [00:53:00] stack against how you were doing over the decades?

And maybe this is, particularly interesting because you, I think also a beating. People in their forties. I'm guessing that there are some things that are happening that you're doing, which are impressive. 

Speaker 2: I think to some degree. so when you're looking at somebody in their thirties or their forties, they're in a different life space in terms of, of work-life balance and their ability to, you know, to, to train.

I think that I've gotten marginally more efficient. to answer your question about how am I doing relative to. Back when, so this race in Italy, it's a, it's about a 45 minute race. And,it's an interesting distance in that it's definitely above anaerobic threshold. , and it's hard.

That's a tough distance. so in 2007, I went over and I, I did a time of x. And if you regressed my times from 2007 to 2026, my average speed [00:54:00] decline over a 45 minute race has been about three seconds per year. so it's pretty flat. I mean, three seconds is basically one boat length. 20 years, 2020 boat length.

and that's, a boat length is about,three seconds. Yeah. So I've slowed down about a minute in 20 years. and I think a lot of that is a, is a function of efficiency. I mean, if I, if I looked at myself back then, you know, it was like, okay, yeah, I was, I mean, I was fast for the age group, but in terms of my technical efficiency now, I think I'm, you know, like the kind of stuff that we were just talking about.

That's the right way to do it. and, you don't have a lot of hands-on coaching. so you had, it takes a while to figure this stuff out. and I think there are more tools now. I mean, if you had AI 20, 25 years ago and knew how to ask the questions, you get, but, self-learning is a hard way to do it.

Speaker: Greg, this is so badass. So I am wondering if, if you had some words to share for people listening who are practicing other sports as well, [00:55:00] on how they might also continue finding even improvements Yeah. In their,fifties, sixties, beyond, 

Speaker 2: yeah. yeah. I did something on this, a little while ago where, what I do at.

Beginning so that like the races end in October, November, and I'll screw it around for a few weeks. Right? What I'll do during that period is I'll sit down and I'll go, okay, make a list of everything that you can get better at. And the, and I've got the benefit of having the list from the beer before, right?

So you, you just say, what are your strengths that you can get better at? And what are the, what are your weaknesses that you can suck less at? And then you go through them and you say, okay, what's the magnitude of the change that I can make there? how hard would it be to make a 1% change?

So this is a, a marginal gains exercise, right? and you say, okay, here's the list. which ones are the easiest, right? And you, you take two or three of them, you don't do more than that. You take two or three of them and you focus on them for a couple [00:56:00] of 2, 3, 4 weeks and you systematize them and then you come back to the list and you say, what are the next three things?

And you might make the list bigger at that point, 'cause you may have thought of some other stuff. I think this whole idea of just identifying, areas for really easy marginal improvement,with this fitness app, the food app, if you're writing it down every day, the quality of the stuff you tend to eat tends to go up.

'cause you feel, you feel bad about writing down that you sucked down some junk food and you know, like you're looking at how it contributed to your macros and you're like, well that was sort of worthless. so I, I think the whole idea of just. Figuring out things that you can get a little bit better at.

And it can be across the whole training system, right? or your whole life. Like just de-stressing one part of your life is going to make you faster in your sport. you know, I mean, sleep's the obvious one. it's a big one, right? so can you get 1% better sleep, 1% better sleep, right?

[00:57:00] that you, you're like, yeah, I should be able to do that. Okay. How do you do that? Well, you focus on the sleep hygiene and you, you know, like you, you shut off the screens a little bit earlier. you know, you, you read, so you fall asleep better or you know, you cut down on, on water intake, before you go to sleep, so you don't have to wake up in the middle of the night and go to bathroom that, but figuring out ways to just find three things that you can be 1% better at in the next two to three weeks.

Speaker: Yeah, I think. I think that's a good starting point is Yeah, 

Speaker 2: but if you keep doing this, eventually those three, three things get pretty far out on the edge and you're finding yourself looking for things that like national team athletes are doing. and would you, you'll actually get to a place where you're finding things that national team athletes don't know anything about.

Speaker: Oh, wow. Would you say that using AI can be a big advantage in this exercise? 

Speaker 2: you have to,profile yourself accurately. 

you have to, so you have to have a document of, you have to have documents of truth because otherwise, the way the algorithms work is they [00:58:00] generalize and they synthesize, and they're also programmed to make you.

feel like you got something accomplished. So 

Speaker: little, little, little psychotic if you 

Speaker 2: don't box. Yeah. So, so I went in, I went in and, you know, like the Dutch have a reputation for being direct, right? And this high perform, virtual high performance director happens to be a Dutch coach. So I, I said, look, act like you're a Dutch coach.

Be direct, be blunt, be supportive. Don't just tell me things because I wanna hear them. And all of a sudden it was like, whoa, where'd this guy come from? 'cause it was really direct. so you can, you can, you, can you can say, tell me what you're seeing in the data. Tell me only stuff that's supportable in relevant research.

Mm-hmm. Tell me stuff that's gonna be, supportable in a peer review. but so to some degree it's about. you gotta learn how to use it. But I, for professionally at work, I've found this personal exercise where I actually know a little bit about myself and my rowing, and I'm able to like, tell the AI model what I want out of it.

I'm actually carrying that back over into my applications of AI [00:59:00] at work, because now I know how to use it better. 

Speaker: Sure. Greg wanted to talk for a second about mental resilience. Yeah. And anytime one has done one activity or a sport for a long time, there are periods where you honestly just get exhausted and the, you know, the, the initial charm is not quite there.

Have you had such periods? 

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, right now. so I, flew over to Europe, had a conference for a week, raced on the weekend, had business meetings for a week, raced on the weekend, flew back to the US and then had a conference in New York for a week. So it was three solid weeks of, the travel and the racing.

it beat my body up and it mentally exhausted me. like right now. You know, I'm, I'm kind of in one of those transit mini transition periods where I'm only, I'm only doing what I feel [01:00:00] like doing and that's the way I coach myself. It's like, you know, you get to this point where, you know, you've overloaded and then, you need to recover, right?

end of October every year, sorry, beginning of end, end of October, af after head of the Charles and Silver Skiff. I'm, I'm done for a few weeks. so, I've been able to limit, the over training because I think when you get into that kind of chronic over training, that can really affect, you know, how you deal with things.

I've used performance coaches, you know, when I've had, a combination of stress factors, not just sport related, but you know. Work related and you know, everything else. So when you've got a, a pile of stress, coming at you, I think, I think, you're sitting down and like kind of helping to sort through it and organize things is, really helpful.



Speaker 2: physically, the biggest break I had was, the first time I blew a disc. I didn't race for four years. I didn't train for two years and, it was just, it was just a case of it hurt too much. and,training you put on, you put on 30 pounds of [01:01:00] weight and, you know, you start getting, bummed out and, you know, I think the.

The key thing when you get into these places, whether it's a macro or a micro down cycle, is just saying to yourself, what do I feel like doing today? and, you know, it's like, okay, I don't feel like doing this. Well, I'll go do something else. I'll, I'll go for a walk or go for a hike, or, go skiing or go fishing or something like that and just keep moving.

And eventually, if you're plugged into that community, this is where the, like the, the boat club is really helpful. the, the, the people there. you know, if you're plugged into that community, eventually you'll find your way back. But it's, you know, it's okay. It's okay to take breaks. but you know, it's, it's, in some ways it's also an opportunity to just get a little bit more self-awareness.

and, and it's like, okay, why don't I feel like doing this? and you know, for some people, I mean, the reason they did it was they enjoy it. They really enjoyed being part of a team and they, like, they really enjoyed the shared experience. And there are a lot of people that do it in university, and then they, they, they drop out because, they don't like doing it on their own.

you know, there are people at our [01:02:00] club that only enjoy rowing in team boats that don't like doing it on their own. I think to some degree it's like, it's okay to take a break. It's okay to just do what you feel like doing and, I think it's just a, an opportunity for a little bit more self-awareness.

Speaker: Greg, while you were training and performing over the decades, now you're at this point where it sounds like your kids have. Left home. So that's one less responsibility. And perhaps your career has also evolved over time, but going back to maybe those years when you were at your busiest, what was one thing that you protected no matter what?

Speaker 2: my thirties and my forties, it was wife and kids job, and then try to get the rowing in when it didn't conflict with either of those things. and, you know, the, the, this idea of doing it on the way to work, you know, was pretty elegant in terms of being able to slip it right in, in [01:03:00] between, you know, other things because if, if the rest of the world is asleep.

Then, it's your time. so I think I've been quite, lucky in that regard. you know, my, my work schedule now, I have a lot of clients in Europe, so if I get up at, you know, four in the morning, and there's something going on at work that requires an appropriate amount of, professional attention, I'll prioritize work over rowing.

I think they appreciate that. They know that they can reach me. if, if like they wanna get hold of me, they know I'll be getting up at four and they know if it's important that I'll put them first, at four in the morning. My wife doesn't wanna hear anything. She's just, she's like, I'm sleeping.

Whatever, whatever you're doing, just don't bother me. , yeah, kids are out of the house, but I, yeah, I think, I think, I think that whole idea of. How do you fit it in so that it doesn't conflict with other things and you don't have to make those choices. that's been, you know, I talked about the privilege of being in a fast team boat, but having a, a work life situation where I'm able to work that in, I think is also kind of a privilege.

So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of lucky in that way. 

Speaker: [01:04:00] Beautiful. Greg, coming to the last part of the conversation, this has been such a delight. I call this the ageless section. 

Speaker 2: Uhhuh. 

Speaker: Okay. So what feels simpler now than it used to?

Speaker 2: I've got a training plan that is basically dialed in and I'm just making adjustments to it on the edges. 

Speaker: Great. What is one thing that you feel you are better at today than you were 20 years ago? 

Speaker 2: _ Less wasted energy, _

Speaker: less wasted energy. When you think about the next decade, what are you most excited about?

Speaker 2: that's an interesting question in that it's something that comes up in peer conversations. 'cause a lot of people are transitioning out of professional lives and now it's the rest of their lives. I think I'm in a pretty lucky spot right now. In terms of [01:05:00] my marriage, in terms of my lifestyle, in terms of my work, in terms of my, sports stuff.

and, it's kind of like the longer, as long as I can keep what I've got going now, going 10 years, can I keep it going for another 10 years? That'd be fun. you know, I, I, I, you know, like if you said, can I keep it going for another five years? Yeah. I was talking to a guy, I did a, presentation on these marginal gains thing for a a, a master's conference.

And the host came back and said, what do you wanna do for next year's conference? And I said, I wanna talk to so and so. This guy was, is 88, 89. I said I, and so I'm 64, he's 89, and he's basically had a, a, a, a really good personal life and a really good athletic life, you know, for the last 20 years.

And I wanted to talk to him about how do you turn into him, right? Because I know that, like, I might be 40 year olds listening to this and they're saying, okay, what do I wanna be like when I'm in my mid sixties? What do I wanna be like when I'm in my mid eighties? I wanna be that guy, right?

and I said, what's your goal? And he said, I [01:06:00] wanna be the first person to row the head of the Charles at age a hundred. Wow. And, and, and, and I'm like, what do you think the key to that is? And he said, it's gonna take a lot of luck.

which was, you know, like it was to some degree, you know, you can't predict what life is gonna throw at you. So, 

Speaker: actually, on that note, you. Are certainly very open, bent to being scientific and being open to experimentation. Do you buy into any of the new found, , voices with regards to supplementation and any red light therapy like any of these biohacks?

Have you tried any of those things? You try, you, you, you do the AI stuff, which I think is amazing the way you have described it. But anything else that you have tried, which you have found has helped you or actually not helped you? 

Speaker 2: I think a lot of it is, marketing. so you know, when you see some of that stuff.

You can go do the research and you [01:07:00] find that a lot of it is unsubstantiated. I mean, there's a lot to be said for a good placebo effect psychologically. but I think a lot of it is, is a great way to rate waste money. I mean, you know, an example would be, you know, something like Creatin. I think creatine is worthwhile.

and, particularly when you get into your mid sixties, it's got some neuropsychologic benefits that are, you know, that are interesting. but when you look at all the mixes and blends and, varieties and all that kind of stuff, just the straight stuff, some NSF version of it that doesn't have anything added in is the way to go.

you know, all the protein stuff that's out there, the closer it is to a whole food, the better. you know, the carbs that are out there, the closer it is, the whole food, the better. , I think the longevity industry, is a lot of, there, there's an awful lot of hype there.

and if you're eating right, if you're focusing on your aerobic fitness and you're doing some strength training and you're getting your sleep in, for 99% of the people, like the trick is not signing up for some really expensive service or something like that.

The trick is figuring out what, what's [01:08:00] gonna motivate you to actually go out and, and do it. you know, I think, you know, one, one area that I, that I dabbled in and around in is some of the, the neuropsych brain endurance training. And it's kind of like if you were doing. Strength training or you were doing cardio training, you can do, you can take an interval training approach to those stimulus response things on a computer screen.

and I find that's actually useful in terms of range of motion. If I do it with my arm extended in the range of motion is a couple of inches that's very similar to what I have to do at the end of the rowing stroke. so I'll sign up for one of those things like for a month, twice a year and just, do a little block training, 50 bucks a month and then I shut it off.

I'm not gonna pay them 600 bucks a, a month for something I don't use. the strength training fad that's coming in right now, you know, I think, Spending some time about around what's functionally actually going to improve your, your mobility and your balance and your functional strength.

But I mean, there's a [01:09:00] lot of there. it's really funny to see all of these gyms shifting towards, like weight training and, you know, you know, the backside of the whole ozempic,oh, now I need to focus on building muscle mass kind of stuff. 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 2: yeah, I would, I would say that that the biggest things I've dove into the last one to three to five years have been nutrition.

what's the proper strength training for my, my, my situation, sleep quality and then, recovery tracking , application of AI across those things to sort of see patterns. but it's not. Generally, it's not stuff that I spend a lot. whole food protein costs more than, than cheap for,than whey powder, right?

So some of this stuff does cost more, but generally speaking, it's not about spending money on trendy stuff.

Speaker: Greg, do you ever wonder what you would be doing if rowing hadn't found its way into your life? 

Speaker 2: I think my intentions were when I went to college that I was gonna walk onto the track team. so I think I would [01:10:00] probably, still be running. I'm a,I'm actually a member of the BAA, the group that puts on the Boston Marathon.

So I, I still really enjoy, running. I just don't do that much of it anymore. so I think that would be the case. professionally, rowing had some connections to my first job in terms of networking into the alumni. so I don't know necessarily what I would be doing professionally if I hadn't done that professionally.

I wouldn't have gone to the grad school that I went to. If I didn't go to the grad school that I went to, I wouldn't have met my wife. so I think that decision to, you know, walk onto the crew actually had an awful lot of downstream effects. and, yeah, I mean, so, you know, everything's very different because of that.

so I, yeah, I, where I would be, what I'd be doing, probably something I, I'd probably be running, but the rest of it, I, I've no idea. 

Speaker: Sure thing. What does society get wrong about aging?



Speaker 2: I think in general, when you, when you're interacting with people, is it the, the, the question is, [01:11:00] is it, is it me or is it us? And individually and, and in groups, we tend to be sort of self-centered. I think that, as the last couple of, two, three decades of people that it might go back to the fitness boom and, you know, in the seventies and in the eighties, right?

But as those people get older and they stay more active,I think the stereotypes of what it is to be a certain age lag that, it's kind of interesting at the boat club when I'm interacting with somebody that's a, a high schooler or in their twenties and we start having a, a technical conversation and they're all like, oh, I can actually learn something from this person and, and I learn stuff from them.

you know, like they learn stuff from me. But I think that whole cross generational thing, I think the stereotypes lag the realities. I think the thing that's, the catalyst in all of that is whether or not you're,

You're interacting with people that.



Speaker 2: these friends of mine that are in their eighties and nineties, yeah, I'm actually learning a lot from them. 

Speaker: Wow. [01:12:00] Greg, final question. What does being ageless mean to you?

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny, I don't tend to think of myself. What, what if you, if you, if you sort of said, you know, what's your self identity? I don't think I would lead with, I'm 64. so, I think to some degree it's about self identity not being defined by you know, your birthday.

I mean. You know, it's more a function of, what do you do and what do you think and who are you interacting with and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I think being ageless is being more a function of, of active living than it is, than it is, you know a number. 

Speaker: I