Elias Arjan - BioStrap, Biohacking, & Advancements in Wearables

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[00:04:45] friends. I am your host Eric Malzone and once again welcome to the future of fitness.

[00:04:52] Elias Urjant welcome to the future of fitness my friend. It's an honor to be here it's a great

[00:04:56] podcast I've listened in preparation and I've enjoyed it. Yeah thank you I really appreciate

[00:05:01] that and I know you produce a ton of content and you know I think people who do a lot of

[00:05:07] content work understand that you know it's not just the recording time it's everything

[00:05:10] that goes into it so yeah first of all thanks for being a listener that's awesome really excited

[00:05:15] happy today. I'm going to try to make us sound interesting even if we're not so that's a talent

[00:05:19] in and of itself. Yeah here's the deal content just like everything else is a grind and yeah so

[00:05:29] let's focus on you because I'm just happy to get you in this chair I think you're an interesting

[00:05:34] cat you know from the background on you know from you know marketing guru to biohacker to

[00:05:43] auctioneer to you know founder of Biosdraps you're in the tech space you seem to be

[00:05:49] what I would like to call a multi-potential light right you like to do a lot of different things

[00:05:55] and you know have you on here and we can chat about all of your background I think the

[00:05:59] best place to always start. Well I guess it's just your your background man how did you get to

[00:06:04] where you are and give the listeners some of the road to there. Oh yeah sure well I guess first

[00:06:10] off I should just mention that I'm actually not a co-founder of Biosdraps I remember the executive

[00:06:14] team and been with the company for the last like two and some years so really part of sort of the

[00:06:19] new genesis of the company but my personal background is kind of interesting in regards

[00:06:25] to fitness I was that kid in high school that couldn't do one push-up you know just no upper body

[00:06:31] strength like you know always the last one when you did like the road race around the track I was

[00:06:36] always like the kid at the end you know and so I had a sort of one of those moments I think that

[00:06:43] happens to anybody in the when they come to or not everybody but some people when they come to

[00:06:48] fitness where you just say look I'm done I'm done with being in that being that guy and so

[00:06:53] I inspired actually by my grandfather initially and so I joined the gym didn't look back next thing

[00:06:59] you know I'm in college I'm a personal trainer studying exercise science and training for

[00:07:07] triathlons and so you know went through a big shift there and from that point on I just

[00:07:13] kind of became the guy who always wanted to see people succeed kind of became a bit of a coach

[00:07:19] mindset as I think coaching isn't necessarily profession it's a way of looking at the world

[00:07:24] you want to see other people succeed and you want to help them achieve their goals and so that just

[00:07:30] kind of became part of what I did whether I did that in business or in auctions you know trying

[00:07:34] to help charities raise money just trying to help people be at their best and you know and

[00:07:41] that's also what led me into the biohacking world so that's and I've lived in different parts

[00:07:48] of the world I've lived in the Caribbean and South America originally from Canada and I'm living

[00:07:53] just in Los Angeles where the team here a lot of the team here at BioStrap is well although we're

[00:07:58] remote and I actually was running a biohacking community here in Los Angeles when the founder

[00:08:05] and CEO of BioStrap came to one of our biohacking events and and it was a talk on HRV

[00:08:11] and it really for me was a moment where I said this is the product that I've been looking

[00:08:15] for as a biohacker because it solves the problem of quantifying everything that I'm doing

[00:08:21] because the whole world of biohacking and health and fitness is judged on very

[00:08:29] I think very weak parameters right like people are like do I have a six pack yet have I lost five

[00:08:35] pounds off the scale do I you know or or maybe but more subject do I feel better am I happier

[00:08:42] with myself you know these things are hard to quantify so I was always looking for something

[00:08:46] I could quantify and this wasn't possible when I was a trainer 20 years ago you didn't have

[00:08:52] wearables so we just had to kind of do our best and so I'm really excited about what's

[00:08:57] happening in the fitness space now and really excited to be part of BioStrap and the biohacking

[00:09:02] community and and creating a sort of a new world of potential. Yeah right on man there's

[00:09:09] so many things I appreciate and agree with in that short story you just laid out especially

[00:09:14] I think HRV is one of the most miss not just it's just not understood I'm not going to say

[00:09:20] misunderstood it's just not understood yet quite as much to the scale as you and I would

[00:09:25] probably like but it's it is a guiding light into you know we as fitness professionals who've

[00:09:30] been in the you know the trenches for a while you see that you don't know what people are

[00:09:35] doing when they leave your gym for those two or three hours you get them during the week you don't

[00:09:39] know and you know the real metrics of long-term health and longevity and overall fitness you

[00:09:46] know aren't graded by six packs or anything that we can actually visually see so to have these

[00:09:52] ways these insights into how our you know autonomic system is handling stress and you

[00:09:56] know how static load and all that it's I encourage people to keep learning and

[00:10:01] keep looking into tools like this because it's where the future is going and I want to get into

[00:10:07] a little bit more about your role in biohacking. I guess first of all how do you before you can

[00:10:14] talk about a thing you kind of have to define a thing yeah yeah how do you define biohacking?

[00:10:18] Yeah biohacking that's a great question actually like a lot of people define it different ways

[00:10:23] and so for me I mean I think it starts it for me it's a bit of a philosophy

[00:10:30] and I think a lot of people are biohackers without realizing it like I was a biohacker before the

[00:10:34] term existed and what I mean by that is that I always believe that there were ways that I could

[00:10:40] optimize my system that were maybe challenging or on the edge of science and possibility

[00:10:50] and so what I mean by that is you know when again looking back at the history of fitness

[00:10:54] you know a lot of times people were on a treadmill for an hour at the gym thinking

[00:10:58] that was a good thing to do and now we know you could do high intensity interval training for 15

[00:11:03] minutes and get better results than spending an hour on the treadmill right that's essentially

[00:11:08] biohacking that's your finding shortcuts hacks if you will to hack the biology to optimize

[00:11:14] things more rapidly and more effectively so it makes a lot of sense to be part of our modern

[00:11:19] culture because you know time is speeding up in some ways so we need to find these hacks to

[00:11:24] shorten that cycle so that's kind of the first layer to me is the mindset but the really important

[00:11:30] part and and to me this is the the thing I try to focus on in my work as a as an educator in the

[00:11:36] biohacking community is this whole n equals one my philosophy because the one size fits all approach

[00:11:43] to fitness and health and even medical treatment is kind of it's time for it to go into the

[00:11:49] dustbin of history we got to be done with this thing it's not working if it worked we wouldn't

[00:11:54] have 60% of the population living with a chronic disease four out of you know 40% of people with

[00:12:01] more two or more chronic conditions I mean rampant obesity you know obviously what we're doing

[00:12:07] is working so this idea of n equals one for those of you not familiar just to quickly

[00:12:12] summarize that the end in research refers to the the end number is the sum total of

[00:12:17] participants in the study and an n of one means that you are the sum total of the participants

[00:12:23] in your own study and that to me says everything right because that implies immediately I'm owning

[00:12:30] the fact that my life is an experiment and I'm going to research it and I'm going to optimize

[00:12:36] myself because the ownership is on me and I'm not going to outsource my health and even my fitness

[00:12:42] to anybody now I need a coach I need a trainer I need a doctor but I don't give up my power

[00:12:52] I love it and I guess you when you look at biohacking as a whole I mean everybody seems to be

[00:12:57] kind of getting their own formula right for like where so now that we've defined it let's go into

[00:13:06] maybe your personal I guess recipe for biohacking like what do you use on a what do you focus

[00:13:12] on what do you use on a daily is it you know ice baths do you use uh you know particular pieces

[00:13:18] of technology like what is your what's your I guess I'm a I'm a little bit of a I'm I mean I guess I'm

[00:13:25] very fortunate because I work so actively in the space and I work with Biosdrap so I get a lot of

[00:13:30] tech a lot of supplements like access to a lot of protocol I believe or not I have a hyperbaric

[00:13:35] oxygen therapy chamber right next to me that I'm currently testing so I have like red light

[00:13:39] therapy I mean I have access to everything you know percussive therapy and you know a lot of tech

[00:13:46] I often say though like for me the first layer of biohacking is dialing in the basics right being

[00:13:52] you know are you like sleep sleep I think is still you know right now it's the best performance

[00:13:58] enhancement drug in the world right and everyone's agreed upon that at this point so that's why

[00:14:02] also at Biosdrap you know it's really the premium sleep device again part of the reason why

[00:14:08] I'm part of the company is because you know there's nothing I've ever found that could quantify my

[00:14:12] sleep better and just for people listening sleep is not recovery a lot of people think they're the

[00:14:19] same thing if I'm sleeping I'm recovering and that's why even on the Biosdrap app there's two scores

[00:14:24] there's a sleep score and a recovery score and they can be completely different scores I could

[00:14:28] have a sleep score of 90 and a recovery score of 20 and that kind of throws people off right

[00:14:34] as soon as they get a wearable like Biosdrap that's one of the first things that people don't

[00:14:38] understand you know what why why are those two different things I kind of went off topic there

[00:14:44] for a minute but I guess the thing around biohacking and the reason I like using wearable

[00:14:50] technology and the reason I like using Biosdrap and how I started with the company as a biohacker

[00:14:54] is I wanted to do something like hyperbaric oxygen therapy and see does that change my

[00:14:59] biometrics if I do ice baths how does that change my biometrics and we're not just talking about like

[00:15:06] that day it's more about longitudinal changes over time so you got to be tracking yourself not

[00:15:12] one point a day every once in a while that's not enough data you got to look at a bit more of

[00:15:19] a continuous recording sleep is probably the best place to do it but if you're doing HRV

[00:15:24] there's some you know people really trying to refine how you can do point recording of HRV

[00:15:29] but even if you're going to do that you still need to look at that longitudinally over weeks or

[00:15:33] months not days and hours that's when you're seeing oh is this biohack actually working for me

[00:15:41] yeah you know it's kind of bringing in like business terminology what would you say are your

[00:15:46] KPIs for your health and longevity like HRV you name one right I would presume but what are they

[00:15:53] well I'd say actually I mean for me yeah HRV is definitely one but that's always going to fluctuate

[00:15:59] to be quite honest right so so you know I'm more I've become a professional sleeper with a sleep

[00:16:05] with Biosdrab you know I can consistently get my sleep scores like over 80 you know pretty much

[00:16:11] every night that my recovery score isn't obviously there but my sleep scores are consistently

[00:16:14] good so I've optimized that environment you know extremely dark you know slightly elevated

[00:16:20] the head of the bed you know extremely cold you know pre bedtime preparation grounding first thing in

[00:16:28] the morning going out in the sun you know unfortunately I live in southern California I'm from Canada

[00:16:33] originally so that this is a you know I've lived in once I figured out I could live closer to

[00:16:37] the equator I pretty much have done that ever since because I do a lot better health wise and

[00:16:42] the sunshine so I look for all of the things that kind of optimize that and and I've become

[00:16:47] extremely good at optimizing sleep and then of course movement becomes an essential especially

[00:16:53] these days we're on zoom I'm on zoom you know sometimes almost all day and so I make sure I get

[00:16:59] my activity my movement I've even started doing something actually it's just kind of fun I've

[00:17:04] started doing like micro breaks between my zoom calls because I built a home gym in my office

[00:17:09] and so in between a zoom call I'll jump up and do some kettlebell swings you know just

[00:17:14] for three minutes between calls just to get the body activated and to be kind of even jumping from

[00:17:22] that sympathetic to parasympathetic activation just to kind of keep the body dynamic I like that

[00:17:30] yeah I like that a lot so sleep man everybody does it some people do well a lot of people don't

[00:17:37] right how do you optimize your sleep or I mean you mentioned temperature or is there any do

[00:17:42] you have like a tech stack there you're using to optimize sleep like one of these like an oolr

[00:17:47] you know system or one of those what do you do yeah I mean we're probably I mean I'm living in

[00:17:52] Southern California kind of the deserts we're probably just spending a lot of money on just

[00:17:55] keeping the house cold at night to be quite honest rather than using that I for myself

[00:18:01] one of the biggest things that I have found is making sure that I'm not going to sympathetic

[00:18:06] sleeping is just not having anything in my stomach so I just don't I don't eat I try to eat you know

[00:18:13] as early as possible sometimes it's not always possible but I don't snack in the evening that for

[00:18:18] me personally intermittent fasting actually has been one of the biggest game changers my personal

[00:18:22] health not saying it's for everybody I know even for some works better for men than for women but

[00:18:31] for me that's been one of the ultimate game changers has been doing that and then I guess in

[00:18:37] general too my hope my house looks like a submarine after dark I have only red lights I don't actually

[00:18:44] have any blue lights that even get turned on in my house much to the chagrin of my wife

[00:18:50] sometimes who thinks it's pretty dark but she's willing to put up with that

[00:18:54] and then there's a couple other things that I found depending on what I've done that day if

[00:19:00] I've had a really intense workout like a crossfit workout I do percussive therapy before bed and I

[00:19:07] find that really helps with the parasympathetic activation or sometimes I'll do red light therapy

[00:19:13] or even PMF therapy because I found that all three of those from a tech standpoint really

[00:19:20] helped me with my parasympathetic activation and I have like a sleep latency of next to zero

[00:19:26] you know it's like when my head hits the pillow I'm down. Wow jealous yeah it's uh you know I'm

[00:19:32] always trying to optimize like we just moved into a new house and um you know I'm in northwest

[00:19:37] Montana so we get long days in the summer right and even with blackout curtains that we put up

[00:19:43] in our room there's still light sneaking in everywhere and the light you know sun doesn't

[00:19:46] go down until 10 you know it doesn't go dark till 10 30 and then we got a heat spell and it's just you

[00:19:52] know I've noticed death like today actually was the first day I got good sleep last night in like five

[00:19:59] days and it was so you know I think most of the time when we talk about HRV and stuff like that

[00:20:04] people are like well you know I go by the way I feel right okay great great you can do that

[00:20:09] but why not have the data but one of the thing I've always noticed is that I can almost

[00:20:13] guess my HRV score by the way I feel in the morning like I'm not shocked right some people are like well

[00:20:20] jeez you know that didn't make sense at all I'm like really because most of the time

[00:20:25] I am rarely shocked with what my recovery or HRV score says yeah actually I've noticed that from a

[00:20:31] lot of self-aware people who have like a fitness background that um even if they weren't aware

[00:20:37] before they had a wearable so before they had say biostrap and then they start to

[00:20:42] start to notice the relationship between that objective subjective so it's like oh my recovery

[00:20:48] when my recovery score is at 30 this is how I feel and when my recovery score is at 90

[00:20:52] this is how I feel and then they get to the point I know some people that I talked to who are

[00:20:57] like basically almost basically athletes or professional athletes and at least they play

[00:21:01] a game with themselves before they look at their score they kind of guess I bet my

[00:21:05] recovery score is going to be a 30 because I kind of know that's where I am and they can

[00:21:09] kind of start to become predictive but a lot of times they tell me they couldn't have done that

[00:21:14] before the wearable they couldn't have done that before biostrap they needed that

[00:21:18] interesting because it starts to quantify the relationship between the objective and the

[00:21:22] subjective in a very clear way yeah it makes a ton of sense I mean there's even times when I

[00:21:29] know my recovery score is going to be like 30 something I'm like I don't think I want to

[00:21:33] take it like I don't want this on my permanent record you know like yeah but that defeats the

[00:21:38] purpose yeah well but you can't do that because you got to wear it at sleep and you're going

[00:21:41] to get your score afterwards whether you like it or not right right uh so let's talk about

[00:21:47] biostrap man we've kind of danced around it in this in this interview so far I'm really keen

[00:21:52] to learn on it learn about it so what is biostrap specifically what does it do who's using it

[00:22:00] what stage are you guys in as far as business goes so give us yeah give us the insights so I mean

[00:22:05] biostrap's a yeah it's an interesting company and story in the sense that it was really

[00:22:09] started actually in the medical space it was a clinical device being sold predominantly in

[00:22:14] cardiology around five years ago um and then the um it was it was under a sort of a

[00:22:21] different brand and then biostrap has formed from the medical company is a division that

[00:22:26] was going to take it more to the consumer space and so then the the co-founders launched biostrap

[00:22:32] uh made it a more consumer facing app um but it was sort of some of the same basic uh sensor and

[00:22:38] algorithms and so there was a whole genesis there that went on and in biostrap a little over a

[00:22:44] year ago kind of absorbed everything into one and became sort of the clinical the medical

[00:22:49] and the consumer division all became under one umbrella um I guess more than a year ago now

[00:22:56] and then since then we've had a lot of growth um you know the companies under you know we just

[00:23:01] announced this week uh we were partnered with the national institutes of health on a long term

[00:23:07] a long hauler covid study for minority the minority health division we worked with a lot

[00:23:12] of universities so we're doing a lot of that research and then we also do have work with

[00:23:17] athletes and and just people in the general public and the whole idea the whole ethos of

[00:23:22] the company is a little different than maybe the other wearables people are familiar with because

[00:23:25] it's more about democratizing this clinical grade data because to the point you know if you're a

[00:23:30] fitness professional or a health professional and you're trying to make you know you know

[00:23:36] neuro neuro neuro physiological decisions for your clients or patients you know that the

[00:23:42] quality of the data matters and you know there is a lot of devices out there and unfortunately

[00:23:48] a lot of them have questionable quality right now because wearables are hot the market

[00:23:53] is being flooded by knockoff products uh that and people need to understand right now

[00:23:59] if you're dealing with a commercial device there is zero requirement for it to have any accuracy

[00:24:03] whatsoever and uh and the technology is also still relatively new i think you even alluded

[00:24:08] to this before we started the podcast that there are some wearables despite their great

[00:24:14] success or even the great brands behind them you know there are still limitations that

[00:24:19] exist and the whole industry is trying to address that but i think a lot of people still don't

[00:24:25] understand what those limitations are and when they need to be aware of them and so at Biosdrap

[00:24:29] we are very careful that we don't report metrics that we don't have confidence in it's um yeah we

[00:24:37] were talking about and we're joking because i do have especially being a podcast host i get sent

[00:24:42] things to play around with right and i do have a graveyard of wearables right um ones i've

[00:24:47] gone through over the years i'm a big fan overall of Garmin um i've been using there i know their

[00:24:53] functionality really well and they just suit my lifestyle right that being said i think the one

[00:24:58] metric and um you know i went through Joel Jamison's recovered a wing course which was great as a

[00:25:03] high level education on how all this stuff kind of fits in and what it means and how to use it

[00:25:10] but sleep for most wearables um and that's why i understand respect what you guys are doing

[00:25:16] with becoming you know getting a very accurate way of tracking sleep because it's so critical it's

[00:25:21] probably the most important thing when it comes to recovery like you stated but most wearables

[00:25:25] like it's really unreliable uh like i know my Garmin's not reliable when it comes to sleep

[00:25:30] tracking um i can't maybe a decent idea of how many toll hours i got but like the phases

[00:25:36] of deep and rem and and light sleep i just i just don't trust it because i know it doesn't

[00:25:43] it doesn't add up with how i actually slept so maybe if can you point out with a mass market like

[00:25:49] what is it that people need to be aware of when it comes to sleep tracking and then

[00:25:53] how does bio strap kind of come in and solve those those issues so i mean the history of

[00:25:57] sleep tracking has been around for a long time i mean basically there's not a lot of gold gold

[00:26:02] standard approaches to you know medical grade sleep tracking um and then you know even from

[00:26:08] within the medical space there's some devices that are medically approved for sleep tracking in

[00:26:12] an outpatient setting meaning outside of the clinic and those are pretty much actigraphy based so most

[00:26:18] of the wearables are usually looking at your movement um you know using an accelerometer

[00:26:23] and a gyroscope and using the fact that depending on how you move what stage of sleep you're in

[00:26:30] and so i mean for example is a quick example is like when you stop

[00:26:34] you know if you really stop moving and you think your body is extremely calm

[00:26:37] the body actually people only realize your body actually you become paralyzed

[00:26:42] at certain stages of sleep because otherwise you'd be acting out your dreams or your muscle

[00:26:47] would be firing so there's a lot of these things that are happening so i mean we could go into

[00:26:53] we could do multiple hours on sleep science but but to just get really simple uh the core sleep

[00:26:59] stages uh are typically what a lot of people are trying to pay attention to i think that's

[00:27:04] important and the biggest one to understand is unless you're pulling out for example eeg

[00:27:09] sensor from the brain it's extremely hard to get these sleep stages perfect

[00:27:14] uh and then when they so and the one that's the hardest to get perfect is REM sleep

[00:27:21] so at bio strap because we can't be fully confident in our REM sleep we actually don't

[00:27:28] even report it we focus on awake light and deep and really the thing that from a fitness

[00:27:34] standpoint is really important is that deep sleep from the physical standpoint because that's

[00:27:39] when all the human growth hormone gets produced that's when your neurotransmitters reset that's when

[00:27:44] you know muscle recovery is happening so if you're not getting enough deep sleep that's typically

[00:27:50] a problem um whereas REM sleep the brain is extremely protective of REM sleep and i see a lot of

[00:27:57] biohacking forms where i actually created a video about this with a neuroscientist because

[00:28:03] so many people were freaking out that oh my wearables saying and my REM sleep is off

[00:28:08] and i had to create a video with a neuroscientist saying look if your wearable is telling your

[00:28:12] REM sleep is off most likely your wearables wrong not your REM sleep because the brain

[00:28:17] is so protective of it and so there's a lot of this sort of uh i guess lack of education

[00:28:25] because this is new new technology and new information and the industry doesn't necessarily

[00:28:29] want to step in and say that right because if they're reporting a metric they don't want to then

[00:28:33] come out and say well yeah it's a guesstimate so they just don't they just hide that fact so

[00:28:38] i've actually gone a lot of podcasts and tried to even create content trying to

[00:28:43] overcome some of the um misunderstanding shall we say in in the industry itself that's also

[00:28:49] why i worked with ISSA the international sports science association so i wrote a chapter on the

[00:28:55] recovery certification on wearable technology i'm really actively trying to solve this problem for

[00:29:02] the consumers clinicians fitness professionals because you know this wearable technology is here

[00:29:07] to stay it's going to progress but people need to know what they're dealing with and they need

[00:29:10] to understand when it when to use it when it's incredibly effective because it is but also

[00:29:15] understand the limitations and i think nobody wants to talk about that in the industry

[00:29:22] yeah um we could spend a lot of time talking about sleep and i have like you know 10 follow

[00:29:28] questions that but i guess here's the big one is when you look at the limitations right uh

[00:29:33] how is biostrap addressing it differently to make this information accurate and reliable as possible

[00:29:38] so the biggest limitation with you mentioned you know other wearables that are used is

[00:29:43] probably the vast majority of commercial wearables using green light technology

[00:29:47] so in the spectrum of light with uh uh pot um with ppg technology so when you're using that

[00:29:54] light sensor shining into the skin and taking a reading the green lights actually take the

[00:29:59] measurement from uh the photoplofismography take the measurement from a superficial layer

[00:30:04] the green layer the light shoots superficially into the skin and so you're extracting information

[00:30:11] from the you know capillaries uh maybe the arterial is if you're lucky which are but biostrap uses red

[00:30:18] light and ir technology so the red light is shoots 10 times deeper into the body and is extracting

[00:30:25] the ppg signal from your arteries so we can get second waveform derivatives like arterial age

[00:30:31] but that also means that this is more the standard of what in lab devices are used

[00:30:37] and cardiology devices are using the red light technology it goes back to the origin story of

[00:30:41] biostrap so that red light signal at sleep is really the gold standard to get medical grade data

[00:30:48] so you're getting high fidelity high quality data while people are sleeping with the red light

[00:30:55] technology and then here's the other big difference we don't just process that data on the device

[00:31:00] where the computing power is limited we take the raw data from the sensor pass it through the

[00:31:06] bluetooth signal on your phone to our cloud processing which has significantly more computing power

[00:31:13] then that way we take that signal we process it we look at what we run it through a confidence

[00:31:19] algorithm where we look at all of the all of the the fidelity of the signal from the ppg

[00:31:25] and come back and then report your sleep metrics no other device in the world does that

[00:31:33] so i'm if i'm thinking at this you know if i'm the fitness professional right and i'm i'm probably

[00:31:40] saying to myself wow this sounds really cool and accurate i would definitely use it or probably use

[00:31:45] it on myself but how do i start to incorporate it into my practice with my clients um yeah what how

[00:31:53] do you guys help the professional or the practitioner get that into actual like rubber

[00:32:00] me in the room yeah and that's a great question so that's where the like i said that's the educational

[00:32:05] piece that that i think war and like i said the industry at a whole i think it's still working on

[00:32:10] but essentially the future i think of fitness is to use your use your tagline

[00:32:17] is i should have a little bell that people say that is uh is basically the is what what i would

[00:32:22] say is bio individual fitness and maybe it's my bias as a bio hacker but you know if everybody

[00:32:28] comes into a group class and you have 30 people in the class and everyone's doing the exact same

[00:32:32] workout well you know i know there is often you know variations that the the coach or the trainer

[00:32:39] tries to find you know oh you can't you know you have a back injury so you're not going to do

[00:32:44] this or you have you know you're not feeling great today so you can tone it back to like level

[00:32:49] one instead of level three but if you have a bio strap you can see everybody's recovery score

[00:32:55] before they show up or if you're a personal trainer even better because you know when your client comes

[00:33:01] in for that personal training session and they're at a 95 recovery you're already before they even

[00:33:07] show up in the gym you're saying okay when when they come to the gym we're going to do a we're

[00:33:11] going to go for a personal record we're going to do high intensity interval training and and when

[00:33:16] you say like i'm getting tired i'm going to yell at you to go go harder because your score

[00:33:21] is a 95 so i know you got your nervous system in a state of readiness and you can do that but if

[00:33:27] i'm yelling at you to go harder when your recovery score was a 30 i'm putting you in sympathetic

[00:33:33] activation i'm stressing you out i'm putting you at risk of injury i'm increasing your cortisol

[00:33:40] levels which are going to increase the belly fat this is why people keep saying i work out

[00:33:45] and my belly fat doesn't go away because you're working out the wrong way at the wrong time

[00:33:50] and increasing your cortisol levels you're not recovering you're going you know full out every

[00:33:55] time and you're burning out and the fitness industry needs to stop doing this because

[00:34:01] that's not the way to get good results for your for your clients yeah and it's uh

[00:34:08] you know oftentimes especially because i came from the crossfit world there's so much

[00:34:12] after you've been doing it for a year or two maybe three you start to realize one of

[00:34:17] your biggest responsibilities is protecting your clients from themselves because you don't know

[00:34:21] you know i always use the example of like the guy who comes into a class and you know he's got four

[00:34:26] hours of sleep and he just down two red bowls but he looks ready to go right he looks ready to go

[00:34:32] he says he's ready to go he knows he's not really ready to go but he's going to push

[00:34:37] anyway because he needs that quarter's all pumps just to get through the day and that's

[00:34:40] something that i think probably so many cases like that whether we know it or not have gone wrong

[00:34:47] from either work best case is them just leaving the gym right worst case is all kinds of not just hit

[00:34:54] them hitting their goals but you know negative health effects and that's something that i think we

[00:34:58] just have to take greater responsibility for as a as an industry overall and now there's no denying

[00:35:03] that we have the tools to do it yeah so you can't hide behind that and as much as crossfit

[00:35:08] sort of sometimes gets kicked on this one i would say that i've seen i've gone to a stunger yoga classes

[00:35:13] where people were wrapping their wrists before class because they were just doing so much intense

[00:35:18] high velocity downward dog that they were blowing out their wrists you know so so i think the

[00:35:24] whole industry the whole fitness industry needs to pause and look in the mirror for a minute

[00:35:28] on this one and realize that you know what i mean i can tell you myself as a guy who has done

[00:35:34] you know does crossfit is done like hardcore stunger yoga i mean i went and you know i've done

[00:35:40] you know boot camp retreats and you know fasting retreats or i'm working out fasted for like two

[00:35:46] days you know and pushing myself to my limits and you can do that i mean we worked with iron

[00:35:51] cowboy james laurence who did a hundred full distance trathlons in a hundred days you can

[00:35:57] push yourself way past your limit from your mind but you know i mean he was doing that

[00:36:04] set of world record you know if you just want to be a healthier person that's not the way you

[00:36:08] need to do it necessarily it's great to know you can but if you really want to get the best

[00:36:13] outcome for your health i would say i work out now so intelligently i probably work out less now

[00:36:18] than i did and i'm getting stronger i'm faster i have better cardiovascular health

[00:36:24] than i did 20 years ago but i'm probably working out less but i know when to work out and how to

[00:36:29] do it yeah yeah that's huge and that's what i love so you know let's take a step back and let's look

[00:36:36] you know at the whole big picture here um you know besides the sleep and recovery wearable

[00:36:42] technology what what what other fitness and health and biohacking technology gets you really excited

[00:36:49] what are you fired up i mean that's a good question i think i mean to be quite honest

[00:36:54] there's some wearable technology that is currently being developed that is like based on wearable

[00:36:59] sensing uh molecular sensing i mean sorry so right now you know most of the wearables are

[00:37:05] light based for example photoplethysmography like biostrap and you mentioned garmin and you

[00:37:09] know using light um you know i think the development of continuous glucose monitoring

[00:37:14] is going to be a game changer because we've never had continuous glucose data on on

[00:37:20] healthy individuals it's only been diabetics that have been tracking uh you know blood sugar

[00:37:25] levels so i think you know with rampant metabolic syndrome i think we're going to start you know

[00:37:29] getting some better insights into that um i think microbiome science is very fascinating i think

[00:37:36] there's a lot to be discovered there i think the that my concern is that industry is already

[00:37:42] making a lot of commercial claims around you know this is the perfect microbiota perfect

[00:37:47] probiotic for you and i don't think we have the understanding micro microbiome science to

[00:37:52] even really go too far down that path i think we're just figuring it out i think it's new new

[00:37:56] new science i think that's great and coming back to what i started with molecular sensing

[00:38:01] they're working on the ability to not just basically by having a device next to your skin

[00:38:07] being able to take your blood levels from a wearable device that doesn't even penetrate

[00:38:13] the skin but they were actually could even know things like your blood pressure potentially even

[00:38:18] what's in your blood your glucose level in your blood your insulin uh and other blood markers just by

[00:38:25] wearing a device next to your skin if they can get that figured out in the next year or two i mean

[00:38:30] that's going to be an absolute game changer for the level of quantification we can go to so

[00:38:36] that's one of the things on the wearable sides that i'm really excited about cool cool uh

[00:38:43] uh what does a average day look like for alias as far as biohacking from morning you wake up you

[00:38:51] mentioned you get some ground and you get some sunlight you do some you know little kettlebell

[00:38:56] workouts maybe between meetings you're you're you know fasting in the evenings uh you're

[00:39:02] getting a cold dark room with a submarine look like you're it seems like the whole the whole

[00:39:07] day is is there's there's nothing unintentional right about what you're doing but kind of walk

[00:39:13] us through that step by step and i'm guessing you know people like me i always like to grab one thing

[00:39:18] from from people and see if i can implement it and then run with it so what what's uh give us

[00:39:23] your biohack stack okay um i guess like i said the the things i do the most consistently is like

[00:39:29] i said i get up i have a have a have a dog so i get up in the morning take the dog out i have

[00:39:35] a fortunately i during the pandemic i moved to your house with a much bigger guard so i go stand in

[00:39:39] the yard me and the dog kind of just i get out there i do some breathing i do the sun i usually

[00:39:43] grab my steel mace uh and i just use some very light movement with the steel mace that just sort

[00:39:48] of i really come to love that is a very uh almost like a meditative flow you know workout

[00:39:56] using a steel mace i don't know if you ever used one before but they're just fabulous for

[00:40:00] not yet for uh because you're throwing your body off balance and you're able to create even like a

[00:40:05] movement flow um so i do that get outside get some sun do some breath work do that then i kind of come

[00:40:13] in um i don't eat in the morning uh i know actually technically from intermittent fasting you'd

[00:40:19] probably be better off eating in the morning and then having your last meal at like two three o'clock

[00:40:22] but my wife puts up with my red light but you know having dinner at 2 p.m is just a deal breaker

[00:40:28] so uh so so that one is not going to work um but i'm always fasted i often will have a light

[00:40:36] workout fasted if i can uh depends what my business calls look like look like that day my mornings

[00:40:42] tend to be pretty loaded on business calls so i tend to get up and i'm pretty much you know

[00:40:48] in on zoom or dealing with different calls or project management things i have to do or working

[00:40:54] with my team all morning then i always take a break um and sometimes that's when i do another

[00:41:01] workout so i kind of my day is like a typical work day i guess in that sense you know i'm working i

[00:41:05] take my lunch break maybe i go for a walk to the nearby park i have a track nearby uh but then

[00:41:10] you know my evening protocol is that's when the variation comes in i there's certain things i tend

[00:41:14] to do every night uh i tend to do red light therapy pretty much every night but like i mentioned

[00:41:20] sometimes i use the right now i have hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber which is exciting not only

[00:41:25] is that great from the oxygen perspective but it's actually nice when you get you get this low

[00:41:30] cocoon you know for anyone who's ever looked at what that's like and it's actually kind of uh

[00:41:35] very peaceful thing to do in the evening as well um but i think the big thing i do is is i often

[00:41:41] try to find ways to always reconnect with nature so i go spend some time we have a bird feeder

[00:41:48] in the back so i'll spend some time just listening to the birds and and it's funny i i've been doing

[00:41:53] that for like the last year since we moved and i just saw a study that came out recently and said

[00:41:58] that the brain is pre-wired every human brain is pre-wired that bird song is a parasympathetic

[00:42:06] activator it actually calms you down at a nervous system level because if the because again

[00:42:12] the reason for this is that if the birds are what do birds do when predators around they

[00:42:17] scatter and they go quiet so if birds are singing that's a signal that everything is okay just like

[00:42:24] the Barb Marley song the birds are literally telling you everything's going to be all right

[00:42:30] yeah yeah it's interesting too bad my the birds around here start singing

[00:42:33] a 40 that's why yeah that that that that especially because you're getting that early

[00:42:38] sunrise right so the birds are going off yeah so i mean i'll do that i'll try to get into

[00:42:43] nature hiking paddle boarding you know there's a lot of sports that i try to get into mountain

[00:42:48] biking i try to get into a lot of when i have the time uh you know at the end of the work day

[00:42:53] or on the weekends i always try to get and do an outdoor sport of some kind whether it's a hike

[00:42:58] a paddle board mountain biking uh you know something where i'm getting into nature and

[00:43:03] getting that i still think again as human beings we're all still wired to nature you know despite

[00:43:10] how technologically advanced we are all of our brains need exposure to nature for own personal

[00:43:17] balance and when you think about the epidemic of mental health issues coming up i think part of that

[00:43:23] is our disconnection from nature to be quite honest yeah yeah i would not disagree with that i mean

[00:43:29] you're in montana so you got you know you got that one yeah yeah i saw we sought this out very

[00:43:35] intentionally right i wanted to just have more access to it easier access and just generally less

[00:43:40] people although over the last year that's changed quite a bit we've got a lot more people up here

[00:43:44] but for people listening we're full so that's right Idaho is wide open Wyoming's wide open so

[00:43:50] beautiful i couldn't believe i i did a motorcycle trip up to montana and i think i told you this

[00:43:55] we were really uh connecting and and yeah when i drove back i came through Idaho and i had no

[00:44:00] idea how beautiful and unspoiled that state was it was stunning yeah there's a lot i mean there's

[00:44:07] there's so much beauty in this country and we forget uh how big this country is and there's

[00:44:13] so many places to visit i mean we're always my wife and i always looking to plan you know

[00:44:17] international trips and um sometimes like you know we've never even been to like she's

[00:44:22] never been in boston right like well let's start there you know it's an easy four hour

[00:44:26] flight we can get there and check things out and there's a lot of nature and the cape and

[00:44:30] things like that so there's a lot of beauty to this country that people just don't get out and

[00:44:34] explore and i think that's the other thing is i think people need um you know from recovery

[00:44:38] standpoint we just need to get out of our own element just and go experience new things

[00:44:43] meet new people find new cultures bring things back because when you do that you realize like

[00:44:49] hey you know there's a better way of just by even talking to you i'm like okay i just picked

[00:44:52] up a couple things but when you go out and you meet new people and and see how things are

[00:44:58] done even if it's just another state in the union you learn a lot and bring them back so

[00:45:03] i think that's a big important thing obviously in the pandemic people have not been traveling

[00:45:07] nearly enough so that's uh something encourage people to do all the time actually you touched

[00:45:11] on one other thing that i didn't mention for my personal stack if you will is i am a big

[00:45:16] believer in that idea of like neuroplasticity or um or that's about like anti fragility

[00:45:24] so so one of the things you want to make yourself anti fragile so one of the ways to do this and

[00:45:28] this comes from you know a lot of the fitness i think there was even a theory around fitness around

[00:45:32] like muscle confusion like do different workouts at different times in different ways so your

[00:45:36] body doesn't know what's coming um that's true that's actually a i believe in that i subscribe

[00:45:41] to that belief and i think that's true uh for biohacking uh i think it's true for fitness i

[00:45:47] think you should always do something every day so as much as i have a routine i always mix it

[00:45:52] up i some some days i'll take a supplement some days i won't some days i'll i'll i'll work out a

[00:45:58] completely different time than another day so i do believe in creating the sort of sense of diversity

[00:46:04] where in some ways your body doesn't even know what's coming and then from a neuroplasticity

[00:46:08] standpoint do something cognitively slightly different every day you know the classic one

[00:46:14] that they say is like brush your teeth with your left hand you know uh or you know or just

[00:46:19] take a zoom call like standing on one leg you know whatever you can get creative have some fun with

[00:46:24] it you know play with life i think that's the other big one i think we've become so especially during

[00:46:30] this pandemic we've all become so isolated and and hyper focused on either our own little world

[00:46:36] or maybe even what's going on in the world and stressing about it that's like we're really

[00:46:41] losing that aspect of play and just enjoying being a human being moment by moment and

[00:46:47] you touched on the the last thing that i think we're all suffering from is is we don't realize

[00:46:52] how much we need each other as human beings you know and it's not you can't get that from zoom

[00:46:59] it's ultimately the fact that when you're in a space with another human being there's a lot of

[00:47:05] things happening at a subtle level even if you want to talk about things like pheromones

[00:47:09] pheromones aren't just for about sexual attraction pheromones are another way of

[00:47:13] subtle communication between humans where we're sending signals to each other there's

[00:47:17] there's micro movements happening in our eyes that i even i'm looking to you on a on a video call

[00:47:23] i'm not able to pick up some of those nuances and the way i worried if i was in your presence

[00:47:27] and all of these things matter all of these things are what make us human and we can't

[00:47:33] we can't deny that and i think we ignore that our own peril yeah great stuff man i

[00:47:41] i want a respective time i know we're buttoned up here and so i guess you know big question is

[00:47:47] yeah give us where do people go to find you to find more about biostrap to find out about

[00:47:52] all the good stuff we've been talking about today so i'm i gotta read i'm in the process of

[00:47:57] redoing my website you mentioned the auctioneering so my website is a little heavy on my history as

[00:48:02] sort of a public speaker an auctioneer because i really love that i'm i've been doing a lot of

[00:48:07] these training within the biohacking space i'm redoing my website but you can find me there

[00:48:11] i'm lucky i'm the only person in the world with my exact name and spelling so aliasearjahn.com

[00:48:18] so that's my personal site you if you can eliasarjan.com biostrap is just like it sounds

[00:48:28] biostrap.com it started off as a consumer device that you know it sounds more like a device

[00:48:35] but it's actually become more of like an ecosystem or a platform where we're working with not only

[00:48:42] clinicians but consumers fitness facilities enterprises of all kinds

[00:48:49] employee wellness programs so we have a lot of things going on biostrap is actually growing

[00:48:53] extremely fast i've been increasing my teams doing a lot of hiring so there's a lot happening in

[00:48:59] our space and and i think you know the wearable space is just going to continue to grow and we're

[00:49:06] dedicated to really trying to solve a lot of the problems that we see in our society around

[00:49:13] sort of chronic disease as well through the biostrap platform so if that's of interest to people

[00:49:18] you know i'd love for you to reach out you can get in touch with me and my team

[00:49:22] through biostrap.com there's a number of different ways to connect with us

[00:49:26] awesome awesome man well thank you for all this a lot of great takeaways and i think clarifying

[00:49:34] some confusing topics for people as well so really appreciate you coming on and yeah ladies and

[00:49:39] gentlemen eliasarjan. A pleasure thank you so much for being here and stay healthy everyone.

[00:49:45] Hey wait don't leave yet this is your host Eric Malzone and i hope you enjoyed this episode

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