Ben Greenfield, 10-time Ironman finisher, ex-bodybuilder, strength and conditioning and nutritionist coach with a master’s in exercise physiology, has one of the best physical fitness courses I’ve ever experienced: Achieve Ultimate Human Performance at Creative Live.
Ben Greenfield’s course teaches you how to look good on the outside while feeling good on the inside. It’s all about how to achieve amazing physical feats without destroying your body.
Ben Greenfield’s Creative Live class is without a doubt one of the best classes I’ve taken online.
This was so packed with endlessly interesting, in-depth, and new-to-me information. And I felt extremely smart watching this one.
I was absolutely blown away by this course. Like 100% impressed and really got a crazy amount out of it.
I don’t know quite how to structure a review for a course like this because there’s simply so much great information in my notes.
So I implore you to take the course yourself over at Creative Live. But I can dump a bunch of cool things I learnt, just a small sample from my copious notes on Ben Greenfield’s Achieve Ultimate Human Performance course.
A few notes from Ben Greenfield’s Achieve Ultimate Human Performance Creative Live class
Keeping healthy connective tissue is a big issue.
You should aim for a lifestyle that reduces glycogen surges throughout the day. You can slow down wrinkles/ageing/collagen degradation both outside and inside (like in the joints).
Muscle/brain/nerve inflammation is another big issue.
Blood sugar spikes can cause nerve inflammation.
Ben Greenfield starts off every day with 1,000mg of curcumin (turmeric) – one of the most potent brain anti-inflammatories, which shuts down brain inflammation phenomenally well. His recommended brand is Phenocane and it’s a natural alternative to ibuprofen.
Autoimmune reactions should be eliminated – e.g. Gluten is common to cause reactions.
Get yourself to the point where you’re autoimmune free.
Ben Greenfield recommends the paleo autoimmune protocol, which is a 4-week reset.
You should be aware of how your lifestyle and diet could be causing gut damage.
Things like high fibre can damage the lining of the gut and small intestine (can cause leaky gut). High levels of cortisol and lots of training can do that too.
Nutrient depletion is a real thing that every athlete should be aware of.
When you try to achieve ultimate human performance, you’re essentially asking the body to do more than it was meant to do.
That’s why we take supplements. You can and should test your nutrient status with blood tests. Magnesium and vitamin D supplementation is a great place to start as most people are deficient.
You’ll know you have neurotransmitter deficits if you feel symptoms of depression, brain fog, and drop in libido.
There’s a right way and a wrong way to train.
The right way to train:
Every time you exercise, step into the gym, hit the running track, the goal is never ever just to beat up the body or exercise for the sake of exercising.
Always exercise with a specific goal.
I’m guilty of this and need to start correcting immediately.
You should partake in planned recovery – not recovery as an afterthought.
For example, for every mile running on the road, you’ll spend a minute in an inverted position.
When it comes to hard weight training, after every session spend 5 minutes in a cold shower to shut down inflammation and production of HSCRP (an inflammatory biomarker).
If you’re going to the gym for 45 minutes, it’s technically 50 minutes because you need that 5 minute cold shower planned in.
There are 3 basic energy systems:
- phosphagenetic energy system = uses creatine, takes 30 seconds to exhaust but is primary energy system at the beginning
- glycolytic – running around a track, 2-3 minutes in length, burning sugars or muscle glycogen
- mitochondrial respiration – goes for hours, primarily burning fat for energy
Strategies for going beyond training:
Periodization – for example, someone who wants to look good naked might have a period during the winter for mass building and injury prevention, a period during spring where there’s body toning and work on hypertrophy, and summer is maintenance phase, and autumn is movement prep and functional strength training for a sport.
Have a pain cave – a place where you know you can go hard.
Ben Greenfield talks about “greasing the groove” – injecting small amounts of fitness during the day.
For example, 100 jumping jacks an hour. A deadlift a few times a day. Pull-up bar at your office.
Ben Greenfield’s sample day for ultimate human performance:
- Begin every day with 10 mins of yoga and calisthenics with deep nasal breathing
- 20 bodyweight squats for every bathroom break
- 25 kettlebell swings, tire flips, or barbell lifts at least once per day
- Invert 1-2 x/day
- Using treadmill desk/standing work station
- Doing 100 jumping jacks for every hour sitting
- Cold thermogenesis 2-3 times per day
- Deep diaphragmatic breathing
- Workout end of day (4-6pm) – metabolism, core temperature, functional movements are best
Ben Greenfield’s diet philosophy:
Eat the earth – fermented stuff and dirty things that have had the sun on them.
You should also empty the trash – a.k.a. clean up your cells with a monthly 24-hour fast or a weekly 20-hour fast or a daily 12-hour fast.
Ben Greenfield also has some great juice and smoothie recipes.
When Ben first tried this recipe, he immediately had one of the best runs of his life. Now he uses it as a go-to whenever he wants to feel super good:
Golf ball sized piece of ginger, 5-10 carrots, 1-2 chopped lemons, a handful of cilantro, blend this stuff then add and stir in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of Aztec or Himalayan salt.
Ben Greenfield’s ultimate human performance smoothie
For the ultimate human performance smoothie, you’ll need 3-4 Brazil nuts or walnuts, 3 large kale leaves, 1 avocado, enough coconut milk to make the smoothie super thick, 2 servings of living fuel protein or super greens, a couple of pinches of cinnamon, a couple of pinches of salt. Blend this stuff then add a few pinches of coconut flakes, a handful of spirulina (which you can get from Energy Bits), then a few pinches of organic cacao nibs, then add the Brazil nuts or walnuts in and then give it another blend. You can also add a tablespoon of coconut oil or MCT oil. You could also throw a raw egg in there.
This smoothie is going to be thick enough to actually chew and eat, which is better than drinking.
Ben Greenfield’s Creative Live course is all about how to be a mix of Hulk, Wolverine, and Captain America. And that’s what we’re looking for when going for ultimate human performance. We’re learning how to be Batman here. Full rounded!
Ultimate human performance ideal skillset:
- Strength
- Power
- Speed
- Mobility
- Balance
More random tidbits that got me thinking from Ben Greenfield’s Creative Live course…
L-glutamine is a bigger win for gut health than muscle soreness – supplement it!
If you do a workout and then go to the gym 48 hours later and don’t perform better or the same on that lift you have no business being in the gym working that particular movement that day.
Muscle soreness shouldn’t last longer than 48 hours.
It will peak somewhere between 24 and 48 hours and is basically due to calcium leakage (not lactic acid). But if you’re still sore after three days you’re not recovering well enough.
Ben also goes through a bunch of different methods for how you can test your body.
The lessons are long with subjects hitting over an hour regularly and every single thing Ben says is golden. You basically don’t need any other resource when it comes to these subject if you have this Creative Live class.
Low heart rate doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting fitter.
The lower the heart rate the harder it is to get it up when it comes to intense exercise.
Going too low can mean your adrenal systems are shutting down.
Ben’s heart rate in the morning is 39, but he knows if it goes to 37 or 36 it’s not because he’s getting healthier but instead needs to back off on the working out.
If you’re suffering from adrenal fatigue, you want to take supplements that increase cortisol.
Some people think that’s dumb but when you’re adrenally fatigued your cortisol levels are at rock bottom.
Supplements that increase cortisol = red ginseng, liquorice root, adaptogens like ashwaghanda and rhodiola (which I’ve written about extensively already and benefitted from when my cortisol levels where too low). Ben’s recommended brand is Inner Peace.
Coffee can cause adrenal fatigue, but when it’s balanced with l-theanine from green tea (I’ve also written about this and have recommended this combo for years) you can mitigate many potential adrenal exhausting effects.
Ben recommends instead of that second coffee of the day, have green tea.
He personally only has one cup a day and goes 6 weeks caffeinated, 2 weeks not caffeinated.
It takes 10-14 days to reset your adenosine receptors (the things in the brain that work on tiredness and are interfered with by caffeine).
HS-CRP – this is most important blood test for finding out inflammation levels (which you want to know from an ageing point of view).
In the section on testing your body, a lot of stuff will go over your head if you just choose to approach it from a “learning” point of view. What you really need to do is get the blood and genetic tests Ben recommends and then follow along with your results so you can understand what’s actually going on in your body.
Ben Greenfield is living proof that everything he says works.
I was thinking this due to another thought I had watching this course – “Wow, he’s one of the best speakers I’ve seen.”
Not only is the content and delivery equally fascinating but the fact that he’s doing this without any auto prompters or anything. You can tell his brain is in peak physical condition as well as his body.
I loved the section on biohacks and biohack stacks.
Put your body in the presence of reduced oxygen availability.
Elevation training mask combined with a weighted vest on a hike. You can get way fitter way faster on a simple walk.
Cold thermogenesis + hypoxic training with a front-mounted snorkel with a cardio cap area restrictor on top of it. Great hack for swimmers and triathletes that want bigger lungs.
The vikings used to bite down on leather straps when they went into battle to improve pain tolerance and decrease lactic acid production (you can get fitness mouth pieces that help in the same way).
When it comes to fuelling for performance the 2 most important things are nutrient density and digestibility.
Check out the superhuman food pyramid on Ben Greenfield’s site.
The recommended daily intake of vitamin D is what you would need to prevent rickets in children, not what you would need for ultimate steroid and hormone production. Big difference between RDI and ODI (optimal) – Ben gets 2,000 iu of vitamin D a day as opposed to the RDI of 400 iu.
So these are just a few teasers, little things I picked up from Ben Greenfield’s Creative Live course.
There is so much more in the course and I truly implore you to watch the course, study, take notes, and apply it to your life.
Achieve Ultimate Human Performance is the best fitness course, hands down, I’ve ever come across.
Ben goes deep into balance, mobility, foods for performance, supplement stacks, all about digestion, optimal diets, fasting, stress reduction, sleep biohacks, and so much more.
You’ll come out smarter and healthier by the end of it.
You can check out Ben Greenfield’s Achieve Ultimate Human Performance here.
