The Masters Athlete Survival Guide
We explore thriving as an athlete after 40. Each episode, we’ll dive into tips, hacks, and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes and our personal experience. Whether you’re a weekend warrior or a competitive pro, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong, and motivated
The Masters Athlete Survival Guide
Oxygen, Temperature, and Light: The Master's Athlete Recovery Arsenal with Synergy Hyperbaric
Jimmy Scaringi, owner of Synergy Hyperbaric shares how high-pressure oxygen therapy, infrared saunas, cold plunging, and red light therapy can dramatically accelerate healing and recovery for athletes over 40. These science-backed modalities stimulate stem cell production, increase telomere length, and improve mitochondrial function to potentially reverse aspects of biological aging.
• Hyperbaric oxygen therapy pushes oxygen into blood plasma instead of just red blood cells, allowing it to reach oxygen-starved connective tissues
• A 2017 study showed 60 hyperbaric sessions increased telomere length by 30% while boosting natural stem cell production up to 8x
• Infrared sauna use 2-3 times weekly can reduce all-cause mortality by 20-30%, while 4-5 times weekly can reduce it by 50%
• Cold plunging activates brown fat metabolism and releases cold shock proteins that reduce inflammation
• Contrast therapy between hot and cold creates cardiovascular benefits without joint impact
• Red light therapy stimulates collagen production and optimizes mitochondrial function at the cellular level
• Even a 5% reduction in oxygen to brain mitochondria can cause anxiety, depression, and brain fog
Visit Synergy Hyperbaric in Western New York to explore how these modalities could transform your recovery and performance as a masters athlete.
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New episodes come out every other Thursday!
Welcome to the Master's Athlete Survival Guide, where we explore the secrets to thriving in sports after 40. I'm John Catalinas and, along with Scott Fyke, we'll dive into training tips, nutrition hacks and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes who defy age limits. Whether you're a weekend warrior or a competitive pro, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong and motivated. Let's get started. I'm at Synergy Hyperbaric and I'm very excited. I'm here with Jimmy, the owner, and we're going to talk all things modality. Thanks for your time, jimmy.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it. Thank you very much for being here with me, john, excited to get a chance to meet you. Talk about how it is what we have, what we offer and how it can benefit people of all ages, but especially when you're tailoring to I'm over 42, but when you're tailoring to the over, you know, since it's audio only, I would say that Jimmy looks about 27.
Speaker 1:So, uh, whatever he's doing is working, so we should just listen to him.
Speaker 2:I, you know, and it's funny that you say that I just put a recording up on my synergy nutrition and wellness page. I'm not saying that I have the fountain of youth, but if I were to show you photos of me at 26, 27, where I am now, it really is a true testament to how much the body heals and when you have the right modalities that actually produce stem cell production, telomere increase. It's a very powerful truth and I'm thankful to walk the walk and not just talk that talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not just saying it. You look great and I would. If I were the guesser at the Erie County Fair, I would have been off by a decade. And to give context to your listeners that aren't seeing this, I tell people I'm happily married of 12 years.
Speaker 2:I've got a two-year-old and a four-year-old. So if you didn't see my grays that are in the center of my beard, I can even a few more off.
Speaker 1:See, I come from a tribe where everybody's bald and has a gray beard.
Speaker 1:So the fact that you even have hair is is a differentiator right there, all right. So I came to Jimmy, mostly because I have been deeply interested in a lot of these modalities that Synergy offers, the biggest one being hyperbaric. I don't know if I've talked about it before, but I was in a car accident in 2017, and most of the result for me was I referred to it back then as a loss of a gear in my brain. I am not stupid. I probably have a pretty high IQ. I just want to dust off my ego early and often, but I could tell. I could tell that something. Something happened to my brain.
Speaker 1:So, as a career scientist, I went in and I did the research and I found that hyperbaric was great for wound care, it was great for burns and in 2017, there was just a few studies for tbi, for brain health and regeneration, and I I looked high and low for a provider and they didn't really exist. So I have. This has been on my radar forever and I'm super excited to go through this with you today. I guess the biggest thing is could you talk about it? Because I think there's really a lack of what the heck is hyperbaric?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure, there's definitely a huge. At least in the time that I've done I've been around a misconception of thinking it's just for you know, navy divers or people have heard about you know, welders and engineers having the bend. So I think a lot of people think of it just in that regard. But for me and all of my 20 plus years of pursuing health and learning root cause, for me it is the quintessential of any and all things. If I could only do one thing the rest of my life for my health, it would be a hyperbaric chamber. Because the mechanisms of action that are created within a hyperbaric chamber are unparalleled to any other aspect in any other modality in life.
Speaker 2:Because as you and I sit here talking and your listeners are listening, we are at one ATA, which stands for one atmospheric pressure. So although we're breathing oxygen, we're only getting it at about a 23 to 27% click because of all the other gases that are in our environment. So when you have a lower level oxygenated environment with minimal pressure, you're not actually getting to the root of saturating the body. So when we put you in our chambers, we've got mild and soft chambers that are 1.3 ATA. So you say 1.3,. That doesn't sound huge, but that's about 12, 15 feet underwater. In the equivalent, or about 4 PSI of pressure on the body, we have a 1.6 ATA chamber. Same thing, 1.3, 1.6. It's actually double the amount of pressure.
Speaker 2:You're now at 8, 8 psi and maybe 20 feet or so, and our big boy at a 2.0 or anytime you hear two, three, four atas. You're the equivalent of 33, 66 or 99 feet underwater and upwards of 11 to 20 psi's on the body, based off the chambers that you have. So what's the clinical significance there? Right, when you and I sit here at normal atmospheric pressure, it's only the red blood cells that contain and carry oxygen. So when we talk about TBIs and we've had damage to vascular walls or capillaries and why somebody with a stroke doesn't heal well because it's not a highly oxygenated environment Someone like me we could talk about the recovery of a meniscus surgery. They call it a white zone. You don't get a lot of blood flow Right All that connective tissue.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have a lot of blood flow, so it's starved to begin with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's because that's normal atmospheric pressure when we go in any of the chambers 1, 3, all the way up to the heart at 2.0,. You are now pressurizing the gas molecule that is oxygen, and this is the only time this happens in our lives In a chamber. You push the oxygen out of the red blood cells into your blood plasma, which is normally not a carrier of oxygen, and you get it into the white zones. That's why, with TBIs and strokes, it is the most successful recourse on the planet because it actually causes angiogenesis. I know your viewers can't see us, but if you had a stroke that happened on the right side of your brain, thus not getting blood flow to that, but you have other healthy arteries and vascular components which you do, you will literally regrow, rebranch new vascular components because it causes angiogenesis.
Speaker 1:Really. Is that like science supported Science supported Really it is supported. Is there Science supported?
Speaker 2:Really it is. So. The two major mechanisms of hyperbaric is angiogenesis and neurogenesis, so the ability to take the innate that God gave us, which is a self-regulating organism designed to heal all on its own, you have to have a high functioning nervous system, which is the driver of it all, and you have to have a high functioning vascular system, which is the capacitator of blood and oxygen, and you enhance that a hundred fold by going into a chamber, the part that I think will also be really cool. And you mentioned 2017, something else came out in 2017. That's highly impressive, especially to your demographic of listeners in 2017.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. Our demographic. You know you can't be an age denier. You look great, but you're in brother, I'm not trying to be 40 yet?
Speaker 2:No, I don't. But here's another example. Yeah, that is also not supposed to be middle-aged or anything there, right, depending on and I don't want to go too far on this with you, but I don't know if you're a spiritual man or if any of your listeners are. And I don't want to go too far on this with you, but I don't know if you're a spiritual man or if any of your listeners are. But one of the things that me and my partner struggled with is you know, how did Jesus, by his own admission, tell us people lived four, five, six hundred years of age, biblically written. And now today we are supposed to accept that we are middle aged, at 40, 50, and that life expectancy is 70, 80. That was never supposed to happen. But what we've lost over time is that atmospheric pressure in which God and Jesus spoke to us. So I'll come back around to that and tell you where I can go.
Speaker 1:I blame Cheetos yeah. They're not a sponsor but Cheetos did not exist in biblical times. I don't think. No, I don't remember that book.
Speaker 2:No, that didn't help. Okay, but in 2017, where I was going to say to our demographic that people would appreciate this, all these people chasing anti-aging this cream, this supplement, this that there is nothing that's ever been proven better for reversing the aging process than hyperbaric. In 2017, out of Tel Aviv, israel, the study that was conducted proved that 60 sessions in a 2.0 ATA chamber increases telomere length by 30%.
Speaker 1:Really. So you know this as a scientist, but to your audience, your telomeres are a measure of your cells.
Speaker 2:The longer they are, the longer your life expectancy bearing an act of God or an accident, and the shorter, the shorter you're expected to live. So the only thing that's ever produced that kind of anti-aging study was done in a hyperbaric chamber Okay, while getting up to eight times natural stem cell production and release in the body. So if we can kick up our natural stem cells that the aging process normally takes from us, we can create a lengthening of our telomeres. What you are also looking at and me, when you compliment me to your audiences, I'm the byproduct of having worked for a long time of getting metals, chemicals, toxins, parasites and garbage out of the system. But when I added hyperbaric, it undoubtedly took me to another level and I definitely feel like you did. If people see me, they're like wait, you're 41?. Like yeah, it's a testament to what we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I have followed sort of that sector for a while. You know the Dave Asprey's, the Ben Greenfield who's the guy who's trying to live forever, Brian Johnson's trying to live forever.
Speaker 1:And I think what makes people and why I wanted to do this with you is that I mean, there's clearly things that work. There are clearly things that kind of work, and I think it's the kind of work things that sort of make people walk away. You know, you try, so it's like I'm going to run a marathon, so I'm going to go out today as a complete non-runner and go run 26 miles.
Speaker 1:Well, that didn't help and it was hard and I'm never doing it again. Yeah, good luck. I think some of these modalities are similar like that. You need to have a little faith in them, but everything I know about hyperbaric and some of the other modalities you offer, it works.
Speaker 2:It is proven science.
Speaker 1:It's not like, well, maybe if you take this supplement or that supplement and people have different feelings about supplements but just the fact that there is science-based research and you look at, even if you're not looking at it, and everything makes sense the wound healing, just pushing more oxygen into them. I did not know about the soft tissue, blood starved, connective stuff, which is amazing, and that's why I would probably shove all my friends in your door, because we all have that. I mean we don't. I mean everybody can deal with their muscles, that's a thing, and everybody knows how to deal with that, but that connective tissues, that, oh, you know, this aches and my elbow does this and my knee kind of does this.
Speaker 2:Let me give you and your audience some prime examples of that right.
Speaker 2:Because it's one thing for me to tell you about this person that came in and we saw their A1c change and they're not a diabetic anymore, or this person that had a TBI and we've corrected it, or X, Y and Z, but I can give you more of my personal successes in that arena. In 2023, I had a massive meniscus tear of my left knee and it was a big horn tear, which means the meniscus flapped over on itself and I couldn't extend my leg in deflection, so I was stuck like this. So from the time I tear my knee until I have surgery, I'm atrophying because I'm not working out. I can't go to the gym not doing that stuff. So, long story short.
Speaker 2:On this part of the story I'll give you from the day I tore my knee to the time I had surgery, the time I get back in the gym is about an eight week period. Okay, Within the first month and a half back into my rehab, I had videos to show. I deadlifted 500 pounds and that was more weight than I had deadlifted in the previous like year. So even the guy my physical therapist was like are you kidding?
Speaker 1:me and I was like dude.
Speaker 2:the only thing I'm doing different is hyperbaric, so when I saw my meniscus heal very quickly and my rehab turned into me being stronger than ever. Give you one other quick, acute story because a lot of hyperbaric is we got to be repetitive and do it. I'm still a big athlete at heart. I still play ice hockey In October of last year yeah, well, here we go hockey in October of last year.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, here we go. October of last year I managed to roll my ankle significantly bad in my boot. Don't ask me how, but I did. My wife is an orthopedic. Oh, she's an orthopedic. Did she yell at you? She didn't yell at me, but when she gets, when we wake up the next morning and she sees that I can't stand up, my clothes were soaking wet because I sweated all night. Having an inflammatory response, she was like you're coming into the office, we got to x-ray it. Well, x-rays come back negative, but my 15-year orthopedic wife was the one who actually diagnosed me with a severe high-low ankle sprain, stuck me in a walking boot and said hon, I don't know how to tell you this, but you got three to six weeks on the IR. I was supposed to fly to Florida the next day play in a golf tournament the day after that. I'd been waiting months to get in Sure, and we had a playoff game in hockey back the following Tuesday. So I go, babe, I don't know about you, but I don't got three to six weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as God is my witness, brother, I left Excelsior Orthopedics in Niagara Falls go right to my North Tonawanda office. I get in the soft 1.3 chamber and I do a two-hour session. Get out of this chamber, go home, have dinner, bath time with the kiddos, go back and sleep in the chamber for four hours, so I did six hours in one day, as God is my witness.
Speaker 2:I golfed 48 hours later. I got back on the ice one week to the day of the injury and my wife that's been with me through all kinds of what some people call miracles, say I don't even know how to explain, because I knew how bad your ankle was and you played golf, which is massive stress to rotation on your at a high ankle sprain or just walking 18.
Speaker 1:And then you played hockey.
Speaker 2:Right. So that was also a really cool solidifying aspect that my orthopedic wife had never seen that level of change on something that would have been a minimum three.
Speaker 1:So what's the dinner table where your wife is sort of traditional medicine and you're leading edge? She's not. She was that way when we met each other many years ago, but I'll tell you as a woman who is medically trained we have two beautiful children that were home births, that are as pure as the day.
Speaker 2:God gave them to us, and she just has a wonderful education in mind on that side, but all of her heart and components are on this side of the pack.
Speaker 1:That's the trend. I hope more medical professionals are going where the things we call fringe now. I hope they become more mainstream and I hope they just add to the toolkit. I mean, sometimes you need surgery, things break you need them sewn back together.
Speaker 1:But in your instance, especially soft tissue and your example of the meniscus tear to, I can tell you I probably can think of ten friends, former athletes, that meniscus tear. I'm on the couch. I gained a hundred pounds I am never gonna get back to, and not even athleticism, just healthy being able to walk through the grocery store, life yeah, now they're stuck in that downward spiral.
Speaker 2:The pain went on there, the physical manifests more and it's a bad situation, and I mean we are.
Speaker 1:You know we're 10, 20, 30 years away from being too old to be immobile, because you know I mean we were talking before the podcast leg strength and grip strength Huge. You know, if you hurt your leg and let it atrophy and you can't get out of that chair, you've written yourself a death sentence In my opinion. That's the beginning of the end.
Speaker 2:I would agree. So that's a big part of, for me and, like I said, my 20 years of being a root cause provider healthcare. I'm a master muscle tester. I teach applied kinesiology all over the country. I really looked at what were these true modalities that actually had science behind them, that were to the greatest benefit of people, with really being non-invasive.
Speaker 1:Can we be best friends? We sure can. Scott, I'm sorry but I may have a new best friend. I apologize.
Speaker 2:We could all be friends and why we really birthed this facility was to what you're testifying to. Wow, jimmy, you look great. So what have I been doing? I've done all that detoxes, et cetera. I always pursue my health, but the first modality I invested in my own health was an infrared sauna. Okay, and I've had one in my house for almost 12, 15 years, and when you start looking at just the sauna alone, people that do a sauna two to three days a week decrease all cause mortality rates by 20 to 30 percent. Yes, people that do a sauna four or five days a week decrease all cause mortality rates by 50. So getting in an infrared sauna can reduce high blood pressure, can reduce blood sugar, detoxify the liver, the colon, the lymphatics, and it ignites mitochondrial function. That's the big kicker and I can.
Speaker 1:I can speak to that. My friend, Rick, shout out to Rick. Nicotra has an infrared sauna in his basement and I have the constant glucose monitor. I'm a type two. I did it out of pocket because I wanted the data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's great data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just needed the data. But I have seen infrared sauna and the impact on blood sugar. Again, we don't talk enough about, and that's another modality you offer here at Synergy.
Speaker 2:So we brought the infrared sauna in, and then, as cold plunging started to get real popular, it was very big on my radar and then, like you, I started paying attention to the science.
Speaker 2:So with the sauna we also have the release of heat shock proteins, which is massive. Then you get in the cold plunge and, yes, you think about how it reduces inflammation. It does all this, but the mechanism by which it does is the release of cold shock proteins. And for any of the athletes out there that just want to get skinnier, you will never do more weights or enough cardio to mimic the weight loss of brown fat activation from the heat, leaving your body in a cold plunge. But now, as the athlete in me comes into this, what do I do? I get in the cold plunge. First I get vasoconstriction. I drive all that blood and oxygen to my brain and my core. I then get in the sauna, get vasodilation, pump it out peripherally and then I'll finish in the cold plunge and I just basically ran a marathon with the amount of vascular movement that went through my body and you're doing the contrast thing.
Speaker 2:And I never put any weight or impact on my knees, hips or back. So if we are overweight, if we are working through an injury, some of the great ways to also mimic that work in the gym is putting that contrast heat to cold. So the combination of those to me were extremely powerful when you do the two of them, because then they also both enhance mitochondrial function. Here's a cool stat that you may not know, or, if you do, I'm glad to share with your audience A mere loss of 5% of oxygen to the mitochondria in the brain will cause anxiety, depression and brain fog.
Speaker 1:Oh, you mean every master's athlete? I know, yeah, it's in my brother.
Speaker 2:So you get into the sauna, you get into the cold plunge the chamber. That's really the root of what we went after was what triggers and stimulates the mitochondria, and that would lead us to the last modality that we brought in. It's super effective, cheap and easy to do is red light therapy. So when we think again about some of the natural mechanisms of the way God created the earth and the body we don't all get up at sunrise and we all aren't outside to get the natural red light you know we get we think about the UV light to catch a tan but, it's that sunrise and sunset that sets the mitochondria, by what you take in through the eyes.
Speaker 2:So to jump in the red light bed for 10 minutes, two, three, four times a week, especially here in the Northeast when we get the gray skies forever, You're stimulating mitochondria, You're stimulating collagen, You're stimulating connective tissue and, holy cow man, I think we've other than people not knowing all these things that we're working to get out. There we did. I think we hit a home run with what is the quintessential fountain of youth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I like the fact that you offer sort of the circuit of these things that kind of are additive on top of each other. I know I went to a chiropractor out in Lockport, Bill Briarley.
Speaker 2:He's one of my good friends, dr B. Dr B, he's one of my good buddies. You know, dr B. All right, you can't go in Dr B's office without red lights being on.
Speaker 1:That's what I was saying Years ago. He was telling me as he Partitions apart. That red light therapy.
Speaker 2:Shout out Dr B. He's one of the greatest ART docs this area has ever seen.
Speaker 1:He's amazing and I push everybody I can at him because he does think like people think Cairo, they think crack your back crack your neck. No, he first of all understands the body in a way that most people don't. Physiology, yeah.
Speaker 2:Interactions of supplementation on the bleeding edge of stuff. I'm not surprised I was gonna. I meant to ask you before if you knew dr b. He's a good friend of mine. Yeah, he works on me and my family. He's a good I. I. I have a few people that I like in the area, but if I'm doing anything related to active release techniques scar tissue adhesions, muscle work yeah, there's nobody better than that man right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely shout out but he was the first one to expose me to red light and I, I got to say of all of them I don't want to say I'm skeptical on red light, but it feels a little more woo than the others. I mean, I get, I mean especially now, you know, in the podcast space, you know you got the all the bro science and the real science people talking about get out and get sunshine in your eyes and it's probably true, as we hear, are in the beginning of March in Western New York and it kind of sucks. I went to Lauderdale last weekend with my girlfriend Karen and it was kind of great.
Speaker 2:That's a big difference there. Yeah, I definitely you know, to say any of them, there was always a little bit of skepticism on any of it, right, because it's like you got to see it, to experience it. But that was what really did it for me. On the red light, was understanding. Okay, what in our environment is naturally supposed to give us red light?
Speaker 2:And it's truly the sunrise and the sunset which is why, especially if you get into any of like the bigger carnivore or keto paleo type people they talk about, you should eat within an hour of sunrise because your metabolism, your mitochondria, right, it's all most stimulated. But what starts it is that, as that sun's rising and your eyes are absorbing the red light, it really tunes up the mitochondria. And that's why we also have so many issues with living indoors, fluorescent lighting, our cell phones at night, because now it's blue light which is a negator of the red light. So, yeah, I'm with you, it definitely had a different feel than the others. But when you understand that there's a frequency penetrating at a more superficial level, we're not targeting, say, core organs, but we are targeting as collagen and mitochondria. Those are the two big stimuli of red light.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean on almost every episode of the podcast. Scott and I will tell everybody that'll listen the 10 minute walk Again. It's the light in your eyes, it's for some reason there's a an effect on the fact that you just took in calories. It seems to be processed a lot more efficiency and it's just the fact that we live indoors and it's just. There's benefits. Just 10 minute walk. Yeah, yeah, so I'm. I'm not not on board with red light. It's just like I said.
Speaker 2:it's probably the least that I know about, and I would say in just the time that we've been together, it's probably the least important within some of the athletic aspects that you're looking for. If you were coming into me with an eczema, psoriasis, rashes, real, like more superficial issues. That's where I find it to be an absolutely unparalleled component, but that's the way that it actually is as a treatment is. It's a superficial frequency where the infrared of, say, the sauna, is a deep penetrating frequency to the core and the organs.
Speaker 2:So I would say that there's a ton of cellular level, but it's more superficial when it comes to collagen and mitochondria. With red light, where the cold plunge, the sauna and the hyperbaric are engaging you at the depths of core. Cold shock proteins, heat shock protein, that's liver dumping. Right, that's not going to happen in red light. Angiogenesis, neurogenesis, like the chambers provide, won't happen in there. So it's just a nice of. What are the goals, what are the objectives?
Speaker 1:And I feel that we covered everything from shallow to deep. Yeah, short, long, and it's funny, you know. To bring it back to dr b, my friend rick, who has the infrared sauna, is also a friend of dr b's and he put red light.
Speaker 1:Therapy in the infrared sauna, because you know you're sitting there, why not compound the impact? And because I'm a scientist, I want to quantify everything to the second decimal place. But the reality is that it works. I feel better. I mean, I've got the CGM. Um, I see my blood sugar impacted amazingly. I sleep horribly. And there there's. You know, it's probably energy drink related, but if I, if I do sauna five, six o'clock at night, 8.30, 9 o'clock, I'm having a hard time opening my eyelids because I don't know what that process is, but that works.
Speaker 2:That's kind of a good segue. If we were to think about what is your follow-up to your listeners after today. Right, if we're coming in for, say, one single session like we've only done one, you're not going to get all these other multitudes because you've got to do more. But what I'll tell people is you're going to get one of two dynamics that happen after a first session and it's going to be a good indicator of what your innate, your nervous system, is doing. Right, so right, the nervous system is one system, but we got two sides. We got the sympathetic nervous system, which, in layman's terms, is a gas pedal, and you got the parasympathetic nervous system. What I tell us, in layman's terms, break and stop Like it.
Speaker 2:When you go in the chamber and do the circuit, your body is going to say if I am underperforming, you're going to walk out of here feeling euphoric, because it's going to put you in a sympathetic state where you're like dude, I'm running through a wall and I haven't been there in quite a while, yeah, but when you're in a chronic state of inflammation, high cortisol stress, you've been over in sympathetic overdrive.
Speaker 2:You could come out of that, which is, I think, some of what you're getting at home. When you do that is a full engagement of the parasympathetics, which is rest, recovery and healing. So sometimes people walk out of here and they're just like putty in the chair going. Man, I just want to lay down. So those are usually the two positive extremes is if you've been chronically in overdrive mode, it's going to push you down and if you've been chronically underperforming, it's going to drive you back up, which is really cool in the short term I can think of 10 people, I could walk in here.
Speaker 1:Each one would be an example of one thing you just said, because, I mean, this truly is, and I'm not pandering. I appreciate your time today, but I really am here because I'm interested in the modalities. This is what athletes over 40 suffer with. They suffer with the hard to get oxygen in tissue. They suffer with the relaxation that they they certainly are probably carrying a little more weight than they should. Yeah, yeah, probably a little bit. Um, and you know I was talking to a denise, you're she's she's our manager.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's fantastic okay um, and we were talking a little bit about my car accident and what I've been through the biggest thing with the red light and the infrared and the cold. It's almost like force meditation. If you're really hot, you're here. If you're freezing cold, you're here. You're not worried. Freezing cold, you're here. You're not worried about that thing you got to do at work, or do the kids need brownies for the bake sale or any of that, because you are completely in the moment. You cannot not be in the moment. So I think that's sort of like an ancillary benefit is just the fact that you know everybody talks about you got to shut your brain off for a while and just kind of focus it's.
Speaker 2:It's forced focus really, and it's amazing and that that that part two of the focus, the stress, the, the, the calming of the mind that's where it's so hard to get in the cold plunge because your brain is telling you not to do something. That's hard, but that, John, is my favorite and most addictive part about the cold plunge is I can mother F it getting in it, yeah, but once I can calm my mind and at the end of it I always recommend dunking your whole head under to get your vagus nerve activation. By suppressing the head under, I'll come out of that and literally feel like a new human being, Like I'm so calm, de-stressed and ready to go because you're going to increase brain neurotropic factors by like 400% when you go and smash the body in that cold water, because whatever agitation you have, it's like nope, back here, You're right here right now and it's that's a cool wave to ride in the day.
Speaker 1:It's funny because everybody that knows me is wondering right now why I'm even considering cold plunge, because they're probably all tired of me saying I'm delicate and I get chilly. I used to weigh, so when I first was diagnosed I weighed 340 and I was carrying significant muscle.
Speaker 2:Well, you ain't that, no more brother. No, you ain't nowhere near that now.
Speaker 1:No, I had to drop a boatload which was hard because it was a bang on the ego, because I got weaker. I mean some of it was muscle. I ego because I got weaker, I mean some of it was muscle. I mean you can't just select. It would have been great, but I didn't selectively, and I probably didn't do it right. But I was kind of panicked because, like my blood sugar, like my A1C was 13. And my, what's the word I'm trying to think of?
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, the blood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was off the charts Like they literally gave me insulin in the doctor's office.
Speaker 2:If, you were 13,. I'm thinking you were probably like 400 or 500. It was a high, fasting number.
Speaker 1:That's approaching coma.
Speaker 2:Yes, they really gave me insulin.
Speaker 1:That's high. I had to do something One time. I gave blood and they're like there's stuff floating on this blood. You might want to talk to your doctor. I'm like yeah okay.
Speaker 1:So I made a lot of changes to get to today, but I think part of it is my body still thinks it weighs 340. I get chilly, so cold is interesting for me. Hot is awesome. We'll work it out. Yeah, I understand, we'll definitely work it out. Cool, how about we go through some of the modalities? Uh, you know I'll go do them or whatever is available today if you have time, and uh, I'll probably talk about them. Or if you want to talk about them afterward, we certainly can do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely won't be our day, our last dance, and obviously I'd love to have you not only share your initial yeah, more so. You know, if you do this with us for a little bit and get some sessions under your belt, especially in the h--Bot, what you'll testify to. So I think, everything and anything that your listeners would want from being athletes, you know, trying to regain as much vigor and vitality. But I also do look forward to you being able to share the continued improvement of your blood sugar, because one of the things diabetes is never a contraindication for us to putting somebody in a chamber, but we always have to tell them, whether it's one or two, be mindful of either the amount of met or insulin that's coming in, because if your sugars have constantly been x and you do sessions, they're going to come out here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can go. Want to make sure you're not?
Speaker 2:going hypo. You're not getting dizzy, but I would love nothing more than for you to walk in one day and be like dude yeah because type 2 diabetes is completely reversible it's 100 I.
Speaker 1:I'm not on the Manjaro anymore, but they tried that. That was horrid. I should do a whole podcast on that. That was horrid and yes, it works, but it is not the right path, unless you're morbidly obese and are going to die. I don't know how I feel about it. I am on Dalylantis and Metformin and I would love to not be on meds. I don't mind the metformin because I feel like there's some anti-aging. I mean, the Live Forever dudes take it voluntarily, but I don't know. The less exogenous stuff I need to do to my body, the better.
Speaker 2:I think we created, hopefully, in addition to your best friendship but, ultimately, we'll more than be able to do some cool things with your mind, your willingness and some of my education, that's going to say at the young age of 57, brother we're going to see, before you turn 60, that you're not a diabetic. I like the goal you will not be a diabetic before you're 60.
Speaker 1:I like the goal and, like I said, I can think of a few friends that all the soft tissue stuff. I'm sure their ears have perked up.
Speaker 2:I look forward to having them get excited by your success. Thanks, I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1:We're going to do some stuff and I don't know. We'll either do it later or we'll do it in a different session, but for now I appreciate everything, man.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye later. Hey, it's John and I just finished up at Synergy Hyperbaric and I wanted to give you sort of my quick, hot take on what I did and how it went. So the three modalities I went through today were red light therapy, hyperbaric chamber and infrared sauna. Let's start with the red light therapy. So their booth is very much like a sun tanning bed, except the bulbs. Instead of being tanning bulbs are red light in a frequency that I will ask jimmy about in a future episode, about in a future episode Relaxing again, very much like laying in a clamshell tanning bed. Did that for about 10 minutes. No obvious like immediate reactions. It's not particularly hot or cold, it's pretty comfortable. We'll see. See, it feels like one of those modalities that you need to need to do more than once to really understand the benefit, but it was innocuous at best. I laid there for 10 minutes, about six minutes, with my eyes open to get the red light into my brain, or at least my eyes, and uh, I may, I may, have dozed. It was. It was pretty great.
Speaker 1:The next thing I did was a transition to the hyperbaric chamber. Today I did the 1.6 atmospheres um, which I think I'd have to review my but I believe is like being 22 feet underwater. The hyperbaric chamber is a lot like a seven foot long and slightly wider hot water tank lying on its side with some valving engaging. Both ends are clear plexiglass and there's a large sliding hatch to get in. That's also clear. So it did not feel particularly claustrophobic, but I I guess if, uh, being in a space like that is not your thing, that might not be your thing, but I found it pretty comfortable. Um, they slowly take it up to 1.6 atmospheres. I should have paid more attention. I suspect it took a few minutes. There's a sort of a hissing noise, kind of a white noises noise, as they're taking you up to pressure and not unlike being in an airplane and flying up. The first couple of minutes I had to swallow and move my jaw, to pop my ears a couple times. Not uncomfortable at all, but something to be aware of.
Speaker 1:I fell asleep. It was very relaxing. The temperature sort of normalized, a little bit above ambient, and that was just really comfortable. I was in there barefoot, in sweats, and a t-shirt was running through my head the kind of things I might think afterward or what I might ask. I fell asleep the next thing I knew was an hour later and we were depressurizing. There are several buttons inside. There's a call button, you know, if you have a question, if you have a concern, there's a light that you can turn on and I believe there was some sort of air conditioning or at least air movement. I didn't bother Again, I was super comfortable. That felt great. I think I fell asleep, not because I was tired, it just.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to do it again to completely understand but it felt great. That's the scientific term for it. It felt great, had to pee the moment I got out of there. So I don't know if I was squeezed or squished or squashed or just really needed to pee, but that was a very positive experience and incredibly foreign and I can't wait to do it again.
Speaker 1:And then I transitioned into the infrared sauna, which was, if you know anything about infrared sauna, a typical I don't know three, four person, one of those wood box ones that you see. They had it warmed up to 151 degrees and I sat in there for 40 minutes. I love heat. It was very great. I sweated like a pig. Obviously that is a modality, that just the immediate effects, just the warmth and the sweat is something that I completely enjoy and I'm really glad that I did that. Fortunately or unfortunately, the cold plunge was not in service today. As we all know, I can be kind of delicate and I'm sure I would have been whiny, but I did not cold plunge today. I can't say I'm sad about that, but I will certainly do it in the future.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if we recorded the first part with Jimmy or it happened afterwards, but he and I have spoken about making this a bit of a continuing series, since all of these things don't really have an immediate, immediate effect to make me and maybe a couple of my friends be guinea pigs to see what the long-term effects are over time. I know we did speak while recording about my blood sugar. I can tell you, when I started with the red light therapy, I looked at my constant glucose monitor, which is a Freestyle Libre 3, if you're interested, and it was sitting around 200. Now I had just eaten a bit not a ton, but a bit, so it was a bit elevated just from a normal non-sugared meal. I came out of the last therapy and my blood sugar was about 110. Is some of that just normal decrease due to postprandial Is that a word? I think that's a word After eating kind of thing. Maybe Is it an effect of one of the modalities, possibly. I mean, I still have months to go on this constant glucose monitor, so that is definitely one of the things that we will investigate going forward.
Speaker 1:I looked a bit at my heart rate. My heart rate went down about I don't know 15. I'm usually sitting at 70, 75 resting heart rate and I was in the high 50s when I was done. Now that just might be because I had a really relaxing nap in the hyperbaric chamber, but that's something that interests me going forward as well. So all in all, it was an incredibly positive experience. I look forward to investigating this further. I don't want to say I'm a disciple just yet, but none of it was a negative experience. I think things like the red light therapy I'm curious about. I think that's something that's definitely going to be long-term, just because it's both um, a little less aggressive is the wrong word, but it, you know, it's more of a passive kind of therapy as opposed to, you know, the high pressure of the um hyperbolic chamber or just the temperature and uh, as much as I don't want to look forward to it. I look forward to the contrast of going from hot to cold with the cold plunge. We'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. And a little disappointed that Scott didn't get to go through this one, but I'm going to drag him or somebody along with me one of the ones in the future and get a different perspective. See ya. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post it on your social media or leave a review. To catch all the latest from us, you can follow us on Instagram at Masters Athlete Survival Guide. Thanks again. Now get off our lawn, you damn kids.