Nutritional Revolution Podcast

Train Like a Warfighter: Tactical Nutrition for Extreme Performance with Dr. Nick Barringer

• Season 6 • Episode 176

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In episode #176 we spoke with Dr. Nick Barringer, sharing his extensive research on readiness, dehydration in cold climates, innovative supplements, military performance nutrition, environmental physiology, and hydration strategies.

Dr. Barringer is a highly accomplished expert in kinesiology, nutrition, and performance optimization. He holds a Ph.D. in Kinesiology from Texas A&M University, along with advanced degrees in exercise science and dietetics. As a Registered Dietitian, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Performance Enhancement Specialist, and Specialist in Sports Dietetics, Dr. Barringer has contributed significantly to military and tactical nutrition research, serving in leadership and academic roles across the U.S. Army, including as Program Director for the Army-Baylor Graduate Program in Nutrition and Assistant Professor at West Point. His extensive military background includes elite training such as Ranger School and Airborne School, earning numerous commendations, including the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star Medal. Dr. Barringer has played a pivotal role in advancing performance nutrition through research, securing grants, and publishing extensively in peer-reviewed journals. 

Please note that this podcast is created strictly for educational purposes and should never be used for medical diagnosis or treatment.

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Hello everybody and welcome back to the Nutritional Revolution podcast. Today we have for you guys Dr. Nick Barringer and he's a highly accomplished expert in kinesiology, nutrition and performance optimization. He holds a PhD in kinesiology from Texas A University along with advanced degrees in exercise science and dietetics. As a registered dietitian, certified strength and conditioning specialist, performance enhancement specialist and specialist in sports dietetics. dietetics, Dr. Barringer has contributed significantly to military and tactical nutrition research, serving in leadership and academic roles across the U.S. Army, including as program director for the Army Baylor Graduate Program in Nutrition and Assistant Professor at West Point. His extensive military background includes elite training, such as Ranger School and Airborne School, earning numerous commendations, including the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star Medal. Dr. Barringer has played a pivotal role in advancing performance nutrition through research, securing grants and publishing extensively in peer reviewed journals. He's also presented at major conferences in sports nutrition, supplementation and tactical performance, further cementing his influence in the field. This has been such a fun episode, and we got to learn about some new supplements that are showing some performance benefit in the soldier and warfighter that I see overlap for in the endurance space. So excited for you guys to learn and hear about those as well. Enjoy the episode. Welcome back everybody to the nutritional revolution podcast. We have for you guys. Dr. Nick Barringer. Thank you so much for joining us Thank you for having me, Kyla. I'm really excited. I am very excited. Well, our listeners heard a little bit about you but we're going to maybe learn some other fun facts about you. I'm going to have you break down your two truths and lie in no particular order for me. Okay, I once worked security at a Mary J. Blige concert. I am a classically trained dancer and I once spent Christmas with Kid Rock. all right. These are not things I found on Google, I don't think. A trained classic dancer. I feel like you definitely could have worked security at Mary J. Blige with your your background. Christmas with Kid Rock. OK. This is these are all very good, very good set up here, Nick. I'm going to go. I'm for some reason the Christmas with Kid Rock is getting me. uh So I'm going to go with that as a lie. But don't tell us the answer. We will wait to reveal it at the end of the episode. And I'm sure some fun stories are going to come with these, whichever two are true. Amazing. Well, Nick, why don't you start by taking us back a little bit. What got you interested? You have your RD, your registered dietitians license, and you have kinesiology, which I think is such a neat pairing. Can you tell us a little bit about what drew you to that direction for your degree and then where that took you and what kind of research you were trying to solve and get education on? Yes, so, you know, started out to be a dietitian and that's what I did my undergrad in. And so it was always really interested in nutrition, started, you know, before that I was kind of exercise science was thinking I wanted to be a strength coach and then veered off to become a dietitian. um And in the military, I was able to help stand up the human performance program within special operations is called the Ranger Athlete Warrior Program. And because of that, had my, certified strength and conditioning specialist, CSCS at the time. So I got to play in different areas of strength and conditioning and nutrition and look at some of the human performance research, how we could apply to Rangers. And because of that, I was able to get picked up to do long-term health education and training through the military. They paid for my doctorate and I selected to study under Dr. Rick Kreider because he did that mix of kinesiology, Because human performance isn't in a bubble. There's exercise, there's nutrition, goes hand in hand. And he had the exercise sport nutrition lab, which is where I wanted to work. So that's what kind of got me into all of this. Amazing. And for our listeners reference, I got to attend a webinar that Nick spoke and presented at, and he mentioned something that we will definitely dive into today, which definitely caught my ear for our athletes and clients was he was presenting and talking about dehydration and that he found that the majority of the dehydrated participants were in a cold climate versus a hot environment. So we're going to dive into that with Nick today, because I think that is just so fascinating. uh So tell us a little bit about the research that you've been involved in. You've primarily been in the military, so working with war fighters primarily. But I know you've done some Omega-3 research. I know you've done, um I think it was like nootropics. So share with us a little bit about your journey through the different types of research you've been involved in. Yes. mean, again, going back to, know, what really got me started was it, you know, the exercise for nutrition lab, and it was really awesome there in College Station, Texas, Texas A&M gig 'em And so, you know, there was research going on for weight control, like weight loss, doing exercise programs. um We were doing research on dietary supplements, uh you know, creatine, there's some creatine research. Tart-Cherry research while I was there looking at delayed onset muscle soreness. That was one of the more fun studies I was able to be a part of because there was two models they used to induce muscle soreness. The first one was a lifting model. And for those who lift will appreciate this, 10 sets of 10 on back squats. Yes, that will make you sore. And then for the... Endurance model, it was a half marathon. They set up a half marathon there in College Station. The first author on that, was Kyle Levers, Dr. Kyle Levers paper that he did. He looked at it. uh And I don't know if Elfago Galvan was the second one who was the lead author on it. But anyway, uh a lot of great teammates there. And we're able to show, Tart cherry is beneficial. And now that's kind of been. shown it multiple times and it's kind of standard practice for a lot of athletes when you look at delayed onset muscle soreness. But that was a lot of fun to be a part of. And then for my research, was looking at, since I was military, I wanted to use soldiers. So I went to Fort Hood, Texas, and I looked at vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acid levels, and uh exercise performance, of fitness, and kind of came up with this algorithm of looking at how it affects soldiers' mood. So when you can follow those three. And what we were trying to get after is if there were some early signs of depression that could be caught through fitness and nutritional status, because at the time, and sadly it's still the case, but this was at the time, you know, we're looking at 2014, 2015, suicide rates were climbing in the military. So kind of looking for those signals. Because a lot of times you can't expect a service member to come and say, hey, I'm depressed or I'm thinking about harming myself, sadly. Usually it's too late. So some of those silent signals that we could pick up on to say, this person is at risk, could we intervene early on? Wow, yeah. Did you find anything out of curiosity with the vitamin D being low and correlation? we did. I was able to publish that paper, and so can share with you and the audience. We were able to kind of predict that with vitamin D, omega-3 levels, and fitness. And then what's interesting, so one of my students, Kelly Shad, I was able to project, we later went on and looked at vitamin D deficiency and diagnosis of depression through the military, starting in southern bases, going all the way up to Alaska. And what she found with those diagnosis is yes, that as you went further north, you obviously had more vitamin D deficiency and then that went along with depression. So I think there's something there. There is a little bit of it. Is it the chicken or the egg? Right. You write them below because you're depressed, you go outside. But there are some mechanisms in the brain that we could point to, right, for if you have low vitamin D, it could affect your mood state. oh Wow. Yeah. So fascinating. uh OK. So a lot of what you assess with your soldiers and warfighters is definitely a state of readiness. And I think you mentioned this in the presentation I was watching. Can you explain to us what is readiness? What does that composed of? Yeah, you know, you are ready at a moment's notice to physically, emotionally, cognitively do whatever the demand is in front of you. That's it. So That's really what readiness is all about. And so part of that readiness, obviously, they need to be healthy. They have to have proper energy availability, hydrated. How do you keep individuals in that state all the time ready to roll? Yeah. And realistically, you don't always there's going to be some fluctuations. People get hurt. People get sick. You know, injuries happen. But otherwise, yes, it's trying to keep them healthy. And one of my good mentors, Coach Martin Rooney, would always say the best athletic ability is availability, right? To be able to show up on game day. So what can we do to support that? Good nutrition keeps you healthy. Smart training principles keep you healthy. Getting enough sleep. keeps you healthy. Whether this is outside my expertise, like spiritual, psychological, like the mental well-being, right? Doing those checks, whatever gets you in your good head space, whatever practices those may be, making sure those, you're doing those as well. So you're healthy and ready to go. I think that one sometimes gets overlooked, right? But making sure all of that. And that's why the Army has now the holistic health and fitness. Nice. at all those components to keep those war fighters ready. That's great. I love that. And OK, so we're definitely going to get into some conversation around heat and cold hydration management. uh What are some common misconceptions that you see maybe in warfighters or other athletic populations around heat and cold and heat and cold performance? You know, misconceptions, I would say, you know, for heat, I don't know if there's misconceptions as much as maybe that, you know, for heat, they don't prepare for it as well as they should. What I've seen is like, you know, you're going somewhere hot. You need to figure out how to prepare and train for that. You know, a little thinking outside the box. Sometimes even if you're in a cold environment, there's ways to prepare for the heat. And then on the flip side of that, uh for the cold kind of what you started out with and what I talked about in that talk was like the hydration, like thinking about that very tactically and because the assumption that people are just gonna drink or what have you from what I've seen from my experience is not the case, uh especially depending on what is required for them to get that water, right? Because again, when we talk about a war fighter situation, it's not always, bottles of water, it might be in a situation where that training environment we were in at Marine Mountain Warfare, you have to melt the snow. So that means you gotta go outside of your warm tent, you gotta get your jet boil going, you gotta melt the snow, you gotta put it in whatever hydration thing, and then you gotta keep that hydration, if it's a Camelback, you gotta keep it from getting frozen, right? And sort of things like that, but thinking through all that logistically. Mm Gosh. Yeah. So fascinating. I see so many overlaps. We've had I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Iditarod race. Are you familiar with it? Yes. We've had em athletes and clients and guests to on the podcast who have competed in that. And like that is a common conversation of like how they're keeping their yeah, even their food warm and their food choices. So it's something that doesn't like break your teeth. you, yeah. Yes. Yeah, it is very interesting space. So you mentioned adapting to the getting prepared for the heat, even when you're in a cold environment. What does that protocol look like for a warfighter? I'm curious. Does that compare to like our endurance athlete like sauna hot tub exposure or? Well, one, I'll say, we'll start with the easy one. You're not in a cold environment, but simple things you can do. So I was in the military during the global war on terror. So where were we going? We were going to Afghanistan, we were going to Iraq. Iraq's very hot. And typically, when do people do physical training? Early in the morning, when the sun's down. So what I would argue, and some intelligent units did this, is like, if you're getting ready to go to Iraq, you need to start easing in and PTing at the hardest time of the day, training outside during the hottest time of the day. Now not all at once, but intelligently, because guess what? You're gonna be outside in 120 degree weather in the desert with body armor on. And so if you're exercising while you're back here, at the coolest part of the day, that doesn't add up. Now if you're in a cold environment, It's like find ways to get heat. mean, get creative. It's sauna, right? Like, find that way to get that heat exposure. So again, it's not, you know, all of a sudden, and you're totally not acclimated and you're trying to acclimate at the same time you're, you know, putting yourself in physical danger, right? For our listeners sake. So again, most of them are endurance athletes that are running in light shorts, light shirt. Share with us a little bit. What is how much does the gear weigh that a soldier is wearing? It depends on the position and what weapon systems they're carrying and how much ammo, but they could be carrying 20 to 30 pounds light without a pack or anything like that. You can throw a pack on and now you could get up to 90 to 120 pounds in some situations. If for instance, there are more men. you know, they're carrying those mortars, those big rounds that you launch, stuff like that. They've got to put those on their back and then somebody has to carry the rounds and then, you know, or you're a machine gun team, that machine gun is larger and it's going to be heavy. And then also the ammo that goes along with it. So again, that oh increases the load and kind of the thermal stress, but then the body armor that they wear, there's plates. Right? There's, you know, these, these ceramic plates that are in there so they can stop like large rounds. Why, you know, anybody's worn will tell you that they also trap heat. yeah, traps heat against, you know, your body, both your front and your back. um You want those they're like, you know, they could save your life, but not good for thermal regulation. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I think that really helps put it into perspective, certainly for our listeners and myself. So with something like that, again, my brain goes to what I know, which is the endurance space where when they're hot, they have the opportunity to pour water on them and put ice cubes in there, down their clothes. How are war fighters, once they're in that hot environment, how are they managing their core temperature? similar is cold water, if they can get it and pour it, if their points are where they can take a break, if they're doing like guard duty, they can rotate out and take that stuff off and cool and get in a cool room, get in a cool environment. I was at the US Army Research Institute, Environmental Medicine. And let me tell you, the scientists up there, amazing work. If anybody, listeners, go to the website, follow them, they do amazing work. And what they did, And I don't know if I'm giving credit to the right person. I know he's done a of the cold research and they have a thermoregulatory uh unit, uh might've been, I don't know if it John Castellani or those, but just even arm immersion of just putting uh your forearms in cool water can help that circulation and bring that down. Because a lot of times, again, you might not be able to take off your equipment or take off your ruck and do all that. But if you can just get your arms down that uh uh cold water. And then on the flip side, uh in a cold environment, he's even shown that if you can get some sort of warming device on your forearm, that can help keep your digits warm so you have fine motor skills when you can't wear big gloves. Smart. Wow. Yeah. So fascinating. Are you seeing any use of like the menthol mint in the heat for warfighters? We've seen a little bit of that in endurance space for like a trick on the brain cooling mechanism. OK. um Yeah. I think it's a space to be researched a little bit more. It's very fascinating. OK. So. m Do you think that there are any areas where with your experience with the war fighters and their cooling, focus solely on cooling right now for hot environments, do you think there's any techniques that they're utilizing that could be useful for an endurance athlete? think that, you how many endurance athletes are they doing the forearm immersion or you have your guys? I'm not sure if they're doing exactly forearm immersion. I've seen like when they go through aid stations, there's usually like an ice bucket and they're pouring it on their head and then they're shoving ice, you know, down the back of their shirt or in their sports bra, if they're a woman and then running, just running along. It's pretty fast. Yeah. want to dump it, like if you don't want to and you have that just getting your forearms in, you know, could help. Besides that for an endurance athlete, I mean, just because you're not wearing the same equipment, like that's what we're overcoming. You know, cold beverages, making sure they're hydrated. mean, it's basic stuff, right? Yeah. Okay. So now I want to dive into a little bit of the cool environment and managing the cold. So you obviously shared like if there's snow, they need to go outside and melt it. But um why don't we talk a little bit about like what are the maybe what are the most common mistakes warfighters maybe make in maintaining hydration status in the cold? Well, just not paying attention to it. that's what we saw. So we were doing some research, Marine Mountain Warfare. And the reason we were collecting urine was because we were doing doubly labeled water for energy expenditure, right, to collect the urine, stuff like that. We weren't even thinking about hydration. And then we got the urine samples back. And we looked at them and we're like, holy smokes, these guys need to drink water so much so. We went to the, you we hadn't planned this. We went to the commander of the school and we're like, Hey, you need to tell them to drink water. And yeah, I mean, and I'll tell you the urine samples were, they were much more dehydrated in the winter than they were in the summer, which, which again was, was counterintuitive even for us. We didn't really think about that. But then once we kind of thought it through, we're like, all right, a lot of times they're in these tents. It was really cold and you have to, You have to get out of your warm tent. You have to do the snow. You have to it's a process and you've got a plan ahead to keep your, uh you know, to keep your kind of water topped off. And so a lot of times there's like, I'm not and you're not thirsty, you know, and so that was the case. So I would say the biggest thing in the cold is just having that hydration strategy to drink. And then if you can have warm fluids as well, because you also think, okay, I just melted the snow. Sometimes it's still cold, I'm cold, do I really wanna drink this? And so having the ability to have warm fluids, if you could have bone broth, other things, that will also help encourage hydration. Yeah. What do you think is the driver for that higher dehydration outside of obviously going have to go outside the tent and I mean, well, and also, you know, you're exerting quite a bit in the cold as well, and you don't think about it. And then, you know, for that in particular, was in Bridgeport, California. So you're at altitude as well. So the air is a little drier. So you lose it a little more, you know, through your your breath. You are exerting yourself. You try not to sweat, but you might be sweating underneath those layers a little bit and you don't really think about it. ah And then again, the extra step of getting that hydration. I think that whole combination comes into play right there. Yeah. If they're inside the tent and it's so cool, they probably also don't want to go outside to pee, would be my guess either. Yeah. you know, at night. You don't want to get up and, you know, get dressed and go outside. so. Right. And you mentioned like they don't want to drink. Is that a physiological response from the cold or the altitude that drives like a decreased desire to drink? Or is it just because it's cold? The thing is just because it's cold, hasn't, I don't know of any particular mechanism there. I think it's cold, it's stress. then what, and I think it was Dr. Tim Notes looked at the, when athletes would drink when they were thirsty and then looked at actual hydration status, some of those early papers that are out there and showed that thirst is such a lagging indicator and it varies on the individual. I mean, some individuals can be, liters of fluids down before they're thirsty. So I think just, you you add that all in with those other factors and you can get people dehydrated. Yeah, fascinating. And then is there, I thought I had heard or read somewhere that there's, is there increased diuresis in the cold? Yeah, it can be. Yeah. I think that is an interesting piece too, because I think that could be confusing to a lot of athletes, right? It's like they're in the cold, they're having to pee more, so then they assume they're hydrated or they're hydrating well, em but they might not be. mean, certainly. then, you know, but here's the thing is like, you know, look at your uh every athlete listening to this. Look at your pee. You know, look at your hydration. It's still a great tool. You know, if it's a light straw color, you're good. If it's really dark, not so good. um So, you know, look at it in the snow there. If it's really yellow, that's a problem. Yes, yes. so if they start to notice that, say their urine is very dark, em long does one, someone start to rehydrate from that? And then how long does it take before they can become back to optimal hydration? Yeah, so it depends on how dehydrated they were. I've read some papers that, you know, if you're really dehydrated, it can take up to 24 hours. So that's why you kind of want to stay ahead of that curve. You know, for most people, if you OK, if you notice, say, it's starting to get a little dark, I would say in the next several hours, you know, drink enough fluid to kind of get it back. Rule of thumb I'll go with is like, if I notice I'm dehydrated, hey, I'm going to get know, 16 ounces of fluid in that next hour at least, and then C, you know, you could probably course correct over a couple hours, but if you really let yourself get really dehydrated, it could take up to, you know, 24 hours to kind of get everything back. Mm-hmm. And should someone be adding electrolytes to these fluids if they can? It depends on how much fluid loss, water is fine and we're electrolytes through the food we eat. uh But in those exertional environments like the Marine Mountain Warfare, you're rocking, you're doing all these things, electrolytes are great because a lot of times they're not eating necessarily. So we're getting that sodium in there. And then also uh the sodium and the flavoring drives that intake, which is really you know, good, always, always tell my athletes, find a flavor you like, you know, go and go with that. Yeah, obviously that meets kind of the, you know, the World Health Organization standards in terms of competition. But ultimately it's that that flavor profile plays plays a big role. And I might have told the story in that uh the talk you're talking about, you heard me on, but You know, the army came out with these oral rehydration salts that you're supposed to like put in our, you know, canteens and then didn't have any sugar, they didn't have anything in them and it tasted horrible. And nobody used them. so ultimately now they've went to more commercial products because, you know, a soldier or a Marine, you know, an airman will actually drink those. Yeah, goodness. you had mentioned, so you mentioned the doubly labeled water, but were you also using urinalysis strips for testing hydration status or no? OK, what are your thoughts on those out of curiosity? OK. I used. So when I was at Ranger Regiment to check hydration, I would use a refractometer, you know, before we look at urine-specific gravity. uh So I haven't used the strips. No, I mean, I'll share, you know, after this, at some point, the pictures with you. mean, no, was like, they were so bad that you didn't need a refractometer. You're like, they're dehydrated. Yeah, yeah. Shoot. Do you in that? Did you notice any declines in performance with the level of dehydration they were at? No, because we weren't testing it. were in the field uh with a lot of the military research that takes place outside of the labs. You don't mess with the training, right? You try to collect data around it. So we had our performance uh measures pre when they went to the field and post. And there was definitely some decrements post. But at the same time, was that because they were dehydrated or was that just because they're tired from going up and down mountains? Right. Yeah. um What are some of the performance or physiological signs that someone would notice if they are becoming dehydrated? Yeah. So the easiest one, and I think for your athletes, this is like, most people know their pace. If all of a sudden, you know, you're doing your same pace and your heart rate's 20 beats higher than it normally is, it's usually a good sign you're dehydrated or you're over training, right? But if not, you know, all those other variables that that's probably blood volume, fluid volume. so, so that's where, sorry, that's where I tell people was like, if you're doing something you've done repeatedly over time, you're like, man, this is a lot harder or, now So many people have smart watches and you look at your heart rate and you're like, whoa, why am I so high at this pace? Then that tells me I haven't hydrated as much as I should. Yeah, I think that's great. And that can come before your brain tells you you're thirsty too. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to break down a little bit of the physiology of why the heart rate increases when you become dehydrated for our listeners? Well, I mean, it's just, you your blood volume, right? You have lower fluid, you have less blood volume. So to maintain the pressures, you know, that are normal, your heart rate has to speed up. oh And so, you know, I remember I first noticed this. I mean, I knew about it, obviously in class, but like when I really noticed it, I was doing grappling tournaments. And so I cut weight. And so I cut like 10 pounds and I was exercising. I was like on a bike for some reason. I think it was part of my cutting process. And I remember the pace I was going, I normally was at like, I'd be at 110 beats per minute and I was like at 170. And it was just because most of that weight was fluid loss. So I didn't really notice it. That is fascinating. So, okay, so from what we've learned so far, certainly with the cold, there can be that lower drive or lower kind of desire to drink potentially difficulty getting water and melting it. And then you mentioned respiratory losses in a colder or more dry environment and then increased fluid loss via more frequent restroom breaks or diuresis. So those are all, I think those are all really important things for our listeners to hear because this happens not just in war fighters, but also happens in endurance athletes. And it makes me think of our endurance athletes cold races, cold race start times and going in dehydrated or ultra runners that are out doing, you know, a 200 mile race and they're running through the cold night and up in high altitude and then coming back down. It's yeah, it's just really incredible, em really incredible. So, okay, so we talked about kind of the things that can happen, uh getting some fluids in, 16 ounces as soon as you can, and then continue that and obviously watching urine color, potentially adding in some electrolytes that you like the flavor of if you can get your hands on it. uh Are there any electrolytes that you recommend, like brands or just concentrations or combos or anything like that? I I use use Bubs [Naturals] but I'm also a scientific advisor. full disclosure, I like it. this is how I know you too. for our listeners. Yeah. don't use the berry as much. I'm not a berry person. I'm a lemon guy. I'm a lemon guy. But why do I like it? There's some science behind it. All the products are ethically sourced. I know where it comes from, the higher quality stuff. And so that's what I use personally and have my know, athletes using tactical athletes. I love that. that's so great. What a small world. Well, that's really cool. I'm glad we made that connection. um So yeah, for our listeners, I believe the Bubs is like 650 milligrams of sodium per sachet, I think. em So it's definitely one of the like mid to higher end sodium content per sachet to m I think the highest I've seen out there is like a thousand in a sachet or something like that. that's a little high. So I like a you know, a little bit lower. And then the other uh thing that uh I get like with some of the hydration stuff is like people like, why can't it be sugar free? Right? And it's they forget about the, and you probably educate your clients on this, the sodium glucose transport, right? You need both of those. You are not gonna get the maximum benefit if you just have sodium, right? You need sodium. and glucose. that's, I think it's seven grams, like that little bit seven grams. If you want to maximize hydration, you're going to want to have that little bit of carbohydrate. Yeah, yeah, I think that's great and certainly helpful information for a lot of folks here. Do you in the like warfighter space, do they have to do much? um We call it gut training in the endurance space, and maybe you're familiar with that term or not, but they do they have to do things like that for any of their missions? mean. not gut training to that extreme of like, so you can get in more carbs or anything. And a lot of that is outside of like a tactical competition, like best ranger or something, you don't have to push the pace to that uh level. If you're under load, it's more of a... uh you can definitely oxidize fats. You shouldn't be like redlining the whole time. And even there's military guidelines tactically on that and what your pace should be because, you know, why do we carry a pack and why do we ruck in the military? It's to get to the fight. So you don't want to be exhausted when you drop your ruck and you actually get a fight. So you want to, you shouldn't be redlining the whole way because then they would be too tired to fight. So I would say like that for most of them. It's easy enough to snag. They're never going to get to the point where they're kind of overloading their gut, moving under load. That's yeah. It's so fascinating. All the different kind of, again, overlap, I think is really, really neat. And I think too, I mean, a lot of our research probably that we got in the endurance space came from like government and military stuff, right? First, maybe we found some things out and then transferred it to the endurance space. But I think you also brought up a great point with the kind of opposite of a hot environment trying to use cold. slurries or cold beverages to consume and cool internally, but in a cold environment using warm stuff. And I think a lot of endurance athletes miss the mark there too. And I think there's a place like start lines, race mornings, very cold, uh sipping warm electrolytes. Maybe that sounds gross to some people, but, um, or, you know, sipping something warm, I think on the start line too can be really helpful. for individuals in those really cold environments to keep that core temperature up a little bit, especially if they have to like sit in the corral and wait for the heats to go. And yeah, goodness. um Do you, from a fueling lens with the Warfighters, do you, mentioned kind of a increased maybe energy demand in the cold, maybe because of keeping core temperature warm. Is there an increased energy demand in the heat? Yes, yeah. there is, and you know, potentially, you know, might need more carbohydrates in the heat. uh But yeah, you're gonna, you know, in either extremes, you're gonna burn more energy. The highest energy expenditure I've seen is in the cold, right? And partly because of that is you gotta wear more layers. uh I don't know if you've ever tried to like move in snowshoes and stuff like this. It's, know, the locomotion is not efficient. It's, you know, so cold energy expenditure is just through the roof. uh if you got to move in it. you know, the heat's up there as well. So it's more than just a baseline as well. So, and then the other piece of it, heat really zaps your appetite more, I find. ah So that's the other piece of it is you're in an energy deficit and you really aren't that hungry. right? Do you, why do you think that is? Do you think like the guts heating up or? Yeah, don't know. You know, that's a great question. I haven't looked into. I need to ask somebody at Eucerion. They're like, why do you think that? Yeah, but yeah. That might be, mean, because blood flow is going away from the gut, right? You know, everything's going out to, you know, to try to cool your body. So the gut's kind of, you know, shutting off like, hey, I'm not in this fight. I'm gonna let you try to figure out how to thermoregulate. Right. Yes. Yeah. We definitely see like decreased. I mean, we see GI issues a lot in the endurance space. Right. And yeah, that comes with obviously not wanting to keep putting food down or sometimes fluids. And that can obviously be a tricky spiral that you can get in trouble. But OK. Well, I'd love to talk a little bit about any like supplements that you think potentially are useful in a hot or cold environment. em Do you want me to fire some supplement? off or do you have anything come to mind initially? Okay, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. know, use it right as know, stimulatory effect can kind of help you get, you know, ramped up, especially if you're, you know, the other thing I've seen in a cold is like, you'll start to feel sorry for yourself. You know, because you just that dark and cold and you're kind of really want to be here. Did I make a poor life decision? Why am in the army? No, just kidding. extra racers would say, like, why did I sign up for this race? know, and caffeine can help you kind of get over that, that ha along with the obviously, you lower perceived exertion, all the benefits that come with that. The you know, uh another one that is military research that people probably are tracking is tyrosine. Oh! Yeah, see, that's what let's talk about it. know, tyrosine, a, uh you know, a precursor for neurotransmitters, and you kind of go through those in the cold a little more in that stress. So there's a guy, Dr. Harris Lieberman, and I'll send you those papers. He took, you know, some of military research, you just feel bad for the participants reading it. They had to, it was 10 degrees Celsius, or is that like 40 degrees Fahrenheit? yeah. hold water submersion and then like do tests like before the water immersion and then after. And uh they found that uh the tyrosine, uh the participants had better working memory performance, faster information processes versus the placebo. And then there was a marksmanship task and it degraded less for the group getting the tyrosine versus the placebo. And the dose was 300 milligrams per kilogram before an urgent, before this cold water immersion. And so the thought with with tyrosine is when you have this cold stress, you really kind of burn through those neurotransmitters. So if you have more on board, it can be a benefit. you'll see you'll see and probably why people don't talk about tyrosine as much as it's been. There's a bunch of other research studies where it's looked at it as an ergogenic aid and it doesn't really show any effect. But I found multiple studies in the cold when it's really cold that it can be a benefit. So something to look at. primarily it's helping with like cognitive processing and functioning. of like a motor, you know, and I'll share that paper with you. done by Dr. Lee, his team. So that's that's one. uh know, another uh that I am getting excited about is uh you might have heard of rhodiola rosea, oxygen. You know, I've seen, you know, better oxygen consumption. And where a lot of this comes is from altitude. It can help it out, which goes along with cold, right? yeah. function at altitude, can help with cognition, perceived exertion, even mood state. And one of the active ingredients in the plant, Rhodiola rosea, is salidricide. The challenge with getting a good dose of salidricide is it depends on the plant. And believe it or not, Rhodiola rosea is getting kind of over-harvested. So... salidricide uh company has now figured out how to make it through fermentation. So you can get a really uh concentrated dose from an environmentally friendly source without having to over kind of harvest the rhodiola rosaea. You don't have to worry about any heavy metals or stuff that comes with harvesting plants from other countries if you don't know what's went on with the soil. So that's one that I am really excited about and I'm kind seeing more research literature. uh you know come out about so the salidricide. that's fascinating. So you said better oxygen utilization at altitude with it? Fascinating. And again, I can share these papers. Yeah. That's so neat. Yeah, it's amazing. The whole like cool thing. Do you know off hand if um either tyrosine or the rhodiola was used or tested on women? The tyrosine, I don't know if they use female participants. I would have to check because it is a little more older study. again, like the military population is about 20 % female, but depending on what unit it can vary. The solidricide, I am saying with 90 % confidence, I'll get you the paper, there were female participants in. That's so neat. Cool. Very cool. um And then are you seeing use of creatine or sodium bicarb out of curiosity with your firefighters? is, yeah, there's at least three papers, that show creatine can help with thermoregulation, right? You can take in more uh cellular fluid. Yes. Now you have to consider the weight gain. Will that affect you? And so that's for that athlete to kind of figure out. Sodium bicarbonate, the gut issues with that. And so what I've tried with some athletes, and I've had some who... do it and be like, don't feel anything. And then I've had some who swear by it is transdermal sodium bicarb. Oh, OK. So like the lotions and stuff. Do you have a brand that you have seen be more successful than another? only one I really know of and use is the PR lotion. Yeah. Awesome, cool. Yeah, I heard just recently, and I don't remember the name, but I had an athlete come to me and they said they got talked to by a company that has like, it looks like a deodorant stick version that's coming out, I guess. I don't know the names, so sorry for the listeners, but there might be another version too, like different options for people out there. The only thing I will say is like to get an effective dose and if anybody's used the lotion, you know, I'm about it's thick and that's what some athletes have had that they didn't like using it because it's like it's not normal lotion. It's really thick and you got to really rub it over your legs and get it in and then you allow for it to dry to get a significant dose. So if it was just a quick stick thing, I would worry about are you really getting I want to see the literature like how much is crossing. Yes. you know, I know with the PR, they have the research to show that, you know, it's delivering. then again, I've had some athletes be like, I feel so much more recovered. I feel better. I feel it. And then I've had some that are like, I can't tell the difference. If you've ever tried to buy creatine or electrolytes online and wondered, is this actually legit? We got a quick fix. We built a Fullscript dispensary for Nutritional Revolution listeners so you can shop trusted professional grade supplements that ship direct from the manufacturer, no random third party sellers, no sketchy storage. You'll find brands we use with our athletes all the time like Thorne Klean Athlete, Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Designs for Sport, et cetera, and a ton of NSF certified for sport options. Everyone gets 20 % off always, and during promos you can get up to as much as 35 % off, and it's free to create an account. If you set up AutoShip, you'll get an additional 5 % off. Just open up the show notes and tap the full script link to get started. So on our whole conversation around thermal stress and cooling, I've used the PR Lotion and I've used it in a race and I do feel like it did well for me. But the one thing I did in a very hot race and the one thing that I remember thinking when I was putting it on is like, is this going to affect my sweat losses or my ability to cool because it was it is so thick and on there? Yeah. Do you what are your thoughts on that? seen anything on it. mean, I think it's a good consideration. mean, if you're putting it like all over your body, yeah, that might be an interesting thing. Because you definitely want to block your sweat glands. But yeah, I haven't seen anything on that. Hmm. OK. Yeah, I only had it on my legs, but um yeah, it I felt like it was effective. But uh yeah, all the cool different gadgets out there. OK, so now that we're getting close on time, I want to be mindful of that. So I'm going to jump to some rapid fire questions for you. So let's see. What is one concept athletes consistently get wrong about heat performance or war fighters? Get wrong about heat for, again, I would say the training for it or the planning for it. If you're gonna be in the heat, go work out at the hottest time of the day. Start the exposure early on. Yeah. Do you have a recommendation for how long beforehand of that act like real life heat exposure they should start the simulated heat exposure? I would say four to six weeks, depending on how hot, know, again, for example, it's 120 degrees. Okay, you know, go out and maybe the first week it's 10 to 20 minute session in the hottest part of the day. And then, so we build up to kind of what we're gonna see in that environment we're going to. Yeah, great. What is one concept athletes consistently get wrong about cold performance? Yeah. I think. The hydration plan. some warm fluids, have some things set up because you're probably not gonna wanna drink. Yeah, if you could give every athlete one simple rule for hydration in the cold, what is it? And it might be that same answer. Yeah, you know, have some warm fluids available that you'd like to drink it into. Your point is you might not want warm electrolytes. So, you know, bone broth like, you know, think kind of outside the box. There might be other things or even, you know, just just a chicken, you know, broth, right? Yeah, nice and salty, warm. OK, what are the best resources for listeners who want to go deeper into tactical nutrition or environmental physiology? Eucerium, U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine. Go find uh Dr. John Castellani's research. Go find uh Dr. Lee Margolis's research. Dr. Stefan Paciakos research. Dr. Jessica Gwin's research. Dr. Phil Karl's research. Dr. James McClung's research. Dr. Harris Lieberman's research. I'm sure I'm leaving some people out. Holly McClung, they're all brilliant up there. um Social media. I, the tactical dietician, Susan Lopez, uh Diana Nguyen. I forgot what Diana's handle is on Instagram, but go follow her. um There's other tactical people I'm gonna forget. Eric Gorman, he goes by gruntgrub. He was a Marine. He became a dietician. um Yeah, there's uh Sean Pitcher. uh He's on Instagram, does a lot of tactical stuff. So, yeah, so many. There's a lot of great people to follow. Awesome. Yeah, we will. We'll link all those two in the show notes for the listeners so you guys can check those out and follow along. And then we're going to jump back to your two-person lie and we're going to find out if you if you were the security guard for Mary J. Blige or not. uh OK, so you had said that you once worked security at a Mary J. Blige concert. You're a trained classical dancer, I think you said, and that you spent Christmas with Kid Rock. I thought the Kid Rock Christmas was a lie. uh Which one was your lie? My lie was trying classical dancer. Okay, wait, so now we have to hear all these fun stories of how did you get like all these opportunities to hang out with these musicians? So when I was in college, I worked security as a part-time gig because of hours. And at the time it was $10 an hour, which if you think in like, this is like 2001 to 2003, I'm gonna date myself, it was a lot of money. It was better than, know, a lot of fast food jobs. And so the company, you know, I worked for, we did concerts and it was Mary J. Blige, I think in the Fox in downtown Atlanta. And it was, It was awesome. If you've never seen Mary J Blige and know, and she's better in like live. anyway, I've got to do that. uh And then the kid ruck thing is a little bit of uh a trick. And this is why. So I was deployed uh to uh Iraq in Baghdad and um I was the public affairs officer at this, you know, at this building and the security, the person who ran security at the front. calls me and goes, hey, we have Kid Rock at the front of the entrance or gate. And I thought they were playing a trick on me, it's a joke, it's Christmas Day. So this is Christmas Day in Baghdad, Iraq. I go up to the front, sure enough, it's Kid Rock and like a friend of his, and you know, this is what was kind of cool. What's his first name, Bob? He like puts his hand up, he's like, oh, I'm Bob. And so, and then, here's, and it wasn't no media, no press. Wow. whatever you think about the guy, know, whatever, like I can tell you, he spent hours at a military hospital in Baghdad on Christmas day. And I think it was 2006 talking to soldiers, talking to wounded, you know, soldiers like going around the grass. Again, there was no, there was like no history of this besides people there who probably, you know, took pictures. I might have one picture. um But yeah, that he spent Christmas with. Yeah. Those are two great stories. And you didn't pop quiz me on like thermal stress or anything, which is less stressful for me. Amazing. uh OK, well, where can our listeners find more about you, Nick? Yeah, so I have a website drnickbarringer.com and then I am on Instagram and I never remember my handle, but you guys, I think, I actually have to look down, sound embarrassing. nickbarringer.phd.rdn. That's it. and we will link that again in the show notes for the listeners. This has been so great, Nick. And so I think again, there's I just see so much overlap of like, yeah, between the war fighters and the endurance athlete space. It's really cool. And the tyrosine thing. So fascinating. And the Rhodiola rosea So cool. Well, thank you so much for sharing all this with us. This has been fascinating. Yeah, thank you, Kyle, for having me on and please anybody listening to this, feel free to reach out if I can ever uh be of assistance or if you have any questions, let me know. Awesome.

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Kyla Channell, MS

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