Enough Strength and Mental Training to Pull a Fire Truck With Logan Christopher
Doug Lotz 00:03
Hey everyone! This is Doug Lotz, active lifestyle enthusiastic armchair futurist and founder of CardioCast an audio guided fitness app where we help people get fit and stay fit by making studio quality fitness classes more accessible and affordable than ever, in delivering the best music and coaching possible. Anytime, anywhere. You’re listening to the CardioCast CoolDown Podcast, where we explore topics, the intersection of health, fitness and personal wellness, you’re ready? Let’s go. Welcome to the CardioCast CoolDown podcast where we explore topics of the intersection between health, fitness and personal wellness. Today we’ll be speaking with Logan Christopher, founder of legendary strength and co founder of Lost Empire Herbs. Well not born with any genetic gifts of strength Logan is now known for such feats as pulling 8800 pound firetruck by his hair, juggling flaming kettlebells ripping decks of cards in the quarters with his bare hands and supporting half a ton of weight in the wrestlers bridge. He’s the author of multiple books, including powered by nature and mental muscle. And he’s a coach verbalist, NLP trainer, and of course, an entrepreneur. Thank you for joining us.
Logan Christopher 01:14
Thank you for having me, Doug. I’m excited.
Doug Lotz 01:17
Yeah, so obviously a ton of different things going on there. Yeah, in terms of introductions, I’ve made probably one of them. exciting and dynamic, was the thing. So I’m curious. You know, I’m sure there’s, I always like to start with why, and what you know, why you do what you do? You know, so so I’m kind of curious, you know, what, why do you do what you do all those different things? I mean, I’m sure there’s probably some different reasons here and there. And I’m curious to hear more about how you got to where you are today.
Logan Christopher 01:48
Absolutely. So I wasn’t naturally stronger, athletic. It’s not like I was born being able to do these things. In fact, quite the opposite. I was the proverbial 98 pound weakling entering High School and literally did not weigh 100 pounds, though I played a football for years was never any good. It was around the end of high school when I was reaching adulthood that Yeah, as many people do in high school is kind of a dark period. So coming out of that, what I found was, I got engaged in fitness, I’d been trying to do things but not really seeing much in the way of results. But then I found out about bodyweight exercises, really, you know, much more than just sit ups and bodyweight squats and push ups. But you could do way more than that, I got into kettlebells. And that led to strong men’s stuff. So I started to have real fun and actually see real results with this. And for me, coming out of that dark period, it was not only that I was getting physically more fit, or stronger, but that’s how I like built my confidence up. That’s how I stepped in to manhood. So for me, it was really, for me, that gym is the crucible in which I forged myself. And that just led me to wanting to go deeper into it not having the natural gifts, I sought these different fields like herbal Islam or NLP in order to find these skills that could enhance what I was doing. So that just led me further down the path.
Doug Lotz 03:11
Yeah, I’ve never been the you know, sort of fastest strongest kid on the playground either. So it’s interesting, how we find ourselves in you know, fitness and wellness. You know, later on in life. I was kind of I was the opposite. I was I was a bigger kid, you know, a little bit overweight as a child, and sort of ended up getting into fitness, just, you know, trying to improve myself and get healthy and you ended up, you know, having some fun with doing this indoor cycling stuff. And simulcast was born, and then you know, progressing on to cardiac cath. So I appreciate the journey from sort of nowhere near the kinds of things we’re talking about today to now being fully engrossed in it. Yeah, sort of Nerd Fitness enthusiast here. So so I want to jump into the herbalism stuff a little bit first. So, you know, I guess we can start we talked about last Empire Herbs. I think it all started with with pine pollen. If I’m not mistaken, then your brother’s cloud and Xen, right.
Logan Christopher 04:16
Yep, that is correct. The business started with pine pollen, but my use of herbs went further back. So as I was saying, I wanted to perform well in the gym to be able to do these crazy feats of strength and endurance. And one of the first herbs I worked with, or at least remembered working with was the quadriceps fungus. If people haven’t heard of this, it’s starting to grow in popularity, but is a fungus that literally attacks and infects insects. The Quarter step synthesis comes from the Himalayan mountains, but there’s hundreds of different species across the world. Anyway. This has been well studied. This was used by Olympic athletes, people for that really wanting to enhance endurance, especially like long distance type training. When I first like I noticed a noticeable improvement in my workout. So I was hooked. And that that led me to go in deeper into herbalism. You know, the strength training led me into health and nutrition. Yeah, I dropped my childish ways of not eating any fruits or vegetables. And yes, yeah, this was one of those secret weapons for a long time. then fast forward a few years, my eldest brother cloud, he was really getting into the pine pollen. And he’s the natural salesman type. So he was just like, talking about the amazing benefits of it to his friends and backing wholesale from this other company and started selling them. So one day he calls me up, it’s like, hey, if I find a supplier of this, you want to throw together a website, you want to start a business office. So we started real kitchen table help type of stuff, but it has grown quite well from there. So it’s, it’s been great because I feel a lot of our health problems as humans have been divorcing ourselves from nature. So the I like to see the herbs as one of the easy ways you can bring more nature Becky, and and get some significant benefits, including to a performance. And that can start the path of getting people more grounded in nature, and maybe a little bit less. In the technology side of things. Technology is great and all but it certainly comes with its downsides. So tell me about ping pong. So I dabbled a bit in herbs and supplements. So I take ashwagandha on a regular basis and healthy eating with my you know, with my coffee or tea, you know, but I’m not I’m not familiar with pine pollen and exactly what it what I can do for you. So I’m curious to learn. Absolutely. So pine cone is literally the pollen of pine trees. Most people will be used to it as like a yellow dust that may coat their cars, if they’re in an area with pine trees, like this stuff can really use clouds and clouds event. It’s not well known for herbal uses, even though it’s been used in China for 1000s of years as such, the unique thing about it are fairly unique is that it has some really good Phyto androgens. So most people have heard of Phyto estrogens, this is stuff in flax, soy hops, that sort of thing that mimic estrogen compounds within the body. And there’s actually a lot of these in a lot of different foods that I mean, like apples and whatnot, maybe much smaller amounts. But these are pretty widespread. Phyto androgens we don’t see in many different places. So these are compounds that are similar to testosterone, the androgens that are especially important for males, but actually really important for women as well. pine pollen actually contains testosterone DHT, a very trace amounts of this stuff. But what it’s doing is it’s going in the body and really helping to optimize the hormone system. So for the most part, like our main demographic right now is older guys. And pine pollen is our top selling herb for that because especially in today’s day and age where we have so many endocrine disrupting chemicals, from all the pesticides on our food, that stuff in the tap water, heavy metals, plastics, which literally BPA can be in the very air we breathe, were assaulted all the time. And this can be one of those things that really helps to balance it out.
Doug Lotz 08:02
Cool. Yeah, I’ll have to check it out. You know, I feel like a lot of my sort of herbal pursuits are more to sort of, you know, sharpen my, my mind and sort of, you know, relax. But I haven’t really explored the performance said.
Logan Christopher 08:19
That’s the thing we ever say saying there’s an herb for that. So like, whatever you want, do you want to relax? Do you want to sleep better? Do you want to enhance that cognitive performance? Do you want to help your sex life there, there are herbs that can literally help with these different things. Because we nowadays we have access to the whole wide world of herbs. We mostly work with stuff from Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, because those have the longest traditions. But there are multiple schools of Western herbalism. Obviously, South America, Africa, every area across the globe, people use their herbs. It’s only in our modern time where people have gotten away from it. And we’re suffering from it.
Doug Lotz 08:52
So I know there’s like a whole bunch of different reasons, as you say, there’s no room for that for like every little thing. But as Yeah, so like for the average person out there just looking to optimize their health is there sort of a, you know, a small stack or a couple things that you’d recommend exploring just you know, knowing what we know about how people, you know, kind of are in this modern American culture we’re in?
Logan Christopher 09:17
Yeah, it really does depend like blanket statements and herbalism aren’t necessarily the best. But, you know, if you’re looking for hormonal support, pine pollen is a great one to try. Like I said, it’s mostly known as a male heir, but it can work really well for women as well. Women have testosterone, and that’s really important. stress response is obviously a huge thing. So ashwagandha is a great one for that. But there are plenty of other adaptogenic herbs, the quarter steps I spoke about rhodiola one that I really liked that actually works on the nervous system for like immediate effect, about 50% of people can feel this effect immediately as blue vervain. So yeah, there’s just a wide range of different herbs that can really help people
Doug Lotz 10:00
This coordinate steps. Sounds like you’re seeing it attacks insects or whatever reminds me of that like zombie fungus like, is that what that is? Is that that same one? Okay. I think it might be. Y’all have to check this stuff out.
Logan Christopher 10:17
Some people often pitching if they watch those videos, but the the quarter steps we’re working with is actually grown in the lab, as some different mushrooms are
Doug Lotz 10:26
100% guaranteed not to turn you into a zombie. So, you know, she touched on it just briefly a little bit ago. But, you know, what is the diet of a strong men look like?
Logan Christopher 10:38
So it’s not as extreme, as many people might imagine, like, I eat organic food almost exclusively, at least when I’m at home. You know, I think the 8020 rule as far as diet is really important, like 80% of time or 90% of the time, really cleaning everything. But also you don’t need to go crazy about it. orthorexia is a thing. So you definitely don’t want to go overboard with the different rules I eat. Yeah, basically, natural food. I eat me plenty of vegetables, fruit. I do eat grains as well, though I am experimenting with my diet here and there over the years. I mean, right now, not as much because my wife does all the cooking, for the most part, just kind of the setup we have. So whatever she puts in front of me, I eat.
Doug Lotz 11:25
Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, I’ve been doing more cooking lately. In this last year. I feel like I’m not alone, according to Instagram. of like, you know, just exploring a little bit myself. But yeah, orthorexia. That is actually so
Logan Christopher 11:43
I went through some some things right. When I was first getting into health, I kind of, I never became a raw foodist. But I was studying raw food and thinking that that was the best thing. So sometimes I’d be like, Oh, I’m gonna do this. And then I would binge eat. Obviously, not raw food or not anything. So I did get through some cycles. And basically, everyone has emotional baggage regarding food just about everyone in our culture, because we’re rewarded with it or punished with it as a kid. So there’s so much there. And that’s one of the things I like to do often with my clients or make recommendations to people, if you’re trying to get healthier, don’t start with diet, diet is absolutely important. However, there’s so many other areas that most people are so far from optimizing that are much easier to get into that don’t have the the mental blocks about them. So you know, most people aren’t breathing properly, it could do some simple breathing exercises, getting movement in these sorts of things, you know, supplementation, obviously, that’s not going to take the place of diet. But if you can get some quicker wins with that, you know, then once you’re feeling better, you can tackle that harder stuff around diet.
Doug Lotz 12:52
Yeah, that’s a really interesting, interesting point. I mean, it is, as somebody whose relationship with food over time is always kind of a weird tug of war. I’m just thinking back and, you know, yeah, I can see myself having periods where I probably, you know, almost like rebounded hard from having eaten really healthy for time and just be like, screw this. You’re getting about it for you know, and I’m probably not great way. But yeah, so so some of the think about for folks out there looking to just, you know, incrementally improve their, their health. You know, I think like, for me, it’s sleep is probably one of those ones that kind of gets, you know, it’s gotten it gets not enough attention in comparison to like, you know, diet and exercise. But I feel like nothing’s gonna work well, if you’re not sleeping. Right. Right. Exactly. And I’m sort of exploring that a little bit more, you know, my own life, but yeah, so so I guess we can move on to training or strength training a little bit. Yeah, I’ve been interested in, in bodyweight training, functional strength, did some al kavadlo stuff for a while you’ve heard of him? You know, I think strength training in general. I mean, I’m a company literally called cardio casts. But I think strength thing gets a bit of a bad rap from folks who are looking to, you know, kind of lose weight, thinking they’re better off, you know, with cardio to burn fat. But, you know, I think of course, leaning you know, lean muscle building lean muscle is a really important part of losing fat and keeping fat off. Especially. So, yeah, so I’m kind of, you know, while we’re always thinking about the syncardia cast of what, what to add next, but, you know, I think our recommendation for folks is definitely balancing things out with, you know, a strength training, but, but, you know, tell me that from your perspective.
Logan Christopher 14:55
Yeah, I like bodyweight exercise because you don’t need equipment to do it, you know, like a pull up bar. Some stuff like that and equipment can become involved but relatively simple. I like the fact that most people don’t know how to move their bodies, but not really in their bodies. bodyweight training seems to work on that, like the neurological aspect of it a bit more than weights. I think there are some advantages to weights as well. Basically, the way I see it, every tool has advantages and disadvantages. So I know some guys are like bodyweight purist and say you should never lift weight, but I’m not one of those guys. So I like to use different tools for different things. And over time, I switch up my training, like sometimes I’ll be doing heavy weight lifting, and almost all the other times it’s more, almost all bodyweight training or kettlebell stuff, or mixing and matching really depends on my goals at the time. I’ve been training for a while. So I’ve tried a lot. I’ve done a lot, and it never really looks the same.
Doug Lotz 15:50
Yeah, I’m sure not everyone sets out to be able to rip a deck of cards, but I’m kind of curious what it what kind of training goes into, you know, some of those strongman things. I mean, some of it sounds, you know, just very mental, you know, as much as physical. So, you know, I don’t know if you have a couple examples of how you prep for some of those bigger things, but but I’m really curious to know what your process looks like.
Logan Christopher 16:15
So I would say that one, every exercise is physical and emotional, and mental. And we could even talk about spiritual too. We won’t go there right now. But yeah, so doing a bench press or push ups or riding a bike, like there’s a mental game involved in doing that? Absolutely. So I do think, while people pay lip service to the mental side of things, I don’t feel like most people actually really know what to do with that. And oftentimes, because it is airy fairy, it’s fluffy, just kind of vague statements, like you got to believe in yourself, but I like to narrow it down to get to like processes. Okay, how do you actually believe in yourself, if we can have a process for doing that we can enhance your results. So that’s one aspect. Then when we’re talking about training, whether this is you know, cycling, or ripping a dexa card, that’s all always about progressive training, right? Wherever you’re starting at wherever you want to go, there are steps along the way. So with a deck of cards, you start with 10 cards, you learn the technique to it, there’s technique to every single exercise. So you start there, then you you add a card or two at a time, it’s actually quite simple to progress with a deck of cards. Really simple in the practice of how you do it.
Doug Lotz 17:27
Yeah, really obvious increment. Add another card. Going back to the the concept of you know, every tool has their plus and minus, you know, I will say that some tools are just really great. And that they they work pretty well like, you know, going to kettlebells. You mentioned I just, yeah, some kettlebell swings, right? Or is like that’s just one of these fundamental exercises that anybody can benefit from, I think.
Logan Christopher 18:28
Just about because we sit too much as a society, right, which is going to cause the shortening of the hip flexor, even cycling, right, that’s you’re not getting full extension as you’re doing it. So doing something such as a kettlebell swings, where you’re working with the so the posterior chain, relaxing, the psoas, that’s going to be very important for people to be able to move well, if we’re talking about longevity, anti aging, and being able to move well in life, I really look like to look at the quality of movement, but also the quantity of movement, not necessarily doing the same thing over and over again, that can lead to overuse injuries. But expanding the different types of movement you’re able to do. So I think there really is a lot of utility in using different tools in practicing yoga, as well as you know, heavy partials in a power rack, like get the spread of things, you’ll be able to move well in a bunch of different ways. And I think there are distinct benefits from doing that.
Doug Lotz 19:20
Yeah, no, definitely. For sure. I think that and you’re exactly right, when we’re talking about the kettlebell swings, and you know, that movement, you know, I was doing a lot of the cycling stuff at the time and literally, yeah, just you sort of get bent up, you know, you’re gonna you need to extend the other direction a little bit. And I think when folks go about, you know, trying to put a training plan together, there’s, you know, I i’ve always definitely said, like, do what you feel you want to do and like have fun with because, you know, anything you do is going to be better than nothing. But I guess when you’re progressing a little bit further, it’s, you know, it’s easy to get sort of in a rut with one exercise and mixing it up a lot, I think can be well, not only just It’s useful, but also kind of fun.
Logan Christopher 20:02
You have to understand your own circuit psychology. So some people will be fine to do the same thing every day for multiple decades, other people are going to get bored quickly, at one of the important things is like the world of training, the world of fitness is extremely wide. Like most people think it’s quite narrow because they haven’t explored it. Find something you enjoy doing. If you can do that, like half the battle is one because it doesn’t then take willpower and you know, motivation to do these things. It’s something you get to do, it’s something that you want to do. So you know, when I found about kettlebells, and I was like, Oh, you can juggle these, flip them and spin them around your body like that training is absolutely bliss to do. It’s It’s so much fun, because you’re working on the skill component, the hand eye coordination, it’s building strength and endurance conditioning at the same time, so it’s it just looks pretty amazing. It’s a great thing to do. You know, you don’t need to set them on fire wouldn’t recommend for people. But anyone actually could get started on this.
Doug Lotz 21:02
I can’t imagine like, I’m just thinking like training. Well, yeah, I’m not a juggler. But so like, I would drop things a lot. But be careful. kettlebells Are you know, kind of heavy?
Logan Christopher 21:10
Oh, you will drop them if you can bother going for sure. That’s why you practice outside.
Doug Lotz 21:17
Yeah, exactly. Sheesh. Watch out for your toes. Well, yeah, it’s funny, because I mean, people just even on that topic, like, I tend to.I I like training barefoot when I’m doing stuff with, you know, weights and whatnot. And people kind of freak out about that. And they’re like, oh, what if you drop something? I’m like, it’s not gonna stop. Like, like, no shoe, no sneaker that I’m wearing.
Logan Christopher 21:52
Yeah, they’re always saying I should use steel toe boots for the kettlebell joggins. Like, then I won’t be able to move quickly.
Doug Lotz 21:59
Then I can’t Yeah, like, seriously? Yeah. So it’s funny. Yeah. So speaking of motivation, and sort of just the mental process behind all this stuff. I’m curious to know about your inspirations. Was there any one or any book or anything that you know, you kind of collected along the way? Obviously, there’s a lot of different influences and training involved in where you’ve gotten today. But, you know, what, what’s his anything particularly inspired you on your path?
Logan Christopher 22:27
One of the big things for me, it was a book about an old time strong man named the mighty atom. It was a small Jewish guy. But back in the vaudeville era, he did amazing things, bending metal, even like biting through chains. on two separate occasions, he stopped airplanes from taking off by his hair. And he’s actually the one that spurred me to do the vehicles. He almost died during the airplane. So I have no plans to do that stuff. But there’s a biography of him called the spiritual journey of Joseph L. Greenstein, which was his actual name. And for whatever reason, I don’t know what it is. But when I read that, you know, I was getting into the kettlebells, and the bodyweight and everything, but it’s like, I want to be a strong man, like, I want to do this. So that was definitely a defining book in my life that I’ve read many times since. And as it turns out, the mighty Adam ended up his main student was a guy named slim the hammer man who in turn, taught a guy named Dennis Rogers, who was then able to go train with and learn much more about the strong man art.
Doug Lotz 23:25
I don’t know, it’s such a unique or like, you know, interesting. Well, I’m sure there’s like this whole world. And instead of tricks that’s passed down from from, you know, astronomer and astronomy in there. It’s pretty cool.
Logan Christopher 23:37
It’s a small world and anyone that’s listening, you’re welcome to join it.
Doug Lotz 23:41
Yeah, I’m sure.
Logan Christopher 23:43
It’s just fun. Like, you know, you think, to me, you know, cycling was never that fun. I don’t want to go and ride a bike for an hour. If that’s your thing, by all means. That’s great. Absolutely. But for me, that’s kind of repetitive, boring. I like to do shorter workouts, I feel strength training, you can really get a lot of bang for your buck in a short amount of time. So that or, you know, here’s how you rip a deck of cards and juggle a kettlebell to me that’s more fun. So I went with my pursuits there, you know, and that’s that’s really what Yeah, just kept continuing to drive me.
Doug Lotz 24:15
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, fitness can be can certainly take all sorts of forms. And those like some particularly fun and at least entertaining even for other people, though. Yeah, getting kind of exploring the the mind part of things a little bit more you so you’re, you’re a neuro linguistic programming practitioner, and I believe also you’re certified hypnotist as well. That Yeah, so I’m curious Firstly, for those who don’t know what, what is NLP.
Logan Christopher 24:47
The words neuro linguistic programming has to do with how our neurology works, how our language works, and the programming you know, like computers were coming out as NLP was coming out. So that was a whole big thing. Basically, it has been able to hack into our body and mind our psychology in order to manipulate how we perceive things, in order to get better results. It’s been used in a wide variety of fields. I really took it and like, hey, let’s apply this to strength training, can I use these techniques to get stronger? Immediately? That was my question. And the answer is yes. And I’ve had many examples of that. Really fun to be able to do that. Because, as I said, Everyone, you know, knows the mental side of things is really important. But few people have seen like, Oh, I can do like this two minute mental drill and see immediate boost to my performance. That’s, that’s pretty big.
Doug Lotz 25:39
Yeah, I mean, I do a lot of meditation, or at least daily have a daily practice. And most of that focus is sort of on the, you know, non attachment and being an observer rather than, you know, reporting influence. But I have to admit that I’ve been intrigued and at least a little tempted by methods that are a little more proactive. In terms of setting yourself up for success.
Logan Christopher 26:01
I kind of see meditation and hypnosis as very related, right? In either case, you’re typically going down into alpha or theta, brainwave state. And this can be used to kind of clear your mind to, you know, access non duality or different things, or can also be used to program for specific things that you want dig up stuff in the subconscious. So yeah, I use hypnosis you don’t need like a very deep trance in order to get some pretty great results with it. For instance, one time I taught at a conference put on by dragon doors, the guys that popularized kettlebells and I hypnotized eight people on stage had never done this before, to get stronger pressing the kettlebell and I think like seven out of the eight or so all got stronger, had many of them lifetime prs, just in doing that, because you were able to unlock our ability, much greater levels when we apply the right kind of, quote unquote magic sauce. Right?
Doug Lotz 26:57
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s really interesting. You’re getting into those different brainwave states is definitely something that you know, early on, probably earlier than most in looking at meditation was something that I was interested in sort of exploring as well. I don’t know have you ever used like, brainwave entrainment stuff like like Bernero, beats and isochronic tones, things like that?
Logan Christopher 27:19
Not as much recently, early on. I did a bunch with that. For years. I was doing the the holosync program, which was one of the early pioneers in that. So yeah, I certainly have played with that. But yeah, once I those are no crutches, the right word, but kind of training tools, right. But then if you get better, you can lead yourself there don’t need the tools as much. In can. Yeah, just do it yourself. So ultimately, I think that’s better to get through not have to rely on the the tool.
Doug Lotz 27:48
Yeah, yeah, it’s funny. I mean, you’re right, listen to that. That was like when I started using those like binary beads to get into like alpha brainwave state, for instance, that immediate, like, that shift that feeling that you can kind of like feel in that in that brain state is, you know, where I ultimately feel like, you know, if I’m, at least if I’m meditating without distraction, and like actually getting to where I want to be not that that’s, that’s literally the opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing being non attached observing. But, you know, again, my brain is kind of wants to go there. So yeah, it’s kind of a tool that I used early on, just to kind of feel like I accelerated things a little bit, just by being able to experience you know, those, that brain state. So you know, so all this, it sounds like you’re able to at least, you know, when you’re doing the hypnosis stuff, influence people to perform, you know, like, get personal records, or you know.
Logan Christopher 28:47
That it’s relatively simple actually, like, once you understand a few basic concepts to give people a flavor of this, just go ahead and imagine yourself, let’s say cycling right now, right? So go ahead and picture yourself cycling. So one of the things to notice is, are you in your body? Or are you watching yourself as a from a third person, like on a TV screen? Right? What what’s your answer, Doug,
Doug Lotz 29:10
It’s funny, because I did a third person view a little bit. I think, it’s kind of hard. Like, as soon as you ask that question, then you go back and like create your own revisionist history of what you just thought.
Logan Christopher 29:23
So that that brings up an important point. We we think in images and sounds and language and everything. But most people until you’re trained to do this, it can flit by in a nanosecond, right? So part of the practice and this is where meditation is extremely useful, but also hypnosis is you’re bringing more awareness. And once you can identify these things, you know, there’s there’s a time and place when you may want to be associated into the image like you’re looking at out of it out of your own eyes. There are other times where it may be more useful to look from that third person perspective. So as you’re doing that third person perspective, what how big was the picture? Was it kind of small? Or was it large?
Doug Lotz 30:03
Is pretty narrowed in. Yeah. Yeah.
Logan Christopher 30:08
Okay, so these, these are what’s known in some NLP as sub modalities. They’re the qualities of the picture. And so for example, and this is something people can take in practice themselves, I think it’s going to work a little bit better with doing some sort of strength exercise rather than than like an hour long ride, just because you can’t maintain the state that long. But if you were to do push ups, or you know, trying to bet, Tara deck of cards, just imagine yourself doing it, and turn up the brightness of the image, not till it’s like whited out, but you can also think of as someone is flipping the light switch on, or brightening all the colors in there. And go ahead and do this with any sort of exercise right now. And what do you notice like feeling sense inside as you do that? I can tell you’re like, you have a bit better real estate, like more energy, because you’re smiling. You’re beaming right now doing this?
Doug Lotz 31:01
Yeah. Well, I’m just thinking of like, you know, so I was doing, you know, just the, the door pull up bar thing, and just doing a sort of a daily pull up challenge deal. And, you know, pull ups especially, are one of those things where I feel like, the more you do it, it’s it’s not even like that you I mean, yeah, you physically get stronger, but it’s not like your muscles are like huge or anything, you just like you can create that pathway to do that exercise more. And I always kind of just envisioning that, and the feeling of, you know, sort of getting that extra pull up that, you know, maybe wasn’t expecting I would get.
Logan Christopher 31:38
Yeah, so with visualization, we can Yeah, that oftentimes, simple trick is say you can do eight pull ups, visualize yourself doing 10, this often will help to neurologically wire you that you’ll be able to increase, it doesn’t always get you exactly the 10 right there. But also this idea of brightening the image, I’d say this works in like 75 80% of the time, if we spend more time on this, like I could understand your specific mind codes for what’s an easy exercise, what’s a hard exercise and kind of map things around, basically play with how you internalize these things. And we can unlock greater performance that way, but a quick hack, just visualize something and brighten it up. And that’s going to work for most people most of the time.
Doug Lotz 32:19
Interesting is that so is this part of what you guys what you do with the legendary strength programs are just part of that, or.
Logan Christopher 32:27
Yeah, so I have I’m nothing if not prolific, not only do I do like a wide, wide array of things, but I’ve written many different books and whatnot. So I got bodyweight training programs. I got kettlebell programs, and I got like, mental training programs, health program. So yeah, I cover the gamut of different things. There’s tons of different information. And that’s, you can find that all at legendarystrength.com. And I got, you know, years and years of archived articles on the blogs, videos, that sort of thing as well.
Doug Lotz 32:56
Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because the getting sort of more reps thing reminded me of say, I’m, I’ve been doing Wim Hof breathing lately. And it reminds me the whole push up thing of like, you know, going and seeing how many more pushups you can do after a cycle.
Logan Christopher 33:10
So visualization is a great way to access states breathwork is a great way to access these states as well. I’m big fan of that method.
Doug Lotz 33:19
Yeah, yeah, I just, it’s funny, I did it. I started doing it a little while back and, and sort of fell off a little bit. I had some sort of, while the pandemic kind of came in, and I ended up, you know, moving to different places and all this. Yeah, it’s just kind of disrupted some site ism, some you know, schedules. But anyway, I’m back into it now and doing it every day. And if you got if those listening have not tried Wim Hof Method, particularly the breathing for me, I’m not in the past on the whole, you know, cold showers and ice baths stuff, but, you know, maybe I’m just a bit of a sissy. But the breathing feels good. So that’s why I continue to do it. It’s a good good thing to mix in there with a daily meditation practice. And, you know, it’s cool because it supposedly, you know, has these immune system benefits, you know, down regulating your your autonomic immune system that kind of overreact to things.
Logan Christopher 34:18
Yeah. If we think of the breath as a way to tap into the the unconscious mind, which is the body for a large part, also, the visualization is there. So you may have heard before people say like breath is the only thing that you do consciously and unconsciously. But that’s not exactly true. Like our eye movements, we can do those both consciously and unconsciously, and where we move our eyes dictates different access different parts of our brain, as well, like when we’re talking about the visualization, like if you’re seeing an image, it can be far out there or close. It can be big, it can be small, it can be bright, to the point where your pupils actually dilate slightly, and this stuff can be read a bit on the outside, but that’s another helpful says pathway to buy, like say like higher performance, right? Because the more you can be aware of what you’re doing inside and be able to, I guess aim it in certain directions that you want, the easier it is to perform well in the world, regardless of what that thing specifically is.
Doug Lotz 35:16
So just, you know, from a entrepreneurial perspective, looking at all the different things you’ve done, I’m just kind of curious about your personal like, process, you know, and how you engage with your projects in the world. You know, I’ve never written a book, but I imagine that’s a that’s a process that’s a project and its own right. So I’m curious about how you do all of those different things kind of, you know, you’re doing this, you know, your, your, with your brothers running the last Empire, herbs, you know, stuff and then you’ve got the legendary strength stuff you’ve got. And then same time, you might be writing a book, two, if I get, you know, I don’t know, any, any tips, any secrets to those trying to maximize their time in themselves and applying themselves?
Logan Christopher 36:02
Yeah, so like the training, knowing thyself is very important here. So I love writing, it’s something I feel I’m pretty good at, probably wasn’t when I began, but now I’ve been doing it for 15 years. So certainly gotten better at doing so. So I really enjoy the process. And in addition, the reason I have so many books, so many videos and whatnot, is because, you know, the best way to learn something is to teach it, that’s a pattern that has worked really well for me. So yes, it’s great for me to create a program and be able to sell it and help people out. That’s, but that’s a side benefit, honestly, in many cases. And first and foremost, it’s for me, I’ll have like a vague idea of something I want to cover. If I you know, have to get this to the written word or film specific videos, it’s gonna become crystal clear on everything that’s involved in that. So that has worked really well for me, you know, I am a person that can like bounce around have so many different interests. So it’s both my, my like, greatest superpower, and also my curse, because sometimes I feel like I can’t focus super well. But putting in the team behind me definitely is a big thing. So loss Empire Herbs is a bigger company than legendary strengthen, along with my brothers and the staff and everything, like I get to focus on what I’m quite good at. And other people take care of the risk.
Doug Lotz 37:21
Any projects or anything that you you know, new things coming up anything that you want to share with listeners to check out or maybe tell us to go check out.
Logan Christopher 37:32
Yeah, I’ll mention a couple things. One, if you’re interested in herbs, just Lost Empire Herbs. We’ve had this for a little while, but we have a quiz there. So I was saying like, what are you interested in having with the herbs, this this quiz, and you don’t need to sign up or anything but just kind of narrows you down. If you’re interested in sleep or hormones or whatever, just click a few buttons. And it will focus you down on a certain herb that you can read more about and try out. We liked. Our whole thing is, you know, we’re not like working one on one as a ideally you would with an herbalist. So instead we like say, you know, try it out, if it doesn’t work for you, you can get your money back, we have a one year money back guarantee on all of that. Because we really want people to find the herbs that work for them. That’s super important. And we got a lot of things in the pipeline there that’s always moving and growing and expanding, then with legendary strength, I’m really trying to simplify things. So being able to deliver it. So like strength training we’re talking about, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time I made a program, I guess was not that new 2019 called the 8020 strength challenge. It was about taking the 2020 didn’t count. So the 8020 principle being like, how can we just take the 20% that delivers 80% of the benefits. So this program is designed, whether you’re like just beginning or super elite level, it’s mostly bodyweight exercises, but a couple other things in there to be scalable, and to do 15 minute workouts four times a week, and that will cover like all your strength needs are most of them. You can’t really cover every base with any sort of system. But also some flexibility, you get a little bit endurance because you’re doing super sets between the two different exercises. So I got a whole bunch of fun stuff like that going on.
Doug Lotz 39:20
All different things. there anything you feel like.
Logan Christopher 39:23
We have good wide ranging, just like my capabilities. I would say since we’ve covered so many different things, take the idea that may have been most exciting to you, right, whether that’s the herbs or maybe try that visualization thing. You can of course explore several but if you just take one thing and investigate it further, or take it and run with it, like brightening up your visualization, like you’re imagining yourself doing exercises, whether you think you are or not give that a try. And if I can get you an instant boost in performance, like isn’t that worth doing?
Doug Lotz 39:55
That’s cool. I’m actually I mean, I personally am I have several things to look up after this conversation. Just as always good. I’ll try them out. Let me know how they go for you. That’s for sure. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, Logan, thank you. Again, thank you very much for joining us. And thank you to everybody you know, listening in today. Remember, you can follow us on Instagram at CardioCast App. And of course, if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review and follow this podcast. So thanks again, and to everybody else. Have a wonderful day. Hey, everyone, if you like the CardioCast CoolDown, please don’t forget to leave us a review wherever you’re listening. You can also connect with us on Instagram at CardioCast App, and check out our website, CardioCast App and check out our app on the App Store or Play Store. See you next week.
