Training Tips for Your Next Adventure with Joe Holder

0:02You really do have to think about it as a journey. That's what, you know, health and wellness is to me. It's like a lifelong journey with different benchmarks along the way. It's like our own personal art and design practice. I think everybody should just move. And I just want to be able to open that up in as many different ways as I can to people. Joe Holder is an influential voice in the fitness world. After studying health and wellness in college, Joe became a Nike master trainer, a columnist for GQ, and he has a long track record of working with famous athletes and celebrities. I met Joe a couple of years ago at the Running Man Festival in Georgia, where he and I had a chance to connect and geek out on training and nutrition.

0:44It struck me that Joe's unique academic and athletic perspective would be valuable to share with all of you. So today's episode is a bit different from our usual format. My conversation with Joe focuses on the details of training and staying healthy, whether you're running a marathon, planning a through hike, or you just want to optimize your own health and fitness. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.

1:18Joe Holder, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm excited to speak with you again. Yeah, yeah. Pleasure. Thanks for having me, Shelby. It was fun to chat with you at Running Man in Atlanta, Georgia, and I was really impressed. You have a really interesting background, and one of the coolest descriptions I've ever heard of you as a health and wellness anthropologist. Just give us a little background. Like you played college football at Penn. You've got massive degrees. I feel like your dad was maybe a doctor. My dad is a doctor, yeah. He's a doctor. And it's always been part of your life. But I guess, you know, I never like really talked to a lot of football players back in the day who talk about wellness in the way that you did.

1:59Yeah, I mean, I was lucky. I mean, just to give a brief kind of summation, I'm one of seven. I grew up in South Orange, New Jersey. I was a premature kid. So to me, I was bored in Montana, a couple months premature. I was supposed to die. So to me, it's kind of baked into my existence a little bit because my dad kind of kept me alive. So I don't take this for granted. But really, it was the environment that my parents helped me grow up in, which was they showed me the importance that integrative health had on outcomes. And everything that's in rage and vogue now, my dad was doing. So he's an integrative doctor, which means he's an actual MD, but he combines standard and alternative practices into one.

2:40You know, my mom's an immigrant from Trinidad. I understood kind of just ancestral well-being, for lack of a better term. So, you know, my mom composted, grew on wheatgrass, we juiced, she cooked for us, that type of thing. So I naturally was kind of in this dualist household that was just a proponent of holistic well-being. And then, you know, New Jersey is the home of sports and academia. So you kind of do a mix of both. And that ended up me going to University of Pennsylvania, where I play football. And I dealt with some injuries there. And because I had to miss a year from football, I ended up picking up a minor in consumer psychology.

3:16psychology. But all's that to say, I got to where I am now because when I dealt with injuries, my body wasn't healing. And from there, I basically created something called the Ocho System, which was this integrative kind of ecological approach to health, which is understanding it's not just our individual actions, but also thinking through how we respond to our environment.

3:39Joe's Ocho System is a holistic, integrative framework that's rooted in science. With a degree in sociology that's concentrated in health and medicine, Joe is great at analyzing research on wellness and debunking myths and trends. I'm a woman that's middle-aged and I'm getting targeted to like eat absurd amounts of protein and use a weighted vest and I don't want to do either of those things. But what do you see working and what's like not working right now that you don't like that's trending? Yeah, I mean, everything's like everybody wants a magic bullet, but everything's contextual. Everything's different.

4:18Some people respond well to other things. Some people like there's literal exercise non-responders. Some people just don't respond well to exercise. Some people don't respond as well to strength. Some people don't respond as well to cardio. But what doesn't work is overtraining. Always do less before you do more. That's step one. So think about recovery and sleep as being the most important thing. It's always better to ramp up. But oftentimes when we take a step back, we only do that when it's too late. So you're often tired or on the edge of quote unquote burnout. So the thing is, as it relates to exercise, think about basically how do we incorporate strength training of utilizing weights?

4:55Because for women, at least the muscle does talk to bone. So you definitely want to keep high quality muscle mass and that then you don't want to deal with essentially a reduction in bone density. So that thought process of weightlifting will help with that. as well as jumping or shock training, say jump rope, all that. We just need to think about that it is, okay, I want to make sure that I do a wide range amount of activities that one I like, and then secondly, will be good for me. If I do something already that I like, I'm more likely to then add in activities that I don't like, but will be good.

5:28Some people love weightlifting, great. Some people love cardio, great. But you need a mix of all those different things without getting overwhelmed. So you're known for a concept called exercise snacks. Tell us what that is. exercise snacks are basically how do you get movement throughout your day that perhaps is either outside of standardized exercise or when you think about workouts, don't think they have to be long to be beneficial. So basically, I think exercise should be looked at as a health intervention, not just a fitness and performance intervention. That's a little bit different. So when you start to look at it as a health intervention, the dosage of exercise you actually need is a lot less than people think.

6:06That doesn't mean don't exercise, do your long zone two or still don't do your high intensity or weightlifting, whatever. But it means that if you look at research, if you go for a two to three minute walk every hour, if you're a sedentary office worker, you just stand up. That helps improve your metabolic function, right? It helps improve your immune system function, that type of thing. And for people who sit a lot, what are some good ways to stay active throughout the day? If you have a sedentary life, the one thing I want you try to do is understand the pockets of time in your day that are under your control.

6:38In my opinion, that's either in the morning after you wake up or before you go to bed or whatever, maybe a part in your day. Stop thinking it goes back to exercise snacks. So in the morning, just try this. Hug your knees to your chest 10 times, then do 10 jumping jacks and do 10 body weight squats. You moved. Now just try to do that every morning, three to five times a week, and just set a timer or play your favorite song and say, I'm not going to stop moving until this song is done and don't overthink it. And then just try to go for a walk during the day. There's a very interesting study that came out that basically showed it's the duration of the walk.

7:15So once you want to have one walk a day, that's for more than eight minutes, eight to 10 minutes, give or take. And that ambulation goes a long way. So if you can just take a little bit of a longer walk. And how I do that is I take the train every day. I go to a subway station that's farther from my house. So that makes me walk a little bit further during the day, even if I can't work out that day. So park your car a little bit further away, take a farther walk to the subway if you can. Those little things add up. And then tell yourself thank you once it's done. Give yourself grace. Say thank you.

7:46And then you'll notice how your body starts to respond and actually will crave it instead of just letting it be a passing thought. Those small changes that bring more movement into our lives definitely add up. The examples that Joe gives are a great place to start. But if you're looking for more advanced exercise snacks, there are a lot of ideas on his Instagram page, exercise underscore snacks. There you'll find short circuits based around things like lunges or shoulder presses that only take five to 10 minutes. No matter your fitness level, there's something for everyone.

8:24The sunshine is back, and I'm planning to spend the next few months outside, catching waves, camping, and hiking the trails all around San Diego. If your summer plans also involve spending as much time outside as possible, the REI Co-op MasterCard offers rewards and benefits that support your love of the outdoors. It's just for REI Co-op members and earns card rewards on every purchase at REI and everywhere else MasterCard is accepted. What I love is that rewards are available in one to two days. So all of those stops on the way to the adventure, from fuel for the drive to last minute gear runs, it all adds up.

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9:25My morning routine these days looks like this. A cup or two of coffee with my AeroPress, then out to the ocean to catch some waves before an interview. And as much as I love being in the ocean, what I genuinely look forward to is using my AeroPress again the next day. It's that good. If you've never tried AeroPress coffee, you're in for a treat. It's a French press, a pour-over, and espresso machine all in one. It uses a completely unique brew method, which means you get a cup of coffee that's rich, smooth, and genuinely different from anything else. And it's fast. It only takes about two minutes to brew your coffee and clean up.

10:05Lately, I've been using the Aeropress Go Plus. It's a complete travel coffee system I can take to the beach or out on the trail. Everything packs into a double-wall insulated stainless steel tumbler for storage and travel. It's compact, durable, easy to use, easy to clean, and it makes great coffee no matter where you are. I just unpack it, brew, and pack it back up. To ensure you never have bad coffee wherever you are, visit your local REI or head to REI.com to grab your AeroPress. That's A-E-R-O-P-R-E-S-S. It's time to ditch the drive-thru, toss the French press, and say yes to better mornings fueled by better coffee.

11:03This time of year, I always feel particularly inspired to take on a wild idea. The PCT thru-hikers have started their treks, the ocean is finally warm enough to surf without a full wetsuit, and my local 4th of July 5K is coming up. While this distance is perfect for me right now, I know a lot of listeners are signing up for bigger adventures, like a marathon or even an ultra. Fitness expert Joe Holder has a lot of experience helping people prepare for a big running race. You do give a lot of running advice, What's working and running? What do you like? What do you think that's maybe not working?

11:43Basically, you can't think of building your aerobic base as just a one time thing like that has to be such a consistent effort. Right. I think people over index for the marathon, at least now or partially because it's a distance. So you don't have to you have to, of course, hold yourself accountable with the training. But with shorter distances, it's against the clock to an extent, right? Sure, that's great. But that's all to say is that I think people are going to find out the benefits of sprints for like connective tissue health, which is the thought process. If I go hard, just like acceleration, 10 seconds, 5 to 10 seconds even, or just 10 steps, like that initial high intense effort, you know, like a true sprint effort all out, like is actually very good for injury prevention, for the hamstrings.

12:32for connective tissue, that type of thing, especially if done barefoot. And it doesn't have to be a lot. And you could also do it on a hill because a hill kind of acts as a fail safe because when you're trying to sprint up a hill, you can't go as fast because of that incline. So you're less likely at first to get injured if you're trying to go all out, or you could just do very brisk walks. I like that people are realizing if you go easy, especially if you're not a quote unquote true runner at first, like going easy is actually quite beneficial just so you kind of get used to the skill of running and build that base.

13:02I still think people need to separate the skill of running and the fitness of running. So for all my marathon training is like, that's what I do. I do cross training before I really start running, you know? And if I look at running really as a bucket underneath cardiovascular health, and I'll think what are the other things that I could do to improve my cardio before I get super specific with the skill of running? What's the number one thing people get wrong when it comes to training for a marathon? The number one thing people get wrong when it comes to trading for a marathon, I think, is the time it actually takes to train and understanding how to break that up into phases.

13:36So, you know, you really want to give yourself 20 weeks and you really want to think about how those phases go on top of each other. So, you know, you have your general prep, you got your speed where you got your base building, that type of thing. But I think people just don't give themselves enough time and then they don't really understand how to incorporate rest in the proper way. But the biggest thing when we're going for a training, marathon training really is that, is give yourself time, give yourself patience and understand the body often gets a little bit worse before it gets better. So don't get frustrated by that.

14:11In keeping with his emphasis on balance, Joe also recommends that runners add a day or two of strength training to their weekly routine. Personally, strength training isn't my favorite, it, but Joe argues that it's important to maintain muscle as we age. He recommends focusing on heavier compound lifts and the 6 to 10 rep range even just once a week. The other weightlifting day can be more dynamic and focused on moving through different ranges of motion to maintain mobility. Most of the listeners of this podcast are probably really active. I don't know if they're all like me, but I don't spend too much time in a gym.

14:48I don't like it. I want to be outside and nature as often as I can. Like all of y 'all probably get enough cardio, right? Like just lift one to two times a week. I am going to do some lower body exercises and upper body exercises that I get near exhaustion to so that my muscles then have to rebuild. And then I make sure I don't lose muscle. The key really becomes is that you just don't want to lose muscle. And for some people, if you do want to gain it or you want to, you know, work on the aesthetic side, sure. But Most of the listeners here, you need to utilize the benefits that come from weight training.

15:25And weight training, what does it do? It helps improve mitochondrial health. It helps improve bone density. It helps improve, of course, muscle fibers. It helps your immune system. And you don't need more. You just don't want to lose it. And if you're constantly just doing endurance-based work and you're not doing anything, whether that's utilizing weights or even just body weight, but utilizing slower tempos on the way down and on the way up, you're not stimulating your muscles in a way that will then create long-term health. So that's the easiest way. Don't get too caught up in the noise. It's just like, how can I introduce a different stimuli to my body that mainly target the muscles that will then have a benefit for the stuff that I like to do, which is typically being outside and being involved in, say, surfing, hiking, trail running, that type of stuff.

16:11I was just going to ask you, I was going to be like, can't we just use body weight? Yeah, just use body weight. We call that basically you have three tempos. You have eccentric, isometric or lack thereof, right? Or concentric, which is on the way down, eccentric. So I can manipulate the tension in my body, say on a lunge or a squat, and I could take five to 10 seconds down going super slow. And then I could hold the bottom of that while still having tension, call that isometric. And there's differences like overcoming or yielding isometrics, whatever. But if I stay at the bottom of the lunge and I just hold that tight and I have a small pulse, so I'm just still staying engaged.

16:49Right. And then concentric is on the way up. Right. So you can move slow. You can move fast, whatever. But if you want to stimulate muscle, you really focus on the eccentric, which is on the lowering portions, go really slow. Hold that tension. And that'll do kind of more than enough if you're just doing it at home or you don't have access to weights or you only have light weights for the most part, but you still want to do something. So just think of those main patterns, right? What do we have? We have squat, lunge, hinge, and then think about push, pull, twist, rotate, you know, have fun with it.

17:22It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but a little bit of strength does go a long way. What do you do if you have an injury or you have like arthritis? Like you're not as mobile as you used to be. Yeah. I mean, you do what you can. That's all. Like if you can only stretch, stretch. If you can only do light ankle weight exercises, hand weight exercises, do that. Do what you can with what you got. Do not, if you have a self-imposed constraint, use that actually to your advantage. Don't think about the things you can't do. Just simply do the things you can do until you can do more. What's your best piece of advice when it comes to recovery?

17:54My best piece of advice when it comes to recovery is think of that as part of your training. So within Taoism or whatever, you know, you have the concept of strategic laziness or Wu Wei, if I believe I pronounced it appropriately. But basically is that non-action is an action. So in the same way you do your workouts, you're making a conscious choice to go do your workout. The same way rest and recovery, you need to make a conscious choice to not do, which will get you better at doing. So it's, again, it goes back to ecosystem thought process. It's that sometimes it needs to rain, other times it doesn't.

18:28Sometimes you need to snow, other times it doesn't. So if you have the best kind of mix of those things, that's how you get best results.

18:39Joe's number one training tip is rest. Overtraining crushes you. So let your body recover, sleep at least eight hours a night, and nourish yourself well. But there's a mental side to the equation too. If you're stressed out or struggling emotionally, you're not going to be able to train to your full potential.

19:03I want to talk about the mental game because I love that you're so, I mean, you're dialed when it comes to this holistic way of training. But we don't hear a lot of people talk about just mental game. Just being a human in 2026 is tricky. It's hard. It's hard. If you feel, if you're empathetic, if you're, you know, a lot of our listeners are into nature because we're sensitive. Like we feel things. Like we go out in nature because it makes sense. A lot of the world doesn't make sense. I'm curious your tricks and tips to just mental health, emotional health. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, look, I don't care what side of the aisle you're on.

19:45If you wake up and you pick up your phone and you see, you know, the leader of a country saying that another country might not be there tonight. That's not going to be the best for your health. That stuff is just tough. This is being bombarded. Not just that, but an AI slop and reality shows and all this. You're kind of like, what's the point? Economic pressures. So I look at it like, how do you control your environment, of course, and what you're exposed to? But this is something that's helped me. I call it the paradigm of a cup. It's that I think of life as a cup. I think your physical health, your diet, sleep, exercise is what builds the foundation of the cup.

20:23Right. And then mental health is how you make this cup tough. Right. And then your emotional health is what you fill the cup with the water, all that. You have to be able to refill your own cup purposeful. I think mental health is about toughness. Of course, be in touch with your feelings. So feel in your body. Don't turn that off. But does what I'm feeling. One, is that real? And then two, do I need to let that overwhelm me, even if it feels real in the moment, but won't be forever? And I think too long, we have these brief moments as related to psychosocial stressors that might fritz us out.

20:58As you know, it's like open, modern meditation is a form of meditation where you sit and that then you just let the things come and go, come and go. But it's not that they're fake. It's just that you don't latch on to everything. So yeah, like there's a saying at Deer Park where, you know, you're going to have these feelings of anger and sadness. It's okay. Just don't keep watering the seeds of anger. You can choose what seeds you want to water. That's facts. And it's not being about selfish. It's not about turning your, you know, your mind off. It's just simply that you actually recognize. So you self-distance.

21:33And then the other thing is, you know, I've struggled with certain things, you know, depression, otherwise, anxiety. But I used to try to fight it. Now, when it happens, I just accept it. I know I basically tell myself, I'm like, hey, you probably need a break just because you're so exceedingly busy. What you're feeling right now is very real, but it's not permanent. Let's give ourselves grace and let's get to the other side of this. So basically, my thing is I do whatever is the most important thing to not have the ship take on water, even if the ship isn't moving fast. So when the sad Joe is around, I simply say the happy Joe will be back soon, whatever.

22:12He's on vacation. But don't dirty the house too much. Load the dishwasher. You don't got to wash the windows. You don't have to scrub the floors. just load the dishwasher. Just do something so that when Happy Joe comes back, he doesn't have to clean up the total mess that was made. And I think everything goes by cycles and rhythms. And I've been a little bit, as I've gotten older, more respectful of my idiosyncrasies and my personal cycles and rhythms. And that's helped me a lot.

22:43If you want to learn more about Joe Holder, check him out on social media at Joe Holder. That's J-O-E-H-O-L-D-E-R. You can also learn more about Joe's ideas for exercise snacks on his Instagram, exercise underscore snacks. He shares really great short workouts on that page, and I highly recommend it. If you have specific questions about training for your wild idea, let us know in a comment or review, or send us an email at podcasts at REI.com. We'd love to hear what you're thinking about and answer your questions in future episodes. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Pierce-Nitzberg of Puddle Creative.

23:31Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Motula and Joe Crosby. Thank you again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. as always we love when you follow the show take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen and remember some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas