Ready to take ownership of your health and unlock your true potential? Join host Bronson Hill and co-host Nate Hambrick for an inspiring conversation with Justin Roethlingshoefer, former NHL trainer, elite hybrid athlete, and author of The Power of Ownership. Recorded in June 2025, this episode dives into Justin’s journey from childhood obesity and anorexia to becoming a top competitor in Hyrox and DEKA events at age 37, all while running Own It Coaching to empower entrepreneurs. With degrees in health sciences, a doctorate in heart rate variability (HRV), and a faith-driven mission, Justin shares how HRV reveals your body’s true health, why health decays slowly until it’s sudden, and how to optimize oxygen, sleep, and nutrition for longevity.
From practical hacks like the 3-2-1 sleep rule to redefining aging as the pursuit of comfort, Justin’s insights will motivate you to prioritize health as the foundation for wealth and purpose.
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Full Transcript:
Bronson Hill: Welcome to the Mailbox Money Show. I’m your host, Bronson Hill.
I’m super excited for today.
We’ve got an amazing guest. I also have my guest host today. I have Nate Hambrick.
What’s going on, Nate? How are you doing today?
Nate Hambrick: I’m doing well.
Bronson Hill: Awesome, man. I’m such a nerd about health and I was talking about this earlier with a friend who said, hey, how do you stay at age 44? How do you stay motivated to go do these, stay in good shape?
And I said, well, honestly, I don’t really feel that motivated. I’ve been 30 pounds plus overweight. At one point in my life and I just realized I wanted to be in better shape and having worked in the medical field. I saw people that were like 50 or 60 and they were like a death’s door and I just thought, man, you could have had another 10, 20, 30 years of life. And better quality of life if you just invested in your health. And I just wondered for you, what does health look like for you and what are you doing to kind of maintain your health?
You’re a young, healthy guy, too, I know.
Nate Hambrick: Yeah, health has been a big focus for my wife and I. We have a nine month old, as you know. And it’s funny, at least for myself, so often I’m willing to make mediocre choices for myself, for my health until you have a kid. And then you realize you have to reevaluate everything. So we’ve been changing out the water filters.
We’ve been improving our health with whole grains and all the health things I know I should have done forever. I’m now finally doing because of him.
So anyway, I’m excited for this interview.
It’s going to be great.
Bronson Hill: Yeah. And you know, it’s amazing about we talk all about wealth on this show. And I think there are things that are more important than money.
You and I, we share faith, we share family, which are things that like are more important, right? I mean, you can have all the money in the world and your life is falling apart and there’s no sense of values. And so I like having these conversations that talk about things that are more important than money.
And so Justin is here with us today in the studio. I’m super pumped to have him. And not only I just learned this, actually, not only is he an amazing guy. He’s written an awesome book called The Power of Ownership, which I’ve read.
I have a friend who’s been in his program for years. They do a paid for program where they kind of coach you on your own health. He’s a former NHL and NCAA trainer.
And he actually also is at 37 years old. He’s one of the top hybrid athletes in the world. I just discovered this.
And he does high rocks and Spartan Deka events. So I’m going to be a total nerd on this show. If you’re interested in health or news topics, you’re going to love it.
So Justin Roethlingshoefer, I love your last name. Thank you for being here and so excited to talk with you brother.
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Branson, I just appreciate you. It’s so great to be here. Thanks for bringing me on.
And Nate, it’s great to have you in the conversation and to be jamming together. So we’re going to have a lot of fun today.
Bronson Hill: Oh, we will for sure, man. So the power of ownership.
I just yesterday, you know, 44 years old, I had a knee surgery about six weeks ago.
I had a little cyst for moving on the side of my knee and maybe coming back or not. I’m not sure, but I had no issues out competing yesterday. Had a fun time.
But I love those competitions are incredibly motivating for me. And I know I’ve seen some of your social media. You’re obviously in great shape, but I didn’t realize you are at an elite competitive level and operating room as you’re doing this.
So how do you like, first of all, what inspired you. How long you’ve been doing these Hyrox that people haven’t served as a H-Y-R-O-X, which is a huge competition and they have thousands of people show up. And you’ve been a national star of that. What inspired you to do that? And how have you kind of kept your health goals going?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah. I mean, if you go back to my story, I grew up a fat kid, a fat kid in Canada. And that fat kid became an anorexic kid in his teenage years.
When I came down to the States, the reason that I went into. The health focused studies was because through my entire journey of being overweight as a kid. Being made fun of going to just be on a parade of doctors and trainers and nutritionists. And then being anorexic going through a parade of therapists and iridologists and eating disorder clinics, I never was seen. I never felt understood. I never felt like people saw me as a human being or as a person, but rather just what needed to be fixed.
And I really just kind of took it upon myself to say, you know what? I’m going to learn this stuff. And so I came down the States and got two undergraduate degrees. A master’s degree to my postgraduate doctoral work in heart rate, variability and sleep.
And I say all of that to say that I still didn’t find the answers because I was still searching for something deeper. Something that was able to separate what you learned in a book to what actually happened in the human body. Because everything I’d learned, it didn’t add up to why I was unwell or why I got well. There was a missing piece. And that was what took me into the functional medicine and the massage therapy space. That really started to show our bodies as this holistic, unique, integrated creation.
The way that God made us and being able to really understand that. And so that’s really what propelled me into this space. Now, when my hockey career ended, I needed something to compete at.
And so, I got into CrossFit and was competing at a pretty elite level there and got into regionals. Had qualified for the games and as I was going through the end of regionals, went in to do a heavy one RM snatch and sub-luxed my biceps tendon and tore my rotator cuff. And so that kind of ended my Olympic lifting career. So that was the end of CrossFit for me.
And I still remember trying to find something to compete at, something to train for. Something to look forward for. I got into triathlons. I got into marathons.
Those were kind of fine, but I wanted something more competitive. And I still remember seeing an ad in 2018 for the first ever Hyrox race in the U S. It was in New York city at pier 17 or something like this. And, I ended up going, signed up.
I told my wife one morning, I was like, Hey babe, I’ve got a race this afternoon. It was a Saturday. Do you want to come watch?
She’s like, what is it? I’m like, it’s Hyrox. She’s like, what is that?
I was like, I guess you just do a bunch of different things. And I ended up winning and so that really just propelled my love for this new hybrid model. Because it was just always, always trained. I truly believe that if you can lift heavy. If you can run far and you can recover hard, you can be a extreme, extremely healthy individual.
And I just love the way that it’s all structured. So that brought me into both the deck and Hyrox series. I’ve been doing them for the last five years, and just having a lot of fun being able to share the message. And use my body as a tool to be able to spread hope and a positive message to a lot of people.
Bronson Hill: I love it. Yes, and being a hybrid athlete, it’s interesting.
I think that I’ve always been a runner and I’ve had a little knee issues here and there. But being a runner, if you’re a guy, most of the people that went like run and they win, they’re like super rail thin. And I’ve never want to be the guy who’s like a rail thin guy, like, and then the people that lift, they like lift. But when you have both, it’s like, it’s kind of this unique mix of like being able to move your body.
Sounds like with Spartan, there’s kind of climbing out if you do Spartan as well. But then the OCR stuff is this whole world that really has just exploded. I mean, it’s just amazing how interest in this sport has exploded.
There’s actually an Olympic event. I believe they’re creating it in a couple of years, which is going to be kind of, I think it’s a one K event. So it’s short but it’s almost like a ninja warrior meets Spartan meets some of the stuff where you’re doing all this stuff together.
Have you heard about this?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: I’ve never heard about this, but like, my wife is not going to be a fan of what you’ve just done because you might have a monster inside of me.
Bronson Hill: That’s right. So I, yeah, and I’ve had an intro call with you or a couple of calls with your wife and she works with you as well and she’s great.
Yeah, I could see her getting upset that you have more things to do.
But, so I guess a number of so many questions on this, but let’s go back to a little bit of your story. I know Nate’s going to have some questions as well, but like, let’s go back.
Actually, I’m curious because with kind of the background of having an eating disorder, what I understand is eating disorders, they’re hard to cure.
It’s hard to like, they’ve been the science around like what causes it. Alums, it’s around control or having control over a certain thing or can have come from different things from childhood, whatever. But how did you like, is that still something that you deal with? If you have comfortable sharing or not, or like, have you channeled into this or how do you kind of live a, like live a healthy life?
Then some people had an ex-girlfriend and she was really unhealthy. It was like one point, before I knew her, she had gone to the hospital. And was kind of inpatient hospital for like, so there’s different, obviously variances of how serious it is. Some of it’s genetic and there’s all kinds of different things, but a little bit like how do you manage that or how did you kind of work through that to kind of get to where you’re at now to really make it productive for you? I guess.
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah. So the biggest thing, and I can go deeper into it. It’s growing up fat. You’re always made fun of, you’re always left out and, obviously having processed through a lot of this over the course of the last 30 years.
You look back on it and my biggest desire was always just to feel accepted. And, I never felt that I never felt accepted. I never felt welcomed.
The only place I was validated was on the ice. Everyone, I was everyone’s best friend, when we were playing hockey, but as soon as we got into the locker room, I was the butt of all the jokes. And I was the guy that was never invited and I was like, I was always left out. I was the uncool guy.
And so that created a performance identity inside of me that I’ve worked for a long time to shake. It was actually why I didn’t race Hyrox and Dek in the year 2023. Because after I won everything in 2022. I again, put my worth into all the wins and just had this massive performance anxiety. It became again, this highly obsessive thing that I needed to win.
I needed to beat times if I showed up and I didn’t win. If I didn’t beat a time, I was less than I wasn’t good enough. I was less worthy, and we’d have a major impact on my life.
And so I just had to make a very personal decision to take a year off. And to go back to my mindset and go back to the process, not the outcomes. And I can kind of get into that as well into terms of this bigger picture.
But as I went into my teenage years, I started to train at 13 years old. And started to lose weight, started to look better. All of a sudden people validated me for the first time for how I looked. And so there was this first moment.
I still remember I was 13 where I actually felt what fear was. And I’d never really felt that before. I’d had nerves of playing in big games or something like that.
But like true fear where I walked into the locker room, everyone was validating me. Everyone was like encouraging me. Everyone was like, my gosh, what did you do?
Like, this is incredible. I don’t even recognize you. And it was, instead of feeling great, I felt crippled.
Because I was like, I never want to go back to where I was before. And this is where the OCD tendencies, I had all the things. I had dyslexia at ADD.
I had OCD. I had all of these things that were labels again, that were thrown on me. And the OCD tendencies took over.
Like I couldn’t go up and down a flight of stairs without doing five pushups before I went up five pushups before I went down. Every time I ate, I had to do a three minute plank hold. Every time I went through a doorway, I had to do five burpees at my school locker. Every time I pipped up books, I had to do 10 squats. I couldn’t walk from class to class.
I had to run. I didn’t sleep with sheets on because that burned more calories. I had to take cold showers in the morning.
Like it was almost like putting yourself through a punishment to say that I was good enough that I was worthy enough that I was working hard enough. And it was, they diagnosed it as exercise nervosa, another form of an eating disorder.
Nate Hambrick: I’m curious with that, Justin, what were some of the health lessons you learned along the way? Cause it sounds like performance definitely drove you there, but I’m curious, what were some of the health beliefs that you had that were false or health lessons that you learned away that helped you make that radical shift?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Well, I think this is where it comes into. So at 16, I had liver and kidney failure. And like literally had taken it to an extreme.
And the reason that I am so passionate about this today is that everything that I was told from 12 through literally 24. When I was really able to start like breaking through and shaking this was that I was broken.
That I needed to be fixed, that there was something wrong inside of me that the Prozac and the SSR eyes would cure everything that was going on. But instead, I say this and I don’t say this facetiously is like, Jesus saved me. Knowing that I, my identity isn’t tied up in anything other than who I am in him. And realizing that level of freedom that came with that, and that I was on this journey for a reason.
And when it kind of goes back to like at purpose. And so at eight years old, my mom asked me, what do you want to do when you grow up? And a lot of people are like, I want to be a hockey player.
I want to be a baseball player. I want to be a doctor. And I just knew that I was going to be a part of the redemption story of the health of the world.
That’s just what I said. I had heard it in a dream and I didn’t know what that meant. I said, I’m going to be a doctor somewhere.
I’m going to do something cool. And so I’d given God my yes, but I didn’t realize what I was going to have to walk through. That was going to be obesity.
That was going to be anorexia. That was going to be depression. That was going to be addiction. That was going to be cancerous, polyps and a cancerous ulcer at 32.
When I told I wouldn’t be where I was told I wouldn’t see 35. And so, burnout, insomnia, like all of these things that supposedly somebody of my stature that looked the part. My stature that was educated, my stature that had held the roles in the NHL for the best athletes in the world. Somebody who should have been able to figure this out.
But I had to walk through this so that I could relate to the people in which we see and serve and help every single day. And it’s just why I’m so convicted on giving a different message when we talk about this health and performance. I talk about high performance today, longevity tomorrow.
What does it look like to live for that? More so than what you’re hearing on social media and all the nonsense and fads that are spewed daily that we feel like we have to hold up to. But rather what does it look like individually for each and every person in a unique way?
Bronson Hill: So Justin, I was going to jump in here. I thank you so much for sharing. By the way, as you’re touching your Sharon. I’m just so touched by your story, and just how, you know, I think I can relate with that a lot.
I mean, it’s come up recently over the years. It was, I got divorced seven or eight years ago. That was incredibly, we have many youth pastor, and going through that and feeling just the shame of going through that. And just kind of those feelings of like, am I enough?
You know, it, no matter how much you do, is there ever enough? And if you’re competitive, and I’m internally competitive, there’s a part of that that’s healthy. That is a good drive, a good sense of ambition. That’s good.
It’s a part of like, there’s no end to it. It never stops. It’s like this beast you have to feed all the time and every day starts with a zero.
And so I can totally relate with that. I’m sure a lot of people listening can kind of relate with that. That, you know, and I think that, I just, I admire how you are so open with it.
You share with it. It sounds like just even continuing to bring God into that. And also I think too, it’s interesting.
The story, we have this story we tell about ourselves, right? So for you, it was that, oh, you know, you were fat or you were not worried. You’re not worthy because of this, or you weren’t showing. You kind of, we made up these stories about who we are and those stories. Like they’re not true.
There’s things you made up, but they can be so powerful. And so telling a different story is so valuable. Let me ask you just another question, shift gears a little bit to our audience a bit, because I think it’s really relevant.
But, why do you think for most people, they don’t value their health in the way that they should know. This is a little different because you had an excessive value in the health or whatever, but, what do you think, like when you see… I know there’s one thing could be like, well, they’re just, they just don’t have their priorities, right? Whatever.
But why is it like, or even when you had your cancer diagnosis, what becomes clear when it’s like all of a sudden there’s a health issue? And all of a sudden people make drastic life changes when they could have been making changes for years and eaten differently and exercise.
And why is it like health, not an urgent thing for most people?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah. So, have you ever seen, this would be a shameless plug, but have you ever seen the show on Netflix? It’s called, Is It Cake?
Bronson Hill: No. Oh, I think, is this the one where some of them, some of our cake and some are not, and they cut it. Yeah.
I have heard about this. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve seen cakes that are very realistic.
Justin Roethlingshoefer: So, what ends up happening is on this show, you’ve got these people who go and they make these cakes. They’re professional bakers and they’ve got to make it look like this water bottle. And they’ll go and they’ll make a cake that looks like this water bottle. They’ll go and they’ll have four of the real water bottles and one of them will be cake. And the contestant has to actually then go and say, which one is the cake? And the only way to tell is to put the knife to it, cut it open and see what’s in the inside.
Unfortunately, our health is the exact same way, but there’s no way for us to look inside. We’re always focused on what’s on the outside and because of that, to a detriment, we actually just focus on the six pack abs. But completely forget that we have major testosterone issues or we’re setting ourselves up for early onset perimenopause. We’re worried about the muscles and how we look in clothes, but yet we don’t realize, to the detriment, that we’re low in energy every single day. And we can fall asleep, but we can’t stay asleep. All of these things are happening because of what’s happening on the inside, and once we get the inside right.
The outside as a consequence looks the way that what we want to. And so the reason that this audience, the audience of, again, it’s who we serve, we built our company for the entrepreneur and the business owner. Why?
Because the entrepreneur and the business owner is the person who’s on mission for something. They’re striving for something. They’re serving something there.
Something was placed on their heart to create something, and so they went and took it from zero to something. That person, who I believe is the closest to what it is that God created us to, because He created us to create. And so that’s who we serve, for that purpose, for that reason, to give them capacity, volume, and tolerance for what the world actually does to hold them back from being able to create and do what they were called.
And so when we step into this and we think about this concept for a second, it’s not that people don’t value their health. Everybody values their health. It’s not that the priorities are wrong.
No, the downside is that what happens is it’s a slow decay. It’s almost insidious. It’s a slow decay because of compounding compromises and how you’re living daily, that all of a sudden, suddenly it feels like overnight.
You got diagnosed with diabetes. Overnight, you woke up and you have 75 pounds that you don’t know how they showed up on your body. It’s like overnight that you’ve got these chronic headaches that seemingly won’t go away.
And so it’s only slowly, it’s only gradually until it suddenly. And that’s the downside is that it’s not that people don’t prioritize this, it’s that they’re unaware of the road they’re walking.
Nate Hambrick: So for the busy entrepreneur who’s trying to fit all this into their schedule. I see you have Dan Martell’s book behind you, buy back your time. Love that book, by the way.
But I’m curious from like a working out perspective from that side of the fitness perspective, how can busy entrepreneurs, salespeople, high income earners, balance their fitness with still achieving high things? Like how do they get the best bang for their buck with the time they have available for health?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah, so one of our founding board members, Sharran Srivatsaa, if you’re familiar with this space, I don’t know if anybody here knows that name. But he’s built and sold two companies that sold for north of 2 billion dollars each. And he was a founding board member of Own It and he said something once that I’ve always used his quote and it’s don’t envy the outcome. Don’t try to replicate what I do.
Try to identify my process. And that’s what I come back and I say to those people who are that that’s why we serve this audience is we have built the process. We’ve built the system for busy entrepreneurs, for busy business leaders who don’t have time leverage to be able to actually do this differently because it’s not practical.
It’s not sustainable to say, hey, you know what? Your morning routine is going to take two and a half hours. Well, friends, I’ve got 100 employees that I have to worry about.
I have kids that I have to get off to school. I have a family that I’ve got to look after. I’ve got responsibilities that I have to manage.
I have an account that I have to make sure is working. Like you don’t have two and a half hours. This is not what you’re created for, but rather what does it look like to be able to set up a system that be that almost double and triple dips into what it is that you’re called to do. While then still building this consistently based off a lifestyle.
So how do we actually make your night routine built into what your life and current status is that’s going to maximize your deep sleep so that you’re going to get the most toxin release in the evening, which you need in order to reset your body for the morning. What does your morning look like so that we can optimize circadian rhythm and spike cortisol first thing when you wake up so you don’t need coffee to get going and you can actually get yourself working within 45 minutes of waking and getting everything done. So now over the course of your day, we build certain strategies in to get you to where you need to go.
And the testing, the biometrics, the information tells us whether the things we’re doing in our lifestyle are helping us and getting us closer to where we want to go or hindering us and keeping us further away from where we desire and being able to tweak it from there. All of these business people, they know what this is like because they have business divisions in their companies that are responsible for certain KPIs. And based on those KPIs, they’ll change the strategies.
That’s where Own It comes in for all these business owners, these business leaders as we become the board of directors for your health. Looking at the KPIs based upon the strategies we’ve set. Are they improving?
Great. We’re going to keep it. Is it sustainable?
Great. We’re going to keep it. Is it unsustainable or the data is incorrect?
And it’s not helping us get further ahead. We’re going to change the strategy. We’re going to work with you.
We’re going to hold you accountable so that you win inevitably at the end of the day.
Bronson Hill: Well, that’s I think what you said is true. A lot of people are very busy and but it also, you know, it goes back to kind of what you were saying about people that look good on the outside and everything’s fine until it’s not.
So it’s the I think Ernest Hemingway went went bankrupt. I said, well, how did you go bankrupt? And he said, well, it was slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
And it’s kind of like we don’t realize that we’re like it’s happening. We don’t see it all of a sudden. Something big happens.
And it’s like somebody who is dying or like they would do anything. They would give any amount of money, anything to protect their health. But it’s it’s and I saw this when I worked in the medical field and for 10 years, I was a medical device sales, mostly cardiology.
I just saw these people that like, man, it’s so much of our system, especially in the US, is built around treatment rather than prevention. And that’s where it’s like, OK, well, this costs thousands of dollars or it’s a high ticket thing. Well, it’s like, well, but what’s more important?
Like to you to have 10 years more with your family or with your kids or whatever. Of course, there’s nothing you can control. But a lot of the stuff is preventable preventable.
So I wanted to you something you talk about in your book. And there’s a lot of things you have in there about, you know, I’m a longevity guy, do my cold plunging almost every day. I’ve got one in my house, got my sauna, got my I’m sure it sounds like you’re like I can’t wait to, you know, you got somebody, you have a hyperbaric chamber as well, probably, and you’re doing all this stuff.
But one thing that you look at as a metric of like the baseline, which I thought was so interesting. I never heard this quite in the same way, but heart rate variability really being is the number one sign for health that the greater your heart rate variability shows that you on the inside, like what does cake look like? Is it actually cake or not?
Like you can tell what it is. So talk about like how you use that metric when you evaluate people and yourself as a KPI and how someone’s healthy or not and how they’re improving based on a certain activity or if they have alcohol or if they would like how that actually changes and how you try to just talk about about that.
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yes. The first thing we have to understand is that our body is made up of 30 trillion cells and those 30 trillion cells every eighty four to 90 days, depending on who you are. About 150th, 150th of them are completely regenerating, becoming brand new. So that means over the course of five years, you become a brand new cellular human being.
Our cells need three things in order to function and operate at the highest level possible. They need oxygen, the ability to remove toxins and then raw nutrients. Without those three things, if there’s anything blocking it, whether it’s nutrition, whether it’s fitness level, whether it’s sleep quality, whether it’s the environment you’re in, whether it’s the stress you carry on a day to day basis. It is going to hinder one of those three things from getting into the cell, thus creating what’s called oxidative stress.
For our conversation today, we’re just going to talk about what it is stress. So it’s not the stress of, hey, you didn’t hit your money this month. Hey, your daughter or son isn’t going to college.
Hey, we’ve got to pay for college. Hey, we’ve got to fire somebody. It’s not that type of stress.
It’s the stress that we are completely oblivious to. It’s the things that we’re doing on a day to day basis that our bodies having to adapt to, but we are completely unaware of. And so heart rate variability is the language of our body that’s communicating to us how well we are adapting to the daily stressors based on our lifestyle.
And so this becomes this holistic, unique, all integrated metric. Why? Because mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, real or perceived, positive or negative, past, future or present stressors, the body does not know the difference.
And so we, exactly, Dr. Gabor Mate. And so when you look at this, you have to realize that the body is continually adapting. But if we don’t actually become aware as to what’s happening on the inside, we’re constantly compromising our health based on the habits that we’re having.
And thus, the habits that we’re doing daily can be validated or need to be redirected based upon that single metric. The last thing, I’ll just add one last thing, because this is critical for us to know, is through all the data and all the research, I think we’ve heard of chronological versus biological age. Chronological, it would be like, hey, Justin, how old are you?
I’m 37 years old. Or biological age, how old are you? Cellularly.
So if somebody has an HRV, and again, if you’re 50, your HRV score should be somewhere between 55 and 75. That’s the range from about 5 million people’s data of what we know. So let’s say you’re 50 years old and you have an HRV score of 25.
We would go over to where a 25 HRV score is typically found in age ranges. And that means, cellularly, you’re more like a 65 to 70 year old. Thus, you’re going to start to exhibit the symptoms, start to exhibit the cellular decay, that bodily breakdown, that a 65 to 70 year old would start to have.
Bronson Hill: I know Nate’s going to share something, I wanted to ask you, so what is your biological age then? If you’re 37, I mean, you’re about 37 biologically, what’s your HRV age then?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah, so 24.
Bronson Hill: 24, OK. Benjamin Button over here, Benjamin Button, I love it.
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yes, 24 with an average HRV of 104.
Nate Hambrick: I love it. How do you practically implement all that though? So give us some tactical, practical steps for implementing these changes in your life.
And I’ll start us off with one. One of the biggest struggles, because I have a nine month old son, that I have is, going to the gym has been a bit of a struggle. And so one of the simplest hacks that I’ve implemented is when my wife and I are watching a show in the evenings, I’ll do one or two squat sets to failure, or I’ll do one or two push-up sets to failure.
And even just like the smallest little amount of exercise that I force myself to do while I’m doing something else has made a remarkable difference in my body. So give us some practical steps or practical ways that people you go to yourself implement these different strategies.
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah, so number one is we have to come back to what matters, right? So we know oxygen removal of toxins and nutrients are the three biggest things that cells need. And so the body has a language for oxygen.
It’s VO2 max for removal of toxins, it’s sleep quality. And for nutrients, it’s obviously our food and cellular deficiencies. What are we putting into our body?
Nutrition. And so I’ll give you those three big pointers as to where we would see this. So number one, you talk about exercise, trying to get to the gym. For somebody where we need to focus is it’s people always like, when’s the best time to work out?
I don’t care what the best time to work out is. It’s the best workout is the workout that’s done. And so when we’re talking about this for somebody, take the exact example that Nate just gave me is Nate’s having a hard time fitting it into his day.
And most people would say, well, Nate, you just got to get up earlier, man. You just got to get up earlier. Well, my guess is Nate’s probably also getting woken up in the middle of the night.
He’s looking after a newborn. He probably isn’t sleeping through the night. He’s probably not getting the sleep quality he needs right now.
So it was really waking up an hour and a half earlier to get into the gym, going to do his body more good or it’s not even proper English, but more good or less good, right? Like is it going to be more, is it going to be positive or negative for him? It’s probably going to be negative for him in the long run.
So based on his current status, what I would actually say is Nate, when you’re watching a show with your wife, what I’d love to do is I’d love to put a bike in the area that you’re in and I’d love you to commit to five days a week, getting 30 minutes of zone to work in where you’re getting an increase in cardiac efficiency so we can improve VO2 max, which is going to improve your oxygen efficiency, which is going to increase HRV, which is going to be decreasing the stress on your body and ultimately helping with some weight loss and energy levels throughout the day. So that would be the first thing that I would say just based off of the lifestyle that you’re currently in and the season in which you’re in. In six months, does that change for you, Nate?
Probably because there’s also probably a different sleep sequence that’s happening within what we’re looking at with your with your newborn. Then we go into the changes in or pardon me. And so let’s stay on that for a second.
Then let’s go and every single day. So five days a week, you’re going for 30 minutes on the bike. As soon as you finish that, then let’s go to two squat sets to failure and to push up sets to failure.
So if we got both of those now paired together, you’re probably doing something for 40 minutes, five days a week while being present with your wife, watching a show and not wasting the time. But rather investing the time so that you’re doing things that are giving back to you. So now let’s move over to sleep quality because, and again, we’re going to take Nate as the example. He’s probably not getting the best night sleep right now.
He’s probably not optimized in the way he’s feeling simply because of the situation which he’s in. And so if we think about this concept for a second and we’re actually starting to build this around, I would start to implement what I call the three to one rule. So these are the things that Nate can control.
Let’s make sure that Nate’s going to bed at a consistent time. So if he goes to bed at 10 o’clock, let’s make sure he’s going to bed between 10 and 10 30 every single night, Monday through Sunday, January through June or January through December. Pardon me, always trying to keep it the same time.
Three hours before bed, no more food because we have 400 times more melatonin produced in our gut than is in our brain. Two hours before bed, no more work. So he cuts it off.
Let’s make sure nothing else is happening. Maybe that’s when he starts to do his exercise routine with his wife watching their show. And then one hour before bed, no more blue light.
So within that last two hour window, getting the exercise done, the TV goes off in that last hour. He’s now maybe snuggling with his newborn. He’s getting a cup of tea.
He’s reading a book. He’s doing some prayer. He’s doing some devotional.
He’s getting ready for bed. He’s having a shower. And now all of a sudden at 10 o’clock, his eyes are shut.
He’s getting some deep sleep. Now let’s come into the concept that, well, still at midnight and three in the morning, he’s getting woken up. And he’s not getting the best quality sleep because it’s not quantity we need.
It’s quality. So 38 to 50 percent sleep quality in REM and slow wave sleep stages. So if he’s not getting that, how do we then optimize for that?
And we can now create what’s called the optimal nap window. And so if we took his typical sleep time versus typical wake time, 10 p.m. is a typical sleep time, let’s say 6 a.m. is a typical wake time. That’s an eight hour block.
So halfway between there would be 2 a.m. in the morning. Our circadian rhythm runs on 12 hour cycles. So that means between 2 and 2.30 p.m. is his optimal nap window where we want to have him sleep for less than 30 minutes. That’s going to optimize, again, his circadian rhythm, even though he’s getting woken up in between those times. So now let’s go back to this. We’ve increased VO2 max because he’s getting in his zone to work five days a week.
He’s getting his strength work in. He’s getting a higher level of sleep quality because we’ve now optimized a steady strategy for a night routine as well as the quality of sleep and then also optimize his nap window. Now we go into the third one, which is nutrients.
And this is always where I want to get cellular blood testing done. We do this with all of our clients, being able to see what’s actually in the cell and what the vitamins, minerals and amino acids are missing. But more importantly, we can then not only custom formulate supplementation for you, but we can truly direct nutrition and where we should be focused for the foods that are highly potent in those nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids that were missing.
In terms of what we’re eating daily, this is where I would come back and I’d say, okay, what I want us to eat is I want us to eat foods that have ingredients on the list of three or less. And now if everything that you put into your body over the course of the next six months had three ingredients or less. So that means you’re probably cutting out most pastas, unless it was just flour and water.
You’re probably cutting out most yogurts, unless it’s just dairy and vanilla. You’re probably cutting out a lot of these things that you’re eating subconsciously, these packaged foods, processed foods that are adding to your calorical intake that are chemically induced, that are modified, and ultimately that are processed so heavily that your body doesn’t know what to do with. What we actually see the stats is that the typical American diet has about 35% of ingredients that the body has no idea what to do.
It’s seed oils, it’s chemically induced, these types of things. So we were able to ultra-process food. I mean, I wouldn’t even say ultra-process, it’s just processed.
We go into ultra-process, that’s a whole nother game. But if we do those three things for you, Nate, if we were able to increase VO2 max, that means we’re increasing oxygen efficiency to the cells. If we’re able to increase sleep quality, so now we’re increasing toxin removal.
If we’re able to increase food quality, that’s decreased cellular deficiencies, we’ve mitigated the three biggest stressors based on what the cells need at the highest level, thus I guarantee you HRV goes up, thus I guarantee you start feeling better, you start having higher energy levels, and thus actually getting to the gym is no longer a barrier for you because energy is no longer a factor, and you feel better, you look better, you’re thinking clearer, and thus you’re getting to where you want to go without having to actually double, triple, or 10X down on anything that you’re already doing.
Bronson Hill: He’s actually looking younger and better even as you’re talking. He’s actually like, he’s manifesting it right now. Isn’t that right, Nate?
Nate Hambrick: 100%. I did have a couple of questions for you on that, Justin. By the way, super helpful content, so I have 20 questions, but I’ll ask two.
So going back to the optimal nap window, I’ve never had anyone explain this before, so 12 hours before, 2 p.m., what does the optimal nap look like? Is that a 15 minutes, you just, you know, turn off the lights, put on the sleep mac, 15 minutes in your office, is that a longer nap? Does it matter if you’re actually going to sleep or if you’re just resting?
What does that look like?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah, so I’ll give the quick equation here again, just because for everybody is going to be different. So for you, because it was 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. as your wake time, remember, we found a halfway point and then it was 12 hours from there. And so let’s say, for example, Bronson was going to bed at 9 and waking up at 4.
That’s just his optimal window for him of what he has. It would basically be a seven hour sleep window. So halfway would be three and a half hours.
So that means for Bronson, it’s about 12:30. And so for him, 12 hours later would be 12:30 p.m. Between 12:30 and 1 would be the best nap window. So you always have to change it based on your typical sleep and wake time.
But going back to your question, the ideal is less than 30 minutes or 90 minutes, because at less than 30, you have yet to tap into the deeper wavelength states of sleep. And thus you’re not going to have the melatonin production and these types of things. But if you wake up between that 30 and 90 minutes, I know a lot of us, we’ve had the naps that are 45, 60, 75 minutes and we wake up and we’re just like, my God, I feel like I got hit by a truck. I can’t get going.
And so you either need to complete that sleep cycle or hold off just until you’ve gotten into it. And how I usually like to go into it is just like you said, throw a sleep mask on, throw some earplugs in. And go through a couple of down regulation breath sequences. Maybe it’s a box breath.
Maybe it’s an inhale for five, exhale for 10. And within about 30, 45 seconds, you’re out and I’ve usually gotten a little haptic alarm. So a little vibration alarm that I can set that just vibrates on my wrist that wakes me up peacefully at 27, 28 minutes and away you go.
Bronson Hill: That’s awesome. Question on this. So this is an awesome conversation, by the way.
I hope our listeners are just loving this because we’re just total. I’m totally nerd out here. This is amazing to have you here, Justin.
So there’s been a lot of investment of time and resources and money. And it seems like this is really where science is going into the science of aging. So you look at guys like Brian Johnson, the Don’t Die show that’s on Netflix, and he’s doing all kinds of stuff, you know, perfect sleep score for eight months and almost really obsessive over some of this stuff.
Then you’ve got Peter Atiyah and Peter, Dr. David Sinclair. And you’ve got there’s so much money going into this. And there’s a lot of people that really think that over the next 10, 20, 30 years, they’re going to be able to recreate organs.
I mean, there’s so many advancements happening in medicine in general. I know it’s you know, you’re, you come from the medical background as well. But you kind of bring a lot of this together.
Can you talk a little bit about what you see happening over the next, you know, 10 to 30 years and what’s possible both, you know, you’re taking care of yourself, but then also just to extend life. Do you think life expectations are going to go up or you can start actually going down now because reading too many ultra processed foods and we’re overweight. So as Americans, but can you talk about kind of this strain of science and where you see it going?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: So I’ve got a I’ve got a couple answers to this question. I think about it a lot. And oftentimes I just go back to the only thing that I know is true, which is the Bible.
And so the first answer I’ll say is we have to be very careful with this because what we’re starting to see and you see this in the biohacking world, you see this in longevity space is everybody’s trying to play creator. And I firmly believe that we all have an expiration date based on when our mission here on earth is over. Now, I don’t know that we’ll ever live to 150.
I don’t know that we’ll ever live to 200. I don’t know that we’ll ever have the average life being 100 years old. But what I do know is that we may not be able to increase lifespan, but we can certainly increase health span.
Lifespan is the moment that you’re born to the moment you die. Health span is when all of a sudden your ability to maintain the same quality of life has to be aided by a pharmaceutical, by a pill, by a surgery, by some type of support mechanism that is human generated. And the downside of this is that all of that is within our control.
We were actually, we go back to scripture and we were actually built to thrive. We were built to heal. You don’t ever see it where all of a sudden, hey, we need to keep you on life support and we’re going to have you in on this, this pharmaceutical for the next 23 years.
And that’s what’s going to be there. But you start looking at the peptides, you start looking at the testosterone, the HRTs, the, the different hormone therapies. They are no different than the pharmaceutical companies.
They are being utilized the exact same way. They’re being promoted the exact same way. They’re building the business the exact same way.
And we’re failing to look inside the body as what’s missing. Our body was created to communicate. Our body was created to give us the answers for what’s necessary.
And when we all of a sudden can take a step back and listen to it, stop listening to the noise of the crowds and listen to the whispers of our body. That’s the moment that we’re able to take ownership back so that we can step into what our body actually needs to heal so that we can thrive so that we can live healthily for as long as we can. And I often come back to this concept of aging is just the aggressive pursuit of comfort.
And we lean into this so often in our culture, but rather what does it look like to listen to this miracle, this beautiful tool that we’ve been given, which is our body and understand it from the inside out. And when you do that, my God, the I don’t know what is possible, but I can guarantee you, it’s not at the bottom of a pill. It’s not at the end of a biohacking tip or tool or tactic.
It’s truly how you’re living. Romans 12:1-2. This is what our business is built on.
It’s it’s my life verse. And therefore brothers and sisters, use your bodies, the living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.
This is your true and proper worship. How are you living? What are you thinking about?
How are you? What are your habits? What are your behaviors?
Do not conform to the patterns of this world patterns, just rather being another word for values, values being completely shown by behaviors. So don’t conform to the patterns of the world, the values of the world, the behaviors of the world, but rather be transformed. Transformation happens from the inside out.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How do you think? How do you operate?
What’s your mindset? How are you showing up day to day? What behaviors do you have?
And so we can honestly just start to see how this all parlays together. And it’s not being on 180 supplements a day and taking a shot of olive oil before every single meal and being so regimented and obsessed. And quite honestly, you look at a lot of these people’s messages, they’re scared of death.
I have zero, I have zero fear of dying because the moment, the moment that I die, I know where I’m going. The moment I die, I know my call here on earth has been done. I know that what I was sent to do is complete.
And so I don’t have a fear of dying, but all of a sudden when you come back, it’s because there’s a greater mission and a greater purpose for why I’m here and what I’m doing. And if we can just continue to help people learn and understand this creation that they live in, my gosh, there is so much life to live. There is so much greatness to experience and there is so much wonder to be discovered that I just want people to have their eyes open to this.
Bronson Hill: So Justin, we so appreciate you, man. I think you’re kind of summed up there at the end. There’s a amazing book by Dan Sullivan, who leads strategic coach.
And he wrote a book called My Plan to Live to be 156. And on one hand, like, you’re like, why would you do that? Why would you say?
But on the other hand, I loved his message was basically saying people usually get to 60 or 70, then they start winding their life down. And they kind of like what they’re doing is they’re telling theirselves, their body, the world that I’m kind of I’m done in retirement, whatever. And so the idea I like the idea of productivity and healthy life.
And you’re sending a message to yourselves. I have another friend who’s a very healthy and healthy guy. And he said, how old are you, man?
And he said, well, I’m amazing. You didn’t even say how old he is. It’s because he’s like his cells are actually waiting by your spawn to that.
Justin, we’ve got to get you on your on your way. We love to have you back, man. This has been so much fun.
I can’t wait to see you end up coming Hyrox event or a Deka event or something. And at some point in your future, I want to join your program. Very excited about that.
But really want to just honor, appreciate you the way you’re giving back, the way you’re living with purpose and faith. And you really want to help people to live the life that they’re meant to live, that they were created to live. So thank you for being here, brother.
How can people reach out to you, hear about what you’re doing and follow your and hear about your program?
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah, the easiest way is just to ownitcoaching.com links to book calls right there and just explore more about what we do. And then if you want to listen to more of my content, see more of me, reach out to me. I answer everything is just on Instagram @JustinRoth.
Bronson Hill: Awesome, Justin Roth. Thanks so much. Appreciate you being your brother.
Justin Roethlingshoefer: Appreciate you guys.
Bronson Hill: All right. Well, Nate, my brain is full. My heart is full.
That was incredible. I love the passion where he’s coming from. And it’s not just about the length of life or how long you live or how healthy you are.
It’s just what’s your pray comes back to purpose. But what am I doing here? So that was a big takeaway from you.
What about you? What’d you get out of that episode there? You need to take a nap.
You need to take a nap at 12:30 or 2:30.
Nate Hambrick: Well, honestly, that was going to be my big takeaway is, you know, sometimes you need to hear the conviction in someone’s voice to really implement the strategy. You kind of know you should start, but you haven’t done it.
And so my big takeaway is just I need to start taking a quick 15 to 30 minute nap every single day at about 2 p.m. every single day and just see what see what the big changes in my life. So anyway, just hearing the conviction in Justin’s voice was what I needed to make a change in my life.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, it’s huge. I mean, it’s amazing how these little things make a big difference. I really recommend his book The Power of Ownership.
It’s a great book, recommend it to everybody listening. And again, I hope you’re taking the time, you know, that it’s inspiring you guys like Justin or myself at a smaller level. Just that we’re valuing our health and really trying to say, hey, can we create competitive goals around this that we can kind of gamify it because a lot of times if there’s a game or goal there, we can get better and get stronger and healthier.
And so anyway, no matter where you’re at, what you’re going through, appreciate you being here.
Thanks for investing in your own education. And this is the Mailbox Money Show.
I’m Bronson Hill with Nate Hambrick.
Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks, everybody.
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