This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran-owned and operated performance optimization company that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.

Well, since then, I have actually been using my products and I have had incredible success.

There was initial blood work that was extremely detailed and based on that, they offered supplementation.

So I began taking DHEA, BPC 157 for inflammation based on the fact that I've been a stuntman, a martial artist and a firefighter in my whole life, lots of aches and pains, dihexa to help cognition after multiple punches to the head and shift work and peptides.

Four months later they did a detailed blood work again,

and I was actually able to taper off two of the peptides because my body had responded so well to just one of them

that it was optimized at that point.

So I cannot speak highly enough of the immense range of supplementation

that they offer, whether it's male health,

female health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, which I would argue is needed by a lot

of the fire service, or whether it's exogenous testosterone needed, especially after TBI's or

advanced age.

Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of this company is an altruistic arm called

the Transcend Foundation, which is putting veterans and first responders through some of their

protocols free of charge. Now, Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols,

and you can find that on Jamesgearing.com under the products tab.

And if you want to hear more about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 808 with the founder,

Ernie Colling. We'll go to transcendcompany.com. Welcome to the Behind and Shield podcast. As always

my name is James Gearing and this week it is

my absolute honor to welcome on the show, Strength and Conditioning Coach Melissa McCardo.

So in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from her journey into the world of

coaching, training Marines, the wounded warrior battalion, recruitment standards, programming,

...