Mark Sisson is my guest on today's podcast. Mark is the de-facto leader of the primal and paleo lifestyle movement, and unlike the many instant and self-anointed experts who have descended upon the endurance scene in recent years, Mark boasts a rich history in endurance sports.

He's run a 2:18 marathon, has a 4th place Hawaii Ironman finish to his credit, has spearheaded triathlon’s global anti-doping program for the International Triathlon Union, and has coached and advised leading professional athletes, including Olympic triathlon gold and silver medalist Simon Whitfield and Tour de France cyclist Dave Zabriskie. Mark just put the finishing touches on a new book called "Primal Endurance" - a book that shakes up the status quo and challenges the overly stressful, ineffective conventional approach to endurance training. While marathons and triathlons are wildly popular and bring much gratification and camaraderie to the participants, the majority of athletes are too slow, continually tired, and carry too much body fat respective to the time they devote to training. The prevailing “chronic cardio” approach promotes carbohydrate dependency, overly stressful lifestyle patterns, and ultimately burnout. To overcome this conundrum, Primal Endurance applies an all-encompassing approach to endurance training that includes primal-aligned eating to escape carbohydrate dependency and enhance fat metabolism, building an aerobic base with comfortably paced workouts, strategically introducing high intensity strength and sprint workouts, emphasizing rest, recovery, and an annual periodization, and finally cultivating an intuitive approach to training instead of the usual robotic approach of fixed weekly workout schedules.

I delve into these concepts in today's podcast with Mark. During our discussion, you'll discover:

-What Mark's "perfect day" looks like...

-Mark's history as a pro triathlete...

-Why endurance athletes can actually get fat from training...

-Why it can be a myth that you have exercise for long periods of time at that intensity to get very good endurance results...

-How to do something called "maximum sustained power training"... -Why a ketogenic endurance athlete can recover faster from stressful training...

-Why Mark doesn't use heart rate variability (HRV) measurements... -And much more...

Resources for this episode: -Primal Mayonnaise -Focal Upright desk -Mark's recent podcast with Joe Rogan -DNAFit genetic testing -Book: Primal Endurance: Escape chronic cardio and carbohydrate dependency and become a fat burning beast! Do you have questions, comments or feedback for me or Mark about today's episode? Leave your thoughts at BenGreenfieldFitness.com and be sure to check out Mark's new book...