Episode 51: Biohacking Athletic Performance ft. Michael Brandt

Over the last few months, H.V.M.N. co-founder Michael Brandt has doubled down on his fitness regimen to become an improved, enhanced version of himself. In this episode of our podcast, he shares his story of returning to his love for endurance running whilst dropping key fitness tips and hacks that employ the biohacking ethos.

“Talking about human enhancement…if you’re going to be putting hours into the gym anyways, and having maintenance…why not putting 100% effort into optimizing performance during that time?"

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Transcription

Geoff: Welcome to this week's episode of the H.V.M.N. Enhancement Podcast. This is your host Geoffrey Woo. I'm excited to have back my longtime cohost, Michael Brandt. He's co-founder of H.V.M.N.

Michael: Hey. How's it going? Hey.

Geoff: Welcome to the program after a long hiatus.

Michael: Yeah, it's good to be back.

Geoff: Yeah, I mean. So I thought this would be an interesting conversation because we've talked a lot about the philosophical underpinnings behind H.V.M.N., our philosophy of H.V.M.N. as the next platform that underpins what we do at H.V.M.N. the company. We've also talked a lot about cognitive enhancement, metabolic enhancement, but a lot of us have now been asking us and talking to us about what we do for physical activity. We might not be as public around what we do athletically, but I know that you've been quite an athlete over the last few months, so I thought this would be a fun conversation to talk about what we've been up to in terms of our athletic and physical pursuits. Do you want to jump in and talk about the different things you've been training and looking at over the last few months?

Michael: Yeah so, I got bit by the runner bug about nine months ago, and several of us on the team here started having a friendly competition for a half marathon. I should say re-bit by the runner bug, because I was actually just home for Thanksgiving, and talking to my mom and she was saying that when I was like five, six, seven, to get the ants out of the pants, she would take me to the track and I would just run these laps. I've had kind of this ... I've always been healthy, always worked out. Sometimes I'm more, you know, go to the gym three times a week and maintain it. But there's been periods of my life where I've really doubled down in to running in particular. In college, I was fixated on, oh I want to run a mile in under five minutes. So I just started running every single day until I got there.

Geoff: Yeah, and I ...

Michael: You remember! We were next door neighbors at the time.

Geoff: Yeah, this was back in college at Stanford, yeah. I remember you had a goal to hit a five minute mile and you just, I don't know one day you were just like, "Oh, I did it." I'm like, "Oh, okay, cool. This guy ..." I didn't even really know what the times meant but it seemed impressive. Even though now, with full context of how hard it would be to run, five minute mile ... It's quite good.

Michael: Yeah, it's no super human strength

It's so superhuman strength in most college collegiate. Even like good high school runners will be able to hit that. But I think it's faster than a non runner it's faster a normal person. So I got bit by the bug then and you know other periods and yeah about six, nine months ago several of us on the team including Dr. Stubbs we had a healthy bet on who could run the fastest half marathon.

Geoff: I think that really instigated like most of us at this company actually to be really, really diligent with working out. So like speaking for myself, yeah, similar. I mean group playing tennis decently competitive, but knew that you know it was not going to be a professional athlete. So working out through college and through my early professional career is very much like, work out a few times a week to be like healthy. Yeah.

Michael: Like never like. There's nothing wrong with that.

Geoff: But I think, talking about human enhancement, I think if you're going to be putting hours in the gym anyways and having maintenance why not put 100% effort into really optimizing performance at that time?

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: I think having these goals where I'm doing a charity boxing match actually this weekend has made me a lot more diligent. And I think just seeing a lot better physical results. Just like how fast I'm improving terms of all my skill sets and endurance and all of that. I think should to talk about your half marathon hack. I think that was one of the things that was most interesting was that in like, what? Like six weeks of training you went from probably-

Michael: Three times a week.

Geoff: From not really, probably never would have thought about running a half marathon to, what, placing like top 100?

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: In San Francisco half marathon. So tell me about it! That was part of the bet you were talking about and still I know you went-

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoff: You were very quantitative about it, so let's talk about it in terms of the biohacking angle here for the topic here. How did you biohack your way to getting a top 100 finish in San Francisco half Half-Marathon for six weeks ago before that you never thought about running out?

Michael: Yeah. So the way I thought about running faster is just dividing it into sub components. So obviously the outcome you want is a faster time. But what does that look like and what's going on in your body and how do you measure it? So the first thing I started doing was tracking my heart rate and my cadence, my footstep cadence, on the ground and-

Geoff: The heart rate is obviously measured by your Apple Watch…and how about cadence?

Michael: Same. And what is really cool with Strava is you can map your running. You can see how fast you're going. It's really nice to be able to look at your wristwatch and see when I'm running a 640 Mile or 740 Mile or whatever. That in of itself is helpful. Heart rate ... Let's talk about running time. So heart rate and cadence, so heart rate is interesting because you want to maintain a heart rate below say 160. The formula that a lot of people use is 185 minus your age and that's anaerobic threshold where if you're below that you're generally using energy that's coming from a mix of your stored body fat and glucose. Above that threshold you're in anaerobic mode where you just start using glucose and it is inefficient to run above 160 bpm. You just can't do it for very long. It doesn't matter who you are.

Geoff: It's basically like the thinking of going from like sustain running to like sprinting rolling up you're like kind of in this sprint mode.

Michael: Right. And so this is true for all athletes. The difference for an elite marathon ... Say someone who wins the Chicago marathon is that they're able to go really fast, but with a reasonable heart rate. So it's not that they're sprinting they have super high heart rate for two hours and change. It's that they're able to move their body with the speed while keeping their heart rate low. So that's very important. There's no magical way to have like a 200 ppm heart like bum, bum, bum, bum, bum for two hours. You can't do that. So you have to figure out is, okay, with me fix my heart rate let me run 160 165 bpm and try to go faster while keeping my heart rate the same. So how do you do ... How do you do what you're doing without exhausting yourself? You start looking at your technique. You start trying to run smoother, trying to relax muscles that aren't actually productive in the forward propulsion of your body. You begin ... So some of these just stick with it. One thing I was just doing as a training goal was staying at 160-165 bpm and just doing that and not really worrying about the time because of time.

Geoff: Time for how long? Like a half marathon length of time, like two hours?

Michael: I would do I would do like 45 minute hour long.

Geoff: And how about like what was your first week of running like? What were you doing?

Michael: Yeah I go back over my Strava. You should follow me on Strava if you're out there. Michael Brandt ans you can see what my runs are looking like they're getting a lot bigger actually and longer and stronger as I've grown. So this is speaking back on how I was initially preparing for my first half marathon the first week I think I just tried to put in volume I just tried to put like 20-30 miles a week.

Geoff: Yeah. Then just like what did you try and maintain? Like a 165 bpm?

Michael: Exactly. So the ideal-

Geoff: Just go as long as you could.

Michael: Yeah, just go is in a given session I would try to go 45-60 minutes. Beyond a certain point you need ... It's harder to recover. The goal is really you want to cover as many miles on a given day but if you run too long in one session if you run three hours today, it's not the same as running an hour today an hour tomorrow and an hour the next day. This latter way of doing it is more sustainable. You don't want to over exert on one day then just like be two dead pigs on the next day.

So we are going out running six, eight miles and staying at that 160 ppm and then just like literally it's fun to witness my own body if I have stayed there one day. The next day I would do it and I would just be hitting the same heart rate but my body would be moving faster and it was fun to just like look at my watch see my heart rate just chill out in my heart not really, again, not worry about the time like that. The speed comes but does worry about my heart rate, my breathing, relaxing, my technique, and then my just by repeating the steps just getting more miles under my feet my body is able to move faster while keeping the heart rate the same.

Geoff: Cool.

Michael: And then the second thing is on the cadence so having your cadence super important as a runner because when you're running with high cadence ... So the cadence you're supposed to hit is around 180 steps per minute. So left, right, left, right, left, right.

Geoff: 180 steps per side, basically.

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Michael: And if you think about it what happens if you slow down the cadence, well, if you try to maintain the same speed your stride length gets longer.

Geoff: Yes.

Michael: And that's the cause of basically every single running injury is long strides, because when you lengthen out your stride you start striking the ground naturally with your heel because you're really striding out. And it is a lot of things people call running with the brakes on you're just kind of like-

Geoff: You're slamming. You're slowing down. You're losing the forward momentum.

Michael: Yeah. And so you look at the elite marathon runners and these are people running sub five minute miles for 26 miles and they're just ... It's called a mid heel strike. You're hitting your, I'm sorry, the mid foot strike. The middle of your foot is hitting the ground basically right under your body and then you're pushing back using your glutes to push back. So you're not really reaching your foot forward and heel striking. On the recovery of your stride. Your foot is coming underneath you mid foot is hitting the ground and then you're pushing back. And so this is all to say is that the way to become a better runner is to keep your cadence high so that you're not artificially lengthening out your strides and causing this like heel pound, which is slowing you down and is going to cause all the damage to your hips. It's going to cause all this like bounciness in your knees and your hips.

And when you keep your cadence high then it's really a matter of, okay, let me keep this cadence. Then gradually over time you try to lengthen out your stride you push harder with your glutes so that you're going further on each step. But again keeping the cadence just as high as it's always been. So it's like the way ... Just to kind of sum it up it's like I would run keep my heart rate at 160, keep my cadence at 180, and then I would just try to do a longer stride length every time. I would try to be pushing harder on each of those steps on the ground.

And so it's cool because you can just decompose this problem of how to run faster ... you can decompose into the component biomarkers and then track those. Lock them in and then and then push where you can, where it really is like your body is able to-

Geoff: Or like I think I remember as we were training and I was like participants on the track roadwork days that you were locking in specific variables, but pushing and focusing on one of them. Right?

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: Like we would do like fartleks which are what like what 400 meters fast and some recovery laps. Can you talk about like the different strategies that improve?

Michael: So if you're trekking along with this it's like you're keeping your heart rate at a certain level you're keeping your cadence at a certain level. And then the equation, the variable you want to solve in the equation, is how do I just now push harder on each step so I'm gaining more ground on each step?

Geoff: Right.

Michael: That comes from having better form, better glute muscles like and then the way you practice that even if you're trying to run a marathon or half marathon is you have to go to the track and do some speed work, because that's how you build the power. You have to learn what it feels to move faster. So you go to the track and you ... There's a number of ways you can do it. A fartlek, a lot of times a fartlek on a track is sprint the straightaways and jog the curves. You can also do 400 meter repeats. Do 400 meters jog you know 100 meters and back and then do it again. Do that 10-12 times. There's-

Geoff: Yeah, I remember doing that with you once for like 400 meters eight times or 12 times. It was like 450 laps like, fuck. Yeah it sucks, but like getting pushed and finishing it felt really awesome.

Michael: Yeah. And then while you're doing that you're you're becoming a stronger runner you're learning how to put more force in each step and then, okay, recover a day and then you do a nice six, eight mile run. Hit your 160-165 bmp. Hit your cadence of 180 times hitting the ground per minute. And guess what? Now each time your foot is hitting the ground, it's pushing harder because you did a good job on track day. Just seeing your body get faster it's amazing. It's almost like too good to be true. It's like you just kind of crack this code it's not that hard.

Geoff: Can anyone do it?

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: Because I think you definitely had good discipline to do that because like you were waking up ... I mean, we were waking up early morning. 6:00-6:30 in the morning to be able to do that.

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: Yeah it's definitely not easy. I know you know ... But I think you get used to it. I think it's like a new norm. You set for yourself. I mean, I think that's a highlight. After six weeks, what? You did a sub 1 hour 30 minute half marathon.

Michael: Yeah. So it's a little under a seven minute per mile pace.

Geoff: For 13 miles.

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: Yeah, which is pretty awesome.

Michael: It was pretty ... Now my goals are beyond I've since broken that part on the 126 I want to break 120 within the coming six months. I'm doing this weekend half Ironman triathlon, which is you swim 1.2 miles and then you bike 56 miles. And then you run a half marathon. And so I'm optimizing each sub component of that sport. And I expect running still tends to be my strong suit in the triathlon. And actually anyone out there who's active tri athlete or trail runner or biker swimmer drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you and just say, "Hi."

We have a group on Strava as well for H.V.M.N., H-V-M-N. So reach out to us we'd love to just kind of build the community who all is out there.

Geoff: Yeah, absolutely. I think that you know especially with that H.V.M.N. ketone project. But the cuteness. I mean this product is designed for people like what you're doing is designed legitimately for special operator war fighters. Unlike cognitively physically demanding multi day missions and best, oh, and cyclists and ultra runners, endurance athletes. I mean it's like a super efficient fuel that's not sugar that's powering over these multi hour events.

Michael: Yeah and that's what's been exciting to me. It's a nice blend of personal interest. Again, I was running around the track with my mom when I was five and six. There's some personal interest there. But I think it's a particularly good time right now just to be double doubling down into it personally as far as it aligns with our business goals as well. I'm excited to be trying out ketone and winning these races using better fueling, because what's happened to me ... I would say one of the biggest changes that's happened more recently. I spoke before about training for the first half marathon. What's happened more recently is really figuring out fuel. As I've been doing this triathlon training it's like, okay, I'll go and swim a couple of miles and immediately get changed and go run eight miles. And when you're exerting yourself for that kind of time it doesn't matter who you are. There ends up being question of fueling and hydration.

Sometimes people will call it the fourth sport in the triathlon is your fueling.

Geoff: Yeah.

Michael: Because when you're going for that ... Or an ultra marathon or something like that your body just can only store so much glycogen. Your body can only store so much water and you have to have a solution for that and it comes beforehand with how you prepare the day before and hydrate the day before. Obviously, how much sleep and other behavioral stress factors in your life. But then and then the day of it's like, okay, well what are you fueling your body with? Because you're just turning ... You're using energy. And I think the fun thing about all this is you really feel your body is a machine. You're feeling your body is this like most brilliant piece of technology you'll ever own.

Geoff: Right.

Michael: And you're fueling it and then you're just very literally seeing this output from it.

Geoff: Yeah, very viscerally and the time is very quantified.

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: And I think that's an interesting thing about the introduction of H.V.M.N. ketone and I don't want to turn it into a ketone discussion but, I mean, I think the status quo has been just slamming GU shots right like we talked to and look at when people are on these races they're slamming like what 50 grams of carbs every 45 minutes. And not just carbs, like fast acting glucose.

Michael: Right.

Geoff: And that's basically drinking like a can and a half of soda every hour for like five hours.

Michael: I think it's great. I think it's like adult candy these like-

Geoff: But I think that's why you see some of these stories where some of these like Iron Man athlete champions end up being diabetic, pre diabetic, because they're constantly carb fueling and you have so much carbs that you're constantly jacking up your insulin and you're addicted that insulin carb cycle.

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: And you end up having diabetes. I think the innovation of ketones allows us to actually give you non insulin genic non carb fuel source. So yeah. So it's like a new paradigm that we hope that we can really introduced into the sporting world and change not just the performance outcomes, because I think we'll make new world records new champions.

Michael: Right.

Geoff: But we'll also make everyone healthier. We won't ... We prevent people trying to do good to not do harm.

Michael: Right. Because I don't know I mean maybe I'll ... Who knows? It would take time but maybe I'll become pro level. It's not happening today or tomorrow, but regardless I want to just go on bike rides and runs for decades and decades of my life. I don't want it to be cut short or to be having some negative effect. I mean I'll put it this way like I'm doing these like these long spurts of exercise, especially on the weekends, and I'm not losing any weight. Right? So I'm taking in a lot of calories. Thousands is putting it lightly. I put it I'm taking in a bunch calories just like this net throughput on my body and it's like, okay, well I want a different answer than just having a bunch of sugar. It just isn't isn't good enough for me on the research that we all know of. This isn't good to be just battering your insulin response all the time.

Geoff: Right. Absolutely. Anything else in terms of running or any other tidbits? I mean, I think that's something we're looking forward to be doing much more of in 2018. I think the community and the listeners that we have on this program it's growing you know like 30% month over month for the last few months. Really appreciate the growth here. And also I think a lot people want to meet up in person. I think I know and my producer Zhill will be happy to confirm this. People on the street will come by our office or just like, "Hey, do you have a podcast?" I mean it's super flattering, so we want to do more physical meet ups. I think one of the ideas is like doing track day or cycling day, some sort of physical activity where you can really just like get sweaty and do an activity. I think there's, obviously, there's things we can all do together online and talk about dieting about adding all that. But it's still very hard to beat it in person, let's get sweaty together experience.

Michael: Or let's figure out what you're doing that's working for you. Or I'm doing this. It's working for me. Let's trade some notes.

Geoff: Yeah, I was going to say you should take on the interviewer mode and ask me about the boxing side.

Michael: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: Because I think speaking towards like just the seriousness of training, I don't think I'm necessarily putting in that many more hours a week. I know we were pretty just diligent just being efficient, and working out, and maintaining exercise level, work, sleep, eat. But I think it's just the dedication of having real goals. It pushes your limits aggressively. I think something as contact heavy as boxing we're like you're-

Michael: You're literally afraid for your-

Geoff: If you mess up you get punched in the face and you're like, "Damn." And I think like it's a very visceral feeling that's much different from a group playing tennis or basketball where ... Someone scores on you doesn't feel good, but I think that the like the rawness of competition of like you know your limits your body real quick.

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: Like you know real quick that, okay, so this guy is fast. Even in running track it's a game. Like Michael Brand just beat me 400 or whatever. Like, "Oh, fuck." I just hit my limit; I can't go faster right now. I think actually testing yourself and then seeing yourself push those limits I think is very ... I feel like most of us don't do that anymore. I feel like in a lot of ways society is very, very healthy and goal oriented as a high schooler or maybe even someone that's in college and then people just like back off. Right? I think I would say that we were kind of in that spot you know?

Michael: I think for sure, yeah.

Geoff: Right? Like we would just go to the gym and kind of ship it in. I think sometimes a little bit more motivated and other times that we would kind of ship it in. Yes. Speaking for myself at least. It's like why is that? Why do we just kind of ... We do this as a chore. Why not actually, for the same amount of time, do this for a goal.

Michael: Yeah. And what I would say to anyone who's looking for the motivation is go outside of the gym. I think a lot of times why are gyms designed? Gyms are designed to be these efficient places that you can go to. You don't have to leave this box and you're able to do basically work out every muscle in cardio and everything, all in this very tight area. So it's very efficient. But what it isn't is it isn't necessarily a big goal oriented thing. It's not necessarily a fun fresh air. It's not necessarily competitive or social or all these other things that you get out of rock climbing or boxing or running or biking and-

Geoff: And social boxing.

Michael: It was super fun. And don't get me wrong look like gyms or are great I go to the gym like a lot of people are fun at the gym. Weightlifting is awesome. Like there's a lot you can do to have fun and to gym. But what I do mean to say is most people going year 24 hour fitness Equinox whatever are kind of phoning it in. They're going there, just like do 45 minutes, look good in the mirror, like ship it and call it a day. But the people who are outside swimming in the bay or meeting up with their friends to play tennis, they're all having fun with they are like. There's some aspect of it, a lot of times it's a goal. I think goal is extremely motivating for some and then for others like the social component or the adventure component of going on a long bike ride or something is. It pulls you out. And then you start loving it. You start being like, "Wow, this is a great way to spend my time. I really love this." Then that's where you really crack it, where it's not like a chore anymore. It's like you don't need to be motivated to watch Netflix or go eat a milkshake. It's like the enjoyment of the process itself is all you need, is all the motivation you need.

Geoff: Absolutely. Yeah, I think just like I think the Spartan Race as a team was like a fun activity like we were all able to do together and just get out there run three and a half four miles, do some obstacle courses. Right? I think it's that kind of childhood delight and curiosity of what we can do with our physical bodies. I think it's almost bashed away just by going doing your bench or squat lifts. Do your 15 minute jog on the treadmill, take a shower, go home.

Michael: I'd love if we have time to go into what's the story behind your boxing match. How did that come about?

Geoff: Yes.

Michael: Any predictions for the outcome as well?

Geoff: Yeah. So this stemmed from around the buzz around boxing during the Mayweather McGregor fight. So one of our mutually good friends Nageeb and I were hanging out the following weekend and he had talked about wanting to get more into shape and he's been looking at either tennis and I think boxing was one of the options. And a third activity and he said he liked the boxing program that he was going to ... He liked the boxing coach the best and I was like, "You know I've always been interested. I've been a fan of MMA and bixing. I don't know. I think it's just kind of an interesting sport in general. I think if you look at what is a sport, it's essentially like an analogy for a war. It's like a classier rule-ified version of a team versus another team.

And it seems like fighting or boxing is like as close to ...

Michael: It's close to the bone, yeah.

Geoff: It's close to the bone, right? Obviously, still some rules there, but as close to the bone as possible. And we got to a point where we were just like egging each other on where it was like, "All right, like let's do it seriously. We're going to train Nageeb. You should do it seriously." And he was like, "All right." Then, as you know, I'm a bit of a scrapper and I think is that, okay you've got to do it. Maybe you should put a date on calendar, train super seriously for it, and have a little fun slug match. And yeah it became like a thing. I think we didn't stay too close to what Nageeb's protocol is for training. But I've been doing personal sessions with a coach for an hour. 7:30 on Monday, Wednesdays, 9:30 in the morning on Saturdays, doing like track and road work on the off days. So I feel like I'm pretty quickly and getting some sparring pretty quickly compared to like the average ... Probably the more boxer size. Let's go to the boxing gym and hit bags for a couple times a week. It was definitely getting a lot of just live sparring in. I don't know.

But I think I've gotten a real respect for the sport. It's a fight. It's scary. It's terrifying when you see someone trying to knock your head off. I don't think there's a lot ... You don't really see the intensity in the real world like any normal ... any day a part of life in your life. And I think seeing that for the first couple of times like, "Oh, what like why did I sign up for?" Someone is staring into your eyes trying to figure how to punch your face and you're trying to punch them really hard back, because they hit you and you're like, "Hey, I don't like this person right now." So I mean there's some respect. All pugilists out there, it's definitely some respect.

Michael: Yeah it's interesting. It's funny to me, because I think so many of these ... I just had this image in my mind, you know, when people are grabbing drinks and talking and challenging each other to a fight. Nine times out of ten it becomes a barroom brawl or just never happened. But it just deescalates and goes nowhere. It's really cool to see how that actually is aggression got channeled on both sides into ... It's a very productive-

Geoff: Yeah. We’re going to do some tickets to invite some of our friends to watch and cheer on these two idiots ...

Michael: Where are the proceeds going? Shout out a bit about where-

Geoff: Yeah, yeah, yeah so I'm donating the proceeds to ... Well, I think we're going to figure out, basically the winner is going to get to donate the proceeds. So the proceeds that I ... The charity that I hope to donate money to is Elite Meet, which is a new non-profit that's organized around transitioning special operator soldiers. A lot of Navy SEALs are transitioning out of service into the workforce. So I got connected with the group a few months ago when a group of Navy SEALs came out to San Francisco and was honored to be one of the presenters as a business that could interface and then potentially employ some of these veterans in transitioning military folks. So it's great. Really appreciate the mission. I think that was also my first real interaction with the U.S. military. I think I remember just this past Veterans Day, which was a few weeks ago never really having a personal connection to it. I don't know. Do you have anyone connected to the military service?

Michael: My grandparents. But yeah, I know. And then certain people in high school were like ROTC, went to military but I think I know what you're saying. And I think recently we've spoken with a lot of the senior people in the business context. It's again a different world from I think what you're ...

Geoff: Yeah, so I think ... I don't know. There's just like this there's this very alpha jock, meathead perhaps stereotype of our soldiers and I just find that to be completely not the case. I found the people I've interacted with in the community to be very humble clearly confident in their expertise and their wheelhouse, but very willing to learn, adapt, and push and be curious around other aspects beyond what they've had a lot of experience in. So I think it made me appreciate our men and women in uniform. I think it's something that I hopefully as part of our company at H.V.M.N. to be able to build in communities build technologies that are able to help them return from combat to safer and more effective.

Michael: Yeah, I think that the armed forces do a phenomenal job of helping people become systems thinkers of their physical performance and just how they're operating. I think that armed forces are very organized in how things are ranked, how people are given feedback, how people rise through the ranks, and how performance is judged and evaluated. Not to mention all the technology and the state the art equipment, and what is used to measure performance. Right? And what's done to optimize performance so I think there is a shared interest. Just as we have with professional athletes, I think there's a shared sense of what we're trying to optimize here and we're coming out at maybe a different context a different angles but is actually all solving similar iteration.

Geoff: Yeah, absolutely. Again, I think that's why we've been seeing so much success so far with our interactions with top tier athletic teams and with military organizations. I think we share this common goal of pushing of our ... what's possible. I think it's a very noble goal. It's challenging; it's hard. There's going to be setbacks here and there, but I think no one can question the pure honest curiosity and drive to better the world in some small way. And hopefully we can continue to enable and to pursue this mission with collaboration with our listeners, with our customers, their supporters. Let's continue the conversation and all in our unique ways make this mission possible.

Michael: Yeah.

Geoff: Cool. I think this is a good place to wrap it up here. Again, we should have more of these conversations like this. Yeah, the first five, six episodes was the Michael and Geoff show pontificating on the different philosophical underpinnings of how they started in the world of biohacking and I think it was one of the more fun off the cuff conversation. So let's definitely get Michael back on to talk about some of these different aspects I think. That's what I think. I think a lot of our listeners appreciate live with a sneak peek behind what we're doing and we were thinking about at H.V.M.N. Obviously a lot of things going on all the time here. So if you like this episode please like it and of course subscribe on Apple iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Soundcloud.

Any other requests or things that you like to talk about please send us a line. Myself and Zhill, our producer, looks at every single piece of message and feedback we get. Thanks so much.

Michael: Thanks. Great to be here.

Geoff: Bye.

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