Joe Holder is a Nike Master Trainer and GQ fitness columnist with a track record of coaching elite athletes and high profile clients. Grounded in a background in health and wellness, he brings a practical approach to endurance training and overall fitness. His work spans marathon training, thru hike preparation, and strategies to support long term health and performance.
Joe Holder is a Nike Master Trainer and GQ fitness columnist with a track record of coaching elite athletes and high profile clients. Grounded in a background in health and wellness, he brings a practical approach to endurance training and overall fitness. His work spans marathon training, thru hike preparation, and strategies to support long term health and performance.
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Joe Holder:
You really do have to think about it as a journey. That's what 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.
Shelby Stanger:
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. It 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 thru-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.
Joe Holder, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm excited to speak with you again.
Joe Holder:
Yeah, yeah, pleasure. Thanks for having me, Shelby.
Shelby Stanger:
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 is a "health and wellness anthropologist". So just give us a little background. You played college football at Penn. You've got massive degrees. I feel like your dad was maybe a doctor growing up?
Joe Holder:
My dad is a doctor, yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
He's a doctor and it's always been part of your life, but I guess I never really talked to a lot of football players back in the day who would talk about wellness and the way that you did.
Joe Holder:
Yeah. I was lucky. 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. I was born in Montana a couple of 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. My mom's an immigrant from Trinidad. I understood kind of just ancestral wellbeing, for lack of a better term. So my mom composted, grew her own 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 wellbeing.
And then 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 played football. 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.
But all 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.
Shelby Stanger:
Joe'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 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 not working right now that you don't like that's trending?
Joe Holder:
Yeah. Everybody wants a magic bullet, but everything's contextual. Everything's different. Some people respond well to other things. There's literal exercise non-responders. Some people just don't respond well to exercise. Some people don't respond as well to strengths. Some people don't respond as well to cardio. But what doesn't work is over training. 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 "burnout".
So the thing is, as it relates to exercise, think about basically how do we incorporate strength training, both utilizing weights, because 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." Some people love weightlifting, great. Some people love cardio, great. But you need a mix of all those different things without getting overwhelmed.
Shelby Stanger:
So you're known for a concept called "exercise snacks". Tell us what that is.
Joe Holder:
Exercise snacks are basically how do you get movement throughout your day that's, perhaps, 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. That doesn't mean don't exercise, don't 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 2 to 3 minute walk every hour, if you're a sedentary office worker, you just stand up, that helps improve your metabolic function, it helps improve your immune system function, that type of thing.
Shelby Stanger:
And for people who sit a lot, what are some good ways to stay active throughout the day?
Joe Holder:
If you have a sedentary life, the one thing I want you to try to do is understand the pockets of time in your day that are under your control. In my opinion, that's either in the morning after you wake up or before you go to bed or whenever, 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, then 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. So once you want to have one walk a day that's for more than 8 to 10 minutes, give or take, 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", and then you'll notice how your body starts to respond and actually will crave it instead of just letting it be a passing thought.
Shelby Stanger:
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_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.
This time of year, I always feel particularly inspired to take on a wild idea. The PCT through 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 in running? What do you like? What do you think that's maybe not working?
Joe Holder:
Basically, you can't think of building your aerobic base as just a one-time thing. That has to be such a consistent effort. I think people over index for the marathon, at least now, or partially, because it's a distance. So 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 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," that initial high intense effort, like a true sprint effort all out, is actually very good for injury prevention, for the hamstrings, for 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 "true runner" at first, going easy is actually quite beneficial just so you kind of get used to the skill of running and build that base. I still think people need to separate the skill of running and the fitness of running. So for all my marathon training, that's what I do. I do cross-training before I really start running. And if I look at running really as a bucket underneath cardiovascular health then 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?"
Shelby Stanger:
What's the number one thing people get wrong when it comes to training for a marathon?
Joe Holder:
The number one thing people get wrong when it comes to training for a marathon, I think, is the time it actually takes to train and understanding how to break that up into phases. So you really want to give yourself 20 weeks and then you really want to think about how those phases go on top of each other. So you have your general prep, you got your speed work, 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 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.
Shelby Stanger:
In 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, but Joe argues that it's important to maintain muscle as we age. He recommends focusing on heavier compound lifts in 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. I don't like it. I want to be outside in nature as often as I can.
Joe Holder:
All of y'all are probably get enough cardio, right?
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. We do.
Joe Holder:
Fair. 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 work on the aesthetic side, sure. But most of the listeners here, you need to utilize the benefits that come from weight training. And 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?"
Shelby Stanger:
I was just going to ask you, I was going to be like, "Can't we just use body weight?"
Joe Holder:
Yeah, just use body weight. We call that basically you have three tempos. You have eccentric, isometric, or lack thereof, 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 5 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, there's overcoming or yielding isometrics, whatever. But if I stay at the bottom of the lunch and I just hold that tight and I have a small pulse so I'm just still staying engaged. And then concentric is on the way up. 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 more than enough if you're just doing it at home or you don't have access to weights or you only have lightweights, for the most part, but you still want to do something. So just think of those main patterns. What do we have? We have squat, lunge, hinge. Then think about push, pull, twist, rotate. Have fun with it. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but a little bit of strength does go a long way.
Shelby Stanger:
What do you do if you have an injury or you have arthritis? You're not as mobile as you used to be.
Joe Holder:
Yeah. I mean, you do what you can. That's all. 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've got. 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.
Shelby Stanger:
What's your best piece of advice when it comes to recovery?
Joe Holder:
My best piece of advice when it comes to recovery is think of that as part of your training. So within Daoism, or whatever, 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. In the same way, rest and recovery, you need to make a conscious choice to not do, which will get you better at doing. So again, it goes back to ecosystem thought process. It's that sometimes it needs to rain, other times it doesn't, sometimes 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.
Shelby Stanger:
Joe's number one training tip is rest. Over training crushes you, so let your body recover, sleep at least 8 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.
I want to talk about the mental game, because I love that 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.
Joe Holder:
It's hard.
Shelby Stanger:
It's hard. If you feel, if you're empathetic, a lot of our listeners are into nature because we're sensitive. We feel things. 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.
Joe Holder:
Yeah, yeah. It's like, look, I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. If you wake up and you pick up your phone and you see 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. It's just like being bombarded, not just that, then 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 the 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. And then mental health is how you make this cup tough. 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 purposefully. 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. As you know, open-monitoring 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 onto everything.
Shelby Stanger:
There's a saying at Deer Park where 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.
Joe Holder:
That's facts. And it's not being about selfish. It's not about turning your mind off. It's just simply that you actually recognize so you self-distance. And then the other thing is I've struggled with certain things, depression, otherwise anxiety, but I used to try to fight it. Now when it happens, I just accept it. 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 ourself 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. He'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. 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.
Shelby Stanger:
If 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_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 podcast@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 Knitsberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola 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.