Habits and Hustle
Episode 431: Dr. Andy Galpin: Why Fitness Trackers and Bloodwork Are Misleading You
Tue, 11 Mar 2025
Are you optimizing your performance or leaving gains on the table? In this week's Habits and Hustle podcast episode, I sit down with Dr. Andy Galpin, a renowned human performance scientist, to discuss the science behind optimizing physical and mental performance. We dive into how the body actually works versus common fitness misconceptions, why basic blood work often misses the bigger picture, and reveal why many people's obsession with fitness data and tracking might be counterproductive. We cover everything from individualized training approaches to the science of sleep, recovery, and performance optimization. So tune in because Galpin shares insights from his work with elite athletes while making the science accessible for everyday fitness enthusiasts. Dr. Andy Galpin PhD is a tenured full Professor at California State University, Fullerton. He is the Co-Director of the Center for Sport Performance and Founder/Director of the Biochemistry and Molecular Exercise Physiology Laboratory. He is a Human Performance scientist with a PhD in Human Bioenergetics and over 100 peer-reviewed publications and presentations. What We Discuss: (01:00) High-Performance Science and Genetics (10:22) Comprehensive Testing for Optimal Health (15:05) Optimizing Performance With Blood Analysis (21:29) Physiology and Stress Impact Testosterone (31:18) Balancing Stress and Performance (42:33) Improving Performance Beyond Physical Metrics (46:13) Navigating the Biohacking Industry (01:07:36) Overcoming Training Plateaus and Progression (01:18:20) Uncovering Sleep Disorders and Solutions …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen and use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here, code Jennifer20 for 20% off. Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Dr. Andy Galpin: Website: https://www.andygalpin.com/ Podcast: Perform Instagram: @drandygalpin
Chapter 1: Who is Dr. Andy Galpin and what is a high-performance scientist?
Okay, so you guys, we have today Dr. Andy Galpin, who is a human performance scientist. I got that right, right? Yeah, nailed it. I love that. I want you to, before we even start, but before I even get into that, let's just do our quick healthy shot. We do this on the podcast. We take this, we take a shot. I've had like a hundred of them. And it's basically, it's by a company called Magic Mind.
And it's basically a healthy shot to help you with your focus and being alert. And since you're a high performance guy, I thought of all the people I should be doing this shot with, it is you. Oh my goodness. Yeah, because, you know, hold on, you guys shake it first. And then we like, you know, we open around with cheers. And then of course, we do it. Yeah. Can you shake it though?
Yours is much more green than mine. It's a different batch, I guess. Do you like it?
Very reasonable tasting. Oftentimes these things taste terrible.
No, no, no. Horrible.
Yeah, beyond that.
Horrible. So that's why I like this one. But now you're going to tell me at the end of the podcast if it helped you at all. And I want you to be honest.
Well, just be careful because I already speak a lot and I go quickly. So if you speak up at all, this might get worse for everybody.
Oh my gosh. No, no, no. Okay. First of all, like number one, like I said, before we even started rolling, I was really excited to have you on the show because you go so into the weeds. You're very science-based, obviously. You're a professor. You've worked with like literally every single athlete on the planet. because you are a high performance scientist. But what is that?
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Chapter 2: How does genetic testing relate to performance optimization?
I think actually that's a really good question, first of all, because we define performance quite differently. Ultimately, I'm not a metabolism guy. I'm not a sleep guy. I'm not a muscle growth guy. What I am is a physiologist. And why that matters is I actually don't really particularly care how you yourself define performance.
So the people that we coach, whether it's our athletes or our non-athletes, the science we do in my lab, the way that I communicate in the public sphere, it is designed to have somebody be able to come in and say, hey, Andy, I have these goals. I want more mental focus. I want to lose weight. I want to be strong. You tell me the goal.
And from my perspective, I'm trying to make sure your physiology aligns with that goal. And so that's why I've had success with NFL players executives, actors, musicians rather, tons of regular people. It's because I'm not focused on that last end of the niche, which is how do I optimize hitting a baseball? Or how do I run the fastest? Or how do I mobilize my big toe the best?
I don't care about that end. What I make sure is that physiology is running at its highest level so that you can then deploy those capabilities however you're defining perform in your unique world. So that's why we've been able to gear our laboratory and our coaching programs in that fashion. And we've had success in so many different areas.
So you work, because I saw that you do like every modality of sports. You do like baseball players, wrestlers, UFC people, like Olympians of all kinds. So my first question then is like, if it's physiology that you're looking at, then it really is individual, right? It's all very personalized, right? It can't just be a one-for-all type of situation.
And the second thing is, does that mean that genetics actually matter for someone's human performance? Well, we'll go backwards.
Genetics always matter. They matter for everything, right? There is just no world or reality in which me or you could do any training or modality of any kind and all of a sudden be the top athlete in the world in any sport, right? So clearly genetics matter.
So talent supersedes everything, really? Starting point. Okay.
Right? Now, all humans have the same genes. We're 99.9% the same. We all have some very slight variations in one of those allele pairs, one from mom, one from dad. And that's what gives us our unique characteristics, right? So we can all have basically the exact same genome, despite the fact that we are all, a billion of us will never be the same person.
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Chapter 3: What are the limitations of bloodwork in performance analysis?
That's why I care about that part, right? Because I actually don't really care what genetics you have because if the net genes aren't or not turned on or off, it's not gonna matter. So it's just a potential. It's sort of like saying, okay, I'm gonna invest in your company Well, you're in the space of protein powder. Okay, great. Well, therefore, I'm gonna give you a billion dollars.
Like, whoa, the company could be great, terrible. Like, just because you're in the protein powder space, it tells me nothing about anything else. Like, that's just a stupid level to stop at. So going to the next level of saying like, what's your revenue? What's your, like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Like, that would be what you actually care about. That is the protein level in our world.
And so getting to that level is actually what allows us to create those individualized plans. And the way that we think about it, we have a program called Arete, A-R-E-T-E, right?
I've heard of that before. Did this other guy create that program?
No, I mean, that word arete has been used a trillion times.
Oh, it has. Okay. Because someone else pitched me who wrote a book called Arete. Do you know the guy I'm talking about?
No.
Oh, okay. Because I saw that on your website. I was like, what the hell is this?
You find there's like construction companies and there's mindset books.
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Chapter 4: Can hormone therapy be problematic for optimizing performance?
And so is red light therapy and so is walking in age. All those things are awesome. But you right now specifically need additional B6 and 15 more minutes of cardiovascular exercise a day. Great. Everything else is good too. You can also do that, but you will get the most impact out of, and I just made those examples.
Yeah, I know, I know, I know. I'm just thinking that. So basically, so when someone comes into your office or your lab or whatever, your facility, do you have a facility?
We don't have a physical facility. It's all remote.
So it's basically telemedicine type of thing?
Sort of, yeah. We actually just send people to you. So we send someone to your house and take care of everything remote. So it doesn't matter where in the country you are. We take care of it.
Okay, so let's say, because I've had a ton of people come over and like take a ton of blood for me, right? Like all those blood. And everyone now has like, it's like now who can take the most blood? Like how many markers can someone test? It was like 50. Now it's 75. Now it's 180. We take a lot more than that.
So my first question is, well, I've had my first question, my eighth question by now, but how many markers do you check for when you do your blood? Like when you test for someone, what are the most important markers?
Because what I heard you once say, which I found very interesting, kind of one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is that you're saying that when you get people's results, You don't even do things based on that necessarily. So that to me was very interesting. Like how do you then give someone a program if it's not even based on what their results are off of the blood work?
I found that very interesting.
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Chapter 5: How does chronic stress affect testosterone levels?
Right.
And then we'll just run this for three or four years and eventually your career's over. Right, right, right. Exactly. Right. In addition to people saying, look, I have more... money than I have time. So I don't want to wait three or four years for these headaches to go away. I can't wait two years for me to stop having diarrhea all the time.
Like I'd rather spend an extra a hundred dollars to do more testing that maybe we didn't need then wait six months and then come back and say, okay, now let's try this additional. Right. Like this trial and error thing. Totally. Right. We just said, what if we can go past all that and just get as much stuff as we can possibly get done initially. So it takes a couple of months.
Some people get done in two weeks, but on average it takes a couple of months. Now, what does that involve? It's a little bit different, but just making up as a direct example. It's everything from a ton of blood work, urine. How much blood work? Like how many markers are you checking? Directly, we're probably going to test 115.
But off of that, we're going to run over 20,000 calculations on those. And why I'm saying that is it's not the marker. It's not, where's your free testosterone? Where's your cortisol? Where's your sodium? Blah, blah, blah. In addition to that, you have a whole bunch of calculations. You have relationships. You have patterns that you can recognize within that.
And so this is when people have traditionally gotten blood work done, they'll look at a single marker and say that marker is high or that marker is low. Now they're saying that's high or low based on a number of problems. In other words, they look at the sheet and the sheet says that number is green, then I must be good.
Right.
Or that number says I'm red, like I must be bad. Well, there's a whole host of issues with this approach. First and foremost is the fact that what you're being compared against is called a reference range. So if you look at your albumin or your sodium, pick your favorite marker here. And it says, oh, your albumin is 7.0.
They're going to be like, wow, you're really, really high because the average person, 95% of people will be within four to five. What's albumin? What is that? It's a protein. It is one example, but it's a protein that carries around carbon dioxide through your body. Cortisol has a whole bunch of transportation. It to me is reason I bring it up is it's my favorite marker of all things in the world.
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Chapter 6: Is your exercise routine causing cortisol dysfunction?
This is what I'm saying. You can't just look at the numbers and go, oh, everything's fine. Because it's not. I can look directly at your albumin. It can be perfectly right within that reference range. That's not a normal population group, by the way. It's not a healthy group of people. You're not in the population database that we create reference ranges from, right? You're way above it.
But nonetheless, you'll still be right in the middle. And then this is exactly what happens when people go, oh, I got my labs done and I looked pretty good.
Right. So then what do you do? How do you take into consideration all these other things? You have to go next level. Okay.
You have to then, in this particular case, look at things like sodium, potassium, carbon dioxide, a ton of other things that are all still going to be the way, by the way, within the reference range. But if sodium is trending a little bit low, still within the green, potassium is a little bit high, carbon dioxide is a little below, you can start to see these patterns are going
You're actually A, B, C, D, E, and F. Plus we ask you some questions and you're talking about how sometimes you get a little bit constipated. Oh, and then on the afternoons, you feel like you're getting a little additional brain fog. We tracked your hydration markers and you're slightly dehydrated.
Now we know that being dehydrated by as little as 1% can have significant, both clinical and statistically significant reductions in physical performance and cognitive capacity, mood, arithmetic, retention, sleep, all things like that. So I can look within the labs and go every single thing on your labs is within the reference range. You don't have a clinical disease, Jen.
You don't have a disease. But this is why you're performing slightly suboptimally.
And it could just be as simple as just being dehydrated.
In that particular case, it might be you're just slightly dehydrated. But not that day. Because we'll see that, right? It's not like, oh, you didn't drink enough water.
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Chapter 7: What are effective strategies for managing stress and improving performance?
And we can look at it and go, boom, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And we actually do this as like, I do it all the time in like live seminars. We'll just like pull somebody's blood randomly. I don't know, you pull it up or whatever. And like, just watch us start telling you about your life. And they're like, what the? Are you serious? It's right there in your blood. Like no one's ever told me that.
I'm like, yeah, because there's a different level of interpretation. from what we call high performance perspective. And so again, these are things that if you have a disease, I'm not gonna touch it. I'm not a medical doctor. I'm gonna say, you need to go talk to a doctor. Like you might have a disease. But this is high performance.
This is stuff that is still usually within the reference range or pretty close or subclinical, but it doesn't mean it's not affecting how you're living and feeling and performing. And that's what we do.
Well, what I find interesting, again, is that especially in the last few years, I feel a lot of this telemedicine, a lot of these clinics have popped up. And if testosterone's low, right, they just automatically put you on testosterone. They automatically give you hormone therapy.
Almost everybody I know, and by the way, besides me, because I'm like super scared of hormone therapy, but every guy I know over the age of let's say 40 is now being supplemented by testosterone and all these things. And they're like, wow, I never felt better. I never looked as good. I'm leaner than ever. And they're putting them on lots of other things too. They're microdosing GLP-1s.
They're doing all sorts of shit. And they think that this makes them super healthy because their inflammation is getting lower, all these things. And my spidey sense tells me that is not the right thing. There can't be a world where everybody now is now being over-supplemented with stuff to look good for the moment. There has to be some kind of backlash somewhere else.
Yeah, I have many things to say about the topic. First and foremost, again, I'm not a medical doctor. Yes, but you just play one on TV.
No, I'm a PhD. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I never play a doctor. Do you say this because you think you're going to get in trouble?
No, I think it's just fairness. People listening might have been like, oh, he's a doctor, and assume I'm a medical doctor.
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