Jan 7, 2022
Today’s guest is Dr Mike Simpson! 
Mike Simpson, M.D. has served over three decades in the military as an Airborne Ranger, a Special Forces Operator, and finally as a Doctor of Emergency Medicine assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Throughout his career, Mike has deployed to 17 different countries, from the jungles of South America conducting counter-narcotics operations to the deserts of the Middle East fighting the Global War On Terror (GWOT).
Along the way, Mike has been trained as a demolitions expert, SWAT Sniper, High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachutist, SCUBA diver, civilian paramedic, Special Forces Medic, Operations and intelligence Sergeant, and finally, a board certified Emergency Medicine Physician.
Mike is also a martial arts enthusiast, who has trained in Muay Thai, and currently has the rank of purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. His passion for martial arts motivated him to become a practicing fight doctor. Mike works extensively with Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters, law enforcement, and military organizations providing medical care and training.
As one of the foremost experts in both tactical trauma medicine and combat sports medicine, Mike is highly sought after as a lecturer and instructor. He also hosts The Mind of The Warrior podcast, sharing his personal knowledge and philosophy, as well as those of his guests, in an effort to spread to warrior ethos to the general public.
Mike is perhaps best known for his role as an investigator on the History Channel’s docu-reality series “Hunting Hitler”.
In this interview, we discuss:
- How to make your later years as fun, effective and badass as your twenties.
- How to incorporate The Six Pillars of Fitness into your training regime.
- Recovery and diet protocols that all older men should adopt.
- The health tests you need to have done to remain healthy.
- And so much more.
Here are some key points that I would advise you to concentrate on
- Mike found his way to medicine through a non-traditional route. You can achieve what you want in life, there is always a route to your goals - do not be defeated simply be because you can't go through the traditional way. There are always another way, or you can make a way for yourself like a lot of top performers do.
- Age is just a number, not a life sentence. Mike was a top operator in the special forces at 48! When most people are retiring, Mike is going into hell holes and serving his country.
- Don't look at the masses, look at the outliers, the top performers who are not usual, the ones who are finding systems and methods to keep their performance consistent and high-level as you age.
- You need to be smart with your recovery, training and diet, but you can keep performing into your 'Twilight years' We don't need to let ourselves get fat and out of shape - just because it is accepted by most, doesn't mean you need to follow it! You can be different!
- What you eat fuels you, lets you perform. If its handed out a window to you in your car, its unlikely to fuel you to any real efficiency.
- The pandemic has really highlighted how dangerous being unhealthy is and how you need to work on your fitness and health to avoid becoming seriously ill.
- Just because something is done like that previously, doesn't mean it needs to continue that way. If you find hacks, research and info that can help you, incorporate it into your life and training etc. Review after a week or month and see how it works. Keep the effective additions and remove the problems. Do one new thing at a time and build up slowly.
- Mike talks about how the army would look at what they needed soldiers to do, and then changed the diet and training in the military to suit these requirements. You can do the same! Look at your end goal, be very specific. Then reverse engineer your life, rituals, training etc to build towards it by breaking your goal down into targets, working out what you need to do from current to your goal and smash them daily!
- Don't try and make all the changes and do the work yourself - the internet has made so many key websites, research papers etc available to you. Google Scholar and others offer free access to a lot of training, diet, recovery, performance research papers and my podcast will help you improve a lot of your life areas too (Shameless plug I know!)
- Don't think you need to work 24/7 to outshine or outlast (or even keep up with) the younger ones, but understand you need to work smarter, and more effective, understanding your weaknesses, and your energy systems and how tweaking these can all you to perform continually.
- As Mike says, treat your longevity like your credit card - don't borrow hard on interest in your younger years and suffer and pay it back in your later years stuck with injuries, inability to walk etc.
- Recovery is vital as this is when the healing takes place.
- Don't try to run before you walk when you start training, build slowly, strengthen the stabilizing muscles first, before you try and build muscle.
- Use the Warrior Ethos that Mike mentions to switch from a hobbyist or average guy mentality, and consider yourself an athlete and look to improve yourself daily.
- You can eat the treats, the unhealthy foods, but it needs to be in moderation. Treat your fuel tank well, by feeding it foods as close to the original sources as possible. Reduce sugar, processed foods etc as much as possible.
- You may feel invincible when you are younger, but you aren't! Time ages you, wear and tear ages you. Bad diet, lifestyle choices etc age and beat you up. Start today, take the supplements, work out, sleep better, get health screens done etc - start righting the problems now so you can be effective as you age, and not try to resolve lifelong problems in your older age, when you should be enjoying these years of your life!
- Like you would plan your nights out in your twenties, you need to plan out your health now in your thirties and forties, so you can be act like a young one in your older years!
- Once you stop challenging yourself, you stop evolving! Stop thinking short-term, look at these changes as life hacks and lifelong performance optimization techniques.
- Self-care is not selfishness.
- Your lifetyle eg kids, work rota etc, will dictate when you train etc, but you can cut out or cut down spent on time wasting hobbies to make the time to workout, read, eat healthier etc.
- The journal to a fitter and healthier you starts today. Start now. Discover, plan, and get started!
- What gets measured, gets managed. There are plenty of apps and tools that you can use to analyse your health, your current status, your current fitness level, and manage and record your data that you can review and re-calibrate your training etc as you go.
- What is average should not be your norm.
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