180 Nutrition -The Health Sessions.

This week welcome to the show David O’ Brien. He is the fitness director of 5th Element Wellness. He has dedicated his life to individually tailoring wellness and fitness strategies to improve peoples lives. Having spent over a decade being educated by the world leaders in their respective fields, he has gone on to combine their knowledge to successfully develop his own strategies accumulated from his learning and honed through experience. Ultimately applying holistic solutions leaving people better informed, and feeling great.

Questions asked in the episode:

  • Adrenal fatigue is a hot topic at the moment. What is your take on it?
  • You deal with blood chemistry markers within 5 th element. What are someof the trends you’re seeing? Examples?
  • What type of message do you think is getting sent in the fitness industry at the moment?
  • What type of training do you think is the missing ingredient in a lot of people’s lives?
  • What are some of the common trends you are seeing in the people that you are dealing with that is having the most success?
  • What does your exercise routine look like?

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Guy

[00:00:30] [00:01:00] Hey everybody. Guy Lawrence of course from 180 Nutrition, and welcome to another fantastic episode of the Health Sessions, where we are connecting with leading global health and wellness experts to share the best and latest science and thinking, empowering people to turn their health and lives around. This week we have the awesome guest of Dave O’Brien, and he is the founder, I should say co-founder, of this amazing facility in Melbourne called Fifth Element Wellness. David has worked with some fantastic people including Ido Portal, Charles Poliquin, James LaValle, worked on blood markers and biochemistry, and also Louie Simmons, strength training, posterior chain and so forth. I’ve got to know Dave, he’s become a very good friend of mine and he is a wealth of knowledge and one of the first people I’ll pick up the phone to when I need to get the question answered, and to get him to share his wisdom on the podcast today was phenomenal. We tackle his own story from how he burnt out to chronic fatigue and adrenal fatigue massively, and the steps he started to take to reverse that around. Not only that, but the things that he sees on a regular basis through his Fifth Element Wellness, and the steps we can take to adjust accordingly moving forward, to create our most optimum wellness and health and the best versions of ourselves.

[00:01:30] [00:02:00] Now this goes off in all sort of directions. We cover many many topics, like I said adrenal fatigue, the fitness industry in general, movement, where we should be starting from when it comes to exercise as well, and we get into hormonal function as well. You name it, it’s in there. Probably a podcast you’re going to listen to two or three times to make sure you understand what’s going on. It goes deep in places, but in other parts as well we have a really good time, and I loved every minute of it and I have no doubt you will too. I will mention the Internet is a little bit scratchy in the first five to 10 minutes. It’s still fine but the Skype drops in and out slightly so there’s not much we can do, but it clears up and is fine for the rest of the show. So stick with it. Well worth it.

[00:02:30] And of course if you’re enjoying our podcasts, please subscribe to us on iTunes. Leave a review and share this with family and friends or anyone you think would benefit from listening to this episode. Because once people start to get this information behind their ears … between them I should say, not behind them, and start thinking about health and nutrition differently, these podcasts become super powerful and I’m blessed to be sharing them with you guys. And enjoy as always. Anyway, let’s go over to David O’Brien. Enjoy. Hey this is Guy Lawrence. I’m joined with Stuart Cook is always. Good afternoon Stu. Good to see you.

Stu

Hello Guy. Thank you. Welcome to be here.

Guy

And our awesome guest today is Mr Dave O’Brien. Dave, welcome to the show buddy. David: Thank you very much. Hi guys. It’s great to be on the show, it’s amazing. Great experience, thank you. [00:03:00] Guy: It’s the official one. We did a bit of a rogue podcast last year for our listeners, I think after our fourth ice bath, and we got the iPhone set up and did one from the inside the Wim Hof Retreat. But it’s to get you back on and actually do an official episode and grill you for the next hour mate. Because I know what you’re going to have to say is going to benefit probably everyone listening to this show today. So cool. David: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to.

Guy

[00:03:30] So Dave mate, the first question we ask everyone on the show recently, it’s been a bit of a theme, if you got stopped in the street by a stranger and they asked you what you do for a living, what would you say?

David

[00:04:00] Probably the straightforward answer would be to say that I’m a strength and conditioning coach. But it’s actually not true. Because I’ve sort of drifted so far away from a strength conditioning coach, it’s just unreal. And then at the same time, I might say I’m looking at functional medicine, but then I’m [inaudible 00:03:58] inside those parameters as well, so really ultimately what I would say is I actually help people achieve their optimal health. The best version of what they can possibly achieve of themselves. Ultimately that’s what my job is.

Guy

Yeah, perfect. Seen that first-hand, mate, and you’re doing an amazing job.

David

Thank you.

Guy

[00:04:30] So let’s take it back a bit Dave, because I know … and this is a compliment by the way. You’re probably one of the most passionate people I know within the health industry. Your depth of knowledge is phenomenal. But I’m interested to know where that comes from, because you started life in the fitness industry and obviously it’s morphed into what it is now. So can you take us back, because you’ve been on a bit of a journey yourself. Can you fill us in a little bit?

David

[00:05:00] Yeah definitely. It has been an amazing journey my story, but my story I reckon is actually shared by most people. So what I’m about to say, I reckon there’s a large majority of the population that are just going through the exact same experience, and obviously it’s all to do with adrenal burnout, adrenal fatigue, adrenal dysfunction, whatever you want to label it, but ultimately that’s the experience I went through. [inaudible 00:05:19] all the time, and this is what people are going through day-to-day.

[00:05:30] [00:06:00] My body from an early age showed clear signs of me suffering adrenal burnout, and I had a lot of illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome. I got a thing called Bell’s palsy. I remember when we did the last podcast I actually talked about the experience that I had through the breathing, doing that through with Wim Hof, that actually I had Bell’s palsy on one side of my face, and that actually like a viral infection basically, it actually causes a slight paralysis on one side of my face, and actually when I did the Wim Hof breathing, I felt this tingling sensation in that left side of my face, which for me was actually nerve endings getting stimulated, and all these things that actually hadn’t been stimulated because I hadn’t been getting oxygen into my body ultimately. So my body was giving me clear signs that, like anyone, I was just avoiding those signs. And I just kept on burning the candle at both ends. [00:06:30] [00:07:00]

[00:07:30] I was incredibly active, obviously as a personal trainer. I’ve been a personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach for almost 18, 19 years now. And so basically I was doing a lot of weight training, at the time I was doing a lot of triathlons, marathons. All these things that people like to do, and on top of that I was training sometimes 50, 55 clients in a week. I was sleeping about five hours, and then on the weekend I would hit it pretty hard. I partied incredibly hard. I was drinking and you name it, but basically the works. And the thing is, from my perspective, this is the majority of the population. Most people are doing this. And then what really started to come to a head, is I started to get a lot of serious complications that were coming through, especially neurologically. I actually started to get a lot of things like anxiety, and I actually went from a very social person to actually having social anxiety. I used to get very anxious in social settings, which really started to make me feel quite scared, because it was the complete reverse to the person I was previously.

Full Transcript & Video Version:

http://180nutrition.com.au/180-tv/david-o-brien-interview/

 

Direct download: David_OBrien.mp3
Category:Health & Nutrition -- posted at: 5:33pm PDT

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