Ali Fitness Podcast

Be brave and do epic shit. As far as mottos go, this is a pretty phenomenal one. And Sonya Looney definitely follows this advice herself: Not only is she one of the world’s best endurance mountain bike racers, she is also a writer, blogger, and photographer. Sonya has delivered keynotes at events around the world, and she hosts the successful podcast, The Sonya Looney Show. An early adopter of social media, Sonya is reshaping what it means to be a professional athlete by establishing and promoting her own strong personal brand. Today Sonya shares her roundabout journey from graduate fellow in engineering to professional mountain bike racing, discussing her approach to training and how she incorporates time to work on the business. Sonya offers her take on balance, mindset and the future of women in sport. She explains her shift to a plant-based diet and offers tips around trending in the right direction when it comes to nutrition. Listen in for Sonya’s inspiring advice about pushing your limits and making tim

“The irony of all of this is, I look better now … at 38-years-old than I did when I was 22-years-old, acting like a jerk in the gym. What a crazy lesson to learn: If I chase health and longevity and balance, I’ll actually get a great deal of the aesthetics that I always wanted.” Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer and Justin Andrews have 40-plus years of combined experience in the fitness industry as personal trainers, club managers, IFBB competitors and fitness thought leaders. Together, they host the Mind Pump platform, a media site and podcast that sheds light on the truth about health, fitness and a host of other topics. Sal, Adam and Justin are passionate about cutting through the BS to help people reach their health and fitness goals. Today the Mind Pump team discusses how far they have come in terms of health and fitness, explaining their common journey from insecurity to balance and wellness. Adam speaks to the pros and cons of becoming a physique Pro, sharing the factors you should consider before pursuing

  Kale Brock was diagnosed with a heart irregularity at the age of 16. He was given the option to undergo ablation surgery, but Kale hesitated. Wouldn’t it be better to fix the issue rather than destroy a piece of his heart? Instead, he started working with a naturopath to improve his microbiome, and within six months, he had reversed the condition naturally. Ten years later, Kale is an award-nominated writer, producer and speaker with a passion for creative storytelling. His special interest in health and well-being coupled with a background in journalism led Kale to makeThe Gut Movie, a documentary that investigates the human microbiome via his experience living with The San tribe in Namibia. Kale is the also author of two acclaimed books, The Gut Healing Protocol and The Art of Probiotic Nutrition. Today he explains how he reversed his heart conditioned by focusing on gut health, and how that experience shaped his career as a journalist and storyteller. Kale shares his experience making The Gut Movie, disc

Humans were born to be good at burning fat. In fact, we have a superpower in that we can change the way our body metabolizes fuel and convert some of the fats in our liver to ketone bodies. As we build metabolic infrastructure over time, our bodies require less glucose—even as we maintain energy and muscle mass and thrive on fewer calories. This improved metabolic efficiency serves us well in endurance sports and enhances our long-term health. Mark Sisson is a thought leader in the Evolutionary Health Movement. He is the bestselling author of The Primal Blueprint and several other books in the realm of ancestral health, and he writes the blog, Mark’s Daily Apple, one of the highest-ranking health resources on the web. Mark challenges conventional wisdom around diet and exercise, encouraging people to take responsibility for their health and well-being via Paleo/Primal principles. A former elite endurance athlete, Mark has a fourth-place finish in the Hawaii Ironman World Triathlon Championships as well as a 2

‘How do you get faster by slowing down?’ Today’s guest enjoyed a 15-year career as an elite triathlete – and improved year after year – because he learned to train smart, avoid injury and burnout, and build a deep level of fitness.  Mark Allen is one of the most decorated triathletes in the history of the sport. He is a six-time champion of the Ironman Triathlon Hawaii, a ten-time winner of the Nice International Championships, and the only triathlete to have a 20-race winning streak. Mark was named Triathlete of the Year six times, he is a member of the Ironman Triathlon Hall of Fame, and he was voted ‘The Greatest Endurance Athlete of All Time’ in a worldwide poll conducted by ESPN in 2012. Today Mark runs MarkAllenCoaching, a global online training community which serves athletes at all levels, from beginners through elite triathletes. He is a sought-after speaker and consultant, as well as the co-author of Fit Soul, Fit Body: 9 Keys to a Healthier, Happier You. Mark joins Ali to share his wealth of knowle

We all know the value of resistance training. Not only does it improve strength, it can reduce our chances of getting injured and help us maintain muscle mass as we age. But how much time should we devote to weight training in a given week? And how do you maximize the benefit if you only have a few minutes a couple of times a week? Lawrence Neal argues that if we emphasize time under load rather than repetition, with a focus on form over duration, two fifteen-minute sessions per week is all we really need to reap the benefits of resistance training. Lawrence is the founder of Corporate Warrior: High Intensity Training and the HIT Business Podcast and Blog. He has interviewed 90-plus world-class HIT and fitness business experts to learn the strategies for success in both health and business. He also serves as a one-on-one coach, helping people realize their own health goals in a time-efficient, effective and sustainable way. .Before becoming the Corporate Warrior, Lawrence enjoyed a lucrative eight-year career

Most of us start running or cycling or endurance racing simply for the love of doing it. We enjoy being part of the community, and we derive a real joy from being active and challenging ourselves in a competitive setting. But what happens when you hit a wall? When something is off and you seem to lose your battery charge? Would you have the grit to bring yourself back—even if it took years? 53-year-young Marg Fedyna is a self-funded professional cyclist. In addition to road cycling and mountain biking, Marg has competed in Nordic skiing, cyclocross, and adventure racing. She was the Sea2Summit Adventure Race Solo Winner from 1998-2004, the 2005 World 24 Hour Solo Mountain Bike Champion, the 2006 La Ruta Mountain Bike Champion, the 2013-2014 Holtwood Pyrenees Champion, the winner of the 2014 Taiwan KOM Challenge, and the five-time winner of the Lake Louise to Banff Nordic Ski Race. .But Marg’s most impressive accomplishment came in the years between 2007 and 2013 when she lost her drive. She went from competin

Part of the allure of endurance sports is the opportunity to be outdoors, to connect with the natural world. And many of us would like to do more to protect the environment we love… But where do we begin? Mimi and Jacky are two-time Adventure Race World Champions. As multi-sport athletes, they have traveled to 20 countries on four continents, competing in seven different disciplines including XTERRA triathlons, Spartan races, and Half Ironman Triathlons—just to name a few. In 2017, they devised an ambitious plan to win seven world championships. The surprising thing is, Mimi and Jacky restrict their diet to fruits and vegetables. The couple lives on Canary Island in a solar-powered container house, growing their food in a permaculture garden. Their zero-waste lifestyle truly demonstrates their commitment to protecting the planet. Today Mimi and Jacky discuss how the races they choose reflect their environmental consciousness. They share their daily training program, their approach to recovery, and how their p

“At the moment, our approach to health is very much ‘wait for bad things to happen and then fix it.’ We don’t want you to break in the first place.” Dr. Justin Gregory is the founder and CEO at Biorna Quantics, an online platform that allows users to measure 400-plus biomarkers key to optimal performance and prevent ill health before it happens. Dr. Gregory earned his DPhil Anthropology from Oxford in 2013. He is a published author and frequent presenter at international conferences in Europe, America and Asia. Dr. Gregory also happens to be a black belt judo player and a former member of the British Judo Squad. He was the 2013 International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation Pan-American Champion and bronze medalist at the 2017 HK National Powerlifting Championships. Today Dr. Gregory shares the inspiration behind creating Biorna Quantics, explaining how the platform helps users ‘own their health.’ He walks us through the process of using the platform and the personalized meal plans it generates. Dr. Gregory dis

Many believe that yoga is simply a stretching exercise, and a lot of endurance athletes assert that they are not flexible enough to take it on. But if you ask ChauKei Ngai, yoga is so much more than that. The practice requires a balance of both flexibility and strength in order to hold the poses into stillness—and that is where the magic happens. Most importantly, yoga incorporates a component of mental strength that helps endurance athletes improve their focus and better their health, from the inside out. ChauKei was born ‘without breath.’ A mechanical ventilator and extra oxygen was necessary to keep her alive for the first 30 days of her life, and she continued to deal with breathing issues until the age of 25. Extreme chest pains and breathlessness triggered frequent trips to the emergency room for supplemental oxygen until ChauKei discovered yoga, and the attacks of breathlessness went away. ChauKei is now a modern yogini, teaching yoga worldwide for more than a decade. In 2013, she won the prestigious I

“[Wearables] are only successful when you use them to learn more about your own body. That’s the missing link … They cannot be used as the actual answer themselves. If you outsource your own intelligence, if you outsource your thinking, your own physiology to these devices, you are going to lose.” Dr. Andy Galpin is a tenured professor at the Center for Sport Performance at CSU Fullerton and the author of Unplugged: Evolve from Technology to Upgrade Your Fitness, Performance and Consciousness. Dr. Galpin spent four years studying the structure and function of human skeletal muscle to earn a PhD in Human Bioenergetics from Ball State University. At the CSU Fullerton Biochemistry and Molecular Exercise Physiology Lab, Dr. Galpin and his team study the acute responses and chronic adaptations of human skeletal muscle in response to high velocity and fatiguing exercise. Dr. Galpin also serves as a performance coach for high-profile professional athletes, helping elite competitors achieve their performance potentia

“Take an electrolyte pill for cramping! Make sure to stay hydrated! You’ve got to clear the lactic acid!” Conventional wisdom tells us that cramping is a hydration issue, that we need at least eight glasses of water a day, that the burn we feel when working hard is lactic acid buildup… But today’s guest is challenging conventional wisdom with the latest research, asking you to forget everything you thought you knew about what causes cramps, how much you need to hydrate during a race, and what is really happening with lactate during a tough workout. Trevor Connor is best known as a cyclist, racing in the Pro Peloton for nearly 20 years. Soon after retiring from cycling at 38, he became Dr. Loren Cordain’s last graduate student at Colorado State University, where his research focused on the effects of a Paleo diet on autoimmune disorders. After adopting the Paleo diet himself, Trevor came out of retirement to become the top ranked 40-plus rider in the US. In fact, he is fresh off a 13th-place finish at the Tour

Patience, as we know, is a virtue. Problem is, most of us athletes are eager to push ourselves, to see what our bodies are capable of, to test our limits. But if you go too far, too fast, you may be setting yourself up for long-term failure—especially in an area like ultra-running, where you are tackling distances much longer than the standard marathon. Take it from Wong Ho Fai, champion ultra-runner, training to win races like the ECO100 in Malaysia and the Hong Kong 168 is a gradual process. Fai started running seven years ago, and he progressively built his physical and mental endurance to become Hong Kong’s EP1CMAN, completing the Kona 300-mile challenge this past May. Fai quit his job as an engineer at the age of 24 to pursue sports photography. The career change gave him the opportunity to start training as an athlete himself, and he took up trail running. Endurance sports come easily to Fai, and he transitioned from marathons to adventure races to ultra-running. He is currently training to take on the

‘We’ve taken an easy route. It’s easier to be wireless than to be wired, and it’s more convenient. The question is, are we willing to trade convenience for health?’ Brown University alumnus Richard Lear is the author of the seminal paper, “The Root Cause in the Dramatic Rise of Chronic Disease.” As the founder and CPO of four Silicon Valley-based companies, Richard has extensive experience in media, SaaS, human capital and consumer electronics product development. His recent research and writing around the unrecognized explosion of chronic disease in the US and its links to elevated levels of peroxynitrite caused by extensive exposure to wireless devices led Richard to create Greenwave, a startup dedicated to the reduction of dirty electricity. Greenwave products include the EMI Dirty Electricity Meter to measure electro-pollution and Greenwave Dirty Electricity Filters that function to ‘clean up’ the dirty electricity present in your wiring. Richard’s study of the rise of autoimmune and neurological disease

“It’s very scary. We make light of an eating disorder. I hear it all the time, ‘Oh, just give them a chocolate bar.’ It’s about food, but it’s not about food. It’s really about this intense, intense fear.” Denise Fair is a registered dietician from Canada who specialized in pediatric nutrition at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and Winnipeg Children’s Hospital. She moved to Hong Kong in 2009, where she has served as an RD with Central Health Medical Practice. Denise does private consultations in all areas of dietetics, continuing to focus on pediatrics and adding an expertise in eating disorders. Today Denise discusses the most common eating disorders she encounters, the demographics of her patients with anorexia and bulimia, and the personality traits common to these patients. She addresses the steps you can take as the parent of a child with a potential eating disorder and when to pursue a live-in intensive program in a hospital setting versus a weekly consult with a nutritionist. Listen and learn

Even the most practical among us would agree that stress has a significant impact on our physical health. The practice of BodyTalk is based in the philosophy that anxiety compromises our body’s communication system, and if we can learn to listen to our body, it will identify the missing links and help us restore the connections. Julie Bolduc is the owner of Julieyana, a practice in Waterloo, Ontario, focused on balancing mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. Julie has 25-plus years of experience in complementary healthcare, wellness coaching and energy medicine. She is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist with advanced studies in Ayurvedic Nutrition and Herbology, and she has been a certified BodyTalk System practitioner since 2004. Julie’s resume includes a stint with the Family Hope Center in France, where Julie served as a BodyTalk consultant specializing in the treatment of severely brain injured children. She uses Energy Medicine coupled with nutritional consulting to address chronic illness an

Though AFL is the number one sport in Australia, few understand what it is really like to play footy. What does a typical week look like? What kind of training is involved? How much is the team involved in what players eat? What is it like to fight back from an injury? Does the team help players prepare for life after football? Rory Atkins is a star midfielder for the Adelaide Crows, the top club in the AFL. He was the 81st pick in the 2012 draft, but he had yet to play in a game when he injured the posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in 2015. Rory missed 14 weeks of football, but with the support of the team rehab staff, he fought his way back. After four games in the reserves, he played in his first AFL game.   Rory played every game in 2016, and was one of Adelaide’s most improved performers, averaging 21 disposals at 75% efficiency to secure his place in the Club’s starting side. He scored 11 goals last year, including match-winning majors against Sydney and West Coast. Today he gives the Ali Fi

There is a 20% chance that someone you love will experience a head injury, and 30% of those patients with brain injuries will suffer a long-term disability. The good news is that concussions and traumatic brain injury can be treated, and today’s guest is here to offer insight around how to restore the building blocks of the brain, omega-3 fatty acids.  Dr. Michael Lewis is one of the foremost authorities on brain health as well as the prevention, management and rehabilitation of concussions and traumatic brain injury. He is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and Tulane University School of Medicine, and he completed his postgraduate training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University, and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. After a distinguished 31-year career in the military, Dr. Lewis founded the nonprofit Brain Health Education and Research Institute in 2011 to educate healthcare providers and the public about the value of omega-3 fatty acids in the treatment of the b

We need a different approach to disease. Business as usual in Western medicine means prescribing pharmaceuticals to mask symptoms, rather than finding the true cause of a patient’s condition. That’s why patients with chronic illness seek out doctors like Dr. David Minkoff, whose alternative approach identifies any toxins or infections affecting the client’s health. He also treats high-level athletes, helping them identify nutritional deficiencies and getting them on the road to optimal performance—naturally. Dr. Minkoff began his career on the traditional path, graduating from the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1974 and then moving on to the University of California at San Diego to complete a Pediatric Residency and Fellowship in Infectious Disease. He was working in emergency medicine when his wife, Sue, became ill in 1995. When Western doctors couldn’t give them answers, the Minkoffs turned to alternative medicine for answers. Dr. Minkoff was able to treat Sue’s condition, mercury toxicity, with

Demanding CrossFit workouts have been described as ‘utterly vicious’ and even ‘borderline insane.’ The overarching philosophy of this workout phenomenon seems to imply that constantly varied, high-intensity training is the key to success. This runs contrary to classical strength and conditioning principles which promote a systematic approach to training with structure and a planned progression. Is there a way to combine the two? To blend the challenge and community that draws people to CrossFit with the methodical, periodized tactics of S&C?  Ed Haynes is the Founder and Head Trainer at Coastal Fitness, one of Hong Kong’s elite training facilities. Coastal Fitness offers personal training, camps for athletes and coaches, group classes and even online training programs. Among Coastal Fitness’ most popular programs is their CrossFit group classes, which take a systematic approach to the sport, ensuring that clients are prepared for the intense workouts and committed to long-term fitness. A former Hong Kong