Article: The Secrets of Tom Brady's Personal Trainer

[SlowGettingUp]

That's total BS. Perhaps the one thing your body works the hardest and best at is maintaining pH in a tight range. There's nothing you can eat or drink (in a non-pathological fashion) that will budge your pH outside a very narrow range. And even if you somehow could knock it outside that range you'd likely be in a world of hurt.

Absolutely agree with you here - this is just mumbo jumbo. These folks trying to cloak their wacky theories in scientific clothing drive me crazy. I had a neighbor that believed something along the same lines, with the added feature that he thought you should eat a lot of chlorophyll to help your blood because its chemical structure is "nearly identical" to that of hemoglobin.

This trainer's muscle/brain connection theories on the other hand make a lot of sense.

 

[bormio]

Medical knowledge is constantly in flux. Things thought to be insane sometimes end up being useful, while established tenets end up as garbage. Sometimes things work but for different reasons than originally thought. Also, Guerrero might be pushing both intelligent ideas and total BS. But being too certain in pronouncing on ideas can end up embarrassing.

 

[n1997y]

Oh god, I hate stuff like this:

That's total BS. Perhaps the one thing your body works the hardest and best at is maintaining pH in a tight range. There's nothing you can eat or drink (in a non-pathological fashion) that will budge your pH outside a very narrow range. And even if you somehow could knock it outside that range you'd likely be in a world of hurt.

For example, your entire breathing drive is based on pH. As CO2 builds up it makes your blood slightly more acidic and your body's sensing of that is what prompts you to breathe. (It's not the lack of oxygen, it's the incrementally extra CO2 dissolved in your blood. And in fact sometimes free divers who intensely hyperventilate before diving end up dying because they run out of oxygen before their pH has dropped enough for them to feel they need to breathe.)

Not necessarily total BS. Body is a lot of interconnected systems working to maintain equilibrium. The more something attempts to disturb the equilibrium the harder the body systems have to work to maintain it. So some enzymes or electrolytes might be stressed or deleted, that will have other side effects. Remember also Guerrero is working with a particularly athletic population subset, so things like interactions with the Krebs cycle, or lactic acid buildups, will be more of a consideration than they might be for the general population at large.

 

[AvocadoIceCream]

Guerrero is a freak and an absolute snake salesman BUT Brady has bought in and whatever it is about Tb12 that allows him to do what he's doing is ok..

But I'm not going to defend that but Guerrero

 

[BUSTAMOVE]

No peppers, mushrooms or tomatoes. What the hell am I going to make that four egg omelette with. What the hell do they eat. Sand?

 

[patfanken]

As I got into my 60's I used to walk as my primary form of excerise. Usually 3-5 miles a day, and a 17-18 minute miles. My genetics suck so heart desease and circulation problems are creaping up on me. Blood flow to my legs were making my walks 40-60 minutes of mostly discomfort, so I was referred to a Vascular surgeon who recommended vascular surgery (what a shock). What they do now is similar to what they do in an angioplasty, which is run a catheter from you groin (femeral aretery) up into your heart and look around and put in stents or baloon open areteries. Same thing with the legs only in the opposite direction. They go from the left groin to the right leg and visa versa.

A week prior to the first surgery I walked 2 miles every day for 7 days straight. It was painful, but I could do it. I just wasn't having any fun. After the surgery (btw, it's hard to call it "surgery" since you are in by 8am and out by 9pm with most of the time taken by making sure the femeral artery is healing and the sedatives they give you are out of your body), things have dramatically changed.

I can now walk about 200 yds before discomfort sets in, and after about a quarter mile I have to stop and rest for about 5 minutes before can move again.
Right now I'm looking at it taking about a half hour to 45 minutes for me to walk from the parking lot to TC this summer.

So, Guerrero's past might have had some blips, but "convential medicine" by reputable Drs has set me back to almost immobility. If I found out that medicare would pay for sessions at TB 12, I'd be there tomorrow. Why not? Could he do any worse? And at $200 a session it would be a lot less expensive that what regular doctors charge. Christ, I'm paying almost that per appointment and I'm only paying 20%.

Sounds to me that his program is 80% physical work, most of which makes a lot of sense to me, and 20% spiritual/mental crap that is sometimes just as valuable. Better than most doctors who ask you what's wrong and want to give you a pill.

 

[SlowGettingUp]

Not necessarily total BS.

The acid/base thing is total BS. What you eat can of course affect many things in your body (like glucose and insulin levels and various digestive hormones like CCK and leptin), but it sure as hell cannot impact your PH in a healthy person.

There are of course possible disturbances of acid/base balance (like diabetic ketoacidosis), but in general if the body is good at one thing it is keeping the PH very tightly controlled. And normal food variation just isn't an input into that process.

 

[nabwong]

You can go to the TB12 facility and make an appointment. You'll see him or a member of his staff. Tom Curran wrote an article about his experience and said the massage, stretching, chiropractic stuff he does is legit. He felt great afterwards.

Cost was around $150 for an hr IIRC.

I'm actually thinking about doing it myself. My hoop league finished up a couple of weeks ago and every morning my shoulders feel like someone took a baseball bat to them.

I'm thinking of signing up too. But i really only wanna see gisele in lulu lemon.

 

[TennisBallHead]

Do we really need an article on that slimy con artist?

 

[Captain Cliche]

I have a biology degree and worked in alternative/preventative medicine for a short time.
The doctor was a very intelligent , well credentialed, former emergency room doctor who got tired of pumping drugs into sick people who didn't get better.
We did amazing things.

One woman got herpes simplex 1 outbreaks on her face monthly...associated with her menstrual cycle. Watery blisters...embarassing. We did serial dilutions of the influenza vaccine and found the concentration that triggered her imune system to recognize the virus. We made her an oral vaccine at that dosage. She put drops under her tongue when she felt the tingling pre-cursor of an impending outbreak. When I left she hadn't had an outbreak in many months.

My wife had gall stones. The doctor told her it was only a matter of time before she would have to have her gall bladder removed. The gall bladder secretes biliruben. It assists in metabolizing fats. It's there for a reason. You don't just jerk random vacuum hoses off your carburetor and expect it to run well nor do you cut out organs except as a last option. I asked her doctor about alternatives to surgery. She said she did not know about those things.
I took my wife to a naturopath that put her on a strict diet and she did a gall bladder cleanse. The stones are gone. The doctor sent her to get an ultra sound and the stones are indeed gone. The doctor wanted her to do a liver function test...one last dig into our wallet (doctors gotta eat). I told her we were done.

These doctors and patients cling to standard medicine like a religion.
"Do not question my medical authority".

20 years ago chiropractic and acupuncture were quackery and snake oil. Acupuncture is thousands of years old. They don't work for everyone, but they are now seen as a viable option.

In many cases standard medicine is treating the symptoms, not the disease. Kinda like snipping the wire to the oil light in an old car. You're still low on oil, but at least you got rid of that pesky red light.

 

[bormio]

Modern medicine has done many wonderful things - things people died from years ago are now routine to deal with. But the idea that there are not newer and better ways of doing things is shortsighted. You have to separate quackery from the useful - is not as easy as you might believe. And we have to be humble about our knowledge. I have patients taking upwards of 15 medications - and have a legitimate reason for each one. But in the big picture, that feels like a terrible way to treat patients. The problem often comes when people simply refuse to do those things that might make those medications unnecessary.

 

[DaBruinz]

Oh god, I hate stuff like this:


That's total BS. Perhaps the one thing your body works the hardest and best at is maintaining pH in a tight range. There's nothing you can eat or drink (in a non-pathological fashion) that will budge your pH outside a very narrow range. And even if you somehow could knock it outside that range you'd likely be in a world of hurt.

For example, your entire breathing drive is based on pH. As CO2 builds up it makes your blood slightly more acidic and your body's sensing of that is what prompts you to breathe. (It's not the lack of oxygen, it's the incrementally extra CO2 dissolved in your blood. And in fact sometimes free divers who intensely hyperventilate before diving end up dying because they run out of oxygen before their pH has dropped enough for them to feel they need to breathe.)

Quantum - The problem with your statement is that it is not true for everyone. Not everyone's body keeps their pH in a tight range. Furthermore, you are discounting all the crap that gets put into your body via Soda, Alcohol, Candy, Processed Foods, etc which screw with a body. If you truly believe that we (humans) aren't screwing up our bodies than you haven't been paying attention to the world around you for the past 2 decades.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

I general, I don't know what to think.

If we judge someone by results and if TB12 credits Guererro with much of his recent success, then we have to at least listen to what Guererro has to say. He seems to be an extraordinary massage artist and physio-muscular therapist. He's also a successful entrepreneur, who gets people to pay him a lot of money. Nothing wrong with that, as long as people's eyes are open when they write the checks.

Otherwise, on the surface, much of what Geurerro says sounds like quackery and some of his product sounds like snake oil, but the history of medical practice suggests that today's "quack" sometimes can be tomorrow's "expert." That doesn't mean he still won't turn out to be a quack selling snake oil, just that we should be careful before we judge.

What I do know I think is that, given Guererro's history with "Supreme Greens" and his run in with the FTC over "Neurosafe," I hope that people close to Tom Brady have urged him randomly to send occasional samples of any "product" that he receives from Guererro that isn't prepackaged for sale to the public to an independent lab for testing, especially when his therapeutic program includes consuming large quantities of water.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

No peppers, mushrooms or tomatoes. What the hell am I going to make that four egg omelette with. What the hell do they eat. Sand?

Brady's dad is quoted somewhere as saying words to the effect that, "When I go to dinner at Gisele and Tom's house, I sometimes want to ask 'What's for dinner?' after we've eaten."

 

[Biffins]

IMO a lot of what Alex Guerrero says make sense but can not yet be fully backed up by science and neuroscience save for the results he seems to get.

Most things he says make a lot of sense to follow on the surface. I tend to be a believer in many of the claims he makes tentatively and some fairly strongly. I don't think the meditation and Mugwort or "Qi" have much to do with healing but I do think telling and training your brain and muscles over an over again "do this" has an effect. Also I believe if you wind your muscles up too tight and train them too tight we should not be surprised when they snap. Strong, loose, flexible is the way to go even if it cost you a bit of sudden burst.

Also training what you will actually do over and over again probably leads to better results and outcomes than train for something else.

Yeah but skipping tomatoes to avoid further inflammation is complete nonsense. This part is pseudo-science.

Are Nightshade Vegetables Inflammatory? - Climbing Nutrition

Busting 5 Myths About Your Diet and Arthritis - Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic

Toxic Tomatoes? - Ask Dr. Weil

What Are Nightshades, and Are They Actually Bad For You?

 

[DaBruinz]

I love when people like Quantum disagree with fact and then can't be bothered to offer up any sort of rebuttal..

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

The acid/base thing is total BS. What you eat can of course affect many things in your body (like glucose and insulin levels and various digestive hormones like CCK and leptin), but it sure as hell cannot impact your PH in a healthy person.

There are of course possible disturbances of acid/base balance (like diabetic ketoacidosis), but in general if the body is good at one thing it is keeping the PH very tightly controlled. And normal food variation just isn't an input into that process.

I'd like a simple explanation from Guerrero why balancing food acidity is a viable means of healthful living when every bite of food is immediately pitched into your stomach's gastric juices, which are pH 1.5 or so. What alkaline effect is able to carry over to the rest of the body after that stage of the digestive process?

 

[Mike the Brit]

I think this is a pretty good take:

Alex Guerrero: A doctor’s take on Tom Brady’s body coach​

 

[DaBruinz]

Yeah but skipping tomatoes to avoid further inflammation is complete nonsense. This part is pseudo-science.

Are Nightshade Vegetables Inflammatory? - Climbing Nutrition

Busting 5 Myths About Your Diet and Arthritis - Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic

Toxic Tomatoes? - Ask Dr. Weil

What Are Nightshades, and Are They Actually Bad For You?

Except that I can point to my mother and my mother-in-law who can no longer eat Tomatoes because it does cause them inflammation in their joints. Is eating Tomatoes the ROOT CAUSE? Nope. But that is the result when they do eat them..

This is what I mean by "it depends on the person". For some people, this is true. For some, it's not.. Some people are more susceptible to subtle changes.

For instance, I am allergic to broccoli and other Cruciferous vegetables.. My brother can eat them all day long without issue. So can my wife..

It's no different than having numerous different drugs to combat the same thing.. It's why there are more than a dozen different anti-histamines on the market..

So, no. It's not pseudo-science. It's just not common for many people. And until people understand that, there will continue to be those who claim that something is "pseudo-science" (like chiropractors and acupuncture and hypnotherapy) and others who hold it as gospel.

 

[DaBruinz]

I'd like a simple explanation from Guerrero why balancing food acidity is a viable means of healthful living when every bite of food is immediately pitched into your stomach's gastric juices, which are pH 1.5 or so. What alkaline effect is able to carry over to the rest of the body after that stage of the digestive process?

Well, first off, digestion doesn't start in your stomach. It actually starts in your mouth. Maybe that is part of your misunderstanding..