#1108 - Peter Attia

Joe Rogan (0:02)

Four, three, two, one. Hello, Peter.

Peter Attia (0:06)

Hello, Joe.

Joe Rogan (0:07)

What's going on, man?

You were just telling me something that is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. That you swam from Maui to Lanai. Right. And you're the only human to ever do that.

Peter Attia (0:21)

I'm told I was the first person to swim from Maui to Lanai and back. The one way is a pretty famous swim race that's done every year.

Joe Rogan (0:29)

You're the first person to do it. The round trip. And go back. Fuck, dude.

Why'd you do that?

Peter Attia (0:36)

How long you got?

Joe Rogan (0:38)

It started when I was a boy. They told me I couldn't do it. What made you want to do that? That's a ridiculous proposition.

Peter Attia (0:51)

I read a book in January of 2004 about this woman named Penny Dean, who still to this day holds the record for the fastest crossing of the Catalina channel. So swimming from Catalina Island to San Pedro, or to, you typically swim to Point Vicente.

And she had done it in like seven hours and 20 minutes. I was like, that's amazing.

Joe Rogan (1:14)

How far is that?

Peter Attia (1:16)

As a crow flies, it's 21 miles. With the currents, it's a little longer.

And I was like, you know, I really want to do this, but I got to learn how to swim first.

Joe Rogan (1:25)

That's three miles an hour swimming?

Peter Attia (1:28)

She is a phenom.

Penny Dean had a stroke rate of 90 strokes per minute, which I mean, that might not mean anything to someone who doesn't swim, but like to turn to have a hand hit the water every two thirds of a second is a remarkable case. Yeah, I can't hold a cadence of that for 100 yards.

Joe Rogan (1:49)

Wow. And she did it for 20 miles?

Peter Attia (1:51)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:52)

What a beast.

Peter Attia (1:53)

She's out of control.

Joe Rogan (1:56)

There's certain people like that, man, that freak me out.

Peter Attia (1:59)

I think marathon swimming might be one sport where if you just look at the numbers, I think women are better than men.

Joe Rogan (2:06)

Well, there's that woman who swam from Cuba to the United States, right?

Peter Attia (2:09)

She was the first person to ever do that.

Joe Rogan (2:11)

And didn't she do it at a fairly advanced age?

Peter Attia (2:14)

Yeah. I mean, she's of course got an amazing pedigree of swimming, and this wasn't her first rodeo.

Joe Rogan (2:18)

Right, right, right. Why do you think women are better than men at that?

Peter Attia (2:22)

I mean, those of us that... I'm not a member of this community anymore, but when I was, it was one of our favorite topics of discussion. I think opportunities or ideas that were put forth were higher pain tolerance, something about being, you know, evolving to be able to give birth, just means they can tolerate pain a lot higher.

I think another thing I've heard is buoyancy. You know, women are naturally going to have more body fat, which provides insulation. When you do these swims, you're not allowed any wetsuits or aids of any sort.

Joe Rogan (2:54)

Just shorts.

Peter Attia (2:55)

Swimsuit. You're in a Speedo and a single latex cap, and that's it. And so, if you can have a little... And so, I think women's hips, because they're going to have more fat on their hips, it corrects one of the big buoyancy issues that we have in swimming.

We didn't evolve to swim. We're horrible at it, naturally, because we swim like this. We drag our hips through the water. And if you think about the importance of aerodynamics in most of the things that we think about, whether it be archery or race car driving or cycling, in water, it's that much more important, because the density of water is thousands of times greater than air.

So swimming is just 100% about avoiding drag.

Joe Rogan (3:38)

So, well, that totally makes sense.

I just have been fascinated forever with people that are capable of pushing their brain to do things that other people just don't think are possible, like a Bigfoot 200 race or any of those things. But the swim one is particularly crazy, because you can't stop, right? Like if you're running an ultramarathon and you just want to sit down for a couple minutes and just take a break, you can do that. But if you're swimming, there's not a damn thing you can do.