RECESS: Empty Nesting, Women's Pain Tolerance, a Youth Sports Myth & Two Years Inside the Starrett System

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Juliet and I are officially empty nesters. Both girls are launched, the bathroom is clean every morning, and we're figuring out what the next phase looks like. It rhymes with dusk bike rides, protein shakes for dinner, and a cereal bar in Marin we somehow didn't know existed until now.

We also revisited one of our longest-running household debates: women's pain tolerance. An Instagram infographic claiming childbirth equals breaking 20 bones made the rounds and reignited everything. We cover what the McGill pain scale actually says, why medical research has failed women on pain, and the full story of my eardrum, which ends with blood in the ER and a pain scale I have never quite recovered from.

From there we got into our book Outplay and the data shaping every youth sports conversation right now. The number everyone cites is that 70% of kids drop out of sport by age 13. A researcher on LinkedIn tried to find the primary source and came up empty. So did researchers at the Aspen Institute. So did everyone else. We unpack what the CDC data actually shows and why citation drift doesn't mean youth sports is fine.

The biggest chunk of this episode is something I wanted to make sure we gave real time to: what two years of running the Starrett System has actually taught us. Most people coming into the program weren't working a coherent physical practice at all. They might have been doing some weight training or riding a Peloton, but nobody was hitting all three legs of the longevity triangle: strength, conditioning, and mobility. Nobody was sprinting. And a lot of people believed that the moment they felt discomfort, they should stop.

Watching that shift has been one of the most rewarding things we've done. Member Lily gained 5.4 pounds of lean mass in eight months. Cole said he's craving training every day for the first time. The fall cohort starts September 8th. Early bird: $200 off at starrettsystem.com.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• Why the "70% of kids drop out of sports by age 13" statistic cited by the American Academy of Pediatrics and major sports governing bodies may have no verifiable primary source, and what the CDC and Aspen Institute data actually shows
• Why the claim that childbirth equals breaking 20 bones is a myth, and what the McGill pain scale says is actually more painful
• Why medical research has historically underserved women on pain, and how self-reporting skews the picture
• What two years of running the Starrett System revealed about what most people were actually missing in their physical practice
• Why having a strength practice, a conditioning practice, and mobility work are three separate things, and why most people were only doing one of them
• What the "longevity triangle" is and why most wellness and longevity conferences have almost no conversation about it
• How teaching people to train around injuries and physical limitations, rather than stop, has been one of the biggest shifts for Starrett System members
• Why the program's nutrition approach centers on abundance and eliminating nothing, and what happens when people who have been chronically underfueling start eating enough

Key Highlights

(00:00) Welcome to RECESS / Kelly and Juliet go officially empty nest

(00:31) The bathroom story and Byron Katie's towel wisdom via Gabby Reese

(03:19) Life as empty nesters: bike rides at dusk, protein shakes, cereal for dessert

(04:43) Listener ask: send your best recipes for two

(05:18) Women vs. men pain tolerance: the debate renewed

(06:44) Kelly's eardrum story

(08:57) McGill pain scale and Juliet's finger

(11:11) Outplay: preparing families for youth sports

(13:32) Pay-to-play, private equity, and the Norwegian youth sports model

(16:26) The 70% dropout stat and its missing primary source

(19:12) Starrett System: origin story from the YPO conference

(26:48) Starrett System: member results and the September 8th fall cohort

(30:41) Cereal bar in Marin and the great Raisin Bran debate

(34:07) Wrap and early bird CTA