Joe Rogan on the Real Differences Between Male and Female Athletes

So, it's interesting what you were talking about earlier, in terms of mental fortitude and your ability to adapt and your ability to overcome. I wonder if we're ever going to figure out a way to measure that, like to measure mental endurance or measure mental capacity or mental stimulation. You know, you can measure your VO2 max and you know what the body's capable of, but I wonder if there's a way, like when someone does hear a great song and it kicks in, whether it's through fMRI or any other type of detection device where they can figure out a way, oh, this part of your brain is firing, let's concentrate on building up the activation of that part of that brain, of the brain, like a muscle. Think of that endurance or think of that motivation as like maybe even a mantra that you can call upon because you call upon it all the time and you can recreate that state. Yeah, I mean, I think on that point, certainly over in Britain at the moment, so basically women for the first time can actually apply and be in the special forces. So at the moment, it's really, really interesting because speaking to certainly the Royal Marines, they were saying, we've got hundreds of years that if you hand us 500 young fit men, we can say they need to be this weight, this tall. And if you give us them, we've got years and years of experience of putting them through this training system of mental and physical fortitude, everything down in Limstone, it's the training center of the Royal Marines. We go on this endurance course, we go on a 30 mile yont with a backpack, everything. And by the end of 32 weeks, that's what it takes to be a Royal Marine, to get your green beret after 32 weeks, we can take you from being completely sedentary, but unfit to being a Royal Marine. And that's one thing they pride themselves on. But now what they're saying is obviously, females can now apply to the special forces and what they find so interesting is, and I certainly do as well, is what does that look like for a female Royal Marine? What does that look like for a female? And again, to go back, I wrote an article ages ago, run like a girl. And I was saying, I want to run like a girl. Some of my best training partners are female and their perception to fatigue is unbelievable. That's purely anecdotal, but also as well. When you look at the top tier of ultra marathon runners and swimming as well, Diana Naid first to go from Florida to Cuba to Florida, incredible. She was getting stung by Portuguese manoise and just unbelievable. So it's purely anecdotal, but now they're saying, why is it that certain female athletes have a greater tolerance to pain? And I think to your point, if we can start to quantify that, because there are biological differences. Like men, you know, high testosterone can have an impact on high hemoglobin, generate muscle force, all of these things. But I think if we could quantify why it is that certain female athletes are dominating the top 10% of ultra marathons and open water swimming, what is it that they're doing? That would be amazing. I think the ability to endure pain, and this is not my thought, honestly, I should just say, this has been theorized before, has to do with their ability to endure the pain of childbirth, child labor and childbirth. I mean, just the fact that they're forcing a baby out of their vagina. Yeah. I mean, that is insane. I mean, you talked to, oh, you ever seen the machine they do? They've taken these electrodes, they put it on men and recreate the pain of childbirth and watch these men fucking fall apart and like, fucking turn it off. I'm happy. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I haven't given birth, but it's supposed to be unbelievably painful. And women are biologically suited to this. So I think their ability to endure that pain is just, it's probably just, there's an evolutionary advantage to having this higher capacity. But I also think one of the things that I learned from teaching martial arts is that women, they learn technique better many times than men do. Because one, they listen and two, they don't try to muscle things. So women have less of a problem with learning something from a person. And this is also true about archery. My friend, John Dudley, who's an archery coach says his favorite students are always women because they listen better. They don't have as much of an ego. They don't have to pretend they already know something. They don't want to just try it without, they follow it to a tee better, like generally. Obviously, we're speaking in general. But they also don't have the extra muscle that a man has. So men, when they're strong, will try to just force things and muscle things, where women will try to follow what's being described to them, what's the proper technique. And they do it properly all the time. And then they develop this pattern of proper technique. I noticed this with Taekwondo, and I think my friend John said, well, you noticed this with archery. I think this benefits them in sports. Because if you learn jiu-jitsu, really the best people to learn from are smaller men or women. Because the smaller people, they don't have the physical strength to pull it off on a big guy. So what they have to rely on is correct technique. But if you learn jiu-jitsu from a big guy, big guy jiu-jitsu is weird. Because they can just grab your wrist, and you can't let go, and they can get away with things. Like, okay, you go wrist control and throw the legs up, wrist control. Okay, wrist control on who? Try wrist control on that big motherfucker that was rowing the world record. You ain't getting shit, man. You're going to go flying through the air. That wrist control ain't going to work. You're going to have to go against his strength. You're going to have to figure out a way to move around it. You're not going to go through it. That big guy, if he was teaching jiu-jitsu, he'd just grab the neck, and then you'd squeeze. He's got the kind of horsepower that a man like, a normal man, can't imagine.