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The #1 Exercise to Stay Physically Independent as You Age | World's Top Strength Training Researcher · The LIVING Room Podcast | Inside The WNDR Lab

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you do not do resistance training, you will begin to lose fundamental muscle mass at the rate of about one half percent per year, sometime in your 30s, the average person.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: 20% of people in the United States are regularly doing what would be considered the recommended amount of muscle strengthening exercise every week.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: 50% of all older adults who experienced a hip fracture never regained their physical independence.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the coolest studies was in 90-year-olds in nursing homes, and they had them do just leg extensions three days a week.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: They experienced strength gains of 150% in their knee extensors.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: 50% improvement in functional capacity.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Three out of the 10 subjects were able to walk without assistance of their canes after an eight-week training period.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Resistance training, muscle itself, secretes various substances called myokines.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Several of them affect the brain.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been shown over and over that depression is ameliorated with resistance training and aerobic training as well, just exercise in general.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: One thing that's become incredibly popular now is this hot-cold therapy contrast, also some controversy about doing cold plunge.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you do cold plunge or cold water application within 20 minutes or so after the end of a resistance training workout, you compromise muscle use.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say is the most overrated trend in longevity right now?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: My humble opinion, it's that.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're going to talk today about the minimum effective dose of training, exercise selection, what GLP1 drugs can do to your muscle mass, which supplements we should actually take, and most importantly, what are the things that you should be doing today to protect against the signatures of aging?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Please enjoy my conversation with Professor Brad Schoenfeld.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Brad, welcome.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure, sis.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a pleasure to have you here.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to tell you firstly why this is a real full circle moment for me because 22 years ago I was studying your textbook at university to graduate as an exercise physiologist.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So two decades later, here we are having the privilege of interviewing you in person.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure, Chris.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, a good place to start, I think, would be um to give the listeners a bit of context as to why you are widely regarded as the sort of godfather of the exercise physiology world.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I started out as a personal trainer.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um my career path was very windy.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a bodybuilder as well, and I trained a lot of uh physique athletes.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um basically the research at that point, you're going back now to the late 90s, early 2000s, um, was mostly for strength and conditioning for sports.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there was very little research on hypertrophy.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever research there was was kind of an adjunct.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't even, it was really much more focused, of course, on power and strength, which are the uh under underpinnings of sports.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And all my clients were coming in, they didn't care about jumping a inch higher or, you know, running a second uh faster.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: They cared about getting more jacked and losing body fat.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, why don't we have more research on this?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, long story short, I transitioned to uh becoming an educator, and I'm a kid in a candy store at this point because I'm I'm now studying.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying, well, now I want to study this, but this has never been studied.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what made my research so popular is that certainly amongst personal trainers, this is stuff that everyone really wanted to know.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we just didn't have a lot of evidence.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And since then, certainly I'm only one researcher.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a lot of terrific research uh facilities that have carried out.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's been a snowball effect, and I'm very proud to have been to contribute to that.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: When did you start?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: When did you take that leap from being coach, trainer to academic?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's kind of an interesting uh I'll keep it brief, but um I got a I was offered a position teaching a uh teaching a vocational course to personal trainers, or for personal trainers for people who had no degree.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So basically it was a six-month program to get people who were bartenders and actresses.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually in the meatpacking district here on 14th Street.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um anyway, long story short, there is once I started teaching, I just it was like a bug that bit me.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, this is what, you know, I'd been training, uh doing personal training for a long time.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But as a personal trainer, it's like I'm showing someone how to do a lat pull down and trying to, and don't get me wrong, it was very gratifying for a long period of time, but I just got more joy out of teaching the science.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't personal training clients generally don't care about the science.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: They don't, yeah, this is actually doing uh adduction of the shoulder.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's they don't care about it.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: They just just get me get me jacked.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I said, this is my calling.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went back, I got my PhD, and long story short, I'm where I am now.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: How how has that changed over those?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what year was that that you 2007.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: So over the past 20 years, you know how has that evolved?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, we say we started with this very high-level athletic performance.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Today, we exercise has very much become synonymous with longevity, you know, living a longer and healthier life.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: How have you seen that evolve over those 20 plus years when it comes to what you've researched?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think the uh one of the things that's really heartened me is that resistance training has become much more accepted uh as a not only for bodybuilding and for strength and uh aesthetic purposes, but as a health intervention.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um the focus, like the American College of Sports Medicine, their focus was almost always their position stance, were really focused on aerobic exercise and its effect on longevity.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And really going back certainly in the night in the before 2000, uh, very little hard research on uh resistance training as a uh lifestyle modality for longevity and for quality of life, et cetera.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're becoming more and more attuned now to not only what resistance training can do, but that it actually has probably, in my humble opinion, now I am a resistance training researcher primarily, but it it is the most important intervention, I think, that anyone can do not only for their for looks and strength, but for their overall health.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and protecting against some of these signatures of aging.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and we often say, and I've said it in in the past on this podcast, you know, I don't love using the word longevity anymore.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's getting a bit bastardized.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, that longevity in my eyes is, you know, we take these two, you know, 90-year-olds, and we you can do this exercise right now.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Think of all the 90-year-olds you know, you know, how many of them are running around a football pitch with the grandchildren on their shoulders?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Not that many, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Most are unfortunately struggling with fragility, weakness, sometimes codependence, immobility, yet the ability to produce force quickly, the ability to produce a higher level of force, to be mobile, to have high heart and lung function, we know how to achieve those things.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can do that, we can get, we have a much, much higher chance of being that 90-year-old running around the football pitch.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think, and and one discussion we've had previously was if that's the case and we have this huge corpus of evidence, human evidence, to know that that works, why isn't everyone doing it?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so look, that's certainly multifactorial.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, I couldn't agree more that longevity, we're we're becoming now so efficient and proficient uh medically that we're able to keep people alive for very long periods of time.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: But many of the people we're keeping alive are being kept alive in a very there, they have a dependency on others to tend to them during this period.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, it's quality of life is much more important.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You could just be living, you can be breathing and and eating, but if you're having someone spoon feed you and have to, you know, wheel you around to get anywhere in a wheelchair, uh, how m how is that really living?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, to me, uh it's our physical independence uh is uh prominent here.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And again, why I think it is certainly multifactorial.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you're talking uh some people who are quite old, I think it's more just how they were raised.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you go back, we just were talking that resistance training really hasn't come into prominence uh since the past 20 or so years, certainly for older individuals for lifestyle.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think women are coming around much more slowly, again, because of uh societal norms, that it was, first of all, if you go back, what one of the things uh a course I took in my master's program was the uh tradition of how women, it was women in exercise and how it was promoted.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you go back like to early 1900s, women were told that if they exercised, they'd be infertile.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of the myths, these are medical, these were doctors that were giving these uh prescriptions to women.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and it wasn't feminine, and of course, we'll get too bulky.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: My God, we're gonna.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that still is somewhat um prevalent, prevalent uh this uh standpoint.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Again, some people, I mean, there's time factors.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think that it just requires too much time, new resistance train.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think a lot of people just still aren't aware of the benefits of it, that it's still uh uh some people a lot of people don't keep up with research.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh let's talk about some of those benefits.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Why why do we now widely consider the retention of lean tissue but strength and power as protective?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, why are why is that the currency of longevity?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly when we look at this very wide corpus of evidence, right?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we've spoken about this in depth in the past.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're being told in the media that there are dozens of different things we should be taking, doing, investing in to protect our against you know, physical and cognitive decline.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: None of them have more evidence in humans than exercise.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, what was this?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: You you told me a statistic recently about the number of people, percentage of US population who resistance trained.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: 20% of uh Americans, people in the United States, uh are regularly are regularly doing what would be considered uh the recommended amount of muscle strengthening exercise every week.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's let's start by talking about if if people were doing the recommended amount and we'll move on to what that is, what are the associated benefits?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, the obvious one is how someone looks, which is a very important thing to most people.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: They want to look and you look better, you feel better.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Another obvious one is strength, but uh what and strength and power, which I'll get to in a second.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, a lot of people think, yeah, I can lift things.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: It makes you more functional to do your activities of daily living.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: One of the really important things to understand that if you do not do resistance training, you will begin to lose fundamental muscle mass at the rate of about one and a half percent per year, sometime in your 30s, the average person.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some of this will depend how sedentary they are.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that starts to go up exponentially after someone is in their 50s to 60s.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it goes up to 1, 1.5%, even 2% per year during that time.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the I don't want to get too technical here, but there are two basic types of muscle fibers.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are type one muscle fibers, which are endurance-oriented fibers, and we have type two fibers, which are strength-oriented fibers.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: They fatigue more easily, whereas the type one fibers, they, as the name would imply, they're endurance-oriented.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: They don't fatigue as much, but the type one fibers do not allow you to produce as much force.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Your type 2, your strength-related fibers, there are force-producing fibers.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Muscle power is produced primarily through your type 2 muscle fibers, and you actually lose.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's good evidence that there's a loss of type 2 fibers.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's very specific.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you can lose 25% when you start getting into your 60s and 70s, 25% of your type 2 fibers.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that really important?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, beyond the fact that you're going to be less functional to do your activities of daily living, uh, one of the biggest threats to longevity and certainly physical independence is a hip fracture.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And older individuals are much more prone to hip fractures if they lose their type two muscle fibers because they're, when you let's say they have experience a fall, number one, balance itself is going to be improved during resistance training.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: But even if you just somehow lose your balance, you're you need to be able to quickly reverse that fall.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's done again through having greater power.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's really good evidence, and it's been a while since I looked at these stats on this, but uh going back 10 years or so when I actually did a deep dive here, it was something like 50% of all older adults who experience a hip fracture never regain their physical independence.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think within two years they are they're dead, uh, the uh average individual.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Which is frightening.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess it's safe to say in the absence of modality to protect against that, that will happen, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like we will atrophy time for everyone, right?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think those numbers are frightening.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like 20 to 30 percent, I think you've already mentioned, but that's per decade after the age of 60, I believe.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: So like we could correct, yeah, yeah, it could be, and so it feels like there is this very obvious urgency for us all to be doing this thing, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, anytime after the age of 30, that feels urgent, but we should probably be starting earlier.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: But given that this is, you know, we have a lot of research now to to lean in that direction, and we know that it works and we know that it's important, but for the people who are a little bit older and didn't have access to that knowledge until very recently, it's still not too late to start, right?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's one of the most encouraging things about this field, about exercise in general.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: We see some incredible improvements in people in their 70s, 80s, 90s, even when they're starting late.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can you speak to that?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, to your point, the earlier you start, the better.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's some good evidence in masters, athletes who've trained their whole lives that they retain the majority of their muscle mass as they did when they were in their 20s.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You you don't really lose much.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who are older, I mean, a compelling amount of evidence shows that uh there's huge benefits, even with relatively short over short periods of time.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So our lab carried out a meta analysis on this topic and the oldest of old, which are 75 and older, or not necessarily the oldest, but older, you know, the more old individuals.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we found that within eight to 12-week programs, uh there was a and this is in effect sizes, which gives you a magnitude of effect, but it almost doubled the amount of strength over an eight to twelve week time.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: The effect size was one for strength.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that's just huge.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking a three uh two to three month period.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: The one of the coolest studies that I've ever that has ever been done, in my opinion, was carried out in the uh, I think it was 1990, but it was in 90 year olds in nursing homes, and uh it was 10 subjects.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Maria Fitterone was the lead author here.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they had them do just leg extensions three days a week.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: That was three sets of eight, eight to ten reps, I believe.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And some people would say leg extensions like the least functional exercise you can do.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just they experienced a hundred and um strength gains of 150% in their knee extensors, 50% improvement in functional capacity with the just leg extension.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the coolest thing three out of the 10 subjects were able to walk without assistance of their canes after an eight-week training program.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: To walk with the without the assistance of their canes.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what is more functional than being able to walk unassisted?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it's just profound.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it doesn't take long.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: The real take-home year is that not only do you see huge huge benefits, but it happens very rapidly.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: The body is very plastic in this regard.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we we know it works for I think it's safe to say everyone, every time, you know, in the absence of any contraindications or injury history.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you do the thing that it works, it has this profound impact on quality of life, which is I think the most frightening thing about aging, certainly for me, but I think for most people, is that loss of function, physical and cognitive.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're all fighting this losing battle, and this is one of the best, if not the best, tool to protect against that loss of function.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: But yet 80% of people in the US are not doing it.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know, we can attribute some of that to knowledge and access, kind of.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's a lot more accessible than it was, both the knowledge and the ability to do it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think the hardest thing is it's just a lot of effort, right?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think however you slice it, lifting heavy things is a lot of effort.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think one one question I get asked a lot is how do I get the highest possible yield on my time?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do I get the outcome with the minimal amount of effort?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that's an unreasonable question.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's kind of how what I want to do as well.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we want to get we want to get the result, but not have to spend hours and hours in the gym every week or every day.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So is there a I'm sure you get asked this a lot.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a minimal effective dose?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a sort of benchmark at which we see things work, but for not a huge amount of time and effort?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think we need to distinguish uh time from effort in terms of the effort that you put into your training.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh time-wise, it really does not require much time.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it actually requires a lot less time than aerobic exercise does to see huge benefits.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Our minimum effective dose is somewhere around four to perhaps six sets per muscle per week.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And how does that, how do we put that into practice?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about two half hour training sessions, resistance training sessions per week.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can see huge benefits.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just doing one set of of each major uh of an exercise for each major muscle group.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that can be done in literally 30 minutes uh per session.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So two 30-minute sessions, you're talking one hour, can get you very large benefits.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: One hour total per week.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Total per week.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now again, you're not gonna step on stage as a bodybuilder with that type of routine, but you can get a very large bang for your buck, and most people are not looking to step on stage as a bodybuilder.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So uh again, the goals, of course, are gonna be relevant here.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to start training for athletic prowess and other things, that's gonna require there's a principle of specificity.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what I will say, and this goes to the effort aspect, the sets do need to be hard.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: You have to put in an intensity of effort where the last several repetitions are challenging to complete.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not struggling, uh that's you're not gonna achieve the results uh that you'd want.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Again, at the beginning, if you just do almost anything, you'll get some results, even training with very light weights and to weigh far from failure.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: You don't necessarily have to go to failure, but uh you need to be relatively close to, so you need to be struggling on the last few reps.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: That of course can be somewhat intimidating for people because discomfort is not something that people it's goes against human nature.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you have to be willing to uh to train relatively hard.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Can can you explain this concept of reps in reserve?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um because you know, I think that's a great way of helping people to understand, you know, really what does that mean?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what does it mean to work hard?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so a repetitions in reserve is how far someone perceives they are from failure.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And failure, the definition that I use and that we use in research is the inability to complete another repetition with proper form or assistance.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so if you're, let's say, at a RIR, which is repetitions in reserve abbreviated, if you're an RIR of one, that means you could have done one more rep, or you think you could have done one more rep.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you had an RIR of two, you could have done two more.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem unless you've trained to failure, you don't have a good gauge of what your RIR is.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there's been some good research showing that most people think they are a lot closer to failure than they are because they've never really trained to failure.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: In our lab, when we do when we carry out a research study, you know, we get people, and some of them are quite impressively jacked, but a lot of that's genetics.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: These are young individuals.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: We get them in and they they start getting really good results.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, I've never trained this hard in my life.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they thought they were training a lot harder than they were.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I think the important thing is you do, if you want to gauge RIR, you do need to train the failure at some point, early on, particularly early on in your training, to understand.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you don't necessarily have to use an RIR.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can use what's called an RPE, which is a rating of perceived exertion, which is usually on a one to ten scale, and like nine would be extremely hard.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Again, for the uh average individual, if you're training where you're perceiving it's really hard, you're probably going to be close.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to gauge exactly, you know, I'm at a two R I R.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you can, I think if you can accurately assess that you're training really hard, you'll be somewhere in that range.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: But again, people sometimes don't want to do that.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they can say, yeah, I think I'm training really hard when they actually know they're not.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think sometimes as well, we can let perfection become the enemy of done, though, right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if 80% of people are not doing it at all, or or to at least that minimal effective dose, I would say they don't have to concern themselves too much with what that actually means.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Just make it hard, right?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hard enough at least.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, interesting.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: So for the people who are not doing anything, it appears that, or we have good evidence that, you know, two well-structured half an hour sessions a week would be a great place to start, right?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be focusing on, you know, one exercise for each major muscle muscle, muscle group.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then at what rep range did you say would be a good start?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: So in the early phases, if you're just starting out, I generally recommend somewhat higher repetitions, somewhere like 10 to 15.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: The reason is there's a motor learning aspect.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're just, first of all, number one, you wouldn't want to do very heavy loads anyway, because there's a greater chance of injury.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not a good risk reward.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um but when you're doing more repetitions, repetitions uh reinforce neural patterns.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And basically you're learning to to uh uh to perform movement patterns.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're just doing, let's say you're stopping at six reps or eight reps, uh you're just not going to get enough rep, or it's gonna require a longer time to get that those neural patterns.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: The more repetitions you can get in, which by the way, it so that would be your again, your minimal dose if you want better results and results more quickly, and on another day and do three days a week, uh, hour and a half instead of an hour.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk then for the people that are already doing some form of resistance training.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: What does gold standard look like for you?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I realize that that is a loaded question because it depends on what you're trying to achieve.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: But for someone trying to protect against physical decline, and they were like, look, Brad, you can design my whole program in any way that you please.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm injury free.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: What would that look like?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, are they looking to be a bodybuilder and maximize their genetic potential, or are they look just looking because again, this is where trade-offs are going to start to happen in terms of how much you you need to pre-plan your routine, periodize it over time and do other things.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I would I would say the case study here is for someone who wants to build lean tissue, um, they're not looking to compete as a bodybuilder, but they're looking to maximize performance function for that stage of their life.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say then you you want to bump that up, the uh recommendation I gave earlier, and do about six to ten, probably or eight to ten uh sets per muscle per week.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that generally could be accomplished probably around four days uh and a four-day, I'm sorry, four-hour a week training.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so you could either do that, probably you don't want to do that in two days because a two-hour training session is just not efficient.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's you're a maniac if you're doing that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, three days a week you can fairly uh easily accomplish that, or a four-day, let's say one hour, four days a week type of thing, 45 minutes even to an hour.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um you want to have a little more variety of training because muscles have different attachments and you're looking to work muscles from different angles to maximize development uh on those muscles.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So a little more variation in movement patterns, I think, becomes start becoming important.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think training across, and again, this is where nuances start coming in, but training across a spectrum of repetition ranges potentially can uh can be important there.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or I want to say important, it might squeeze out a little more.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Bit more juice from the juice from the 11.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I mean that's kind of a just basic protocol.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then the more you want to start saying, nah, I want more and more, then that's where the more planning comes into play and varying the routine over time, uh, even manipulating repetition ranges, changing exercises around.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: So training can be a very hard science, yes, or or to you know have a lot of require a lot of planning and scientific knowledge, or it can be very basic where you just go into a basic routine.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: The more you want to optimize, the the more you need to really have an understanding of what science shows, and then then be your kind of your own n equals one experiment where you're willing to do different things and figure out what's working.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I've noticed over the years is we we obviously have this um appetite for variety, right?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like as individuals, and I'm I'm certainly guilty of this, where you know I know that there is tremendous value in consistency and progressive overload, gradually making the same workout slightly harder, whether that's adding a rep or a set or reducing rest, just volume in general.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it's kind of boring sometimes, right?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the one thing I've noticed is that people love creating variety within the modality of exercise they do, but also like intra workout, like doing different exercises, different rep range, different sets.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you just mentioned that there is some value to that, but there's also some downside to that, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to actually making progress.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think everyone listening will be familiar with the feeling that they're not making much progress, even though they've been doing this for a long time.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Can can you speak to that?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that's really important.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, there's gonna be a trade-off.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the most important thing in a resistance training program or in any exercise program is adherence.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: You just talked about can you can you design the optimal program?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: But is the person gonna follow that program?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, variety, people like I look, I was a bodybuilder for many years, and fun did not enter into my mindset.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was what is gonna give me my best results.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you would have told me to eat the grass off my lawn because it was gonna make me more jacked and more cut, I would have done that.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's the uh minutia of the uh population.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Most people, they wanted fun.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And varying your routine can be uh something that gives more interest to the routine.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: If that does, if that's gonna be kind of a deal breaker where, yeah, it's not fun, I'm bored, I'm not gonna do something else, then do, you know, that's do the thing you're gonna stick to.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Stick with.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to your point, too much variety can be detrimental because you start, particularly on your more complex movement patterns.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna do free weight type exercise like a squat, let's say you do a squat and you have that as part of your routine and you do it today, you don't do it again for three months or two months, your squat's gonna suck.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not gonna be able to, your form is gonna start to deteriorate.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's less, somewhat less of an issue with a lot of machine-based exercise, certainly single joint.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're doing a biceps curl, generally, there's not much mode of learning to those types of movements.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you can vary those movements a little more frequently.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: But certainly on your more complex movements, keeping them in a regular rotation becomes, I think, more and more important, particularly as you want to get keep progressing, if that's your goal.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd also say that um it allows you to understand your progression because you're gonna need to progress over time.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you're gonna again challenge your muscles at what you're training today, the load you're training with the number of reps, are not gonna be the same in three months.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get stronger and you're gonna be able to handle more load.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: You really want us to to some extent be able to track that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're just all over the place, it becomes more difficult to get a sense of.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: So remove as much guesswork as you can, and then you'll know that the time that you're putting in is actually getting you a result.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we often talk about using some of these tools to build a suit of armor to protect against some of these hallmarks of aging.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's such a great uh analogy for resistance training, right?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: We are literally doing that.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and if we are do you track all of your workouts?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't anymore.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't anymore.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh certainly when I was a bodybuilder, not only did I track it.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I were you maniacal about it.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I detailed every set of every in every rep of every set every week uh in the notebook that was the old school before we even had Excel spreadsheets and and uh apps to do that type of thing.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I mean I know uh I don't have to track it at this point because I just know I've been training.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm old, I've been training long enough where I know all this stuff.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you've probably got a very good grip on reps and reserve and RP.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Huh.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: I noticed you did some work recently on rest periods.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: What's the coup there, Brad?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because I've heard conflicting opinions there.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my perspective is do everything quickly because I like to just get it done.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I know there's some there's some evidence to show that slightly longer rest periods might yield a better return, is that right?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's when doing straight sets.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're doing, let's say, a set of bench press and then you rest and then you do another set of bench.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's other ways we could talk about to make workouts more time efficient.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: But uh in straight sets, uh, we did a mate analysis uh was published uh last year.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And quite interestingly, the cut points seemed to be somewhere around 90 seconds.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: When it was below 90 seconds rest, uh there was you compromised your your, this was just hypertrophy.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't look at strength, but you compromise muscle growth.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that said, you still grew.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like you didn't get any gains at that point, and you got more efficient workout.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: The workout took less.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the question becomes could you just do one minute rest and then do another set to make up for the because really the reason increase the volume correct.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: The reason that it seems, or at least that we speculate, there was a uh a decrease in in muscle growth was because if you're resting very short periods, it's going to compromise the amount of load or the number of reps, either way, that you're doing on your subsequent sets.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you make that up with an extra set because you still have more time in the gym, conceivably there's not been a study.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I shouldn't even say that.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: We actually did a study that some somewhat looked at that, where we had, I collaborated with a group in Brazil where we had one group rested three minutes, another group rested one minute.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we had a third group that rested one minute but made up the sets of the to be equated to with the volume load that was done in the three minutes equal hypertrophy.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and if I recall, that was slightly and it was less time.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the one minute rest was able to do that with less time total.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so again, that was one study, it was just on um quads.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was a quad exercise.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: So uh you can't draw too much into that, but I think it gives us some insight.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'll give you some an interesting uh tidbit here.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're currently in the process of carrying out a study on self-selected rest.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I I never time my rest intervals.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just I train when I feel I'm ready to do another set, I do another set.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we have one group that's resting two minutes.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: The other group we just say rest as long as you need to until you feel that you are recovered enough.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the key here, we took away their cell phones.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: We do not let them use their cell phones.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I bet those rest barriers dropped.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it gives a true sense of what they're actually feeling recovered.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: We do not, we're just finishing up this study now, so I don't have any results for you.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: But interestingly, the um self-select rested over a minute longer than the uh, which yeah, I it was somewhat surprising to me that I would have thought they would have thought they were recovering.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there was some some other acute studies.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first study actually to measure muscle growth.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna actually look at strength and muscle growth.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the results will be interesting.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if it does show that uh the extra rest translated into greater gains, I'm somewhat skeptical, that's the case based on our previous literature, then maybe it's worth, you know, or we can re um reevaluate those recommendations.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think there is um for the people that are really trying to maximize or minimize the amount of time they take doing these sessions, the like concept of sort of supersetting different muscle groups, different body parts, you know, if I were to bench press and then go on to, you know, uh walking lunch, for example, I'm giving my upper body time to recover that would yield then the same return as doing nothing, but you're condensing the amount of time it takes to do the session.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Can I go over that?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: So well, we carried out a study in my lab um a little over a year ago.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: One of my master's students uh did it for his thesis where we we didn't do upper lower, we did um supersets, agonists, antagonists.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like biceps, triceps.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: You do a bicep exercise, then you go immediately to a tricep, you do a quiet exercise, immediately to a hamstring, versus doing straight sets of the same exercise.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: No different with the uh superset, finished the workouts in almost 40% less time, and the hypertrophy was very similar.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk quickly about different modalities of exercise.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want to hear your perspective on this.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we're, you know, we're often, and again, I think there's a lot of confusing, conflicting advice about, you know, the time we spend exercise.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Should it be cardio?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Should it be resistance training?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Should it be a hybrid of both?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: How how do you split your time across those modalities?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so personally, um, I am a big fan of doing cardiovascular exercise.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to point out that resistance training, particularly in the type of modality, if you're not powerlifting or weight, uh Olympic weightlifting, which are somewhat different, but you get cardiovascular benefits.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Respiratory somewhat less.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: You don't train your respiratory system nearly as much.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I think combining, as much as I'm a fan, I said, I think resistance training is the most important uh intervention that you can do physically.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do not discount uh aerobic training, and I think that the combination of the two certainly I want to say I think there's a huge amount of evidence that they're synergistic health-wise.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what I do personally is I resistance train.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I resist train four days a week.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: I do 45 minutes to an hour sessions, kind of like what we talked about earlier.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: I do an upper lower split, so I do my upper body twice a week, lower body twice a week.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look at a step count.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I I have a dog, soon to be two, and I walk my dogs, uh uh, and I listen to uh my Spanish lessons so I can get better at learning Spanish.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I listen to audio uh books on my headphones and I look to to get at least 10,000 steps a day.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing magical about 10,000 steps, but it's kind of a good gauge within the literature, uh, somewhere in that range.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: If I miss 10,000 one day, fine.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm I'm over it a lot too.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um now there is benefit to doing high-intensity interval training.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you get better cardiorespiratory fitness, so your VO2 max, but walking gets you a lot.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the bang for your buck uh is very high.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have in the past um done uh high-intensity interval training as well.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's just my schedule is such that I've kind of let that slide.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I I don't think the added effect, I think it you probably get some.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: But again, you're now talking like the cherry on top of the Sunday.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: But prioritize, I I think certainly as you get older, prioritizing resistance training is a very smart idea based on the literature.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you can get again, the for me, the uh cardiovascular step count has kind of gotten just within my daily activities.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like I need to, I don't walk on a treadmill to do that.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I try to just get that in within uh within my lesson.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's some huge benefits as well to this sort of middle ground that's becoming a lot more popular and this sort of hybrid style training where um you know you're just doing the if you break it down, you're really just doing resistance training exercises a bit quicker, right?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're doing still kind of a high volume, but it's getting heart and lung function working a little harder.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's value there because it it seems to be something that people enjoy a little more at times and it's you know a bit more engaging and there's variety.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think you just gotta be careful not to do not to use that in the absence of structured resistance training, I would say.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean there's something called circuit training where you move around a circuit and very little rest, and that does get you even more cardiorespiratory cardiovascular benefits, but still not as much as cardiovascular exercise.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So this again, the trade-off, it depends how you know what what are your ultimate goals?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: How how much of that someday do you want to get to the top where you get the cherry?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: I we always say to our to our members, um, and on the podcast, I think this is one of the things.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we have, and I'm banging my head against the brick wall here, we have tremendous evidence that this works for helping you live a longer, healthier life.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: We know that.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: The the challenge then is how do I do this with consistency?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then how do I do it in a way that doesn't suck the fun out of life?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's also important.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because to what end are we doing it otherwise?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: And one really good sort of takeaway, I think, is to make this time, whether whether it's 30 minutes twice a week or whether it's an hour, four times a week, but carve that into your schedule in a way that is non-negotiable, right?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so everyone in your life should be aware that this time is for me to refill my cup, and this time is for specifically for doing something that I know to work, whatever modality that might be.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Would you agree with that principle?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: And a second layered part of that question is at what time of the day do you think is most optimal to carve that in?
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, to your first question, I consider my exercise routine the the way I do brushing my teeth.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't particularly enjoy brushing my teeth.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but at least twice a day I make in the morning, in the evening, I brush my teeth, sometimes three and flossing, you know.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is just stuff that's part of my routine.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I, if I don't make my routine, I feel that I have neglected my health.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like if I didn't brush my teeth.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it is non-negotiable.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: As far as timing, it's again, whatever time is best for you.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, I like doing it in the morning.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: That way, stuff can't get away from me in the evening, and all of a sudden now I have to miss my workout.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I do it early in the morning, I know I'm getting that in.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if for some reason something fails, I can always work out a little later.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can try to get that in.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: But to me, there is no, I do want to point out, there is no best time of day.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's like Tricadian rhythm research and stuff.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: In my opinion, I'm not saying that it's not valid research, but it it kind of misses the forest from the trees, in my opinion.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: That number one, but by the way, I used to work out uh, you know, earlier in my career when I had a different job and uh different responsibilities later in the day.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when I first started uh training in the morning, it was awkward for me and I didn't feel good.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: I adapted very quickly.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of this research, they do acute research and say, oh, this people do better training in the evening or whatever.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, if you take them and their evening trainers, if they're generally training in the evening and you move them to the morning and you ask them how they're feeling, well, yeah, they're they're not woken up yet and they're just not used to it.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you have them do that, ask them in two months how they're feeling.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if they do it consistently.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Consistently.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually carried out a mate analysis on this and showed that that there was no difference in hypertrophy when people were training morning or evening.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, that would reflect the fact that they're doing it consistently over time.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it comes down to um adherence.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you like training in the morning, and and even if you don't, by the way, if you um if you try to do something, usually to me, you kind of I enjoy training in the morning now.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't at the beginning.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not something you you might say, oh, I hate doing that.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: You might not know because you haven't tried it.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it might then but you hope that it becomes habitual, yeah.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have um have you done any research around nutrient timing for this?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is a loaded question because I know you have, but um, around nutrient timing pre workout, peri workout, post workout.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we've done really the post workout.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, we've done both.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've done pre versus post and what One of the studies, but we've done a lot with post workout.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this is something I've done, I don't want to say 180 degree, but certainly like a 120-degree turn in my opinion.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Really, it's what I used to believe.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was a new I was the uh guy back in the day when I was bodybuilding that would carry the shaker to the gym the minute my I bet you were a Tupperware guy, weren't you?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: I do oh yeah a lot of Tupperware, stacked Tupperware, um pre pre-portioned meals.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I would bring my shaker to the gym with my protein shake.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: The minute my last set was over, I'd slam that shake and got to hit my anabolic window of opportunity.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who don't know, there's bit there was early research showing that, and this was mostly acute research that looked at muscle protein synthesis, uh, that you had this anabolic window of roughly 45 minutes after the end of a workout.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And after, if you missed that window of opportunity, you went catabolic and you missed on gains.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, the evidence that we've accumulated over the past 15 years or so really refutes that.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what I would say: if someone, again, it's it's somewhat context dependent on goals, if you're a bodybuilder, if I was still bodybuilding, I would still slam my shake pretty quickly.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because there may be a very slight game.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have the research we carry out, isn't sophisticated enough, if you will, to tell if there's very slight differences, particularly in very high-level athletes or bodybuilders.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not gonna, there's no downside to doing it other than the stress that, you know, of making sure you're carrying your shaker with you.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: But for the vast majority of the population, it's not gonna make any difference, in my opinion, in your gains.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I would say that the most important factor is getting, particularly protein.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking uh, that was the most important factor for muscle development, hitting your target protein intake, which is somewhere around 1.6 grams per kilogram per day of protein.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is that 1.6 grams per kilogram of lean tissue or per kilogram of total body weight?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's total body weight, but the evidence that we have on the topic is generally done on people who are relatively lean.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: So like our MPS muscle protein synthetic data is done on males that are 13 to 15 percent body fat, women that are 20% body fat.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't extrapolate if you're 40% body fat, that is not gonna work.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's a hell of a lot of protein.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're taking a lot more protein than you're actually using.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to structure it to what you would be at that target, you know, 20% for women, 15% for men, roughly.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the what was the recommended amount of protein post-workout?
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it used to be that you'd have 25 to 40 grams of protein slammed after your shake.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: The general gist, and again, we've done research on this, seems to show that spreading out your protein intake relatively evenly over three to four meals uh within that 1.6 grams per kilogram.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say you're taking in 120 grams uh per day.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just giving a number, uh, that would be 40 grams roughly at each meal that you'd want to get.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you're taking in four meals a day, 30 grams over four meals.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there is not good evidence, at least up until fairly high protein intakes that you can't use.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's been some um research and certainly influencers who claim that you can't use more than, or certainly you can't absorb more than 25 grams of protein.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's just kind of silly.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just even from a survival, like the body just is not meant to be that way.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: And absorption, you absorb almost everything you're taking.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: And absorption just means it goes through your goes into circulation.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whether you actually use that for tissue building, I mean, there's some pretty, in my opinion, compelling evidence, at least 40 to 50 grams.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's been a there was a more recent study that looked at 100 grams being used over the course of 24 hours as opposed to 25 grams.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: So again, there was some, we we didn't have a midpoint, you know, like more, uh it was 25 versus 100.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't look at 50 versus 100 and see if there's starting to be.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and certainly I would say at a certain point you're gonna see diminishing returns there.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but we don't really have fine evidence on that.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Huh.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Brad, let's talk about some of these myths, misconceptions, the overreaching.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, before we started recording, we were talking about the fact that, you know, there is just a lot of different perspectives on what we should and shouldn't be doing within this field.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, can I go through a few of them and get your perspective?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: So one thing that's become incredibly popular now is this hot cold therapy contrast, whether it's a sauna or a cold plunge.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I know there is some debate as to the efficacy, certainly for hypertrophy, the building of lean tissue for doing uh a sauna after, which would make sense to me, but then also some controversy about doing cold plunge.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: What's your perspective on both of them?
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you asked because we have made analyses on both of those.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we had we did a made analysis that was published last year on cold water immersion, so cold application immediately post-exercise.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some gaps in the literature here.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: But if you do um a cold plunge or uh cold water application within 20 minutes or so after the end of a resistance training workout, you compromise muscle growth.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that was pretty clear from all the evidence we have.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's been some evidence that strength is compromised as well from it.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we don't have evidence, so then of course I get questions.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what about if you delayed the cold water plunge for six hours?
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I would could say, I don't know.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the here's the theory is that cold water uh immersion blunts um blood flow to tissues.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: How do you recover?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: How is muscle um protein synthesis uh initiated?
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Through nutrient delivery through the blood.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are cramping your blood supply to the target muscle, yeah, you're gonna uh inhibit the muscle growth.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a natural rationale.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: So again, now it doesn't mean you don't grow.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: The both groups, so if the one who didn't do any cold water application just grew more, but you still grew with cold water application.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's doing it every time.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone is just really sore and they like doing an occasional cold plunge, it's probably not gonna do anything.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I'm not saying never do a cold plunge if that's your game, but doing it repeatedly over time after each workout is a recovery strategy.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't care about muscle growth, and you know, you're still gonna grow to some extent.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just under it's important to understand the limitations.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not all that fun.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what one thing I I think this about both exercise and cold plunge, I don't actually enjoy doing either of them.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I enjoy the feeling that I get from like post-workout or after a cold plunge.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't love the process.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would say, you know, unless there is unless you really in fact, I'm gonna take that back.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't love the process, I love the outcome.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you could split them and get the outcome for both without compromising, that seems like the right thing to do, right?
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: What about sauna?
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sauna, on the flip side, I would imagine mechanistically, you're getting more nutrient-rich blood to the muscles.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: So does that have the opposite effect?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is it beneficial?
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a scoop on this.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: We just completed a mate analysis, literally a couple of weeks ago on that exact topic.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who don't know, a mate analysis is where you look at all the research on a given topic and basically you pull the studies to make one large study out of all the studies that are have looked at just doing heat application post-exercise versus nothing, no heat application.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there actually was a small positive effect of heat.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was not, it's not like it's a huge factor you're gonna get jacked from doing heat after.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it certainly was not negative.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: There was the non-negative effect, and it was a small uh but potentially meaningful.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it depends upon, I think for the average person, it's not much to brag about.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're a bodybuilder, again, something or a strength athlete, uh hypermetrical.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: I have a request then.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Can you please study what would happen if they do their resistance training, then they do the sauna, and then they finish with coal plunge.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Does that negate the downside of the coal plunge?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: So again, we're going back to the Because that's how I would feel optimal.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like that would be my ideal sequencing.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't uh to my knowledge, there's never been a study that's looked at that.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the what I would say just from an applied standpoint, from a logic standpoint, uh, heat enhances blood flow to tissue.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that does give a rationale why it may be positive.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you then supplant that with a cold later on, you're gonna then blend blood flow again, which to me just logically wouldn't work.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now you have to carry out the study to be sure.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: But um I I would think that it probably anytime you're cutting off, I shouldn't say cut off, but diminishing blood flow to tissues, it's not gonna be good for muscle muscle development.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, that makes sense.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, can we switch it up a little?
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is something that's been on my mind recently, and I haven't brought it up with you since I last spoke to you.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that is, you know, there is this incredibly huge wave of GLP1 agonist use now, and obviously we know they are a tremendously effective for people looking to or needing to lose a lot of weight, and I'm being very intentional when I say weight and not fat.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: My concern, and I've voiced this on the podcast a few times, is that given how important it is to retain this currency of longevity lean tissue as we get older, if we are making people or sort of sacrificing people's appetite to then reduce total energy intake to lose weight, is gonna have a catastrophic effect on muscles.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the whole corpus of evidence.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: I know that you have been working on this recently.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my worry, I guess, is long term people that don't necessarily need to use that drug are sacrificing their long-term function for an aesthetic.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, we do have a study that is actually uh going to be carried out very shortly on this topic.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a couple things to understand here.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you lose weight uh and you do not resistance train, you're gonna lose lean tissue, regardless of whether it's GLP1 induced or you just go on a diet.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: Roughly 25%, 20 to 25% of the weight loss on normal diets uh tends to be through lean tissue.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: With GLP1s, they tend to induce greater, more rapid weight loss.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the more rapid the weight loss, the more lean tissue generally used.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the research has shown that 30 to 40 percent of the weight loss is from lean tissue.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple of things with this, though.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand that lean tissue, the way that usually it's been studied here, is through DEXA.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is not necessarily muscle mass.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lean tissue is all, we talk about lean tissue, it's fat-free mass, which is all non-fat tissue in the body.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's the major component of that?
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: Water weight.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: Fat tissue has roughly, is adipose is comprised of roughly 20% water.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when you lose, particularly more obese people, they have a lot of excess water in their fat cells, which is being lost, and that would be counted as lean mass loss in the DEXA that's being looked at.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's not looking the vast majority of these studies, people aren't resistance training, as we know, and particularly those who are overweight tend not to be on the resistance training uh bandwagon.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: So our study we're carrying out, we're gonna have one group that's using resistance training and another that's not, and then looking at the not only lean tissue we're gonna do, DEXA, but we're gonna use MRI and actually look at the actual muscle development.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would certainly speculate that a large amount, if not most or all, of the muscle mass will be retained even with GOP1.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you start going really rapid weight loss, I again, this is where I think there's a lot of nuance.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you're very overweight or obese, uh, you can lose weight more rapidly without losing nearly as much muscle mass.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Where muscle mass starts to lose much more quickly as you start getting down.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I do know there are people who are actually fairly lean and they're using GLP1s because they want to get shredded, and that's problematic or can be.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think that again, the more important thing is to engage in resistance training while you're doing weight loss.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we see what's called recomp all the time, body recomposition, where people who are losing weight actually do gain muscle uh as they're losing weight if you're doing it properly.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: That has been something that has been hotly debated over decades.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: This this concept of recompositioning, that in the absence of enough energy, it's very difficult to build lean tissue.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it is difficult, right?
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's no there's no arguing there, but you can approach that with precision.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen it hundreds of times.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: How does someone who wants to hold on to as much lean tissue as possible, but still drop that bit of excess body fat, and maybe they are using a GLP1 um receptor agonist?
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: What would be your sort of uh advice approach for those people?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because I suspect there's a lot of people in that camp.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so one of the things that uh I think the literature is starting to show, uh, I don't want to say conclusively, but really it's pointing to is having a higher protein intake.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I mentioned before, roughly 1.6 grams per kilogram is a good target, general target, could be a little higher for resistance training, provided you're in a at maintenance or in a surplus.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in a deficit, and my interpretation of the literature, and a study that actually we have in review that hopefully will be published soon, shows that having a greater protein intake, as much as two or more, two grams per kilogram in our study was 2.4, uh preserved muscle mass more than 1.6.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when you say deficit, you mean an energy, a calorie deficit?
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: An energy deficit, correct.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so for those people who are, you know, intentionally or not, when you're taking those those um GLP1s, you're in a deficit, right?
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because you you lose the Well, it's forcing you into a deficit.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: So for those people, the advice would be to potentially raise your protein intake higher in combination with just be really consistent with the resistance training is going to be protective.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's worth this could be controversial?
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's worth removing aerobic exercise for those people, which you know can be catabolic?
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, like is there an argument to be made that if your ambition is retain, if not build lean tissue, still lose body fat, but you've got to be very careful with this energy balance.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: Would could there be an argument to be made that if you're doing long distance runs, that's probably counterproductive for those goals?
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: I would look at it somewhat differently and saying that if you do aerobic exercise, you don't have to go into as large a deficit.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: So your aerobic exercise is gonna help you to create the deficit.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it all comes down, yeah, if you're gonna have a really severe deficit, so if you're doing a ton of aerobic exercise in return, and also having a very low caloric intake, that of course can be put you into a catabolic state.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're gonna add in aerobic exercise, which we've already talked about, the importance to health and other factors, you can just not you can eat more, which I think that's to me is a positive.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it really depends how you look at it.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think the real challenge is for everyone that that are taking them is it's all well and good saying eat more protein or do more resistance training, but the very like mechanistically you lose the um motivation to do those things.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: So how do we how do we overcome that?
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, motivation uh exercise psychology and just psychology of food, etc., becomes very complex and it's this norms, particularly food, because food is around all day and drives as there's certain driving factors, survival factors that are related there.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I trying to touch on that, it's so in individual as to how people's relationships with food and exercise enter into play and and relate to motivation that it's really becomes more of a one-on-one uh record.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: I guess just uh, you know, appreciating the value and urgency of doing the thing should be, you know, motivating enough for a lot of people.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: What I would say, just as a general rule, having intrinsic motivation, you you basically having certain goals that are important to you, uh really, in my opinion, at least in my experience, helps to drive uh retention of motivation over time.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: If there's something that's very important to you, you know, someone who's suffered a cardiac event and is told that, yeah, if you exercise, it can prevent another cardiac event.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's very potent internal motivation that you don't want to suffer another cardiac event.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of the one of the big challenges, certainly for um, you know, convincing people to do the things that they have the agency to do to protect against decline, aging, whether that's cognitive or physical, is upstream of having any symptoms of decline, usually, right?
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: So the best time to be engaging in these things is before you get weak and fragile and immobile.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: No question.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, that's why I think there is, you know, this huge rise in popularity of screening and MRIs and CT angiograms, which I think have their place and their value, but we need to be taking action so far upstream of that if we really want to live our longest, healthiest, best life.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is one of the challenges is you combine the fact that it doesn't feel all that urgent with the fact that there is so much misinformation.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes for some people, it might be like, I'll address that another time, or or it feels overwhelming, or I feel guilty that I'm not doing all of these things.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: What would be your your sort of key takeaways piece of advice for people who are just feeling a little overwhelmed right now?
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, to your point about myths, uh one of the big myths is that there's a best routine.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a best routine for a given individual based on their needs, abilities, and goals.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I would say that it's kind of a lot of noise what you're talking about on certainly on social media, that a very basic routine, we've touched on this already, it doesn't require an exercise scientist to say, get into the gym twice a week, 30 minutes, train, do one exercise for each major muscle group, one set where you're pushing, you're challenging your muscles on the last few reps.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's all.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: For the vast majority of people, that'll get you really what you need and what you're looking for.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want to then start progressing more, then that can start to involve more complex uh exercise uh recommendations.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: But the most people, 20% of people are trained, 80% of people are not training.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: So just getting into the gym is going to do the majority of what uh people need without paying attention to any of this noise.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say is the most overrated trend in longevity right now?
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think kind of towards what you said, I when you say overrated, I'm not sure who does the rating, but in my my humble opinion, it's that there is some magic bullet, that there's some best way to go about training.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and there's just basic principles to follow.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, it's uh uh don't uh rather trying not to beat a dead horse, but you very simple advice can get you the majority of what you're looking for.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, I'm not I'm an excise scientist, and as a personal trainer, I was a former bodybuilder.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: That requires you know real manipulation of variables and a much more attention if you want to optimize your own genetic potential.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: For athletes that have worked with athletes before, uh, you're just in a different ballpark, no pun intended.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but for the vast majority of people, I think uh what is really overrated is that some some influencer has the magic bullet because they take their shirt off and look what I did.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's and by the way, uh as an as an aside there, the biggest mistake that I made when I was an up-and-coming bodybuilder when I first started getting into resistance training was following the routines of my favorite bodybuilder.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll date myself.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, there it was the time when magazines, we still had magazines delivered in subscriptions through to the mail, through the regular mail.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd go to my mailbox, I'd know when my flex magazine was coming or my muscle and fitness.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was in plastic wrapping, I'd wrap up in the rip open the plastic, and I'd go straight to okay, who's my favorite bodybuilder?
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd do like the leg routine of Lee Haney and the uh Rich Gasparry's chest routine.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, these bodybuilders uh from the air, and somehow think that, well, they'll look at the gains they're getting.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get those gains, not appreciating that the I was quite naive at that point.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my early twenties, and not appreciating that uh I don't have the genetics that they do.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly I didn't have the quote unquote special supplements, if you know what I mean, that they're using.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I mean I saw some gains, certainly at the beginning, because doing almost anything is going to get you gains, but I rapidly plateaued.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I started to become my own N equals one, started to approach it more somewhat scientifically at that point, from what I could out of my own knowledge of science, that I started to make better gains.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: Let's touch on the supplement piece and and include in that this wild um wave of peptides and the this the the promotion of peptides at least and the this potential re-regulation of them of a bunch of them.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um first part of that this question is what are your like go-to supplements that you think you know we have really robust evidence for?
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do you take yourself?
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then secondly, I want to hear your high-level perspective on these exercise mimetics.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so uh to address your question on um what supplements work, very few.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: From a muscle building, I I'll touch on muscle building because when you start getting into health, then that's going to come down to what's in your diet and other factors like what whether you should take vitamins or something.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: But from a muscle building standpoint, the only one with really true efficacy is creatin.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um creatin is uh is three amino acids uh that are basically it regenerates your ATP stores.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: ATP is your high high energy production um molecule in your body that facilitates muscle contraction.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um the literature shows you can make gains.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't made analysis on this.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a steroid, first of all, and it does not give you steroid-like effects.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: 30% roughly of the people who take it will be non-responders.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's somewhat dependent on your meat intake because it's very high in meats and fish, uh, so found in very high concentrations.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: And those who are vegan will tend to see better results because they're not getting as much in their diet.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you you can get modest gains from it, and certainly it can be uh if your goal is um muscle building, it's I think worth worthwhile to take it.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have, it doesn't really work for me.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm a pescatarian and I eat a ton of fish, and it just does not really do much for me.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I'm not sure it does much for me either, but I do take it regardless.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um people get a some GI discomfort from it, but so I it did give me some GI discomfort when I um melted it, if you will, in in warm water and tea.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it didn't have as bad an effect, but it just really to me did not do the quest benefit, wasn't uh wasn't good for me, so I stopped.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people do get a good benefit from it, though.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think no, it's 70% will see something.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: And what what else do you take, if anything?
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well personally I take fish oil supplements, um which I I think is more from a health perspective.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: I take vitamin D.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_00: As you can see, I'm not much of a sun uh bather, so um I think that's an important uh supplement to take it from health.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_00: But that's it really.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now and well, I am a coffee drinker, so I take, I don't take caffeine supplements, but I take caffeine.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_00: And caffeine, by the way, has efficacy for performance.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of data, right?
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_00: Quite good data on improving performance.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_00: Outside of that, really not much is uh works or at least has been shown to work well through science from a supplement standpoint.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_00: Protein uh supplements, they are only beneficial.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: So do they work?
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they work if you're deficient in protein.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're getting, I'm a food first person, uh, so I don't uh I don't believe in taking supplements, and let supplements should be supplementing your diet and things you're not able to get.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but to that, you know, to that point, a lot of people do not are not either able to get uh they're eating on the go or whatever, they don't get sufficient protein, and then it can be beneficial.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Older individuals uh they tend to number one have their taste buds tend to be uh diminished, so they don't generally they they have difficulty eating as much.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and liquid, of course, taking it in through liquids can make it easier to digest.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it can be beneficial if you're not getting your target protein intake.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_00: But other than that, again, I think of supplements, uh legal supplements, as the cherry on the Sunday, if you will.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_01: The the overarching theme I'm hearing from you, Brad, is keep it simple and consistent.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Can we can we talk about, I mean, we'd be remiss to not talk about peptides because it's just everywhere right now.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you and I share the same opinion here.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um Do you think there will ever be a true exercise mimetic or something that can allow us to cheat the need to put the time and effort in?
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look, that's somewhat outside of my uh area of expertise.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a uh uh I don't study drug compounds or um but I can edit this out if it's too controversial.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, it's not controversial at all.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just want to speak when I speak, I speak from what I'm I'm an expert on.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what I would say, in my humble opinion, I think we're gonna, as time goes on, we're gonna be able to use genomics and other uh proteomics to individually target people and and do things that may be highly beneficial on an individual basis.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we're anywhere near close to that yet.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the way AI is going, I don't uh if you asked me, you know, a few years ago how long it would take, I would have thought it was going to take quite a lot longer.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think the way things are going AI-wise, it'll allow us to develop some of these things more quickly.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I don't think it'll ever, or I shouldn't say, I never say never, so I shouldn't say never, but I would be skeptical that it can ever fully replace exercise just because when you're exercising, there's multiple systems that are involved.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, when you're talking about these types of drugs, uh, they're targeting specific pathways uh that don't work or function the way that exercise does in targeting blood flow.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just so many factors that are involved when you're exercising.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I find it difficult to imagine that it will ever replace it.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: But could it be an adjunct?
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, could it help?
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't certainly don't doubt it.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think at this point we have certainly the safety knowledge on any of these things to recommend them.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And even the efficacy, the uh efficacy standpoint of what I've seen, they're just not well studied.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_00: We you talk about peptides, very little research on these.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh certainly that's been controlled, that's not funded by a supplement company that's uh trying to promote these things.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: You got to look at who's funding the studies as well.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I personally everyone has to make their own decisions.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I never judge people in terms if they're gonna do something that will affect them and no one else, then that's in my humble opinion, that's their decision.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: But personally, I would not go near uh a peptide at this point because I just don't I can't speak to what it might do in five, ten years from now to you.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Brad, can we talk about what's coming next?
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're seeing some really exciting things and and all of the conversations that we are privileged to have with our scientists, there's loads of cool things happening.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, within your specific field, what are you most excited about that's on the horizon when it comes to the research?
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think what's really needed is greater, a greater understanding of the mechanisms that underlie muscle development, muscle growth.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So um, we've come a long way.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my master's capstone project was called the mechanism, well, it was on the mechanisms of hypertrophy and their application of resistance training.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: That paper catchy.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_00: That paper got published in Journal Strength and Conditioning Research 2010 and is now the number one most viewed of all time in the journal.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I look back on it, and this was 16 years ago, 17 years ago now, um, so much has changed.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like people still cite that paper, and I say, that's very dated at this point, just because we've but with that said, we still have so far, as much as we, as far as we've come, we're still kind of scratching the surface, in my opinion.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have so much more to learn and develop an understanding of you know what the underlying um mechanism, mechanistic aspects are.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when we really have a handle on that, that can help to fuel uh application.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when you understand what's behind uh muscle growth, you can then start to develop programs that target it better.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I think that it's just very difficult.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the real challenges is trying to tease out other mechanistic factors, trying to isolate one mechanism.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you're manipulating one variable to try to cause a mechanism, you end up uh causing other factors, mechanistic factors, to potentially be manipulated.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this becomes problematic.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And much of the research still is on rodents, I mean, in animal models, because you're just not going to be able to do things to humans that you can with animals to try to tease out these factors.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, but bottom line is I think that this will over the next five, 10 years really continue to progress and we'll have a much better understanding.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you have me here five or 10 years from now, hopefully we can chat on that.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_01: We will for sure.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, one thing that you touched on earlier, which I think is the most exciting, and I always say this, um, and that is that we are we are able to now get much more personalized with the data, right?
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it starts off expensive like everything does in science, but you know, we're we're able to contextualize these um different uh variables, these different verticals within our biology now.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you mentioned genomics and the multiomics in general.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's some really cool um trends that we'll start, um, we'll be able to start observing on a big scale, but then on an individual level, and that's pretty exciting.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so what one of the big issues, when you say issues, one of the realities of research is that they look at the means, the averages.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, when we do a study, we don't look at it, it's not the targeted to an individual.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we look at what did the group see and what is the variability within that group, and we then try to generalize that to the population.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_00: That gives you a guideline as to where to start, but that doesn't tell you what to do.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Research is not telling you what to do.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we can really, and I think you're right, that we're gonna get into the genomics, uh, proteomics to a greater extent, that can help to guide individualization of the guidelines that were given.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the more we can do that, combining generalized research with individualized research, that's where we can really see big, make huge differences in individuals.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_01: What what would can you give me some examples of things that you used to believe to be true that you no longer do, right?
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because I, you know, I've been fortunate enough to be doing this a long time now.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm into my third decade of of applying these these principles with with clients, members, patients.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I used to think I knew everything about everything.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the the more I've been doing this, the more I realize I know very little about anything.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the pendulum swings with the research, specifically for exercise physiology, things that we used to believe to be true, we no longer apply with our members, patients.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Are there some good examples of that?
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So many.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'll start with uh the I don't want to say number one, but certainly one of the biggest revelations is that uh you don't necessarily need to train to all out muscle failure.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I I came again from a bodybuilding mindset, and the pros were all talking about, you know, not only doing sets to failure, but using force reps and uh, you know, where you actually had a spotter lifting or drops of.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I'd go to the gym, it was go all out or go home.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I wasn't, if the vein in the side of my forehead wasn't bulging like a serpent on every set, by the time I finished the set, I was not training hard enough.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, it didn't uh didn't pay to go to the gym almost.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the research that we've had over time has actually shown that you can be, as I mentioned earlier, a couple reps uh short of failure and see very comparable results in terms of your muscle film and even more for strength.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can be even a little further for uh further away from failure.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't necessarily need to train to all out failure, um, which is not only cool just for I think for everyone, but for people who certainly think that discomfort is a a reason not to train, it gives greater, it helps with adherence that you don't need to really feel the pain of uh scratching out that last route.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure and a privilege, as always.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure, Chris.