Dr. Andy Galpin: How to Build Strength, Muscle Size & Endurance

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.280 | where we discuss science and science-based tools

00:00:04.880 | for everyday life.

00:00:05.900 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.200 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:13.080 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:14.980 | Today, my guest is Dr. Andy Galpin.

00:00:17.520 | Dr. Galpin is a full and tenured professor

00:00:20.020 | in the Department of Kinesiology

00:00:21.600 | at California State University in Fullerton.

00:00:24.160 | He is also a world expert

00:00:25.920 | in all things exercise science and kinesiology.

00:00:29.480 | Today, you are going to hear

00:00:30.580 | what is essentially a masterclass in how to build fitness,

00:00:34.200 | no matter what level of fitness you happen to have.

00:00:36.960 | He talks about how to build endurance

00:00:38.960 | and the multiple types of endurance.

00:00:40.760 | He talks about how to build strength and hypertrophy,

00:00:43.200 | which is the growth of muscle fibers.

00:00:45.200 | So if you're seeking to get stronger

00:00:46.720 | or build bigger muscles or build endurance

00:00:48.960 | or all of those things, today, you're going to learn how.

00:00:52.160 | You're also going to learn how to build flexibility,

00:00:55.080 | how to hydrate properly for exercise.

00:00:57.320 | And we'll also talk about nutrition and supplementation.

00:01:00.700 | What makes Dr. Galpin so unique is his ability

00:01:03.280 | to span all levels of exercise science.

00:01:06.120 | He has the ability to clearly communicate the sets

00:01:09.120 | and repetition schemes that one would want to follow,

00:01:11.400 | for instance, to build more strength

00:01:13.180 | or to build larger muscles.

00:01:14.760 | He also clearly describes exactly how to train

00:01:17.960 | if you want to build more endurance

00:01:19.760 | or enhance cardiovascular function.

00:01:22.320 | What's highly unique about Dr. Galpin

00:01:24.480 | and the information he teaches

00:01:26.080 | and the way he communicates that information

00:01:28.560 | is that he can take specific recommendations

00:01:31.760 | of how recreational exercisers

00:01:34.100 | or even professional athletes ought to train

00:01:36.200 | for their specific goals and link that

00:01:38.640 | to specific mechanisms, that is the specific changes

00:01:41.860 | that need to occur in the nervous system

00:01:43.600 | and in muscle fibers and indeed right down to the genetics

00:01:46.600 | of individual cells in your brain and body

00:01:48.640 | in order for those exercise adaptations to occur.

00:01:51.760 | It's truly rare to find somebody that can span

00:01:54.040 | so many different levels of analysis

00:01:56.200 | and who is able to communicate all those levels

00:01:58.540 | of understanding in such a clear and actionable way.

00:02:01.860 | Indeed, Dr. Galpin is one of just a handful of people

00:02:05.380 | to which I and many others look when they want to make sure

00:02:08.880 | that the information that they're getting about exercise

00:02:11.760 | is gleaned from quality peer-reviewed studies,

00:02:14.480 | hands-on experience with a wide variety

00:02:16.960 | of research subjects, meaning everyday people,

00:02:19.200 | all the way up to professional athletes

00:02:20.800 | in a wide variety of sports.

00:02:22.260 | So it's no surprise that he's not only

00:02:24.060 | one of the most knowledgeable,

00:02:25.500 | but also the most trusted voices in exercise science.

00:02:28.500 | Dr. Galpin is also an avid communicator

00:02:30.480 | of zero cost to consumer information about exercise science.

00:02:34.360 | You can find him on Instagram @DrAndyGalpin

00:02:37.720 | and also on Twitter @DrAndyGalpin.

00:02:40.300 | Both places he provides terrific information

00:02:42.700 | about recent studies, both from his laboratory

00:02:45.080 | and from other laboratories, more in-depth protocols

00:02:48.320 | of the sort that you'll hear about today.

00:02:50.100 | So if you're not already following him,

00:02:51.520 | be sure to do so.

00:02:52.760 | He provides only the best information.

00:02:55.160 | He's extremely nuanced and precise and clear

00:02:57.760 | in delivering that information.

00:02:59.760 | I'm certain that by the end of today's conversation,

00:03:01.960 | you'll come away with a tremendous amount of new knowledge

00:03:04.660 | that you can devote to your exercise pursuits.

00:03:07.100 | I'm pleased to announce that I'm hosting two live events

00:03:09.740 | this May.

00:03:10.760 | The first live event will be hosted

00:03:12.280 | in Seattle, Washington on May 17th.

00:03:14.960 | The second live event will be hosted

00:03:16.560 | in Portland, Oregon on May 18th.

00:03:18.960 | Both are part of a lecture series entitled

00:03:20.960 | The Brain-Body Contract,

00:03:22.560 | during which I will discuss science and science-based tools

00:03:25.600 | for mental health, physical health, and performance.

00:03:28.240 | And I should point out that while some of the material

00:03:30.660 | I'll cover will overlap with information covered here

00:03:33.340 | on the Huberman Lab Podcast

00:03:34.960 | and on various social media posts,

00:03:36.800 | most of the information I will cover is going to be distinct

00:03:39.960 | from information covered on the podcast or elsewhere.

00:03:42.840 | So once again, it's Seattle on May 17th,

00:03:45.360 | Portland on May 18th.

00:03:46.720 | You can access tickets by going to hubermanlab.com/tour.

00:03:50.840 | And I hope to see you there.

00:03:52.120 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

00:03:54.640 | is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:03:57.580 | It is however, part of my desire and effort

00:03:59.800 | to bring zero cost to consumer information about science

00:04:02.440 | and science-related tools to the general public.

00:04:05.200 | In keeping with that theme,

00:04:06.280 | I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

00:04:09.020 | Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens.

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00:04:20.520 | The reason I started taking Athletic Greens

00:04:22.240 | and the reason I still take Athletic Greens

00:04:23.680 | once or twice a day is that it helps me cover

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00:04:30.200 | In addition, it has probiotics,

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00:04:34.820 | I've done a couple of episodes now

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00:04:41.360 | with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood,

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00:04:54.920 | If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,

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00:05:34.740 | Thesis makes what are called nootropics,

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00:05:38.800 | Now, to be honest, I am not a fan of the term nootropics.

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00:08:18.080 | And now for my discussion with Dr. Andy Galpin.

00:08:21.680 | Welcome, Dr. Professor Andy Galpin.

00:08:25.280 | It's been a long time coming.

00:08:26.360 | We have friends in common,

00:08:27.440 | but this is actually the first time

00:08:28.600 | we've sat down face to face.

00:08:29.940 | - Yeah, I'm very excited.

00:08:31.760 | - Yeah, there are only a handful,

00:08:33.360 | meaning about three or four people who I trust enough

00:08:38.920 | in the exercise physiology space that when they speak,

00:08:42.720 | I not only listen, but I modify my protocols.

00:08:45.280 | And you are among those three or four people.

00:08:47.420 | So first of all, a debt of gratitude, thank you.

00:08:51.440 | You've greatly shaped the protocols that I use.

00:08:54.240 | And I know there's far more for me and for others to learn.

00:08:58.020 | So you're a professor, you teach in university,

00:09:01.780 | and you have a tremendous range of levels of exploration.

00:09:05.560 | Muscle biopsy, literally, images down the microscope,

00:09:08.720 | all the way to training professional athletes

00:09:11.380 | and everything in between.

00:09:12.800 | So you are truly an N of one.

00:09:14.960 | And just to start us off,

00:09:17.680 | I would love to have you share with us

00:09:20.080 | what you think most everybody or even everybody should know

00:09:24.100 | about principles of strength training,

00:09:27.740 | principles of endurance training,

00:09:30.480 | and principles of let's call it hypertrophy power

00:09:34.760 | and the other sort of categories of training.

00:09:37.200 | And this could be very top contour,

00:09:38.640 | but what do you think everybody on planet earth

00:09:40.960 | should know about these categories

00:09:42.600 | of personal and athletic development?

00:09:45.000 | - Well, that's a great first question.

00:09:46.880 | Holy cow, I think I'll start it this way.

00:09:49.200 | I tend to think about,

00:09:52.840 | there's about nine different adaptations

00:09:54.480 | you can get from exercise.

00:09:56.160 | Fat loss is not one of those.

00:09:57.860 | It is a by-product,

00:09:58.840 | but that's not really what I'm getting at.

00:10:01.480 | And so we can kind of categorize everything like that.

00:10:03.600 | And what we can talk about are what are the concepts

00:10:06.000 | that you need to hit within each one,

00:10:08.760 | and then you can have infinite discussion

00:10:10.500 | of the different methodologies, right?

00:10:11.760 | And so that first thing to hit is

00:10:14.480 | the concepts are actually fairly few,

00:10:16.520 | but the methods are many, right?

00:10:17.800 | People have said that in iterations throughout time.

00:10:21.480 | So if you walk from the very beginning,

00:10:23.120 | the first one to think about is what we'll just call skill.

00:10:25.960 | So this is improving anything from say a golf swing

00:10:28.780 | to a squatting technique to running.

00:10:30.840 | And this is just simply moving mechanically

00:10:33.020 | how you want your body to move.

00:10:35.000 | I'm just gonna globally call that skill.

00:10:37.040 | From there, we're gonna get into speed.

00:10:38.780 | So this is moving as fast as possible.

00:10:41.240 | The next one is power.

00:10:42.780 | And power is a function of speed,

00:10:44.800 | but it's also a function of the next one, which is strength.

00:10:47.840 | So if you actually multiply strength by speed,

00:10:50.560 | you get power.

00:10:52.120 | And the reason I'm making this distinction, by the way,

00:10:54.000 | is some of these are very close

00:10:55.340 | and I'm going in a specific order on purpose here.

00:10:57.680 | For example, power is, like I just said,

00:11:00.480 | it's a function of speed and strength.

00:11:01.680 | So if you improve speed,

00:11:03.740 | you've also likely improved power, but not necessarily.

00:11:07.260 | 'Cause it could have come from the force direction either.

00:11:09.580 | So there's carry over.

00:11:10.520 | So like a lot of things that you would do

00:11:11.800 | for the development of strength and power,

00:11:14.380 | they are somewhat similar, but then there's differences.

00:11:18.080 | So things that you would do correctly for power

00:11:20.760 | would really not develop much strength and vice versa.

00:11:23.680 | So I'm gonna get into all these details later.

00:11:26.000 | Once you get past strength,

00:11:27.240 | and the next one kind of down the list is hypertrophy.

00:11:29.400 | This is muscle size.

00:11:30.580 | Growing muscle mass is one way to think about it.

00:11:33.560 | After hypertrophy, you get into these categories

00:11:36.200 | of the next one is,

00:11:37.560 | these are all globally endurance based issues.

00:11:40.060 | And the very first one is called muscular endurance.

00:11:42.760 | So this is your ability to do,

00:11:43.860 | how many pushups can you do in one minute?

00:11:46.240 | You know, things like that.

00:11:47.860 | Past muscular endurance,

00:11:51.400 | you're now into more of an energetic

00:11:53.300 | or even cardiovascular fatigue.

00:11:55.200 | So you've left the local muscle

00:11:56.740 | and you're now into the entire physiological system

00:11:59.440 | and its ability to produce and sustain work.

00:12:02.640 | And we can get into a bunch of differentiations

00:12:04.640 | with an endurance,

00:12:05.520 | but just to keep it really simple right now,

00:12:08.200 | the very first one, think about this as,

00:12:11.160 | I call this anaerobic power, right?

00:12:13.160 | So this is your ability to produce a lot of work

00:12:16.320 | for say 30 seconds to maybe one minute,

00:12:19.600 | kind of two minutes like that.

00:12:21.520 | The next one down then is more closely aligned

00:12:23.540 | to what we'll call your VO2 max.

00:12:25.560 | So this is your ability to kind of do the same thing,

00:12:27.740 | but more of a time domain of say three to 12 minutes.

00:12:31.520 | So this is going to be a maximum heart rate,

00:12:33.280 | but it's going to be well past just max heart rate.

00:12:36.600 | Then after that,

00:12:37.440 | we have what I call long duration endurance.

00:12:39.280 | So this is your ability to sustain work.

00:12:41.540 | The time domain doesn't matter

00:12:43.040 | in terms of how fast you're going.

00:12:44.860 | It's how long can you sustain work?

00:12:46.820 | This is 30 plus minutes of no break like that.

00:12:50.780 | So as just an high level overview,

00:12:53.180 | those are the different things you can target.

00:12:56.280 | And again, some of those crossover

00:12:58.560 | and some are actually a little bit

00:13:00.320 | contrarian to the other ones.

00:13:01.400 | So pushing towards one

00:13:02.840 | is maybe going to sacrifice something else.

00:13:05.000 | So as an overall start,

00:13:06.680 | that's really what we're looking at.

00:13:08.760 | Within all of those though,

00:13:09.920 | they do have similar concepts in terms of

00:13:12.280 | there's a handful of things you have got to do

00:13:14.960 | to make all of those things work.

00:13:16.560 | And we could talk about as many of those as you want,

00:13:18.280 | but one of them is functionally called progressive overload.

00:13:21.220 | So whichever one you're trying to improve at,

00:13:25.080 | if you want to continue to improve,

00:13:26.960 | you have to have some method of overload.

00:13:29.460 | And as you well know, you've talked about a lot,

00:13:32.500 | adaptation physiologically happens as a byproduct of stress.

00:13:36.340 | So you have to push a system.

00:13:37.720 | So if you continue to do, say,

00:13:38.900 | the exact same workout over time,

00:13:41.400 | you better not expect much improvement.

00:13:43.280 | You can keep maintenance,

00:13:44.280 | but you're not going to be adding additional stress.

00:13:46.940 | So in general,

00:13:48.180 | you have to have some sort of progressive overload.

00:13:50.060 | And we can talk in detail

00:13:51.080 | about what that means for each category.

00:13:53.160 | But this could come from adding more weights.

00:13:55.440 | This could come from adding more repetitions.

00:13:57.800 | It could come from doing it more often in a week.

00:14:00.700 | It could come from adding complexity to the movement.

00:14:04.020 | So going from, say, a partial range of motion

00:14:05.740 | to a full range of motion or adding other variables.

00:14:08.420 | So there's a lot of different ways to progress,

00:14:10.760 | but you have to have some sort of movement forward.

00:14:13.340 | So if you have this kind of routine

00:14:14.680 | where you've built Monday, Wednesday,

00:14:16.600 | and Saturday or something, and you just do that infinitely,

00:14:20.440 | you're not going to get very far.

00:14:21.780 | So that's, I guess, the most high-level overview

00:14:24.240 | of all the things people can go after.

00:14:26.600 | And then we can go from whatever direction

00:14:28.400 | you want from there.

00:14:29.800 | - Well, I'd love to do the deep dive

00:14:31.160 | on each one of these for several hours.

00:14:34.480 | But, and I imagine that over time, we probably will.

00:14:39.000 | I'd love to chat about a couple of these

00:14:42.080 | in a bit more depth.

00:14:43.080 | So in terms of defining

00:14:44.960 | what the progressive overload variables are

00:14:47.840 | for these different categories,

00:14:49.160 | maybe we could hit the two most common combinations

00:14:53.540 | of these nine things.

00:14:54.400 | The first one being strength and hypertrophy.

00:14:58.440 | And maybe we could lump power in there.

00:15:00.920 | Maybe not, you're the exercise physiologist.

00:15:04.320 | But strength and hypertrophy,

00:15:05.360 | which at least bear some relationship.

00:15:07.500 | And then maybe separately,

00:15:09.280 | we could explore sustained work endurance,

00:15:12.840 | this 30 minutes or longer continuously,

00:15:14.600 | 'cause I think many people train in that regime.

00:15:17.700 | And probably something like VO2 max anaerobic as well,

00:15:23.440 | because I know that a number of people now incorporate

00:15:26.080 | so-called HIIT or high intensity interval training.

00:15:28.260 | I think with the hopes of either shortening their workouts

00:15:31.440 | and/or gaining some additional cardiovascular benefit.

00:15:35.400 | So if we could start with strength and hypertrophy,

00:15:38.280 | I know many people want to be stronger.

00:15:40.480 | They want to grow larger muscles

00:15:42.000 | or at least maintain what they have.

00:15:43.800 | So what are the progressive overload principles

00:15:46.560 | that are most effective over time

00:15:49.800 | for strength and hypertrophy?

00:15:51.560 | - Yeah, okay, so I'll actually go a little step back.

00:15:54.720 | With every one of those categories I talked about,

00:15:57.560 | you have what we call your modifiable variables.

00:16:00.080 | So this is a very short list

00:16:01.440 | of all the things you can modify,

00:16:04.940 | the different variables within your workout

00:16:06.520 | that can be modified that will change the outcome.

00:16:08.780 | Fancy way of saying, if you do this differently,

00:16:11.720 | then you're gonna get a different result.

00:16:14.080 | So modifiable variables.

00:16:15.600 | The very first one of those is called choice.

00:16:17.560 | So this is the exercise choice that you select.

00:16:20.000 | Now, one of, I'm gonna go double back here,

00:16:23.560 | so I'm kind of doing a little bit of inception.

00:16:25.080 | So follow me here as I'm going up a layer

00:16:26.520 | to come down a couple layers.

00:16:27.920 | I have these fundamental laws of strength and conditioning

00:16:31.840 | that are kind of like a little bit of a joke,

00:16:35.240 | but progressive overload is one of those laws.

00:16:36.960 | Another one of those laws is your exercises themselves

00:16:40.760 | do not determine adaptations.

00:16:42.840 | So here's what I mean.

00:16:43.780 | If you're like, I want to get stronger,

00:16:45.280 | you can't select an exercise.

00:16:47.400 | That doesn't determine you getting strong.

00:16:49.680 | If you don't do the exercise correctly,

00:16:51.800 | and I'm not even referring to the technique,

00:16:53.560 | that of course matters,

00:16:55.100 | but if you don't execute it in the right fashion,

00:16:57.620 | then you're not going to get that adaptation.

00:16:59.100 | So if you choose, I want to get stronger,

00:17:00.560 | I'm gonna do a bench press.

00:17:01.720 | Well, if you do the wrong set range,

00:17:03.580 | the wrong repetition range, the wrong speed,

00:17:05.120 | you won't get strength.

00:17:05.960 | You maybe get muscular endurance

00:17:06.940 | and very little strength adaptation.

00:17:08.680 | So the exercise selection itself is important,

00:17:11.540 | but it does not determine the outcome adaptation.

00:17:14.280 | So the very first thing that you need to think about

00:17:16.080 | if you're like, I want to get stronger or add muscle

00:17:18.560 | is not the exercise choice, right?

00:17:20.800 | It is the application of the exercise.

00:17:22.440 | What are the sets?

00:17:23.280 | What are the reps?

00:17:24.100 | What are the rest ranges that you're using?

00:17:25.840 | That's gonna be your primary determinant.

00:17:28.240 | Now, some exercises are certainly better

00:17:31.280 | for some adaptations.

00:17:32.120 | For example, a deadlift is probably not a great exercise

00:17:35.680 | to do for long duration endurance.

00:17:37.320 | Like you could theoretically do 30 straight minutes

00:17:39.220 | of deadlifting, but it's probably not our best choice, right?

00:17:42.080 | It's probably a pretty good choice

00:17:43.300 | for strength development, right?

00:17:44.480 | 'Cause you're gonna do a low repetition, high set range.

00:17:47.320 | You could theoretically do bicep curls for power,

00:17:51.720 | but probably not your best choice, right?

00:17:53.520 | Single joint isolation movement

00:17:54.960 | is not the best for developing power.

00:17:56.960 | You've ever done a bicep curl as fast as you possibly can?

00:17:59.780 | Like that's not gonna go well.

00:18:01.720 | So in theory, any exercise can produce any adaptation

00:18:05.680 | given the execution is performed properly.

00:18:08.360 | So now that we've understood that a little bit,

00:18:10.960 | the exercise itself does not determine the adaptation.

00:18:14.260 | Coming within each one of these categories,

00:18:17.000 | exercise choice is an important variable

00:18:18.840 | because it does lend you to things

00:18:21.220 | like what movement pattern you're in.

00:18:23.240 | So in other words, if you wanna get stronger

00:18:26.120 | and you're thinking, okay, what exercise do I do?

00:18:28.720 | You need to think a little bit about

00:18:31.180 | what muscle groups do I wanna use?

00:18:32.620 | And that's gonna be leading you towards the exercise choice.

00:18:35.700 | For example, I wanna use my quads more.

00:18:38.420 | Okay, fine.

00:18:39.660 | Maybe you're gonna choose more of a front squat

00:18:41.800 | type of variation, a goblet squat.

00:18:43.160 | So the bar, the load is in front of you.

00:18:45.360 | If you wanna emphasize maybe more of your hamstrings

00:18:47.400 | and glutes, you're gonna maybe put a barbell on your back

00:18:49.880 | or do a different one.

00:18:51.180 | So the exercise choice is important to the prescription

00:18:54.980 | because it's gonna determine a lot of your success.

00:18:57.660 | Okay, another kind of simpler way to think about this.

00:19:00.460 | If you're a beginner or moderate to intermediate,

00:19:04.540 | or maybe you don't have a coach,

00:19:06.580 | you probably wanna hedge towards an exercise selection

00:19:09.800 | that is a little bit easier technically.

00:19:12.280 | So you maybe don't wanna do a barbell back squat.

00:19:14.000 | It's actually a pretty complicated movement.

00:19:15.900 | Maybe you wanna do a little bit more of, again,

00:19:18.660 | a goblet squat or even use some machines or a split squat,

00:19:21.700 | something that's a little bit simpler

00:19:22.860 | because you don't have a coach,

00:19:23.980 | you're not a professional athlete.

00:19:25.980 | The likelihood of success is higher

00:19:27.500 | and the risk has now gone lower.

00:19:30.020 | So the very first variable within all of these

00:19:31.940 | is the exercise choice.

00:19:33.540 | The second one is the intensity.

00:19:34.980 | And that refers to, in this context, not perceived effort.

00:19:39.140 | Like, wow, that was a really intense workout.

00:19:40.980 | It is quite literally either a percentage

00:19:42.500 | of your one rep at max

00:19:44.200 | or a percentage of your maximum heart rate or VO2 max.

00:19:46.640 | So for the strength-based things,

00:19:48.820 | you wanna think about what's the percentage

00:19:50.220 | of the maximum weight I could lift one time.

00:19:51.900 | And that's what we're gonna call one rep max.

00:19:54.540 | Or it's a percentage of my heart rate, right?

00:19:56.180 | So if I tell you to get on a bike

00:19:57.560 | and I want you to do intervals and I want you at 75%,

00:20:00.340 | I'm typically referring to 75% of your max heart rate

00:20:02.940 | or VO2 max or something like that.

00:20:04.860 | If I tell you to do squats at 75%,

00:20:07.400 | that means 75% of the maximum amount of weight

00:20:09.520 | you could lift one time or close.

00:20:12.440 | - In terms of determining one rep max,

00:20:14.800 | I confess I've never actually taken the one rep max

00:20:17.740 | for any exercise,

00:20:19.180 | but I have some internal sense of what that might be

00:20:22.340 | or what range it might be.

00:20:24.660 | Is it necessary for people to assess

00:20:27.540 | their one repetition maximum

00:20:29.700 | before going into these sorts of programs?

00:20:32.880 | - No, not at all.

00:20:33.900 | I think a more intuitive way is to take a repetition range.

00:20:38.900 | Well, you can do this a couple of different ways.

00:20:41.300 | So there are equations you can run

00:20:44.100 | and you can just Google these anywhere.

00:20:45.820 | And these are called conversion charts.

00:20:47.540 | And so it says, okay, if I did 75 pounds on my bench press

00:20:51.220 | and I did it eight times,

00:20:52.820 | you can just run an estimate to say,

00:20:54.260 | okay, you're probably going to be able to bench

00:20:55.740 | about 95 pounds for one rep max or something.

00:20:58.760 | So that's a very easy conversion chart.

00:21:00.900 | So just pick a load that you feel comfortable with,

00:21:02.720 | but it's kind of heavy, but not like crazy heavy.

00:21:05.900 | And do as many repetitions as you can,

00:21:07.640 | what a really good technique.

00:21:09.020 | And then look what that number would be.

00:21:11.100 | So conversion charts. - Are we safer

00:21:12.100 | than doing one repetition maximum?

00:21:14.680 | - For the general public who has, again, no coaching,

00:21:17.980 | it's safer.

00:21:18.820 | For a professional athlete, it's not any safer,

00:21:20.800 | but, or not even a professional athlete,

00:21:22.860 | but a trained person with a coach.

00:21:24.700 | But for most people, yeah, that's a good way to go about it.

00:21:27.060 | You can also just kind of do it with feel in the sense that,

00:21:31.560 | say you want to do a set of five repetitions

00:21:34.180 | and you do the load and you think,

00:21:36.260 | I could have done one or two more.

00:21:38.020 | And then you kind of have an idea

00:21:39.540 | of what that number is going to be.

00:21:41.460 | If you think, man, that last one,

00:21:43.140 | I had to kind of really, really, really get after it,

00:21:45.620 | then maybe just call that number, right?

00:21:50.100 | So you don't have to get overly concerned.

00:21:51.780 | In fact, when we start getting into these number ranges,

00:21:55.000 | you're going to see that they're all ranges.

00:21:57.060 | We're not going to give a specific 95%

00:21:59.500 | for one of these exact reasons.

00:22:01.140 | It's not that precise for most of them.

00:22:03.820 | In fact, some of them, like hypertrophy,

00:22:05.140 | have enormous ranges that you almost can't miss.

00:22:08.740 | So the intensity in that case doesn't even matter

00:22:11.080 | for the most part because that's not the primary determinant.

00:22:14.320 | Some of these you're going to see intensity

00:22:15.720 | is the determinant and some of these you're going to see

00:22:17.100 | volume is the true determinant.

00:22:19.180 | So intensity though is the second one.

00:22:22.740 | Choice was the very first one, manipulable variable.

00:22:26.620 | Intensity was the second one.

00:22:28.500 | The third one is what we call volume.

00:22:30.060 | And so this is just how many reps

00:22:31.260 | and how many sets are you doing, right?

00:22:32.620 | So if you're going to do three sets of 10,

00:22:33.880 | that volume would be 30, right?

00:22:36.160 | Five sets of five, that volume is 25.

00:22:37.920 | It's just a simple equation.

00:22:39.740 | How much work are you totally doing?

00:22:41.940 | The next one past that is called rest intervals.

00:22:44.140 | So this is the amount of time you're taking

00:22:45.580 | in between typically a set.

00:22:47.160 | Then from there you have progression,

00:22:49.820 | which is what we started to talk about,

00:22:50.940 | this progressive overload.

00:22:51.940 | Are you increasing by weight or reps or rest intervals

00:22:55.340 | or complexity or whatever?

00:22:58.140 | So all of those things can be changed

00:23:00.940 | as a method of progression.

00:23:03.980 | And so maybe you want to go progressing

00:23:06.580 | from a single joint exercise,

00:23:08.380 | like a leg extension on a machine,

00:23:11.380 | and you want to progress by moving

00:23:12.680 | to a whole body movement like a squat.

00:23:15.880 | That in and of itself,

00:23:16.720 | you don't have to change the load or the reps or the rest.

00:23:19.660 | That is a representation of progressive overload.

00:23:22.120 | And it's probably a pretty good place to start

00:23:23.940 | because number one, especially for beginners,

00:23:26.780 | you want to make sure that the movement pattern is correct.

00:23:29.820 | Don't worry about intensity.

00:23:30.920 | Don't worry about rep ranges or any of these things.

00:23:33.060 | You need to learn to move correctly

00:23:35.220 | and you need to give your body some time

00:23:37.060 | to develop some tissue tolerance

00:23:39.020 | so that you're not getting overtly sore.

00:23:41.740 | In general, soreness is a terrible proxy

00:23:44.320 | for exercise quality.

00:23:45.660 | It's a really bad way to estimate

00:23:47.580 | whether it was a good or a bad workout,

00:23:48.940 | especially for people in that beginner to middle,

00:23:51.880 | to moderate, in fact, even the fat

00:23:53.540 | for our professional athletes.

00:23:55.100 | We do not use soreness as a metric of a good workout.

00:23:57.780 | It's a really bad idea for a bunch of reasons.

00:24:01.020 | On the same token,

00:24:02.980 | because stress is required for adaptation,

00:24:05.620 | you don't want to leave at the gym

00:24:06.780 | and feel like, I don't really do much.

00:24:09.340 | There has to be there.

00:24:10.180 | So if you think about soreness on a scale of one to 10,

00:24:12.840 | you probably want to spend most of your time in the three.

00:24:16.140 | - You mean post-exercise?

00:24:17.500 | - Yeah.

00:24:18.340 | - In between workouts?

00:24:19.240 | - Totally.

00:24:20.080 | - And I know we'll talk about recovery extensively later,

00:24:23.060 | but if one body part or set of body parts is sore,

00:24:27.340 | is that an indication that one should stay out of training?

00:24:30.940 | I would imagine the answer is no.

00:24:32.780 | In most cases, and secondarily to that,

00:24:37.420 | if a particular muscle is sore,

00:24:39.780 | does that mean that muscle is not ready to be trained again?

00:24:42.740 | - Yeah, the answer to both of those is the same,

00:24:44.980 | which is no, right?

00:24:46.780 | You can certainly train a sore muscle.

00:24:48.880 | You need to, I guess,

00:24:50.620 | have a little bit of feel on that, right?

00:24:52.820 | So if you're a sore of like,

00:24:54.980 | okay, and you're moving around a little bit,

00:24:56.620 | and you're like, man, this is a little bit sore,

00:24:58.060 | you can train.

00:24:59.020 | If you're like, I can't sit on the couch without crying

00:25:01.980 | because my glutes are so sore,

00:25:03.380 | like we probably don't need to train again, right?

00:25:06.420 | - Does whimpering count as crying?

00:25:08.160 | - Yeah, in that particular case, I'd say,

00:25:12.160 | you've actually gone to a place of detriment

00:25:14.780 | because now you're gonna have to skip a training session,

00:25:17.620 | and now you're behind.

00:25:18.680 | So your actual total volume, say across the month,

00:25:21.380 | is actually gonna be lower

00:25:22.220 | because you went way too hard in those workouts,

00:25:24.780 | had to take too many days off in between.

00:25:27.060 | You're gonna see that you're gonna cover less distance

00:25:28.700 | over the course of a month or six months or even a year.

00:25:31.780 | So you wanna walk a pretty fine line.

00:25:33.560 | And for most people, I would say hedge a little bit

00:25:35.980 | on the side of less sore than more sore

00:25:38.980 | because frequency is very, very important

00:25:41.440 | for almost all these adaptations.

00:25:43.300 | - A training frequency.

00:25:44.660 | - Which is the last modifiable variable, right?

00:25:47.060 | Frequency, which is how many times per week

00:25:49.300 | are you doing that thing?

00:25:51.940 | So those are kind of our global things

00:25:55.760 | that we can play with.

00:25:56.600 | So when I'm trying to manipulate

00:25:57.940 | and you can get strength versus hypertrophy,

00:26:00.700 | or you know what, I want like a little bit of both,

00:26:03.420 | all those variables are the things

00:26:04.720 | that are going through my mind.

00:26:05.560 | Which one do I need to move in which direction

00:26:07.540 | so that I can get this outcome

00:26:09.060 | and not this outcome over here?

00:26:11.540 | For example, some folks might wanna get stronger,

00:26:13.600 | but not put muscle mass on.

00:26:15.820 | Some folks are just kind of want both.

00:26:17.600 | And that's a lot of the general public.

00:26:18.860 | I wanna get a little stronger

00:26:19.700 | and a little bit more muscle, great.

00:26:21.220 | But there are instances where people for performance reasons

00:26:24.820 | or for purely personal preference,

00:26:26.540 | like I don't wanna get any more muscle, great,

00:26:28.380 | but I wanna get stronger.

00:26:29.820 | Awesome, if you manipulate those variables correctly,

00:26:31.900 | you can get exactly that.

00:26:33.340 | Very little development of muscle size

00:26:35.260 | and a lot of development in strength.

00:26:36.860 | And this is why we continue to break world records

00:26:39.340 | in sports like powerlifting and weightlifting

00:26:41.020 | that have weight classes.

00:26:42.540 | So there's a top number that we can hit

00:26:44.300 | in terms of body size,

00:26:45.580 | but yet we continue to get stronger and faster.

00:26:48.000 | So this is very possible if you understand

00:26:49.820 | how to manipulate all those variables.

00:26:52.340 | So that being said, we can start off with,

00:26:53.940 | you wanted to go strength and I think-

00:26:55.100 | - Yeah, strength and I love that you mentioned

00:26:57.380 | the fact that it is possible to increase strength

00:26:59.480 | without increasing muscle size, at least not dramatically,

00:27:02.280 | because I think it's not just weight class athletes.

00:27:04.440 | I know a lot of people who, for aesthetic reasons,

00:27:08.120 | they'd like to be stronger.

00:27:09.200 | They're hearing that having strong bones

00:27:10.720 | and strong muscles and tendons,

00:27:11.820 | it's great for longevity and for avoiding injury

00:27:13.860 | and so many other features of life.

00:27:15.960 | And yet they don't want to fill out progressively larger

00:27:20.460 | and larger sizes of clothing.

00:27:23.100 | - And we can go harder to the mechanisms

00:27:24.620 | on that piece if you want,

00:27:25.460 | and we can save that and come back to it.

00:27:26.920 | - Sure, what I'd love to, both,

00:27:29.980 | what I'd love to know, in other words,

00:27:32.140 | if we could define some of these modifiable variables

00:27:34.660 | in the context of strength.

00:27:35.740 | So let's say I were somebody who,

00:27:38.960 | I come to you and I say,

00:27:41.040 | and let's just say for sake of balance here,

00:27:44.160 | 'cause she actually does do some weight training,

00:27:45.740 | I bring my sister in and I say,

00:27:47.820 | me and my sister both want to get stronger.

00:27:50.680 | What modifiable variables should,

00:27:54.140 | how should we modify the variables?

00:27:55.980 | - Love it, all right, great.

00:27:57.240 | I'm going to do inception on you one more time.

00:27:59.340 | So one of my other laws,

00:28:00.780 | oh, this won't be fast, I promise,

00:28:01.980 | of strength and conditioning, is in general,

00:28:04.740 | the default is all joints through all range of motion.

00:28:08.500 | So this is important because it's going to answer

00:28:10.780 | your very first question on this strength category.

00:28:13.740 | So in general, the ankle should go

00:28:16.420 | through the full range of motion of the ankle.

00:28:17.740 | The knee should go through the full range of motion,

00:28:19.320 | the knee, the hip, the elbow, et cetera, et cetera, right?

00:28:21.940 | - Across the workout, not in a single movement.

00:28:24.420 | - Well, right.

00:28:25.760 | I would hope, unless there's an amazing exercise

00:28:28.140 | I haven't heard about.

00:28:28.980 | - Well, there are some exercises

00:28:30.080 | that we're going to call more full body,

00:28:32.380 | think about a full snatch.

00:28:34.340 | Like you're going to take a lot of your muscles,

00:28:36.320 | a lot of your joints through a lot of range of motions.

00:28:39.240 | Other ones, like in isolation,

00:28:40.540 | we call these single joint exercises.

00:28:42.100 | So imagine a bicep curl.

00:28:44.060 | You have one joint in that particular case,

00:28:45.520 | the elbow moving, the shoulder and everything else

00:28:47.820 | is pretty much stable.

00:28:49.420 | And this is how we'll differentiate multi-joint

00:28:51.380 | from single joint movements.

00:28:53.580 | But yeah, so across, I would even say it doesn't even have

00:28:56.180 | to be the day, but maybe throughout the week.

00:28:58.940 | Try to get every joint through full range of motion.

00:29:02.280 | Now, a couple of quick caveats to that.

00:29:04.800 | I am not advocating using full range of motion

00:29:08.660 | and allowing really bad exercise technique.

00:29:11.560 | So when I say full range of motion, that's the default.

00:29:13.560 | That doesn't mean every single person can do that

00:29:15.400 | for every single exercise.

00:29:16.520 | It means that's where we should be striving to

00:29:19.320 | and that's our starting point.

00:29:20.400 | You're going to see a lot less injury

00:29:22.700 | and a lot more productivity out of your training sessions.

00:29:24.800 | In fact, the science is fairly clear on this one.

00:29:27.600 | Strength development, as well as hypertrophy,

00:29:29.300 | is generally enhanced with a larger range

00:29:31.320 | of motion of training.

00:29:32.920 | And the mechanisms are somewhat understood on that.

00:29:37.920 | So that being said, if you have to get into, say,

00:29:41.840 | a bad position with your, say, low back,

00:29:43.880 | the spine is a very good one.

00:29:45.080 | In general, the spine should say it's very neutral,

00:29:47.040 | is what we call it.

00:29:47.900 | So no flexion, no extension, especially in the lumbar region.

00:29:51.480 | So if you're doing, say, a deadlift,

00:29:54.160 | and in order to take your knee through a full range

00:29:55.940 | of motion on a deadlift,

00:29:56.840 | you have to compromise your back position.

00:29:59.160 | That's no bueno.

00:30:00.000 | So caveats there aside, don't kill me.

00:30:03.740 | Like, in good positions always.

00:30:05.240 | - And don't kill yourselves, more importantly.

00:30:08.040 | - So why that matters is if we walk through strength,

00:30:10.320 | the very first thing I'm going to go through

00:30:11.660 | is the exercise selection.

00:30:13.040 | So let's choose an exercise which ideally has

00:30:15.680 | a full range of motion or close to it.

00:30:17.960 | That doesn't induce injury for you,

00:30:19.640 | but you can still maintain good neck and low back

00:30:22.420 | and position and everything else.

00:30:24.520 | You feel comfortable with, so you can feel strong,

00:30:27.420 | but you don't feel like, oh my gosh,

00:30:28.680 | if you've never snatched before,

00:30:30.880 | having you do a snatch for a maximum, even 75%,

00:30:34.800 | like it's a terrible idea.

00:30:35.680 | You're not going to feel confident

00:30:36.760 | it's going to be a train wreck.

00:30:38.040 | I would rather put you on a machine bent press.

00:30:40.440 | So you can go, I feel stable, I feel safe here,

00:30:42.040 | and I can just express my strength.

00:30:44.960 | So exercise choice in general, full range of motion,

00:30:48.780 | and you want to kind of balance between the movement areas.

00:30:51.760 | So this is an upper body press.

00:30:53.360 | So this is pushing away from you, bench press,

00:30:55.940 | things like that.

00:30:56.780 | Upper body pull, pulling an implement towards you,

00:30:59.680 | bent row, pull up.

00:31:01.240 | The pressing should be horizontal,

00:31:04.000 | so perpendicular to your body, as well as vertical.

00:31:06.720 | So this is lifting a weight over top of your head,

00:31:09.480 | lifting away from you.

00:31:11.520 | The pull version is pulling horizontally to you

00:31:13.600 | and pulling vertically down, pull up, things like that.

00:31:17.020 | From the lower body, we typically call these hinges.

00:31:20.540 | It's sort of a funny muscle thing

00:31:21.920 | that no one's going to laugh at,

00:31:22.880 | but like maybe me and you here,

00:31:24.900 | is we'll categorize muscles as, or movements,

00:31:27.560 | exercises as pushes and pulls, right?

00:31:30.080 | So like a squat tends to be a push,

00:31:32.080 | 'cause you're pushing away the ground.

00:31:33.520 | A deadlift is a pull,

00:31:34.440 | 'cause you're pulling the implement up to you.

00:31:36.640 | But in reality, every single exercise is only ever a pull,

00:31:39.940 | 'cause muscle doesn't push things away.

00:31:41.540 | Muscle can only contract and pull on itself.

00:31:43.480 | And so, again, super nerdy thing

00:31:46.120 | that like most people are like, "Yeah!"

00:31:47.400 | And everyone's like, "That's so dumb."

00:31:48.680 | - No, but I think it's a really important point,

00:31:50.400 | because it also speaks to something

00:31:52.400 | I think we'll get into later,

00:31:53.540 | which is that, you know, posterior chain,

00:31:55.400 | anterior chain. - Totally.

00:31:57.240 | - And if that's mysterious to people,

00:31:58.840 | it'll become clear before long.

00:32:00.800 | Posterior chain, anterior chain,

00:32:03.320 | makes a lot of sense to me,

00:32:04.460 | because of the way it's grounded

00:32:05.580 | in the firing of motor neurons,

00:32:06.960 | which is ultimately what controls muscle.

00:32:09.180 | So it's also, I think- - Feel your nerves

00:32:10.420 | all the time. - Exactly.

00:32:11.440 | So it also depends on the lens

00:32:12.820 | through which one looks at life and exercise.

00:32:15.280 | Of course, my lens is primarily neuroscience.

00:32:17.360 | So, but I realized that the importance,

00:32:20.280 | I like this idea of pushing perpendicular to the body,

00:32:23.880 | overhead, pulling both toward the body and from overhead.

00:32:28.880 | That just makes really good intuitive sense,

00:32:31.000 | especially since a lot of people

00:32:31.920 | were just listening to this and not watching it.

00:32:33.440 | So in your minds, folks,

00:32:34.720 | you can think about pushing away like a punch,

00:32:37.560 | or overhead, like lifting something overhead,

00:32:40.240 | and then pulling toward your midline,

00:32:43.040 | or toward your body, rather,

00:32:44.280 | and then pulling yourself up,

00:32:45.480 | like a pull-up in PE class for those of you that-

00:32:48.600 | - So the lower body's the same thing, right?

00:32:50.160 | It's some sort of pushing away,

00:32:51.640 | like a squat, or a split squat, or a lunge,

00:32:54.680 | or something like that.

00:32:55.840 | And then some sort of, again, we'll call pull or hinge.

00:32:59.000 | So a deadlift, or a Romanian deadlift,

00:33:01.280 | or a hamstring curl,

00:33:02.320 | or something where you're contracting

00:33:03.800 | and pulling the thing.

00:33:05.760 | And you could split these

00:33:06.600 | into like a thousand different categories.

00:33:08.080 | If you're really in that field,

00:33:09.780 | you're gonna wanna add a bunch of other ones.

00:33:12.040 | But that's just like a rough conception.

00:33:13.820 | So if you were going to do a single workout,

00:33:15.920 | you could choose four exercises,

00:33:17.840 | and you could choose one of each.

00:33:18.880 | One press, upper body press, one upper body pull,

00:33:22.040 | one lower body hinge, one lower body press.

00:33:25.460 | And then that would be like a decently well-rounded exercise.

00:33:29.260 | That's your exercise selection.

00:33:31.920 | And if you're taking those through a full range of motion,

00:33:33.480 | you're at a pretty good spot, as close as you can.

00:33:35.680 | The next one is intensity.

00:33:36.960 | So if you wanna develop strength,

00:33:38.440 | this comes back to one of my favorite scientists of all time,

00:33:41.360 | who happens to be a nerve guy, actually.

00:33:43.360 | And generally, I like to shit on nerves

00:33:44.820 | as much as I possibly can, 'cause I'm a muscle guy.

00:33:47.320 | But I have to give Henneman some credit here, right?

00:33:49.500 | And I know you know who that is.

00:33:50.680 | Henneman's size principle.

00:33:51.620 | Yeah, of course, right?

00:33:53.240 | So this is a series of papers.

00:33:54.500 | I think it was in "Nature."

00:33:56.840 | At least some of them, yeah.

00:33:58.060 | Yeah, in 1954, '56, or like something.

00:34:01.360 | You can fact check me, I'm sure you will.

00:34:04.220 | But he basically outlined this idea that,

00:34:06.680 | okay, there's a certain recruitment threshold needed

00:34:09.800 | for neurons to fire.

00:34:10.800 | And we have muscle fibers in what we call

00:34:13.820 | fast twitch muscle fibers and slow twitch muscle fibers.

00:34:16.160 | And in general, you're going to activate

00:34:18.220 | the slow twitch ones first,

00:34:19.760 | because they tend to be associated

00:34:21.000 | with low threshold motor neurons.

00:34:22.760 | It's not exactly that way, but it's close enough, right?

00:34:25.640 | Well, the only way that you activate

00:34:27.240 | some of these higher threshold neurons

00:34:28.760 | is to demand the muscle to produce more force.

00:34:32.880 | And it's fairly specific to force, right?

00:34:34.800 | It's not something you can do over an endurance thing,

00:34:38.200 | unless it gets really extreme and particularly happens.

00:34:41.520 | So in general, the only way to use

00:34:43.280 | these big chunks of your muscle,

00:34:45.720 | which are incredibly important for aging, by the way,

00:34:47.520 | one of the major problems we have with aging developing

00:34:50.400 | or development of aging related issues with muscle

00:34:53.040 | is the fact that we lose fast twitch fibers preferentially.

00:34:55.560 | And then we have major problems as we go down the line

00:34:58.200 | because we've lost a big chunk of our strength and size.

00:35:00.280 | So you want to make sure these fibers stay alive and intact.

00:35:04.040 | Okay, so if that being said,

00:35:06.560 | the only way to develop strength

00:35:08.360 | is then to challenge the muscle to produce more total force.

00:35:11.440 | If you are fairly untrained or new,

00:35:16.160 | I guess I should have stated this all

00:35:17.280 | at the beginning as well.

00:35:18.120 | One more inception, then I'll stop.

00:35:20.520 | When it comes to this level of detail

00:35:22.040 | of exercise prescription, a fairly untrained person

00:35:25.600 | is going to respond basically the same

00:35:27.600 | to every single thing you do.

00:35:29.240 | In fact, we've done this in the lab many times.

00:35:30.840 | We've done training studies

00:35:32.280 | doing things like 30 minutes of cycling

00:35:34.720 | and seeing huge increases in muscle strength and size,

00:35:37.400 | which is not a prescription for most people to increase size,

00:35:40.880 | but people that are really untrained,

00:35:42.920 | if you did plyometrics or strength training

00:35:45.240 | or endurance running,

00:35:46.160 | they all just get better at everything.

00:35:48.560 | So that caveat kind of aside,

00:35:50.880 | if you want to be more intentional

00:35:52.200 | and more specific to the goal of strength,

00:35:55.240 | you need to produce more force.

00:35:56.760 | Specificity matters, right?

00:35:58.800 | So we have size principle to help understand this,

00:36:02.400 | and we have our laws of specificity,

00:36:04.200 | which say said principle, right?

00:36:06.480 | Specific adaptation to imposed demand.

00:36:08.760 | So the adaptation you get or the result of your training

00:36:11.960 | is going to be a reflection of the demand that you imposed.

00:36:15.600 | So if you want to get stronger,

00:36:17.240 | you need to impose a demand of strength, not repetitions.

00:36:21.800 | So this has to be, the load has to be very high.

00:36:24.520 | In general, you're probably looking

00:36:25.800 | at above 85% of your winner at max.

00:36:28.760 | If you're moderately trained, maybe 75% will work.

00:36:33.240 | Lowly trained again, everything works.

00:36:35.400 | But in general, we want to be pressing a load

00:36:38.080 | that's very high.

00:36:38.920 | So because the intensity demand is so high,

00:36:42.480 | that is going to force you to do a low repetition range.

00:36:46.080 | You can't do 12 reps at 95%.

00:36:49.080 | Then it wouldn't be 95% of your winner at max.

00:36:50.900 | So by definition, true strength training

00:36:53.740 | is really going to be in like five repetitions per set

00:36:56.360 | or less range.

00:36:58.000 | That's where most of it's going to occur for specificity.

00:37:00.960 | So we've covered choice, intensity, and repetitions, right?

00:37:05.960 | The total amount of sets that you do

00:37:08.400 | is really kind of up to your personal fitness level, right?

00:37:12.540 | If you did as little as like three sets per exercise,

00:37:15.400 | that's probably enough.

00:37:16.380 | - Work sets.

00:37:17.280 | - Totally, yeah, totally work sets, right.

00:37:19.000 | So get fully warmed up and build up to that 85%.

00:37:21.560 | Don't just walk into the gym and throw 85% on and go,

00:37:24.380 | "Thank you, that's an important distinction."

00:37:27.960 | So work your way up, do some, like a very classic warmup

00:37:31.520 | thing would be like a set of 10 at 50%,

00:37:35.040 | a set of eight at 60%, a set of maybe eight again at 70%,

00:37:39.400 | and then maybe like a set of five at 75%.

00:37:42.320 | So two or three or four sets kind of building intensity

00:37:45.020 | and lowering the rep range.

00:37:46.720 | And then you would go after your two or three working sets.

00:37:50.160 | Also, in terms of rest intervals.

00:37:54.720 | Now, because we're trying to,

00:37:56.240 | the primary driver of strength is intensity.

00:37:58.520 | It's not the volume, right, it's the intensity.

00:38:02.200 | So in order to maintain that,

00:38:03.140 | we have to do a low repetition range.

00:38:04.440 | But in addition, we also have to have a high rest interval

00:38:07.120 | because if we start to,

00:38:08.340 | if we have any amount of fatigue can occur

00:38:10.280 | and we have to then either reduce the reps

00:38:12.420 | or reduce the intensity, we've lost the primary driver.

00:38:15.620 | We've lost that main signal.

00:38:17.200 | So the number we're gonna throw out typically

00:38:18.660 | is like two to four minutes.

00:38:20.300 | So imagine you did, you know, your set of bench press

00:38:24.480 | and you did five repetitions at 85%,

00:38:27.240 | you probably want to rest two to four minutes

00:38:29.280 | before coming back to the bench.

00:38:31.180 | That doesn't mean you have to sit there on your phone.

00:38:33.240 | Like, in fact, please don't.

00:38:34.880 | Like, everyone will thank you for not doing that,

00:38:37.080 | I promise.

00:38:37.900 | You can engage other muscle groups.

00:38:40.400 | This is what we call supersetting.

00:38:41.800 | So you're doing your bench press

00:38:43.040 | and while that two minute clock

00:38:44.600 | is running for your chest to rest,

00:38:47.120 | you can go over and do your deadlifts.

00:38:49.280 | And so, you know, you can kind of move back and forth

00:38:52.160 | and this is how you can make strength training

00:38:54.640 | not seven hour workout.

00:38:56.820 | If you're a professional athlete,

00:38:57.660 | you're gonna take that time

00:38:59.220 | because you want to maximize the outcome.

00:39:01.320 | We've done this actually in our lab too.

00:39:03.520 | Supersets will reduce the strength gains

00:39:06.840 | but by a tiny amount and most of us don't care enough

00:39:10.180 | relative to it's going to triple the length

00:39:12.040 | of your training session.

00:39:13.720 | It's not worth it.

00:39:14.640 | So for the average person, I will tell them,

00:39:16.560 | yeah, superset.

00:39:17.400 | For someone who's trying to break a world record

00:39:19.920 | in weightlifting or powerlifting, I don't superset.

00:39:23.040 | - Interesting.

00:39:23.880 | You know, I think I've found that

00:39:26.280 | I don't recover particularly well

00:39:27.920 | from strength and hypertrophy training.

00:39:29.640 | - Like in the workout or the next day?

00:39:32.160 | - From workout to workout.

00:39:33.360 | Unless I keep the total duration of those workouts,

00:39:37.200 | I like to say no more than 60 minutes of work,

00:39:41.680 | of real work, maybe 75.

00:39:44.280 | Past 75, I find that I just start to,

00:39:46.880 | I have to introduce additional rest days

00:39:49.380 | or I just get weaker over time.

00:39:51.840 | So I'd set a kind of a limit at 50 minutes

00:39:55.240 | and then I usually violate that limit

00:39:57.200 | and end up doing 60 minutes.

00:39:59.220 | So I'm excited to hear that one can superset exercises

00:40:04.220 | as long as they work different muscle groups, of course.

00:40:07.600 | So I wouldn't want to do like bench press

00:40:09.280 | and overhead press supersetted 'cause we can,

00:40:11.760 | I think that goes without saying for most people

00:40:13.900 | but just to point that out.

00:40:15.240 | But that I could do some push-pull, push-pull

00:40:19.060 | without compromising total intensity that much.

00:40:22.760 | And I certainly would be willing to give up

00:40:24.400 | a rep here or there or a few pounds here or there.

00:40:28.220 | And may I ask whether or not in doing that

00:40:32.400 | one gets any even tiny bit or more of additional benefit

00:40:37.400 | in terms of cardiovascular work?

00:40:40.480 | Because I imagine after all, even a one rep max,

00:40:43.520 | which I've never done as I mentioned,

00:40:44.520 | but let's say I get three reps on the overhead press

00:40:47.340 | and then I get four reps on a weighted pull-up

00:40:50.640 | and I'm going back and forth.

00:40:51.840 | I'm no doubt going to be breathing harder

00:40:53.880 | than if I was sitting there texting away on my phone

00:40:56.520 | in between sets.

00:40:57.540 | - Yep, of course.

00:40:58.660 | Yeah, and so in fact, in general,

00:41:00.360 | one of the things that I'll present in my class

00:41:03.140 | is a giant list of, in fact, on the top

00:41:06.900 | is all of these different exercise adaptations

00:41:08.640 | I started the conversation with.

00:41:10.240 | And on the vertical column are as many

00:41:13.840 | of the physiological potential adaptations one would get.

00:41:16.800 | So changes in endogenous pH, blood pressure,

00:41:20.320 | lymphatic changes, bone density, all these things, right?

00:41:23.200 | And just have this giant list.

00:41:24.360 | And then you can run a matrix and you can start to look at,

00:41:27.200 | okay, if I do speed training,

00:41:28.400 | am I going to see changes in the nervous system?

00:41:30.840 | Well, like very much so, right?

00:41:32.320 | That's the primary actual reason those things work.

00:41:35.140 | Very little change in the muscle system.

00:41:36.720 | It's almost exclusively explained by the central

00:41:39.260 | or peripheral nervous system, right?

00:41:41.000 | On that same token, are you going to expect

00:41:43.400 | many cardiovascular adaptations from speed?

00:41:45.480 | And the answer is no, because although we didn't cover it,

00:41:48.140 | speed is very low intensity, very low rep range,

00:41:50.960 | very high rest.

00:41:52.640 | Well, as you go to like strength

00:41:53.920 | and then you go to hypertrophy,

00:41:54.880 | you start seeing more and more increases

00:41:56.800 | in cardiovascular adaptations

00:41:58.020 | because you're doing exactly that, right?

00:42:00.000 | You're starting to reduce stress

00:42:02.040 | and you're starting to increase volume.

00:42:04.360 | But you're going to lose things

00:42:05.700 | like bone mineral adaptations

00:42:08.340 | because the load starts to go down.

00:42:10.160 | So you can look at this matrix and kind of understand

00:42:12.540 | if I'm a person who wants to kind of maximize

00:42:16.560 | the adaptations I get across my entire physiology

00:42:19.300 | for the least amount of work,

00:42:22.680 | you can choose these different adaptations to go after

00:42:25.900 | that are going to kind of land on these things, right?

00:42:27.660 | And exactly as you mentioned,

00:42:28.940 | if you're going to take five minutes rest between each rep,

00:42:31.820 | so let's say the extreme,

00:42:32.740 | you're going to do three sets of one repetition for strength

00:42:35.240 | at 95%, you're going to take probably five,

00:42:37.800 | maybe seven minutes between each attempt.

00:42:40.660 | Like you better not expect many like changes

00:42:42.560 | in your resting blood pressure,

00:42:43.720 | that there's no cardiovascular strain there.

00:42:45.840 | You're going to put it together in a circuit

00:42:47.620 | where you're going to lose

00:42:48.460 | some potential strength adaptation,

00:42:49.880 | but you're going to gain something there.

00:42:52.360 | So all of these things are,

00:42:53.480 | it's not about good or bad or right or wrong.

00:42:55.760 | It's always about what advantage do you want

00:42:58.240 | and what disadvantage do you want?

00:43:00.200 | And I can cut like really into the chase here

00:43:02.600 | on one of these things,

00:43:04.560 | 'cause we'll get to this eventually.

00:43:06.360 | If you want to know the ones

00:43:07.320 | that are going to generally give you

00:43:08.320 | the most physiological adaptations across the most categories

00:43:12.000 | you're almost always looking

00:43:12.940 | for hypertrophy type of training.

00:43:14.640 | And then there's this anaerobic conditioning

00:43:17.300 | piece that we'll get into.

00:43:18.140 | That's going to hit the most systems at once.

00:43:20.080 | - That's great to know.

00:43:20.960 | And we should definitely go a little bit deeper

00:43:23.060 | on those types of what the modifiable variables are

00:43:26.960 | for those categories.

00:43:27.860 | 'Cause I think that I'm guessing the vast majority

00:43:29.860 | of people want to be a bit stronger,

00:43:31.680 | maybe add some, a little bit of muscle or more,

00:43:35.480 | make sure their heart is healthy and et cetera.

00:43:38.080 | This is wonderful.

00:43:40.600 | And I think it's clarifying certainly a lot for me.

00:43:43.440 | So for strength, let's, I guess training frequency.

00:43:47.280 | - Frequency, cool.

00:43:48.120 | - So what should determine training frequency?

00:43:49.420 | And I had the great benefit of a long time ago

00:43:54.080 | when I was in high school, actually,

00:43:55.800 | I paid for a session over the phone with Mike Mentzer.

00:43:59.560 | - Oh, lovely.

00:44:00.400 | - You know, the Mike Mentzer.

00:44:01.600 | We got to be friends over time.

00:44:04.200 | At the time I was pretty young and my mother kept saying

00:44:06.360 | like, why is this like grown man calling the house?

00:44:09.320 | And we would talk all the time about training,

00:44:11.060 | but he tried to convince me to train once every five

00:44:14.480 | to seven days, very few sets, very high intensity.

00:44:18.440 | And I must say it worked incredibly well.

00:44:23.240 | - Sure.

00:44:24.080 | - It was, I think with my recovery quotient,

00:44:26.960 | which was not very good, I think has improved over time,

00:44:29.400 | but was not very good.

00:44:30.240 | It was remarkable.

00:44:31.940 | But of course, this was a time when I was, you know.

00:44:34.400 | - Full of the most animalism you've ever had.

00:44:36.240 | - I was 14, I was on my own version of anabolics, right?

00:44:39.080 | It was, you know, really had, I had a long arc of puberty.

00:44:41.860 | - And you were untrained.

00:44:43.220 | - And I was mostly untrained.

00:44:44.300 | I've been running cross country and skateboarding

00:44:46.580 | and playing soccer, so.

00:44:47.700 | - And doing all the things that are like the antithesis

00:44:50.020 | of growing muscle.

00:44:50.860 | - It was literally, and people will probably say impossible,

00:44:52.620 | it was something like 40 pounds of muscle

00:44:54.460 | inside of 12 months.

00:44:55.540 | It was crazy.

00:44:56.380 | - I would believe that.

00:44:57.200 | - You know, but, and so then of course

00:44:59.740 | that stopped working over time.

00:45:01.380 | And then you start going down the odyssey

00:45:04.300 | of trying to find the thing that's going to work that well.

00:45:06.220 | And you eventually realized that it was

00:45:07.600 | because you were untrained, right?

00:45:10.060 | So training frequency is crucial.

00:45:14.820 | Let's say that people are doing these whole body workouts

00:45:17.380 | as you've described them.

00:45:18.220 | Not alternating upper body, lower body.

00:45:20.060 | 'Cause there's so many different splits

00:45:21.200 | that we probably doesn't make sense

00:45:22.640 | to go into splits right now.

00:45:25.920 | But how often can and should one train a muscle?

00:45:30.400 | And how do you know if a muscle is recovered locally?

00:45:33.640 | And how do you know if your nervous system

00:45:35.360 | is recovered systemically?

00:45:36.580 | - Okay, this is a bunch of really interesting questions.

00:45:38.660 | I'm not sure exactly what route you want to go.

00:45:40.240 | So I'll start here.

00:45:41.940 | As I mentioned earlier,

00:45:43.380 | soreness is not a good barometer of exercise quality

00:45:45.820 | because some types of training

00:45:47.340 | are going to induce more soreness

00:45:48.720 | and some are going to induce less.

00:45:51.000 | That's important to this conversation

00:45:52.400 | because when you ask about how do you know

00:45:54.580 | if a muscle is ready to train again,

00:45:56.680 | one of the question is, what are you training for?

00:45:59.120 | If you're training for hypertrophy,

00:46:01.560 | muscle size, muscle growth,

00:46:03.480 | we need to hedge towards recovery

00:46:05.200 | because what you're trying to do

00:46:06.180 | is cause a massive insult there,

00:46:07.820 | allow then protein synthesis to occur,

00:46:11.340 | building of new tissue, which takes time,

00:46:13.600 | 48 to 72 hours, like kind of at a minimum,

00:46:17.220 | that process needs to occur.

00:46:18.520 | If you're doing actually more strength,

00:46:20.420 | and this is a differentiation

00:46:21.560 | between hypertrophy and strength,

00:46:23.300 | then you didn't induce actually much damage.

00:46:25.280 | In fact, you're generally not going to get very sore

00:46:27.100 | from true strength training, very little,

00:46:29.260 | unless you get really heavy or you did it a lot.

00:46:32.560 | The primary driver of hypertrophy

00:46:34.860 | is not the same primary driver of strength.

00:46:37.440 | We talked about that already.

00:46:38.360 | That's intensity driven.

00:46:39.940 | For hypertrophy, it's not intensity.

00:46:43.020 | So because we have different mechanisms,

00:46:45.100 | we have different outcomes,

00:46:46.420 | even though they're closely aligned,

00:46:48.460 | strength is not going to cause a lot of soreness.

00:46:50.280 | Therefore, intensity is the driver.

00:46:52.380 | Therefore, frequency can be as high as you want.

00:46:55.740 | So you can train every single day, the same exact muscle,

00:46:58.820 | if speed or power or strength

00:47:01.340 | are the primary training tools,

00:47:03.340 | because you need stimulus there, skill as well, right?

00:47:06.380 | Practice.

00:47:07.660 | You know that as much as anybody.

00:47:10.060 | Developing a new motor pattern

00:47:11.500 | requires a lot of repetitions, right?

00:47:13.660 | You don't need a tremendous amount of rest.

00:47:15.460 | That's not, it's not a damage thing, right?

00:47:17.860 | It's a re-patterning issue.

00:47:19.540 | So strength training, in fact, if you look at,

00:47:22.540 | again, true strength professional athletes,

00:47:24.860 | they're going to train the same muscles basically every day.

00:47:27.860 | - Wow.

00:47:28.680 | - They're going to squat every day.

00:47:29.520 | - And is that because the primary mode of adaptation

00:47:32.540 | is recruitment of these high threshold motor units?

00:47:35.260 | So it's mainly neural.

00:47:37.020 | - No.

00:47:38.160 | So everyone's going to say that,

00:47:39.300 | and this is where I get all feisty.

00:47:40.620 | - Well, I'm not saying that.

00:47:41.720 | That was actually, there was a question mark there.

00:47:43.340 | - Okay, okay.

00:47:44.180 | - If we were online putting comments,

00:47:45.860 | there'd be a question mark.

00:47:46.980 | - We would have fought.

00:47:48.340 | I would have blocked you.

00:47:49.860 | I was just kidding.

00:47:50.680 | - I think you already blocked me.

00:47:51.860 | - Probably twice.

00:47:52.700 | (laughing)

00:47:55.380 | Okay.

00:47:56.840 | The early adaptations to exercise,

00:47:58.780 | especially strength training,

00:48:00.620 | are hedged towards the nervous system.

00:48:02.840 | No question about it.

00:48:03.680 | People always say central nervous system,

00:48:04.860 | but it's probably more peripheral, right?

00:48:07.100 | Whatever, semantics probably, but pedantic.

00:48:09.200 | It's nerve.

00:48:10.960 | If you train today, tomorrow morning,

00:48:12.880 | you're not going to wake up with a actually increase

00:48:15.660 | in contractile proteins in muscle.

00:48:17.440 | Your muscle might be a little bit bigger

00:48:19.220 | due to some acute swelling,

00:48:21.020 | but you could have a pretty acute that persists change

00:48:25.900 | in the nervous system, we'll call it,

00:48:27.260 | that allows you to be stronger within a couple of days.

00:48:30.580 | Sustained hypertrophy is probably more along the lines

00:48:32.980 | of four weeks where we can see that, right?

00:48:35.300 | We can actually see changes like in the ultrasound.

00:48:38.100 | Now, you're making changes immediately.

00:48:39.500 | That protein synthesis process is happening very fast,

00:48:43.260 | and it's going to last.

00:48:44.140 | It just takes us time to measure it

00:48:46.420 | in terms of a noticeable change in your whole muscle size.

00:48:49.380 | So that being said, the first four weeks,

00:48:51.220 | we typically say are primarily nervous system.

00:48:54.900 | After that, now we're starting to see most of the changes

00:48:57.700 | coming from the muscle side of the equation.

00:49:00.000 | So with strength development,

00:49:01.900 | it's a combination of three areas.

00:49:03.560 | In fact, all muscle contraction has these same three things.

00:49:06.940 | It starts off with some signal, right?

00:49:09.260 | From somewhere in the body,

00:49:10.580 | whether it's all the way up the top

00:49:11.740 | or at the level of the spine,

00:49:13.060 | depending on if this is a reaction

00:49:14.560 | or an actual conscious control.

00:49:17.780 | From there, that some signal has to tell the muscle

00:49:20.100 | to contract, okay?

00:49:21.020 | So signal is one.

00:49:22.220 | Two, it's muscular contraction.

00:49:23.780 | And there's a lot of variables

00:49:24.840 | inside the muscle tissue itself

00:49:26.980 | that determine its functionality.

00:49:28.900 | And so if we took an individual biopsy

00:49:30.740 | and took a muscle fiber from you and took one from me,

00:49:32.580 | and we took those muscles out and put them in a Petri dish,

00:49:35.460 | and I tied one end to a force transducer

00:49:37.780 | and the other end to a thing that pulls it,

00:49:39.940 | and we soaked it in a bath of calcium

00:49:41.580 | and a bunch of other stuff,

00:49:42.940 | even if they were the same size,

00:49:45.480 | your fibers might contract a lot faster than mine,

00:49:48.540 | even relative to size, or not, or slower,

00:49:51.560 | or there's various properties.

00:49:53.120 | So the intrinsic fibers themselves

00:49:55.960 | determine a lot of functionality.

00:49:58.200 | From there, muscle fibers don't cause movements.

00:50:01.060 | Muscle fibers simply contract.

00:50:02.960 | They're all surrounded with connective tissue.

00:50:04.680 | And that's all surrounded

00:50:05.520 | with a bunch of more connective tissue.

00:50:07.140 | That all surrounds into a muscle.

00:50:08.460 | That muscle is then surrounded with more connective tissue.

00:50:10.680 | That all comes together into a giant tendon.

00:50:13.600 | That tendon attaches to the bone.

00:50:15.120 | It's pulling on those tendon

00:50:16.460 | that actually move the bone that cause human movement.

00:50:18.840 | So that's area three.

00:50:19.740 | Area one, the nervous system.

00:50:21.100 | Area two, the muscle contraction.

00:50:22.500 | Area three, some sort of connective tissue thing.

00:50:25.820 | Changes happen at all three of those levels.

00:50:28.460 | And we're not even now talking,

00:50:29.740 | we even entered the discussion of biomechanics,

00:50:31.700 | and you changed, say, the panation angle of the muscle,

00:50:34.580 | which is the angle at which the muscle fibers

00:50:36.620 | lay relative to the bone, right?

00:50:38.720 | So this is basic mechanics.

00:50:39.820 | Is it pulling perpendicular to the bone?

00:50:41.660 | Is it pulling horizontal to the bone or some sort of angle?

00:50:44.580 | All of these things determine human performance.

00:50:47.960 | So when you're talking about, again,

00:50:49.040 | that strength development,

00:50:50.760 | you can see tremendous improvements

00:50:52.900 | in total force production

00:50:54.280 | by manipulating all of those areas,

00:50:57.060 | and you have not touched changes in muscle size.

00:51:00.120 | If you change muscle size in a true sustained fashion,

00:51:04.640 | whether this is circle plasmic or contractile proteins,

00:51:08.420 | you have given yourself more opportunity

00:51:10.260 | to produce more force.

00:51:11.120 | It doesn't guarantee you produce more force.

00:51:14.060 | Bodybuilders are not stronger than power lifters,

00:51:16.460 | even though they have more muscle.

00:51:18.100 | But bodybuilders are probably stronger than most people.

00:51:21.180 | So there is a relationship between muscle size and strength.

00:51:24.660 | It's just not a one-to-one guaranteed ratio,

00:51:27.280 | and that's generally because

00:51:28.780 | although the muscle has been aided,

00:51:32.040 | they may have not changed the biomechanical considerations,

00:51:34.460 | they may have not changed the connective tissue,

00:51:36.740 | nor the nervous system stuff.

00:51:38.860 | And so that's why we see this giant relationship

00:51:41.220 | that R-value is pretty high

00:51:43.080 | between strength and hypertrophy,

00:51:44.160 | but if you really wanna get to the ends of it, it's not.

00:51:47.240 | And that matters to your actual question 10 minutes ago,

00:51:50.500 | because again, you can train strength daily

00:51:53.660 | on the same muscle,

00:51:55.000 | but if you want to allow for that process

00:51:57.020 | of contractile proteins to add and grow,

00:52:00.640 | then you're gonna have to allow some recovery,

00:52:02.240 | because if you go back into that muscle too soon,

00:52:04.820 | you're gonna blunt the response,

00:52:06.540 | you're gonna stop it, you're gonna cut it off.

00:52:08.360 | You have all kinds of problems going on in the cell

00:52:10.840 | that are gonna just attenuate that growth response.

00:52:14.340 | So I gave you the answer for strength training.

00:52:17.380 | The answer for hypertrophy is

00:52:19.100 | probably less than three out of 10 on level of soreness,

00:52:23.260 | so you can go again.

00:52:24.100 | In general, you're probably looking at 72 hours

00:52:26.540 | is the optimal window.

00:52:28.260 | So if you trained your shoulders on Monday,

00:52:31.820 | you probably would don't wanna train them again on Tuesday.

00:52:34.020 | If hypertrophy is the goal,

00:52:35.900 | maybe Wednesday, maybe Thursday is best.

00:52:38.660 | So something like an every two to three day window

00:52:41.160 | is probably,

00:52:42.600 | and we know a little bit more now about why that is.

00:52:45.820 | The gene cascade, the signaling response happens,

00:52:48.460 | well, the signaling happens instantaneously, right?

00:52:50.760 | Within seconds.

00:52:51.980 | The gene cascade is probably in the,

00:52:54.160 | peaked in the four hour window,

00:52:55.680 | like depending on which gene you wanna look at,

00:52:58.960 | but it's just kind of a snapshot.

00:53:00.760 | But the protein synthesis process is 24 to 48 hour thing,

00:53:04.820 | and so it tends to kind of look like let that thing finish

00:53:07.300 | and let that signal go back to baseline

00:53:09.780 | and then hit it again.

00:53:11.420 | And then hit it again.

00:53:12.420 | And now as long as you're providing the nutrients,

00:53:14.180 | the recovery should happen,

00:53:16.060 | and you should be able to sustain the same work output

00:53:18.420 | in the training session so the stimulus stays high

00:53:21.180 | and the recovery's there

00:53:22.060 | and you can now continue to grow muscle.

00:53:24.060 | - You mentioned 48 to 72 hours for hypertrophy.

00:53:29.320 | What if, for whatever reasons,

00:53:35.420 | the training split, lifestyle factors, et cetera,

00:53:39.180 | somebody say, let's use your example,

00:53:40.880 | trains shoulders on Monday,

00:53:42.840 | ideally they would train them again on Thursday

00:53:46.580 | in their particular instance,

00:53:47.780 | somewhere Wednesday or Thursday, but they don't.

00:53:50.980 | They wait until Saturday or Sunday for whatever reason.

00:53:55.260 | Maybe it's more compatible with their work,

00:53:57.260 | work and other exercise schedule, whatever the reason.

00:54:00.940 | Are they actually losing hypertrophy that they gained

00:54:03.160 | or they've missed a window to induce further hypertrophy?

00:54:06.460 | - It's probably better to think about it the latter.

00:54:09.020 | It's not that you've lost,

00:54:10.340 | it's just you've just kind of lost an opportunity

00:54:12.140 | to make more progress.

00:54:13.800 | I will save you a little bit,

00:54:18.020 | and kind of going back to your HIIT program,

00:54:20.140 | this is the original high-intensity training,

00:54:22.360 | the menstrual thing, right?

00:54:23.520 | Which is not-

00:54:24.820 | - The HIIT with one eye,

00:54:25.680 | not the high-intensity interval training,

00:54:27.380 | but high-intensity training,

00:54:28.520 | like one set to absolute failure,

00:54:30.820 | maybe two for each muscle group.

00:54:34.200 | - 20-minute workouts.

00:54:35.240 | - Dividing your body into a three-way split,

00:54:37.500 | and then literally training six times a month,

00:54:40.440 | which most people would think that is absolutely crazy.

00:54:43.300 | There's no way that's going to work.

00:54:44.560 | And I can tell you, if you are untrained,

00:54:46.440 | you grow like a weed, if you train hard enough.

00:54:49.560 | - Even if you're trained, look at the people Mike trained.

00:54:52.040 | He put a lot of bodybuilders on really high levels.

00:54:54.920 | Now they had the same similar help you had

00:54:58.180 | at that timeframe.

00:54:59.020 | - Wait, to be very clear, I was not taking

00:55:00.840 | exogenous antibiotics.

00:55:01.880 | In fact, I will-

00:55:02.700 | - No, but your exogenous was just as good.

00:55:03.920 | - I probably was.

00:55:04.760 | I wasn't measuring my levels there, but I probably would.

00:55:06.680 | I grew easy.

00:55:07.580 | And in general, I tend to grow pretty easily

00:55:10.880 | from weight training.

00:55:11.920 | And I should say that, to Mike's credit,

00:55:15.280 | and I think this is an important message,

00:55:16.940 | that he was the one who really said,

00:55:20.360 | look, unless you're going to make

00:55:22.160 | a professional career out of it,

00:55:24.360 | do not run the health hazards of exogenous hormones.

00:55:28.080 | Certainly not at your age.

00:55:29.280 | So he deterred me from that, which was great,

00:55:31.080 | because it never entered my mind.

00:55:32.440 | It just was one of those things where Mike Mentzer

00:55:34.540 | said, don't do it.

00:55:35.540 | And he had clearly done it, right?

00:55:37.180 | And so he's speaking from an informed place.

00:55:39.100 | It never entered my mind, but also I was,

00:55:41.100 | what was really wild is I was continuing

00:55:44.220 | to run across country.

00:55:45.960 | And so there was a trade-off there at some point.

00:55:50.280 | But when you're young, you can get,

00:55:52.080 | many people can get away with what at this age

00:55:55.220 | would surely place me into a state of over-training,

00:55:57.500 | even at low volume.

00:55:58.420 | We'll see.

00:55:59.260 | - Yeah, well, I mean, like the whole field

00:56:00.340 | on interference effects has changed quite a bit recently,

00:56:03.920 | which we can come back to if you want.

00:56:05.580 | But just to finish out the idea here

00:56:08.140 | with that last question,

00:56:09.300 | if you want to take five days or six days

00:56:13.280 | in between each muscle group, you can do that.

00:56:15.580 | In fact, if you look at the research,

00:56:16.640 | it's going to show that frequency is not that important.

00:56:19.200 | It will, it's not that it's unimportant,

00:56:21.140 | but it can handle changes as long as you get

00:56:25.860 | the same total volume.

00:56:27.700 | So you can do that.

00:56:29.440 | You just have to do a lot more work in that one workout.

00:56:33.140 | If you care about the six week, eight week thing,

00:56:35.620 | if you're like, I'm in this for the next 60 years,

00:56:38.120 | like it's probably okay, right?

00:56:40.780 | But it can be there.

00:56:42.620 | The challenge with splitting up your training sessions

00:56:45.300 | for hypertrophy into smaller numbers,

00:56:48.340 | like once or twice a week,

00:56:50.380 | it's just difficult to get that number.

00:56:52.620 | It's typical to get that volume done.

00:56:55.180 | Volume wise, the more recent meta-analyses are going to say

00:56:59.600 | that you're probably looking at around 10 working sets

00:57:03.340 | per muscle group per week.

00:57:05.080 | Seems to be kind of the minimum threshold

00:57:06.820 | that you're going to want to hit.

00:57:07.920 | So if you did three sets of 10 at your shoulders on Monday,

00:57:11.300 | three sets of 10 shoulders Wednesday and three on Friday,

00:57:15.140 | that's nine working sets.

00:57:16.820 | If you wanted to do three different shoulder exercises

00:57:20.740 | on Monday and hit your nine sets,

00:57:23.320 | it's not really actually going to be that much different.

00:57:25.500 | The problem is 10 is kind of a minimum.

00:57:28.700 | You probably want to look for more like 15 to 20.

00:57:31.340 | And in fact, well-trained folks, 20, 25.

00:57:34.020 | That becomes very challenging in one workout.

00:57:36.960 | In fact, defunct though,

00:57:38.140 | you're not going to be able to do it, right?

00:57:39.280 | And so that is where it's not the frequency

00:57:42.260 | that looks like it kills you.

00:57:43.100 | It's just the fact you have got to get,

00:57:44.600 | because the total driver of strength is intensity,

00:57:46.860 | but the total driver of hypertrophy is volume.

00:57:49.620 | Assume you're taking it to fatigue, right?

00:57:51.360 | Or muscular failure.

00:57:52.460 | So it's just tough to get enough done if you can.

00:57:55.240 | And if you want to set your schedule up that way,

00:57:57.020 | like you probably remember,

00:57:58.600 | if you do those types of training sessions

00:58:00.160 | where you're just going to completely exhaust a muscle,

00:58:02.860 | it's going to be sore for a while.

00:58:06.520 | You're probably not going to come back.

00:58:08.440 | And that's sort of the logic behind that was

00:58:10.280 | let's take this thing to tremendous failure

00:58:12.380 | and give it six days to recover.

00:58:15.280 | It can work. It's just not the best.

00:58:18.460 | I think is one way to think about it for most people.

00:58:20.220 | - It's also hard to do those workouts

00:58:21.520 | without a training partner,

00:58:22.620 | if you really want to do them correctly.

00:58:24.000 | - And stimulants and headphones

00:58:25.480 | and all kinds of other things, right?

00:58:27.160 | - Well, anyway, yeah, stimulants are not,

00:58:29.600 | certainly don't recommend those.

00:58:31.760 | It may be a cup of coffee or two, if that's your thing,

00:58:34.560 | and maybe some of the safer supplements,

00:58:37.860 | but certainly not the sorts of stimulants

00:58:40.000 | that the guys in the seventies and eighties

00:58:41.480 | were famous for. - Or still use.

00:58:42.660 | - Or still use.

00:58:43.500 | You talked about repetition ranges broadly

00:58:46.820 | for strength training, so five or less.

00:58:49.300 | You said frequency could be as often as every day,

00:58:52.100 | rest two to four minutes, maybe even longer

00:58:54.740 | if you're going for one repetition maximum.

00:58:56.900 | For hypertrophy, what are the repetition ranges

00:59:00.900 | that are effective and what are the ones

00:59:02.820 | that are most effective if one is trying to maximize

00:59:06.280 | some of the other variables?

00:59:07.580 | Like people don't want to spend more than an hour

00:59:10.320 | to 75 minutes in the gym.

00:59:11.920 | Because I think that while the rep ranges

00:59:14.860 | might be quite broad, as you alluded to earlier,

00:59:17.300 | there's the practical, there are the practical constraints.

00:59:20.640 | So what repetition ranges or percent

00:59:23.180 | of one repetition maximum should people consider

00:59:26.820 | when thinking about hypertrophy?

00:59:27.980 | - Right, the quick answer there is anywhere

00:59:29.940 | between like five to 30 reps per set.

00:59:32.860 | That's going to show across the literature

00:59:35.700 | pretty much equal hypertrophy gains.

00:59:38.220 | And we could have a really interesting discussion

00:59:39.420 | about why that is, but I'm just remembering one thing

00:59:42.780 | from a second ago.

00:59:44.640 | I want to give a better answer for the frequency.

00:59:46.720 | You can do every single week for strength

00:59:48.600 | or every single day for strength.

00:59:50.420 | If you want though, like what's probably minimally viable,

00:59:52.360 | two, twice per week per muscle.

00:59:54.880 | So hamstrings, strength twice per week.

00:59:57.240 | That's a good number to get most people really strong.

01:00:00.280 | You can do every single day.

01:00:02.040 | You don't need to though.

01:00:02.880 | So I want to make sure that, like I wasn't saying

01:00:04.460 | you have to train a muscle 85% every single day

01:00:07.880 | to get it strong.

01:00:08.740 | Two is a good number.

01:00:09.580 | Three is great, but probably even two is really effective.

01:00:12.560 | - Got it.

01:00:13.400 | And this explains the high frequency

01:00:15.000 | of training for strength athletes.

01:00:17.180 | That's always mystified me.

01:00:19.000 | And the very long workouts make sense

01:00:20.440 | because very long-

01:00:21.280 | - They're going to even train twice a day.

01:00:22.640 | Like even though it's a squat,

01:00:23.680 | in the morning squat in the afternoon every day.

01:00:25.200 | - With their eating and their sleeping,

01:00:26.280 | they probably don't have time for anything else.

01:00:27.720 | - That's why they're pros.

01:00:28.800 | So that's their job, right?

01:00:30.160 | That's what they do.

01:00:31.000 | So yeah, hypertrophy.

01:00:32.260 | Strength training programming is somewhat complicated,

01:00:38.280 | because of, that's not the danger,

01:00:41.440 | but you're going to have to pay one way or the other, right?

01:00:44.760 | The risk is a little bit higher because the load's higher

01:00:46.900 | and you have to be a little bit more technically proficient.

01:00:49.680 | When it comes to hypertrophy training,

01:00:51.000 | the way I like to explain it is it's kind of idiot proof.

01:00:53.760 | The programming is idiot proof.

01:00:55.040 | The work is hard though.

01:00:56.780 | So here's your range.

01:00:58.600 | Anywhere between five reps and 30.

01:01:02.280 | Can you hit somewhere in there?

01:01:03.200 | Perfect.

01:01:04.040 | It's all equally effective.

01:01:04.860 | You can't screw that up.

01:01:06.360 | The only caveat for hypertrophy

01:01:08.040 | is you have to take it to muscular failure.

01:01:10.820 | - And you need enough rest for the adaptation

01:01:12.640 | and protein synthesis to occur?

01:01:14.080 | - Yep.

01:01:14.920 | - Yeah.

01:01:15.760 | - And if you recover faster,

01:01:16.580 | you can maybe do it more frequently.

01:01:17.420 | And if you don't, maybe less frequently.

01:01:19.460 | - By that logic, should people perhaps experiment

01:01:22.240 | and figure out what repetition range allows them to recover

01:01:25.880 | in concert with the training frequency

01:01:29.560 | that they can do consistently?

01:01:30.840 | - My recommendation is I think you should actually set your,

01:01:33.800 | use the repetition range as a way to have some variation,

01:01:40.200 | because most people don't want to go in the gym

01:01:41.560 | and do three sets of 10.

01:01:42.400 | They're going to get very bored very quickly.

01:01:43.800 | And so I think you should actually intentionally change

01:01:46.240 | the rep schemes for simple sake of having more fun.

01:01:48.940 | It is a very different challenge.

01:01:50.080 | The mechanisms that are inducing hypertrophy are different,

01:01:53.280 | but there's only a maximum amount of growth

01:01:54.880 | that one can get, right?

01:01:55.760 | And so you have, as best we think it now,

01:01:58.960 | and some people actually will espouse

01:02:00.880 | that we know really clearly about the mechanisms

01:02:03.420 | of muscle hypertrophy, we don't.

01:02:05.160 | It's still very much a guessing game,

01:02:06.920 | but the three most likely drivers are one,

01:02:10.360 | metabolic stress, two, mechanical tension,

01:02:13.480 | and then three, muscular damage.

01:02:15.960 | You don't have to have all three.

01:02:17.640 | One is sufficient.

01:02:18.580 | You can have a little bit of one or two,

01:02:20.800 | and you can kind of, so you get it to play here.

01:02:23.060 | We've already talked about the muscular damage.

01:02:24.560 | Again, it's very clear, more damage is not better,

01:02:27.300 | but it is somewhat a decent proxy, right?

01:02:31.680 | Like again, a little bit of soreness is good.

01:02:33.200 | You don't get so sore, it's compromising your total volume.

01:02:36.360 | All right, mechanical tension is kind of like strength.

01:02:38.640 | And this is why if you do even set to five or eight,

01:02:41.820 | and you're kind of close to that strength range,

01:02:43.200 | you will gain a little bit of muscle.

01:02:45.080 | Not optimal muscle gain, but you're gonna gain some

01:02:47.080 | because everything in these,

01:02:48.680 | like physiology didn't cut off at four reps,

01:02:50.520 | and then five reps is a different thing, right?

01:02:52.080 | It's always a blend, so think of it as like a fading curve.

01:02:55.720 | As you get closer to the end, it fades less effective.

01:02:59.040 | As you get closer to the middle, it's more effective.

01:03:02.200 | Anywhere between eight reps per set to 30,

01:03:04.720 | it's equally effective.

01:03:05.680 | Past 30, it's gonna blend out.

01:03:07.680 | Past eight to five to four to three,

01:03:09.800 | it's gonna blend, you know, lesser there.

01:03:13.200 | So metabolic stress is one, the damage is the other,

01:03:15.800 | or sorry, mechanical tension is the one that's heavy.

01:03:19.080 | Muscle damage is the other one.

01:03:20.240 | The third one is metabolic stress.

01:03:22.120 | And this is, I get a bit of an area of scientific contention

01:03:27.120 | but something's there.

01:03:28.680 | I know something's there.

01:03:29.560 | We're just kind of fumbling to figure out what exactly it is.

01:03:32.440 | And this is, metabolic stress is the burn, right?

01:03:35.220 | It's there.

01:03:37.320 | It's why blood flow restriction training probably works.

01:03:40.200 | That's done very light, so there's no mechanical tension.

01:03:42.460 | There's very little damage,

01:03:43.820 | but somehow it induces a good amount of hypertrophy.

01:03:46.160 | - Very painful.

01:03:47.440 | - Oh boy.

01:03:48.280 | - I tried this, I have a friend, former special operator

01:03:51.560 | who was on the East Coast and took me through

01:03:54.640 | a blood flow restriction training protocol in a park.

01:03:58.480 | And I don't think I actually cried.

01:04:01.640 | - You probably did.

01:04:03.680 | - But I might've cried out once or twice.

01:04:06.240 | It was unbelievable, especially the lower body movements.

01:04:10.240 | Now it was a humid day.

01:04:11.720 | I'll claim a little bit of jet lag, but it was brutal.

01:04:14.620 | It was really brutal.

01:04:15.800 | And I also-

01:04:16.640 | - Do it on the best day of your life and it's still brutal.

01:04:17.920 | - Okay, well, that makes me feel a little bit better.

01:04:20.200 | It was intense and people should know

01:04:23.200 | that it is important to use the proper cuffs

01:04:25.880 | for these things.

01:04:26.700 | I don't have any relationship to any of the companies

01:04:29.020 | that sell these cuffs.

01:04:30.240 | But the reason is that you actually need to block

01:04:31.840 | particular avenues of blood flow.

01:04:33.280 | You can't simply cinch off a muscle.

01:04:35.040 | You can't tourniquet a muscle and train.

01:04:37.080 | You can actually kill yourself that way.

01:04:38.800 | - Yeah, you can get a blood clot.

01:04:39.640 | - Yeah, and so if you're interested

01:04:42.480 | in blood flow restriction training,

01:04:43.960 | I imagine you have some content about this

01:04:45.340 | or will at some point, but also there are resources online

01:04:48.200 | that people can look up.

01:04:49.400 | A question about hypertrophy training

01:04:52.680 | that I think many people are wondering about.

01:04:55.780 | Train to failure or don't train to failure?

01:04:58.880 | Assuming good form.

01:05:00.100 | - Yeah, okay, assuming good form, great.

01:05:02.160 | The answer is both.

01:05:03.720 | So you want to train to failure,

01:05:05.680 | but you don't need to go to extreme failure.

01:05:09.020 | So you don't need to necessarily go to that like,

01:05:11.520 | a partner has to lift the barbell off my chest.

01:05:14.880 | But you have to get close.

01:05:16.780 | You have to drive either heavy, stress, damage, or pump.

01:05:21.780 | And so a really easy practical way to think about this,

01:05:26.080 | I heard Mike Isritel, who runs a company

01:05:28.000 | called Renaissance Periodization years ago,

01:05:29.600 | outline this at a NSCA talk.

01:05:32.220 | And it was beautiful.

01:05:33.060 | This is the most eloquent way to explain

01:05:35.380 | the context about training for hypertrophy.

01:05:37.100 | So I want you to look for three things in your workout.

01:05:40.120 | And let's say that you want a particular muscle to grow.

01:05:43.540 | Let's say you want your glutes to get larger.

01:05:45.420 | Okay, when you're doing your glute exercises,

01:05:47.660 | number one, are you feeling the glute contract?

01:05:50.840 | Okay, it doesn't have to be there,

01:05:52.000 | but that's a good sign if it is.

01:05:54.540 | Okay, let's say I didn't really feel my glute contract.

01:05:56.700 | I felt it more in my quads or my back.

01:05:58.960 | Okay, did you feel a big pump afterwards?

01:06:03.400 | No, I didn't really feel a pump there either, or during.

01:06:05.840 | Okay, great.

01:06:06.680 | Number three, next day,

01:06:08.120 | did you feel a little bit of soreness there at all?

01:06:09.880 | No, I didn't.

01:06:10.840 | Well, that's a very good indication.

01:06:12.000 | You didn't feel it during the workout.

01:06:13.120 | You felt no sort of pump and it didn't get sore.

01:06:15.720 | Don't expect much growth.

01:06:17.760 | Didn't happen. - You distributed the work

01:06:19.000 | across a bunch of muscle groups.

01:06:20.480 | - Most likely other muscle groups were too involved, right?

01:06:23.060 | Especially if you're like,

01:06:23.900 | no, but man, my back got really,

01:06:26.400 | well, that's a really good indication

01:06:27.740 | of telling you what the hell was moving.

01:06:29.960 | And so in terms of targets,

01:06:31.500 | if you were to put, again, a one to 10 scale,

01:06:35.080 | how much should I feel it burning during?

01:06:37.680 | Anything less than a three,

01:06:39.080 | okay, it's probably not doing much, right?

01:06:42.040 | But it doesn't, like seven is not,

01:06:43.960 | a 10 is not better than seven.

01:06:45.600 | You need to feel it, but it doesn't have to be like,

01:06:47.320 | oh my gosh, I'm dying here.

01:06:49.540 | Soreness, same barometer, right?

01:06:51.260 | So if you can get like three, three and three,

01:06:54.320 | you're probably in a pretty good spot.

01:06:55.620 | Five, five and five is maybe better,

01:06:58.120 | but you don't need to go much past that.

01:07:00.120 | So I want you to feel the muscle group either working,

01:07:02.780 | or if you're like, I didn't feel it much,

01:07:04.140 | I didn't really get a pump,

01:07:04.980 | but the next day it got really sore,

01:07:06.300 | well, then you're still, you know, you're on a good path.

01:07:08.720 | Again, really sore as in like,

01:07:10.560 | oh, a little tender, but next day it's okay.

01:07:13.540 | Day after that, I could train, no problem.

01:07:15.600 | That's really what you want to go after.

01:07:17.320 | And in terms of understanding,

01:07:18.880 | is this likely to produce some growth or not?

01:07:22.960 | - Excellent, excellent,

01:07:24.580 | very clear parameters and recommendations I know

01:07:27.360 | are benefiting me and will benefit a lot of people.

01:07:30.260 | If you'd be willing to throw out a few

01:07:32.520 | sort of sets and rep parameters

01:07:34.760 | that could act as broad guidelines

01:07:36.920 | for people who want to explore further,

01:07:40.220 | I realize that with all these modifiable variables,

01:07:44.060 | that there's no one size fits all, four strength.

01:07:46.920 | I love this five to 30 for hypertrophy.

01:07:48.840 | That's pretty vital thing.

01:07:49.680 | I don't think I've ever done a 30 rep set of anything,

01:07:51.900 | but now that you've thrown that out there,

01:07:53.600 | I see it as a bit of a challenge.

01:07:54.440 | - You want to know what's awesome about 30?

01:07:56.500 | You're going to get an insane pump.

01:07:58.380 | You're going to burn like crazy,

01:07:59.620 | but you won't get super sore.

01:08:01.680 | Because the mechanical tension is so low, it's so light.

01:08:04.980 | So you can get away with those things and you,

01:08:07.480 | it's hard because your mind is going to wander.

01:08:09.640 | You're gonna get it like rep 20 and you're gonna be like,

01:08:10.920 | I'm done.

01:08:11.760 | And you're like, no, there's a lot left here to get to 30.

01:08:14.340 | Where like a set of 10 is much easier.

01:08:16.520 | Like you're just like, okay, two more, two more.

01:08:18.240 | Set of 30 is like, I got 16 more.

01:08:20.640 | It's awful.

01:08:21.480 | - Just the counting is worse.

01:08:22.320 | - It's terrible, right?

01:08:23.260 | And people tend to just kind of like check out.

01:08:25.040 | So 30 is possible, but a little bit extreme, extreme.

01:08:28.200 | But I would recommend all of them.

01:08:29.860 | Like it's a really fun play.

01:08:31.220 | You can do different in the same workout too, by the way.

01:08:33.920 | Like you could do one set of 10 pushups

01:08:37.760 | and then take a little break and then do a set of 25.

01:08:39.560 | You can mix and match these things.

01:08:41.680 | There's no magic recipe that has to happen for all those.

01:08:44.820 | Or do it different.

01:08:45.660 | So Mondays are my sets of 10 days.

01:08:47.360 | Wednesdays are my set of 20 days.

01:08:48.940 | And Fridays are my set of 30 days.

01:08:51.040 | And you can have all kinds of fun there

01:08:52.280 | and it's hard to screw up.

01:08:54.200 | - Great.

01:08:55.240 | That phrase is always reassuring.

01:08:56.920 | So for strength, is there a sets and reps protocol

01:09:01.880 | that is pretty surefire?

01:09:04.560 | - So a way to just think about a really fast answer

01:09:08.040 | for power, well, speed, power, and strength

01:09:11.840 | is what I just call the three to five concept.

01:09:15.040 | So pick three to five exercises.

01:09:17.040 | If you're feeling better that day, choose on the higher end.

01:09:20.200 | If you're feeling less that day

01:09:21.580 | or you have a shorter timeframe to train, go less.

01:09:24.260 | So this would be three sets or three exercises rather,

01:09:27.180 | or five exercises most.

01:09:28.220 | So three to five exercises, do three to five reps,

01:09:32.540 | three to five sets, take three to five minutes rest

01:09:35.800 | in between and do it three to five times a week.

01:09:38.580 | So that can be as little as three sets of three

01:09:41.140 | for three exercises, three times a week.

01:09:45.120 | That's a 20 minute workout three times a week.

01:09:47.300 | It can be as high as five sets of five

01:09:49.540 | for five exercises, five days a week.

01:09:52.120 | So it's very broad and allows people to still stay

01:09:54.640 | within the domains of strength and power

01:09:57.360 | while still being able to move and contour

01:09:59.920 | toward their lifestyle and soreness and time

01:10:02.320 | and all those things.

01:10:03.340 | The only differentiator to pay attention to

01:10:05.080 | between power and strength is intensity.

01:10:09.540 | So if you want strength,

01:10:11.100 | this is now 85% plus of your max, right?

01:10:14.520 | If you want power, it needs to be a lot lighter

01:10:16.720 | 'cause you need to move more towards the velocity

01:10:19.240 | end of the spectrum

01:10:20.080 | because power is strength multiplied by speed.

01:10:22.600 | So while getting stronger by definition can help power,

01:10:26.300 | you probably want to spend more of your time

01:10:27.840 | in the 40% to 70% range, like plus or minus.

01:10:32.840 | So that's it.

01:10:34.320 | Both of them conceptually they'll work everything else.

01:10:36.060 | The exercise, the reps, the frequency,

01:10:38.880 | all that can be still in the three to five range.

01:10:41.020 | Just change the intensity

01:10:41.960 | depending on which outcome you want.

01:10:43.700 | - The nervous system obviously plays an important role

01:10:47.540 | at the level of nerves controlling

01:10:49.360 | the contraction of muscle fibers.

01:10:51.160 | But of course we have these upper motor neurons,

01:10:53.360 | which are the ones that reside in our brain

01:10:55.580 | that control the lower motor neurons that control muscle.

01:10:58.400 | And this takes us into the realm of where the mind is at

01:11:02.100 | during a particular movement.

01:11:04.120 | And to me, this is not an abstract thing.

01:11:08.080 | I can imagine doing workouts

01:11:10.100 | that are mainly focused on strength

01:11:12.680 | or mainly focused on hypertrophy.

01:11:15.380 | And in the case of strength,

01:11:17.320 | am I trying to move weights?

01:11:19.380 | And when I'm trying to generate hypertrophy,

01:11:21.740 | am I trying to "challenge muscles?"

01:11:24.400 | In other words, if I'm just trying to move a weight

01:11:27.480 | away from my body, pushing a bench press

01:11:30.500 | or an overhead press,

01:11:32.040 | I don't know that I want my mind

01:11:34.200 | thinking about the contraction of my medial delts.

01:11:36.280 | I think I want my mind in getting the weight overhead

01:11:39.100 | with the best proper form.

01:11:40.900 | Best, excuse me, and proper form.

01:11:43.440 | And certainly with hypertrophy training,

01:11:45.380 | best improper form is going to be the target as well.

01:11:49.120 | But that simple, or I should say subtle mental shift

01:11:54.120 | changes the patterns of nerve fiber recruitment.

01:11:58.800 | So can we say to get stronger, focus on moving weights,

01:12:02.660 | still with proper form and safely,

01:12:04.480 | and to get hypertrophy, focus on challenging muscles,

01:12:07.900 | still with proper form and safely?

01:12:10.700 | - It's very fair.

01:12:12.180 | As a snapshot answer, it is a very fair thing to think about.

01:12:17.000 | Intentionality matters for both.

01:12:20.120 | In other words, if you look at some interesting science

01:12:23.300 | that's been done on power development and speed development,

01:12:26.480 | the intent to move is actually more important

01:12:29.840 | than the actual movement velocity.

01:12:31.500 | So if you're doing, say, something for power or strength,

01:12:35.260 | and you're doing just enough to get the bar up,

01:12:38.000 | that will result in less improvements in strength

01:12:40.580 | than even if you're moving at the exact same speed,

01:12:43.180 | but you're intending to move faster.

01:12:45.480 | And this is one of the reasons why good coaching matters.

01:12:48.260 | So if you're coaching an athlete

01:12:49.520 | through a power workout especially,

01:12:51.560 | and they're doing enough to just lift 50%

01:12:53.880 | of their one rep max,

01:12:54.720 | it's not going to generate as much speed development

01:12:56.820 | as them trying to move that bar as fast as they can,

01:12:59.320 | even if the net result is the same bar by velocity.

01:13:02.560 | Turns out nerves matter.

01:13:04.420 | - That's, I mean, I was about to say amazing,

01:13:06.540 | but as a neuroscientist, if I say amazing,

01:13:08.520 | that nerves matter.

01:13:09.360 | What's amazing to me is what, if I understand correctly,

01:13:12.040 | what you're saying is that even if the bar is moving

01:13:15.740 | at the same speed, same weight,

01:13:18.360 | if my internal representation, my thoughts are,

01:13:21.700 | I'm trying to move this as fast as possible

01:13:24.080 | versus I'm just trying to get the bar away from me

01:13:27.200 | and get the weight up, I'm going to get different outcomes.

01:13:30.720 | - Yep, this is quality of work, right?

01:13:32.120 | This is, did you do enough to just check off the box

01:13:34.400 | or did you actually strive for adaptation, right?

01:13:39.020 | Similar concept actually works for hypertrophy

01:13:41.760 | in terms of there is a handful of very recent studies

01:13:45.160 | that have looked at what we'll call

01:13:46.000 | the mind-muscle connection.

01:13:47.720 | And this is doing things like, imagine a bicep curl.

01:13:50.560 | And you're simply looking at and watching your biceps

01:13:53.120 | and you're thinking about contracting it harder.

01:13:54.820 | Even though you execute the same repetitions

01:13:56.520 | at the same exact intensity, initial indications are

01:14:00.240 | the mind-body connection are going to result

01:14:02.440 | in more growth than not.

01:14:05.120 | - You just gave authorization for people

01:14:09.500 | to look at their muscles contracting in the gym.

01:14:11.500 | - Please do, please do, yeah, of course, right?

01:14:14.340 | - But the selfie is still ruled out.

01:14:16.380 | - I'd rather you look at your muscles than your phone.

01:14:18.700 | So I'm fine with it.

01:14:20.060 | Those are initial.

01:14:22.500 | We don't have a large depth of research to support that

01:14:25.740 | and maybe some stuff will come and counter it.

01:14:27.800 | But it does, it matches what folks in that community

01:14:30.980 | have been saying for a very long time, right?

01:14:32.700 | There's actually some stuff on simply flexing in between.

01:14:35.960 | So if you've ever seen a bodybuilder,

01:14:37.480 | they'll do their set of bicep curls

01:14:38.940 | and then they'll get out and they'll flex and they'll check.

01:14:40.320 | And they're literally, this is what Arnold did, right?

01:14:42.120 | This is, if you go back to pumping an iron.

01:14:43.760 | - Or college weight rooms, I should say.

01:14:46.160 | For some reason, there's something about that age group.

01:14:48.600 | There's a lot of checking of biceps in college weight rooms

01:14:51.720 | for reasons that escape me.

01:14:53.240 | - If you ever interact with my wife,

01:14:55.840 | she will be the first to tell you,

01:14:56.940 | I cannot walk past a mirror without like,

01:14:59.720 | I'm checking something out.

01:15:00.560 | - That you can't or that she can't?

01:15:01.560 | - I can't, I can't.

01:15:02.400 | - Okay.

01:15:03.240 | - Not her, me.

01:15:04.060 | Like I'm the one that cannot walk past.

01:15:04.900 | - All right, well then I'll be careful

01:15:05.740 | not to disparage that.

01:15:06.560 | - It has nothing to do with the hypertrophy,

01:15:08.360 | but I'm just like, I'm a muscle gas.

01:15:09.880 | I'm always like thinking and tinkering or whatever.

01:15:12.360 | But yeah, it is, I think it's very much worth your time

01:15:17.200 | to do a higher quality training session,

01:15:20.440 | be more intentional, be present,

01:15:23.560 | than just executing the same exact workout.

01:15:25.520 | I think that's globally very clear to be to your advantage.

01:15:28.560 | So if you're thinking, like, I'm going to,

01:15:31.440 | like, I don't want to work out today.

01:15:33.080 | I got all this going on or I'm tired or whatever.

01:15:34.800 | I'm just going to do the workout anyways and get through it.

01:15:37.240 | Okay, if you can go, you know what though?

01:15:39.880 | Like, I'm going to cut 15 minutes out of this thing.

01:15:42.800 | I'm going to get my head right.

01:15:43.760 | I'm going to go to 20 minutes of quality work done.

01:15:46.760 | That's your best option by far.

01:15:48.580 | - You alluded to the fact that

01:15:51.380 | even just looking at a particular muscle

01:15:55.000 | might benefit in terms of the number of fibers

01:15:58.720 | you can recruit or its potential for hypertrophy.

01:16:02.560 | I've heard before, and I certainly have experienced it,

01:16:05.480 | muscles that, for whatever reason,

01:16:07.680 | genetics or sports that one played, et cetera,

01:16:11.020 | muscles that we find that we can contract

01:16:13.920 | to the point of almost a slightly painful contraction

01:16:16.520 | seem to grow more readily

01:16:18.400 | than muscles that we can't recruit very easily.

01:16:20.680 | And the reason I mentioned sports that we played earlier

01:16:24.040 | is I've been, you just have to watch the Olympics

01:16:26.240 | to see that, you know, swimmers obviously

01:16:27.840 | are very good at engaging their lats.

01:16:29.640 | You look at the gymnasts,

01:16:31.340 | they seem to be very good at engaging everything,

01:16:33.240 | and they go through a huge number

01:16:34.460 | of different dynamic movements.

01:16:35.640 | That explains that.

01:16:36.660 | So I find that, you know, if people say,

01:16:41.400 | oh, you know, I can't get stronger in this

01:16:43.160 | or my whatever body part is weak

01:16:46.020 | in terms of its inability to engage hypertrophy,

01:16:49.040 | that oftentimes that can be

01:16:50.200 | because of an inability to engage those upper motor neurons

01:16:54.480 | to deliberately isolate those muscles.

01:16:57.360 | Are there ways that people can learn

01:16:59.720 | to engage particular muscle groups more effectively

01:17:04.320 | over time for sake of hypertrophy or strength,

01:17:06.800 | or for cases of trying to overcome injury potential

01:17:10.560 | or injury because imbalances are bad across the board?

01:17:13.880 | - Yeah, this is actually very common,

01:17:15.400 | and I think everyone has probably gone through this.

01:17:18.080 | There's some part that you just can't get going.

01:17:20.080 | For me, that was the lats.

01:17:21.580 | That was the rhomboids, so my back muscles.

01:17:23.520 | For years, I couldn't activate my lats or my rhomboids.

01:17:26.840 | These are the muscle groups

01:17:27.920 | that connect your shoulder blades.

01:17:29.080 | So if you try to squeeze your shoulder blades together,

01:17:30.920 | that set of muscles there are called your rhomboids.

01:17:33.240 | Your lats, of course, are more vertical

01:17:35.040 | and pull you kind of up and down.

01:17:36.680 | No matter how many lat pull-downs I did, bent rows,

01:17:39.960 | pull-ups, I could never see any development there,

01:17:42.200 | no increase in strength,

01:17:43.800 | and it took me probably a decade to figure out

01:17:47.400 | how the hell to actually get these things on.

01:17:48.880 | In fact, if you would have asked me,

01:17:50.880 | even in my college years as a college football player,

01:17:53.600 | hey, flex your lats, like show me your lats,

01:17:55.380 | you would have seen no movement there.

01:17:57.280 | When I was doing a pull-up in that particular case,

01:18:01.300 | the only way I could get the bar to move

01:18:02.620 | was by using my biceps, right?

01:18:05.520 | So it's a synergistic muscle.

01:18:06.640 | It's supposed to be a secondary or tertiary muscle

01:18:08.760 | in that movement, but for me, it was primer

01:18:11.160 | because of my overstrength in my biceps

01:18:14.700 | coupled with my lack of activation in the lats.

01:18:18.080 | So you're compensating the same movement.

01:18:19.980 | Actually, kind of an easy way to think about this

01:18:21.600 | is imagine doing a bent row.

01:18:24.240 | So imagine you're bent over kind of at a 45 degree

01:18:26.580 | or a horizontal angle, and you're gonna pull a barbell

01:18:29.800 | to your belly button, all right?

01:18:31.540 | Now you can actually do that exact same movement

01:18:33.440 | with very little back muscle activation

01:18:36.520 | by simply flexing your elbows more.

01:18:38.460 | And so you think the barbell's going all the way down,

01:18:40.440 | it's coming all the way up to touching my belly,

01:18:42.220 | and you think you're doing

01:18:43.040 | a great back development exercise,

01:18:45.420 | when in fact, because of the way

01:18:46.860 | that you're executing the movement,

01:18:48.540 | you're getting very little back development.

01:18:50.380 | And this is a really good example

01:18:52.140 | of why someone has done a specific exercise

01:18:54.720 | many, many, many times,

01:18:56.020 | but yet failed to see development in a muscle group,

01:18:58.980 | which goes back to earlier part of our conversation,

01:19:01.140 | which is why exercises themselves

01:19:02.740 | do not determine the adaptation.

01:19:04.840 | It's the execution that matters, right?

01:19:07.000 | It's the technique, it's the rep range.

01:19:08.740 | All of those are gonna determine your actual result.

01:19:11.720 | So if any time you're banging your head against the wall

01:19:14.760 | and thinking like, why am I not getting movement here,

01:19:18.200 | growth or strength or whatever,

01:19:19.940 | it's almost one of those, it's guaranteed

01:19:22.260 | to be one of those areas, right?

01:19:23.280 | You're probably not getting the muscle groups to activate.

01:19:27.060 | In that particular example, just because we're here,

01:19:29.980 | try, imagine doing that bent row.

01:19:32.100 | Instead of pulling the barbell to your belly,

01:19:34.400 | squeeze your shoulder blades together first,

01:19:36.380 | as far as they can possibly go,

01:19:38.260 | and then bring your elbows up

01:19:39.820 | without changing the angle of your elbow.

01:19:43.320 | So in other words,

01:19:44.160 | without bringing your hand closer to your shoulder.

01:19:46.180 | So keep that same angle

01:19:47.100 | and come up as high as you possibly can,

01:19:49.140 | and then finish out the movement.

01:19:50.680 | That's going to guarantee a utilization first

01:19:53.520 | of the back muscles and a finishing with the biceps

01:19:56.660 | at the end, which is how that movement is supposed to go.

01:20:00.620 | So how do you coach into that?

01:20:03.060 | Well, it can be a number of things.

01:20:04.460 | Whenever I'm diagnosing movement quality,

01:20:07.800 | I look for a handful of things,

01:20:09.380 | but very first one is awareness.

01:20:10.880 | You'd be surprised how many folks,

01:20:13.620 | when you just simply tell them,

01:20:14.460 | that muscle group right there,

01:20:15.500 | and maybe you give them a tactical prompt,

01:20:17.500 | so you touch it or you put something against it.

01:20:19.820 | This is actually why, sorry, I'm jumping over the place,

01:20:22.180 | but this is why things like a belt work very well

01:20:26.140 | for actually increasing abdominal strength.

01:20:28.860 | So a misconception out there is if you wear like a belt

01:20:31.300 | when you're lifting,

01:20:32.560 | then the belt kind of does all the work for you

01:20:34.340 | and your abs get weaker.

01:20:35.940 | That can happen, but the exact opposite can happen as well.

01:20:39.920 | So if you take a belt, for example,

01:20:41.800 | and you cinch it down really tight,

01:20:43.820 | and then you just completely disregard your midsection,

01:20:46.360 | you will see a loss of strength in your midsection

01:20:48.900 | because now the belt is doing the work.

01:20:50.520 | But if you put the belt on just a little bit,

01:20:52.800 | kind of tight, to where you get some sensory feedback

01:20:55.660 | and you think about using that belt

01:20:58.480 | as a way to activate the core musculature,

01:21:00.520 | you will actually see a higher,

01:21:01.660 | and if we look at like EMG activation,

01:21:04.160 | the core muscles would be activated higher

01:21:06.660 | to a greater extent than when the belt is off.

01:21:09.540 | - Because of proprioceptive feedback.

01:21:11.060 | - 100%.

01:21:11.900 | - And for those that are wondering

01:21:13.500 | what proprioceptive feedback is,

01:21:14.940 | proprioceptive feedback is that there are nerves

01:21:17.940 | that extend out to the muscles

01:21:19.220 | that control muscle contractions,

01:21:20.440 | but then there are sensory inputs from the skin and muscle

01:21:23.180 | that go back into the nervous system

01:21:24.560 | and those work in concert,

01:21:25.820 | and that feedback is proprioceptive.

01:21:27.780 | I think it literally translates to a knowledge

01:21:31.300 | of where one's limbs are and what's happening on those.

01:21:34.380 | - In space, yeah.

01:21:35.540 | - I've seen, I don't have a training partner,

01:21:39.460 | but I've seen in gyms where someone will be training

01:21:42.300 | and someone would tap the muscle

01:21:44.300 | of the person who's doing the work in order with,

01:21:47.140 | this is consensual tapping of other people's muscles,

01:21:49.220 | not walking around touching people's muscles, please,

01:21:51.860 | to provide that proprioceptive feedback

01:21:56.400 | so that the person doing the exercises,

01:21:58.380 | it becomes more aware of the muscle

01:22:00.540 | that they're supposed to be training,

01:22:01.680 | and it seems that that's probably an effective practice.

01:22:04.500 | - Yeah, I'll give you two examples.

01:22:06.660 | I'll go to the back with that pulling movement,

01:22:08.300 | but then I'll stay on the belt really quickly.

01:22:09.900 | So a very easy example that you can do right now listening,

01:22:13.500 | and I learned this from Brian McKenzie,

01:22:14.800 | our mutual friend, right?

01:22:15.900 | So if you take your hands and open them up,

01:22:18.300 | like you make an L with both your hands,

01:22:20.940 | and I'll take those and put them around your waist

01:22:23.180 | just above your hip bones.

01:22:25.140 | Now, what I want you to do is press out as hard as you can

01:22:27.760 | on your hands with your core,

01:22:29.780 | and you can feel a lot of core activation.

01:22:31.980 | And most people think core activation

01:22:33.540 | is the front of your stomach, right, your six pack.

01:22:36.660 | What you need to do is create a cylinder around your back.

01:22:38.740 | So it's the front, it's the side, and it's the back.

01:22:42.340 | So if you take your two fingers, point them.

01:22:44.940 | Now put them just outside your belly button.

01:22:47.300 | Can you move your fingers by just moving your ab muscles?

01:22:51.460 | 90% of people can do yes.

01:22:53.800 | Same exact thing.

01:22:55.060 | Now go to that same position

01:22:56.700 | just above what's called your ASIS,

01:22:58.700 | so your anterior superior iliac spine,

01:23:00.260 | right up that front of your hip bone, right in the front.

01:23:03.600 | Can you now move?

01:23:05.580 | Great, 50% of people are not gonna get any movement there.

01:23:08.800 | - Really?

01:23:09.640 | - So take your thumb and go right above your PSIS.

01:23:12.920 | - My what?

01:23:13.760 | - PSIS, posterior superior iliac spine, right?

01:23:16.880 | Now, can you move?

01:23:18.160 | Most likely no.

01:23:21.720 | - Sort of if I do a mini little back extension.

01:23:24.800 | - Don't, just with your core musculature.

01:23:27.220 | - Barely.

01:23:29.020 | - Yeah, 90% of people can't.

01:23:31.480 | If you can't perform that contraction,

01:23:34.080 | you can't stabilize your spine.

01:23:36.120 | So only way to get stabilization in your spine

01:23:38.360 | is then to go through hyperextension.

01:23:41.160 | And now that's a compression strategy

01:23:42.580 | you're putting on your spine,

01:23:43.480 | it's better than rounding your back, like going forward,

01:23:46.380 | but overextension is not great either.

01:23:48.840 | So you wanna be able to flex the musculature

01:23:51.040 | in a cylindric fashion so you have control.

01:23:53.800 | So if you go back to our very first things

01:23:55.240 | and with your hands open and you put them right here,

01:23:57.120 | and if you're like, I can't get activation,

01:23:59.480 | if you pay attention to your thumb, right?

01:24:02.240 | Now just move your thumb.

01:24:03.480 | And now you see activation back there, right?

01:24:07.040 | Boom, now if you can imagine

01:24:08.400 | turning that on just a little bit,

01:24:10.360 | and now notice how I can do this, by the way,

01:24:12.460 | at the same time I'm talking.

01:24:14.220 | If you have to go, (grunting)

01:24:17.600 | we don't have control, right?

01:24:18.480 | So you have to be able to separate breath from brace.

01:24:22.680 | So now if I can put myself in a position,

01:24:24.680 | and Kelly Starrett has always said 20%,

01:24:27.320 | give me 20% activation here,

01:24:29.440 | and now I can squat, I can hinge, I can jump.

01:24:31.600 | I don't need to be locked down to 100% scream

01:24:34.400 | to be able to brace my spine.

01:24:35.820 | It's gonna be ineffective and wasteful.

01:24:38.000 | I wanna be here.

01:24:39.060 | Well, the belt provides that proprioceptive feedback

01:24:41.560 | where I can put it on 20%, and it just is a reminder,

01:24:45.900 | if I don't press against the belt,

01:24:47.320 | the belt slides and falls down a little bit

01:24:48.920 | 'cause it's not on super tight.

01:24:50.480 | If it's on so dang tight, it's doing the work and I forget.

01:24:53.880 | So we just want a little bit of feedback there.

01:24:57.060 | Same thing with your upper back.

01:24:58.400 | If you're having a difficult time

01:24:59.380 | activating those rhomboids or those lats,

01:25:01.740 | someone can do a simple thing where they take their finger,

01:25:04.040 | put it right between your shoulder blades,

01:25:05.860 | and you just tell them things like,

01:25:07.020 | hey, squeeze my finger, squeeze my finger.

01:25:09.260 | As you're doing your bent row or your pull down,

01:25:11.560 | you can touch the lat.

01:25:13.040 | You can do just visualization stuff.

01:25:15.160 | So just imagine like a 3D rendering of that muscle group,

01:25:19.320 | and you're watching that muscle group contract.

01:25:20.960 | It's very powerful and very effective to do it.

01:25:23.320 | So a touch, a visual, all this stuff can help

01:25:26.920 | get people to activate.

01:25:29.500 | Outside of simple awareness,

01:25:31.660 | typically eccentric overload is a very effective way

01:25:34.800 | for activation of a difficult to target muscle.

01:25:38.060 | So the lowering of the bar or the lowering of the weight.

01:25:41.180 | The movement of the weight away from the body

01:25:43.640 | is not necessarily always lowering

01:25:45.020 | 'cause that kind of depends on what

01:25:46.020 | muscle group you're doing, right?

01:25:47.220 | I misspoke, yeah.

01:25:48.060 | Things like a pull up.

01:25:51.460 | Okay, so if I'm going to do a pull up

01:25:53.560 | and I have poor lat activation,

01:25:54.780 | I can still get the pull up muscle movement

01:25:57.040 | executed by contraction of the biceps and things like that.

01:25:59.840 | However, to make the movement simpler,

01:26:01.940 | I'm gonna go all the way to the top.

01:26:03.460 | So imagine stepping on a box or something,

01:26:05.060 | going all the way to that top of that pull up position.

01:26:07.360 | And starting from there,

01:26:08.200 | I want you to simply lower it under control.

01:26:11.460 | And so you're just simply breaking the movement down

01:26:13.420 | into smaller pieces that allow you

01:26:14.740 | to focus on the execution more.

01:26:17.600 | It's gonna be great.

01:26:18.440 | Eccentrics are great for strength development,

01:26:20.380 | very good for hypertrophy,

01:26:22.020 | and allow you to focus on control.

01:26:23.640 | I'm willing to bet a huge percentage of you out there

01:26:26.580 | who've like, I've never had a sore lat.

01:26:28.480 | You know, I've done a lot of pull ups and things like that.

01:26:30.860 | If you do that eccentric only,

01:26:32.180 | you'll probably wake up the next day going,

01:26:33.380 | oh gosh, I feel it there.

01:26:36.580 | And that's a sign,

01:26:37.420 | even if you didn't feel it in the workout,

01:26:38.460 | but I got a little sore the next day,

01:26:40.860 | keep down that path.

01:26:41.940 | And then eventually you'll be able to do a concentric,

01:26:45.220 | maybe take a break,

01:26:46.580 | maybe do an isometric where you just hold that position,

01:26:49.340 | and eventually work that into a progression

01:26:52.100 | where you can do the concentric,

01:26:53.260 | eccentric and isometric portions and get activation.

01:26:56.100 | So that may take you six weeks,

01:26:59.120 | may take you six months,

01:27:00.640 | but that's generally a pretty good strategy

01:27:02.000 | for learning how to activate a muscle group.

01:27:03.980 | - Terrific suggestions.

01:27:05.240 | Is it true that eccentric emphasized movements

01:27:08.940 | might require a little bit longer recovery

01:27:11.000 | or they lead to more soreness than concentric movements?

01:27:13.560 | - Yeah, they typically can,

01:27:14.720 | but they're also higher force output.

01:27:16.920 | So very good for strength development,

01:27:19.280 | but they're going to lead on average to more soreness.

01:27:22.520 | So more potential for intracellular disruption,

01:27:25.840 | that is going to be associated with pain.

01:27:27.180 | There's not as much,

01:27:28.340 | people will like to explain muscle soreness

01:27:31.220 | as a result of microtrauma and micro tears in the muscle.

01:27:34.180 | That can happen, but that's not the norm.

01:27:36.500 | Most of the time it is things like disruption of calcium,

01:27:40.660 | that's going to lead to excessive swelling,

01:27:42.500 | excessive pressure,

01:27:43.320 | and that's going to be then translated as extreme pain.

01:27:45.820 | So that's probably explaining more of muscle soreness

01:27:47.980 | than actually microtrauma.

01:27:50.820 | - Terrific.

01:27:51.660 | I was going to get to breathing later,

01:27:53.340 | but maybe just for now,

01:27:54.820 | if we can do a brief little foray into breathing

01:27:59.820 | as it relates to weight training.

01:28:02.620 | Is there a prescriptive for how to breathe

01:28:05.920 | during resistance training?

01:28:07.960 | Here I'm thinking with weights,

01:28:09.460 | not necessarily body weight only movements,

01:28:11.280 | although I suppose it could be,

01:28:12.600 | that applies 75% of the time to 75% of the people.

01:28:17.440 | What I was taught,

01:28:18.320 | and I'm hoping you're going to tell me this was wrong,

01:28:19.920 | 'cause then there might be more benefits awaiting me,

01:28:23.360 | is that I should exhale on the effort

01:28:27.480 | and inhale on the lesser effort portion of an exercise.

01:28:32.480 | Is that true?

01:28:34.500 | Is there a better way to breathe?

01:28:36.160 | - There is a better way to think about it.

01:28:39.560 | So number one, if you can breathe and brace,

01:28:43.200 | then this conversation goes away.

01:28:44.960 | So if you can maintain intramuscular,

01:28:48.880 | intra-abdominal pressure while breathing,

01:28:51.720 | then I don't really care when you breathe.

01:28:53.980 | Very challenging to do at very heavy weights.

01:28:56.240 | If we flag this on two areas of a paradigm,

01:29:01.040 | paradigm one over here, you're gonna do a set of 30,

01:29:04.400 | and you're gonna do front squats

01:29:05.480 | where a barbell is sitting on your throat.

01:29:08.280 | If you don't take a breath,

01:29:10.280 | this is going to end one way and one way only,

01:29:12.320 | you passing out.

01:29:13.820 | Clearly has to be some breathing strategy.

01:29:15.280 | The other end of the spectrum is,

01:29:16.400 | let's say you're gonna do a vertical jump.

01:29:18.520 | You don't need any amount of breath there.

01:29:19.960 | It's never gonna happen, right?

01:29:21.160 | The question is, what about in the middle, right?

01:29:23.720 | So I'm doing some sort of strength training there.

01:29:25.740 | Well, number one, make sure you're braced

01:29:27.680 | and then you can get away with less need to worry about it.

01:29:32.160 | In general, a decent strategy is to maintain a breath hold

01:29:38.480 | during the lowering or eccentric

01:29:40.440 | or most dangerous part of the movement,

01:29:41.920 | and then you can exhale on the concentric portion.

01:29:44.000 | So if the bench press is our example,

01:29:46.160 | if you held in, braced, lowered under control,

01:29:50.600 | and now started the concentric pushing away force,

01:29:52.520 | and then you wanted to take an expiration,

01:29:54.480 | during the last half of the concentric portion,

01:29:57.880 | that's an okay strategy.

01:29:58.800 | If you're going to do a single rep,

01:30:01.040 | you don't need to worry about it.

01:30:02.500 | You can just avoid or omit breathing entirely.

01:30:04.800 | You're gonna be just fine.

01:30:05.840 | If you're doing more than that,

01:30:07.140 | especially three to four to five to seven, eight,

01:30:09.720 | you're gonna have to have some breathing strategy.

01:30:11.720 | A very common one is probably every third breath.

01:30:16.080 | I'm gonna do like, (gasps)

01:30:20.160 | exhale on the third, reset, re-breathe,

01:30:22.720 | something like that.

01:30:23.560 | If you feel like you need to breathe after every one,

01:30:25.280 | that's okay, but it's gonna get wasteful

01:30:26.760 | 'cause you have to take time in between reps

01:30:28.840 | of sitting there.

01:30:29.680 | If it's a squat, that's different,

01:30:31.880 | versus a deadlift if you're resting at the bottom.

01:30:33.740 | So there is a little bit of game here.

01:30:35.280 | So in general, though, is that 75,

01:30:38.120 | 75 kind of really thrown out, you threw out.

01:30:40.480 | Breathe in through the lowering and exhale on the out

01:30:45.280 | if you have to.

01:30:46.560 | Less reps, don't worry about it.

01:30:47.880 | More reps, then you need to come up

01:30:49.240 | with some sort of breathing strategy.

01:30:50.800 | - How about breathing in between sets

01:30:52.960 | and maybe even after the workout?

01:30:56.440 | This is something I think a lot of people overlook.

01:30:59.060 | And because it is the case that recovery has to do

01:31:04.060 | both with the specific activation to muscles

01:31:07.600 | and the nervous system, but also the attacks

01:31:10.320 | on the nervous system can also take place between sets.

01:31:12.820 | I mean, if you're really geared up between sets

01:31:14.580 | and you've got adrenaline as high in between sets

01:31:17.780 | or close to it as you are during your sets,

01:31:19.580 | you can imagine that the recovery would take longer,

01:31:22.060 | or at least that you're not spending adrenaline

01:31:24.480 | in the most efficient way if there is such a thing.

01:31:27.080 | - Yeah, fair.

01:31:28.560 | You're not going to see any athlete that I work with

01:31:32.080 | just breathe in between.

01:31:33.860 | Whether it's in between innings or in between rounds,

01:31:36.360 | every single one of them is going to go back,

01:31:38.240 | sit in the stool, and they're going to immediately

01:31:39.960 | be into a breathing routine.

01:31:41.480 | A very intentional one.

01:31:42.380 | They're a little bit different for every athlete,

01:31:43.800 | depending on the sport.

01:31:45.240 | Even a PGA golfer, there's going to be a,

01:31:49.020 | we just hit our ball, we're moving to the next one,

01:31:51.460 | we're going to go into a breathing strategy.

01:31:53.000 | Every one of them.

01:31:53.840 | It's a huge area of potential benefit

01:31:56.500 | and consequence if you're just ignoring it.

01:31:59.840 | In general, we want to do any sort of calming breath

01:32:03.940 | we want to restore.

01:32:04.780 | It depends on if the, it depends on what we're combating.

01:32:08.920 | Are we combating low oxygen or high CO2?

01:32:11.360 | So that strategy is going to be a little bit different.

01:32:12.960 | But in general, that is a huge time opportunity

01:32:16.000 | to get better.

01:32:16.840 | In fact, people can go back and listen

01:32:19.280 | to some of your earlier episodes where you talked about,

01:32:22.620 | where you have spoken about, I think, on this show,

01:32:26.000 | when neuroplasticity works.

01:32:29.320 | And if you're losing that opportunity post-exercise,

01:32:33.040 | you're leaving gains on the table, if you will.

01:32:34.920 | So not only are you going to see everything athletes

01:32:36.680 | that I work with mostly have a breathing strategy

01:32:38.960 | in competition, we're not going to just finish a workout

01:32:42.760 | high five, drink water and walk out of the gym.

01:32:44.960 | There will be a down regulation strategy

01:32:46.640 | that is heavily involved with some sort of light control

01:32:49.800 | as well as breath control.

01:32:51.120 | The individual prescription on that,

01:32:53.660 | there's a ton of variation with what you can do.

01:32:56.480 | The easiest thing is do something that calms you down.

01:32:59.260 | Most likely that's going to be moved towards

01:33:01.000 | as much nasal breathing as you can possibly do.

01:33:03.800 | And a really easy rule of thumb is a double exhale length

01:33:08.360 | relative to inhale.

01:33:09.540 | So if you need to take a like four second inhale,

01:33:12.720 | double that time and breathe out for eight seconds.

01:33:15.480 | A box breathing is fine.

01:33:16.760 | So equal inhale, equal hold, equal exhale, equal hold.

01:33:21.300 | So four second inhale, four second exhale,

01:33:23.680 | hold, et cetera, et cetera.

01:33:25.320 | A triangle is fine too.

01:33:26.540 | There's a lot of ways you can get really complicated.

01:33:29.680 | Like what Brian McKenzie will do and Rob,

01:33:31.360 | those guys have, you can get all kinds of systems

01:33:33.860 | for inhale, exhale control, it can be optimized.

01:33:36.880 | But some strategy of calm.

01:33:39.680 | We're going to almost always put you on your back or close,

01:33:43.080 | and then we're going to cover light.

01:33:45.360 | We can do some, like we've done actually

01:33:47.680 | a number of musical interventions as well,

01:33:50.260 | but you can as simple as sit down in the locker room

01:33:54.720 | if you have to and just breathe for five minutes.

01:33:58.800 | That alone is going to be productive.

01:34:01.500 | - That's great.

01:34:02.340 | If you're breathing in the locker room for five minutes,

01:34:03.660 | I suggest closing your eyes or you get some funny looks.

01:34:05.880 | And if you'll still get funny looks,

01:34:07.480 | but you won't see people looking at you.

01:34:08.640 | - Yeah, exactly.

01:34:09.840 | - I love this.

01:34:10.680 | And I started doing this because you and Brian McKenzie

01:34:13.560 | informed me about this and it completely changed

01:34:16.260 | the rate of recovery for me.

01:34:18.200 | I realized that I was leaving workouts,

01:34:20.120 | both endurance workouts and strength hypertrophy workouts,

01:34:23.820 | feeling great, but looking at my phone,

01:34:26.200 | getting right into email and meetings,

01:34:28.200 | not concentrating on my breathing.

01:34:29.680 | And all I did was to introduce on your recommendation,

01:34:32.800 | a five minute down regulation.

01:34:34.980 | So exhale, emphasize breathing,

01:34:37.420 | a bunch of different varieties, physiological size,

01:34:39.340 | box breathing, exhale, emphasize twice as long

01:34:41.700 | as the inhale component for five minutes.

01:34:44.620 | And I noticed two things.

01:34:46.620 | One, I recovered more quickly, workout to workout,

01:34:49.400 | no question about it.

01:34:50.920 | The numbers told me that.

01:34:52.860 | And the other is that I used to have this dip in energy

01:34:57.340 | that would occur three or four hours after a hard workout.

01:35:00.700 | And I always thought that had to do with the fact

01:35:02.300 | that I generally eaten a meal at some point post-workout.

01:35:05.660 | Turns out it wasn't the meal at all.

01:35:07.200 | It's that adrenaline ramp up during the workouts.

01:35:11.540 | I wasn't clamping that at the end.

01:35:13.760 | And so I think eventually it just crashed.

01:35:15.980 | And then three or four hours later,

01:35:17.180 | I'm having a hard time even reading

01:35:19.140 | what's on the screen of my computer,

01:35:20.340 | thinking maybe it's the screen,

01:35:21.340 | maybe it was what I ate for lunch.

01:35:22.300 | It turns out the down regulations allowed me

01:35:24.460 | to work through the afternoon with no issues whatsoever.

01:35:29.260 | It's really been quite powerful.

01:35:30.780 | And so I'm grateful to you for that.

01:35:32.180 | And I think this is something

01:35:33.020 | that I think 98% of people are not doing.

01:35:36.500 | And it's only five minutes.

01:35:37.740 | - You didn't even have to do five.

01:35:39.140 | Give me three.

01:35:40.500 | If you really have to push it, give me three.

01:35:42.640 | And you can even do this.

01:35:44.560 | You can save time.

01:35:45.560 | You can do this in the shower if you have to.

01:35:47.400 | So you're done, you're finished.

01:35:49.680 | Drink of water, whatever it has to be.

01:35:51.080 | And you're getting in a shower, getting ready.

01:35:53.360 | Just give me three minutes in the shower.

01:35:55.240 | It's not ideal, but as little as that.

01:35:57.640 | It can pay huge dividends.

01:35:59.240 | You need some sort of internal signal that we're safe.

01:36:03.540 | Like throttle down here and we're going to move on.

01:36:06.860 | That has to happen.

01:36:07.840 | I get going on and on here,

01:36:09.760 | but I think we're making the same point

01:36:10.880 | kind of over and over again.

01:36:11.720 | It's a big deal and do it.

01:36:12.760 | - Yeah, and you're saving energy.

01:36:14.080 | I mean, the energy here is neural energy.

01:36:17.000 | I think fighters do this,

01:36:18.140 | good fighters learn to do this between rounds.

01:36:20.380 | Sprinters learn to do this between events.

01:36:22.840 | I think humans should learn how to do this

01:36:24.480 | between any sort of interval type activity,

01:36:28.440 | including work, social engagement.

01:36:30.640 | I mean, this is such a powerful tool.

01:36:32.580 | Do this for one minute after every important,

01:36:37.060 | whether it's an individual high volatile interaction,

01:36:40.640 | or if you just did a nice 45 minute sprint to work

01:36:43.440 | and you're deep into it or whatever, fine.

01:36:45.260 | Just give me one minute.

01:36:46.940 | Set your alarm, just one minute.

01:36:48.460 | And that also will pay dividends.

01:36:51.300 | - I love it.

01:36:52.140 | And as I said, it's made a outsize different,

01:36:55.460 | positive difference on my training,

01:36:58.380 | but also activities outside my training,

01:37:00.740 | which is for me, I'm not a professional athlete.

01:37:02.640 | I trained for health and because I enjoy it,

01:37:04.660 | but when a really hard workout starts to interfere

01:37:06.920 | with the ability to do the other things in life,

01:37:08.800 | that's not a good situation.

01:37:10.320 | So this is really terrific.

01:37:12.820 | There's a lot more in each of those categories of strength

01:37:15.560 | and hypertrophy, but you've given us a tremendous amount

01:37:18.460 | of valuable information there.

01:37:20.240 | Maybe now would be a good time to shift to endurance.

01:37:23.340 | And of the four types of endurance,

01:37:26.100 | and maybe you could remind us what those are.

01:37:29.260 | What do you think are the two that most people

01:37:31.500 | are seeking or pursuing in terms of health and aesthetics?

01:37:35.780 | I mean, I realize that we probably have athletes

01:37:37.620 | out there as well,

01:37:38.460 | but I think when I think health and aesthetics,

01:37:40.940 | I think, okay, the ability to do sustained endurance,

01:37:43.620 | 30 plus minutes of some ongoing activity,

01:37:47.700 | how does one maximize that work?

01:37:50.260 | What are the modifiable variables?

01:37:52.340 | And then maybe you could tell us

01:37:53.160 | what the other major category is

01:37:55.700 | that people ought to have in their kit.

01:37:58.740 | Okay.

01:37:59.820 | So starting off with exercise choice.

01:38:02.460 | One thing, as soon as we cross into the endurance world,

01:38:05.300 | and this is true for all four of those categories,

01:38:08.220 | exercise choice needs to be very concerned

01:38:10.540 | with eccentric landing.

01:38:11.700 | So you don't need to avoid it,

01:38:14.580 | but you need to recognize it relative

01:38:17.180 | or compare it against those other strength and speed ones.

01:38:20.140 | The volume is low on those ones.

01:38:21.860 | So if you have some eccentric absorption, it's okay.

01:38:24.460 | But as we sort of talked about five minutes ago,

01:38:26.340 | more eccentric means greater chance of muscle damage,

01:38:28.980 | soreness.

01:38:29.820 | So if you take something and magnify it across 30 minutes

01:38:33.980 | or even five minutes, but of maximum exertion,

01:38:36.980 | you have a recipe for blowing up.

01:38:40.120 | You can imagine I haven't run in forever,

01:38:42.220 | and I've listened to this Huberman Lab podcast,

01:38:44.540 | and I'm, okay, I'm gonna get into my zone two training,

01:38:47.260 | whatever it is, whatever.

01:38:48.500 | And I start jogging, I'm gonna do,

01:38:50.340 | I remember when I used to be able to do 25,

01:38:52.540 | and you just do a 25 minute jog.

01:38:54.660 | The amount of eccentric landing that just occurred

01:38:56.780 | on every single step, because you're never,

01:38:58.740 | with running, even slow running,

01:39:00.720 | you never have two feet on the ground at the same time.

01:39:02.620 | So it is a one foot land, one foot land,

01:39:04.820 | your entire body mass plus gravity onto one leg at a time,

01:39:08.540 | repeated now hundreds of times.

01:39:11.180 | That eccentric landing is gonna cause tremendous soreness.

01:39:14.600 | Your quads are gonna go,

01:39:16.300 | you're probably gonna get shin splints,

01:39:18.420 | which is what, those are entirely caused

01:39:20.740 | by eccentric landing,

01:39:22.620 | and when the tissue is not ready to tolerate that.

01:39:25.340 | If you're not landing correctly,

01:39:26.620 | this is when knee pain happens, back pain,

01:39:28.560 | shoulder neck pain, 'cause of movement compensation.

01:39:31.500 | So anytime we start pressing to fatigue,

01:39:33.620 | let's be very concerned with there.

01:39:35.380 | So my initial recommendation is start with activities,

01:39:40.000 | exercise choice wise, that are mostly concentric based.

01:39:43.100 | So think about a cycle.

01:39:44.480 | So when you're riding on a bike, you're pushing the pedal,

01:39:47.080 | but you're never landing and absorbing it.

01:39:48.940 | So you could go out and do a 45 minute bike ride,

01:39:51.340 | and you're not gonna get that sore

01:39:52.860 | because there's not a lot of eccentric load.

01:39:55.340 | Swimming, similar thing here, right?

01:39:57.740 | There's some eccentrics when your hand hits the water,

01:39:59.900 | but fairly minimal.

01:40:01.540 | It's mostly a push, push, push, push, push, no load.

01:40:04.740 | Rowing, similar thing, mostly concentric.

01:40:08.640 | Pushing a sled is fantastic.

01:40:11.260 | Going uphill, running, or even walking hard uphill,

01:40:14.640 | all good 'cause they're very minimal landing

01:40:16.620 | relative to like running downhill,

01:40:18.580 | which would be a very, very bad idea to start.

01:40:21.580 | So if you're first jumping into these things,

01:40:25.460 | progress your volume for endurance very slowly

01:40:28.960 | if it involves eccentric landing.

01:40:31.060 | A really bad strategy would be to jump in

01:40:33.420 | and do say circuit training class

01:40:35.860 | that involves a bunch of box jumps, right?

01:40:38.300 | This is not a good way to do your first foray

01:40:43.300 | into conditioning.

01:40:44.940 | You're going to get incredibly sore

01:40:46.140 | because you're jumping and landing.

01:40:47.940 | You're now looking at three to 10 X body weight

01:40:51.540 | in terms of absorption with a single land,

01:40:53.280 | even if you're just jumping.

01:40:54.880 | So be careful of that in any of those endurance areas

01:40:58.760 | of exercise choice.

01:40:59.960 | So what to pick?

01:41:02.500 | Pick the one that you are most technically proficient in

01:41:04.900 | because you're going to do it a lot.

01:41:06.060 | It's going to be a lot of repetitions.

01:41:07.200 | Whatever one you feel the most joy in.

01:41:08.980 | If that's rowing, great.

01:41:10.100 | If that's pushing a sled, it doesn't really matter.

01:41:13.100 | You can do this actually with weights.

01:41:14.840 | This is our preferred way, by the way, with our athletes.

01:41:17.320 | So we might do a 30 minute circuit

01:41:19.660 | where we do a five minute farmer's carry

01:41:22.640 | with a pretty light weight.

01:41:23.480 | So you're just going to carry some weights in your hand

01:41:25.240 | and you're just going to walk up and down the street

01:41:26.400 | for five minutes.

01:41:27.440 | You're going to set that down

01:41:28.320 | and then you're going to do say a three minute plank.

01:41:31.000 | And then you're going to pick that up

01:41:31.880 | and you're going to do body weight squats,

01:41:34.220 | like slowly and just tempo.

01:41:35.760 | And you're going to do a handful of different exercises

01:41:37.640 | so the athletes don't get super bored.

01:41:40.040 | Or a very simple one, if a 30 minute workout,

01:41:42.680 | 10 minutes on a treadmill, 10 minutes on a bike,

01:41:45.320 | 10 minutes on a rower.

01:41:46.560 | And for those of you that are like,

01:41:47.440 | oh my God, I can't do 30 straight minutes of running.

01:41:49.720 | Cool, break it up into three or four different exercises

01:41:52.060 | that are all fairly safe.

01:41:53.560 | So that's how I would do that long duration piece

01:41:56.800 | for exercise choice.

01:41:57.860 | - And then in terms of heart rate during that period,

01:42:00.360 | I mean, how much tension should we pay to this?

01:42:02.440 | The kind of very broad prescriptive I've thrown out

01:42:05.440 | on this podcast a few times

01:42:06.540 | based on my read of the literature

01:42:07.680 | is for most people that are oriented toward health,

01:42:10.220 | including people that are working on size

01:42:12.060 | and strength gains, hypertrophy and strength, of course,

01:42:15.560 | that getting 150 to 180 minutes of so-called zone two cardio

01:42:19.240 | can just barely have a conversation.

01:42:23.360 | But if one were to push any harder,

01:42:24.600 | you wouldn't be able to, that kind of thing.

01:42:25.640 | It's just as a generic recommendation

01:42:28.880 | that almost everybody should follow

01:42:31.640 | in order to just keep their cardiovascular system healthy.

01:42:34.240 | But I know there's a lot of nuance there.

01:42:36.120 | And some people would like to be able to run continuously

01:42:39.080 | for an hour at speed, right?

01:42:41.120 | Obviously not sprinting.

01:42:42.200 | But what are some of the finer points

01:42:46.520 | on long distance endurance

01:42:48.280 | and how often should one do it?

01:42:50.280 | - Okay, frequency, you could do it daily, right?

01:42:53.040 | - Even when strength, doing strength and hypertrophy.

01:42:54.720 | - No question.

01:42:55.560 | - Well, that I think is an important point

01:42:56.560 | for people to hear

01:42:57.400 | 'cause a lot of people think that they are going

01:42:58.400 | to greatly diminish their strength and hypertrophy gains

01:43:01.640 | as it's often called by doing zone two cardio.

01:43:06.640 | - Zone two, you have almost no ability

01:43:09.160 | to block your hypertrophy.

01:43:10.960 | - Zone two, truly within that category,

01:43:13.160 | if you're talking about conversational pace,

01:43:15.560 | there is very, in fact, there's strong reason to think

01:43:18.760 | that is not going to influence hypertrophy

01:43:21.120 | for the overwhelming majority of people.

01:43:22.840 | - It might even help it by increasing blood flow

01:43:24.720 | to the various muscles. - Absolutely.

01:43:27.120 | - Does it matter, let's say someone's doing primarily

01:43:29.240 | strength and hypertrophy.

01:43:30.480 | Their primary goals are strength and hypertrophy.

01:43:33.360 | And then they're going to do,

01:43:34.960 | they're going to hit that 150 to 180 minutes

01:43:37.000 | of zone two cardio per week,

01:43:38.120 | assuming they're breaking that up

01:43:39.100 | into three or four sessions.

01:43:40.360 | Does it matter if they do it in the same workout

01:43:42.440 | before or after, does that matter?

01:43:45.520 | I tend to do just by way of example for people,

01:43:48.160 | certainly I'm just one example.

01:43:50.560 | I tend to do resistance training one day,

01:43:53.280 | then I'll do zone two cardio the next day.

01:43:54.880 | I jog 'cause that's the thing I prefer.

01:43:56.840 | Then I'll do strength hypertrophy training the next day

01:43:59.760 | and then jog for my zone two cardio.

01:44:01.900 | And then I take one full day off a week.

01:44:04.120 | I've never actually done the zone two cardio

01:44:06.400 | on the same day, but were I to do it on the same day?

01:44:09.560 | Would it matter if I did it before

01:44:10.920 | or after my strength hypertrophy training?

01:44:13.040 | - Not really.

01:44:13.880 | - Okay.

01:44:14.700 | - You're going to be just fine.

01:44:15.540 | Interference effects, the interference effect

01:44:16.960 | is what this is called.

01:44:18.320 | So this is all the way back to 1980 Bob Hickman stuff, right?

01:44:22.620 | And he was actually working in a lab with John Halazzi,

01:44:25.880 | who's one of the fathers of exercise biochemistry.

01:44:29.240 | And so the story goes that Hickman came in,

01:44:32.720 | he was a strength training guy and Halazzi,

01:44:34.480 | almost all those initial exercise physiologists

01:44:36.480 | were conditioning folks, right?

01:44:38.480 | So it's almost always swimmers and runners.

01:44:40.680 | And that's why a bulk of the exercise physiology

01:44:43.360 | historically is shaped in that direction.

01:44:45.920 | That's what those scientists were interested in.

01:44:47.700 | So Hickman was there in the lab

01:44:49.140 | and then the how much of this is myth or not,

01:44:52.420 | who really knows, but so the story goes.

01:44:55.400 | That this is sort of chipping back and forth

01:44:57.040 | and you know how from a PI to a postdoc

01:44:59.320 | and kind of that razzing works a little bit.

01:45:02.240 | And eventually he was like,

01:45:03.300 | you got to start running with us.

01:45:04.240 | And he was like, you got to start lifting with me

01:45:05.780 | and kind of goes back and forth.

01:45:06.980 | Well, you know who wins in that equation.

01:45:08.620 | It's not the postdoc, right?

01:45:09.980 | So it's the PI gets in and Hickman says, okay, fine.

01:45:13.100 | So he starts running with Halazzi

01:45:14.900 | and then eventually starts to realize I'm getting weak.

01:45:17.180 | I'm losing strength and I just can't,

01:45:19.080 | I think it was his bench press specifically

01:45:20.500 | was going down or maybe his squat.

01:45:21.900 | I can't remember.

01:45:22.740 | Who knows if it's even real, but point is.

01:45:26.260 | So he's going along and so eventually starts

01:45:28.140 | to create a little bit of animosity.

01:45:30.180 | And it's like, actually I don't think it's good for me

01:45:31.680 | and then blah, blah, blah.

01:45:32.520 | And so they did what any good scientists would do

01:45:34.460 | and said, well, let's find out, right?

01:45:36.960 | And so they, he run a really famous experiment

01:45:39.940 | where he took a group, three groups.

01:45:41.860 | One group did a endurance piece, right?

01:45:44.460 | The steady state cardio.

01:45:45.480 | One group did a strength training piece.

01:45:47.060 | And then the third group did both of those workouts combined.

01:45:49.940 | Not like a reduction.

01:45:50.920 | So both volumes stacked on top of each other.

01:45:54.060 | And the results are fairly predictable

01:45:56.460 | in terms of the endurance group only

01:45:59.380 | have the greatest increases in VO2 max and endurance markers.

01:46:02.080 | The strength training group had the greatest increases

01:46:03.980 | in muscle hypertrophy.

01:46:05.900 | But where the interesting part was

01:46:07.160 | and where this whole field started was the combined group.

01:46:10.280 | So this is concurrent training

01:46:11.540 | is what it's generally called.

01:46:12.400 | So you're doing concurrent things.

01:46:13.820 | And typically that means hypertrophy and strength

01:46:16.440 | stacked on top of some steady state endurance.

01:46:18.600 | - In the same time frame?

01:46:20.100 | - Same workout. - Same two hour block.

01:46:22.100 | - Or same like week.

01:46:23.420 | It doesn't really, it can be kind of all these.

01:46:26.480 | Well, the concurrent group saw the same improvements

01:46:31.260 | in VO2 max as the endurance group.

01:46:34.180 | And he's like, well, okay.

01:46:36.080 | So the strength training did not compromise

01:46:38.140 | the endurance adaptations.

01:46:40.140 | However, they saw much lower increases

01:46:43.460 | in strength and hypertrophy.

01:46:44.980 | And so it was, the conclusion was the addition

01:46:49.180 | of endurance work compromised muscle growth

01:46:52.740 | and strength development.

01:46:53.580 | However, the addition of strength training

01:46:55.500 | to your endurance work will not compromise

01:46:57.380 | your endurance gains.

01:46:59.060 | Now that second piece has been shown countless more times.

01:47:02.620 | So if you're an endurance athlete,

01:47:03.760 | adding strength training is almost always

01:47:06.940 | going to be massively beneficial.

01:47:08.640 | Very little chance of detriment.

01:47:10.940 | This is why every endurance athlete

01:47:12.100 | is gonna have some sort of strength and power component

01:47:14.380 | to their training.

01:47:15.620 | The controversy though came in the interference effect.

01:47:18.020 | So how much endurance training

01:47:19.440 | really blocks muscular development.

01:47:21.580 | And for years, myself included, was we preached hard.

01:47:25.940 | Don't do these two things at the same time.

01:47:29.020 | My friend, my colleague, Kevin Murek,

01:47:30.320 | has a really nice review article.

01:47:31.740 | Jimmy Bagley, those two guys put this thing out.

01:47:33.700 | You can go read that where they cover all these things

01:47:36.580 | and they've got some nice figures in there.

01:47:37.780 | But the general answer here is interference effect

01:47:41.940 | is sort of real, but it's probably greatly overblown.

01:47:45.320 | It matters.

01:47:46.180 | So are you talking about a 20 minute jog

01:47:48.620 | at conversation pace?

01:47:49.720 | That's probably doing very little with the assumption

01:47:53.300 | that are you doing an eccentric based exercise like running?

01:47:56.260 | Well, then you're gonna have more of an interference effect

01:47:57.980 | than cycling.

01:47:59.220 | That makes a ton of sense if you think about it, right?

01:48:02.460 | What's your total energy intake?

01:48:04.320 | If you're eating sufficient calories,

01:48:05.940 | you can still be in an anabolic state.

01:48:07.420 | If the addition of extra energy expenditure,

01:48:09.980 | that's all it really is, mark the cardio,

01:48:13.560 | put you in a negative energy state,

01:48:15.420 | it's gonna become very difficult to go through anabolism.

01:48:18.820 | So those things matter.

01:48:20.740 | If you're talking about doing like running a few laps

01:48:23.420 | around the track as a warmup,

01:48:25.540 | like that's not interference effect.

01:48:27.620 | What we're really talking about

01:48:28.580 | is a big volume performed consistently.

01:48:31.540 | Now, after Hickman came out with this paper in 1980,

01:48:34.460 | people followed it up in the '90s and 2000s with mechanism.

01:48:38.300 | And we started to see,

01:48:40.100 | hey, there's this cell signaling pathway

01:48:43.300 | that goes down called mTOR,

01:48:44.780 | and that's what leads to muscle growth.

01:48:47.100 | And then on the other side of that equation,

01:48:48.540 | there's a thing called AMPK,

01:48:50.260 | which is more associated with mitochondrial

01:48:51.940 | biogenesis and endurance.

01:48:54.340 | And there's this little molecule in between

01:48:55.920 | at the time most people would point to TSC2.

01:48:59.780 | Well, it turns out AMPK activation is fine.

01:49:03.520 | If you activate mTOR, there's no bearing on AMPK,

01:49:06.860 | but if you activate AMPK,

01:49:09.040 | it's gonna activate TSC2, which inhibited mTOR.

01:49:11.780 | And so it was like, we had practical outcome,

01:49:14.220 | i.e. Hickman, you're gonna get weaker.

01:49:17.780 | Now we had mechanism.

01:49:18.940 | So that story became very, very strong

01:49:20.700 | that this interference effect,

01:49:22.180 | and this is how science should work, right?

01:49:23.520 | When you see mechanism match up with practical human outcome,

01:49:26.700 | it's a strong thing. - That's what you want, yep.

01:49:28.800 | - It was still wrong though.

01:49:30.740 | It just took more science, right?

01:49:32.140 | And this is why we always have to give science

01:49:33.860 | a bit of time.

01:49:35.220 | And you have to be willing to follow, right?

01:49:38.720 | And again, even me in the field

01:49:41.540 | who has a practitioner background in science,

01:49:43.660 | I felt very strongly, this is a big problem.

01:49:45.860 | It just didn't turn out to be the case.

01:49:48.020 | Enough studies came out where I'm like,

01:49:49.840 | okay, it's probably not that big a deal,

01:49:52.220 | unless the movement is heavily eccentric based,

01:49:55.280 | the volume is very high,

01:49:57.280 | you're trying to maximize muscle growth,

01:50:00.040 | and energy is not controlled.

01:50:02.280 | If that's not all the case,

01:50:03.460 | interference effect is probably

01:50:04.960 | not something most people should worry about.

01:50:09.460 | Especially when you compare that against

01:50:11.660 | the well-roundedness that you need

01:50:13.560 | for total physiological health.

01:50:15.120 | Probably not a big deal.

01:50:17.640 | - Very reassuring for me to hear,

01:50:19.140 | because I do enjoy lifting weights,

01:50:21.660 | and I really enjoy running,

01:50:22.940 | and I love running outside.

01:50:24.480 | I believe I used to experience the interference effect

01:50:26.820 | when I used to do a very long run on Sundays.

01:50:29.580 | I would just go out for two hours or something like that.

01:50:32.900 | I don't know that I ate enough or who knows,

01:50:35.340 | I always feel like I eat enough or more.

01:50:37.700 | I love to eat.

01:50:38.840 | But that long Sunday run

01:50:42.100 | always made it hard for me to make progressive

01:50:44.540 | gains in strength and hypertrophy in the gym.

01:50:49.260 | Whereas when I cut that to 30 minutes,

01:50:51.620 | three or four times a week,

01:50:53.500 | I don't see any interference effect at all.

01:50:55.460 | - Probably very real.

01:50:56.300 | - And I haven't trained specifically for endurance

01:50:58.160 | in a very long time,

01:50:59.000 | so I haven't experienced the non-interference effect,

01:51:02.660 | which as you said before,

01:51:03.740 | most, if not all, endurance athletes probably are,

01:51:06.740 | or at least should be doing some sort of strength work

01:51:08.700 | just to keep the undercarriage strong, as I think-

01:51:10.740 | - Yeah, there's a bunch of reasons, yeah.

01:51:12.780 | - So what are some protocols that people could explore

01:51:16.940 | for continuous endurance training?

01:51:19.580 | I mean, I've thrown out this 150 to 180 minute zone two

01:51:21.980 | cardio, but that's really the,

01:51:23.780 | that's really the kind of kindergarten of endurance.

01:51:26.220 | - Yeah.

01:51:27.060 | - And there, I'm probably being generous.

01:51:28.140 | It's probably the nursery school of endurance

01:51:29.740 | that everyone should do.

01:51:30.960 | What sorts of other protocols?

01:51:32.620 | I realize that can be very goal-directed,

01:51:34.420 | but is it unreasonable, for instance,

01:51:35.980 | for somebody to do four hours

01:51:39.360 | of continuous endurance training with intervals in there

01:51:42.940 | as well to get it kind of all around heart health

01:51:46.060 | and the ability to go long distances?

01:51:47.940 | - Yeah, I'll answer this too, it's the very first one.

01:51:50.060 | To tackle the long duration of endurance

01:51:52.700 | is how I refer to it.

01:51:54.620 | You asked really about heart rate zones.

01:51:56.380 | To me, that's almost totally irrelevant.

01:51:58.860 | It doesn't matter, right?

01:51:59.860 | If you're moving, you're moving.

01:52:00.900 | That's the functional piece here.

01:52:02.720 | If you want to push it and go at a non-conversational pace,

01:52:06.820 | that has tremendous health benefits.

01:52:09.180 | If you want to do it a little bit slower, fine.

01:52:11.700 | If you're at the pace where you can have a conversation,

01:52:13.580 | to me, I don't even count that as exercise.

01:52:15.740 | That's not a pejorative, by the way.

01:52:18.440 | That is just general physical movement.

01:52:20.100 | And it is extraordinarily clear, you need a lot of that.

01:52:23.860 | You need a lot more of that than we get.

01:52:26.220 | You can do this in a couple of efficient ways,

01:52:28.540 | just taking your phone calls moving.

01:52:30.880 | If you've got a 30-minute call every day

01:52:32.920 | or most days of the week, and you can do that while moving,

01:52:35.180 | you've checked not that whole box,

01:52:37.420 | but a pretty good chunk of it.

01:52:38.540 | - And that could even be done inside.

01:52:40.580 | - 100%. - It could be a pacing

01:52:41.420 | back and forth.

01:52:42.240 | I'm a big pacer.

01:52:43.700 | Oh yeah, me too, like you probably saw me, like I'm going

01:52:45.620 | to walk up and down all over the place.

01:52:47.660 | Most of the time when I'm in my office working,

01:52:49.300 | like I'm shadowboxing, like I'm doing air squats,

01:52:52.540 | not even intentionally, I'm just like-

01:52:54.100 | - Do you have one of those treadmills under the desk?

01:52:55.820 | - I don't, but like every lab I ever came through,

01:52:58.380 | somebody did.

01:52:59.220 | - We did an episode on workspace optimization,

01:53:01.380 | and the data on those treadmills are pretty interesting.

01:53:03.580 | They definitely increase alertness,

01:53:05.220 | which for obvious reasons, even a little bit of movement

01:53:08.540 | is going to generate a little bit of adrenaline.

01:53:12.600 | So pacing around, moving, taking calls, moving,

01:53:15.180 | getting walks when you can,

01:53:16.940 | and then in terms of building endurance,

01:53:18.960 | let's say somebody wants to, quote unquote,

01:53:20.480 | get into better shape, they already,

01:53:24.020 | may or may not already have some size and strength

01:53:26.040 | that they're happy with, and they just want to get in,

01:53:28.400 | they want to improve their health.

01:53:29.540 | - Yep.

01:53:30.380 | - So when does that 150, 180 minutes thing

01:53:33.180 | tick over into a different protocol?

01:53:34.900 | - Yeah, okay, so I think the way that I can outline

01:53:36.980 | a weekly schedule, just as a conceptual model here,

01:53:42.140 | that long duration stuff is not even counting,

01:53:44.300 | as I mentioned, right?

01:53:45.140 | It's just a, this is what you need to do as a human,

01:53:47.320 | moving forward, we haven't improved.

01:53:49.120 | If you're extremely unfit, you may see some changes

01:53:52.020 | in cardiovascular health there, but for the most part,

01:53:53.640 | this is just knocking out the general physical practice

01:53:55.960 | you need to be higher functioning.

01:53:57.880 | So whatever that time domain is, I don't really care.

01:54:00.540 | It's not a huge concern of mine.

01:54:02.820 | What I think you need to hit are these nodes.

01:54:04.740 | You need to do something once a week

01:54:06.500 | that gets you to a maximum heart rate.

01:54:08.740 | Now I don't have to literally mean max, but close.

01:54:11.760 | - So this means really sucking for air.

01:54:13.740 | - Really, like as high as you can possibly get.

01:54:16.100 | You can wear a heart rate monitor if you want,

01:54:18.140 | but maximum heart rate, the rough equation we say

01:54:20.500 | is 220 minus your age.

01:54:22.460 | So if you're 40 years old, your maximum heart rate

01:54:25.300 | is probably about 180 beats per minute.

01:54:27.900 | Now I can tell you flat out right now,

01:54:29.800 | my max heart rate is close to 210,

01:54:33.580 | which means I'm 10 years old.

01:54:36.180 | So take that number with a grain of salt.

01:54:38.040 | I have had a bunch of professional athletes

01:54:40.240 | who are in their 20s and their max heart rate is 175,

01:54:43.500 | and they are in way better shape than I am.

01:54:45.560 | So maximum heart rate is not a good proxy

01:54:47.260 | for physical fitness.

01:54:48.820 | It's a rough number.

01:54:49.780 | An easy way to do it is if you have a heart rate monitor

01:54:51.940 | or anything like that, do the hardest workout

01:54:54.140 | you can possibly do, see what the highest number you get as,

01:54:57.020 | and assume that's close.

01:54:58.860 | If you want to just start at 220 minus your age,

01:55:00.580 | that's fine too.

01:55:02.020 | Do something though where you're like, yep, this is death.

01:55:05.540 | Like this is really, really challenging.

01:55:07.180 | - For how long?

01:55:08.380 | - However long that takes you.

01:55:09.620 | That can be a 30 second go on an aerodyne or an aerosol bike.

01:55:13.160 | That could be a,

01:55:14.580 | do one of those things where you kind of like sprint,

01:55:20.300 | run as hard as you can during the straightaway on a track

01:55:22.220 | and then walk the corners.

01:55:23.380 | Kind of an old classic back when you and I

01:55:25.440 | were kids, interval training.

01:55:26.940 | - They don't do that anymore?

01:55:27.940 | - I guess, I don't know.

01:55:28.780 | I don't even have to talk about it.

01:55:29.620 | - In PE class, we had to change,

01:55:31.380 | and if you didn't bring running shoes,

01:55:32.680 | you had to do it barefoot.

01:55:33.700 | - Oh, I love it.

01:55:35.100 | I love your teacher.

01:55:36.140 | - Yeah, it wasn't a,

01:55:38.020 | our football, basketball, baseball teams weren't that good,

01:55:40.780 | but anything like running cross country,

01:55:43.060 | just 'cause of where I grew up with brutal, brutal coaches.

01:55:46.200 | So that, yeah, they'd make the, all kids do these runs.

01:55:49.100 | - Yep, so it can be in the 30 probably seconds at a minimum.

01:55:53.520 | It's hard to get you to a true heart rate max

01:55:56.140 | in shorter than 30 seconds.

01:55:57.620 | You can get the total suck in under 20 seconds,

01:56:00.860 | but getting to a true heart rate max

01:56:02.380 | is probably gonna take more than 30 seconds.

01:56:04.100 | So it doesn't really matter what you want to do.

01:56:07.020 | It can be, again, a sprint uphill.

01:56:09.660 | It could be, well, you're talking,

01:56:10.940 | it could be burpees to death.

01:56:12.740 | You know, like whatever you want to do, just-

01:56:14.220 | - Well, those have an eccentric component, right?

01:56:15.700 | - Yeah, they do. - Yeah.

01:56:16.660 | - No question about it.

01:56:17.740 | But if you did-

01:56:19.840 | - Not to actual death, by the way.

01:56:21.300 | - Yeah.

01:56:22.560 | If you just did,

01:56:23.400 | I'm gonna do as many burpees as I can for 90 seconds.

01:56:26.100 | It probably won't take you much longer than that

01:56:27.460 | to get to close to max heart rate.

01:56:28.300 | - And is that the whole workout?

01:56:29.900 | - Could be.

01:56:30.840 | - So once a week, get to max heart rate.

01:56:32.900 | - Touch it.

01:56:33.740 | - I love it.

01:56:34.560 | - Touch it.

01:56:35.400 | It's not the best, but it'll work.

01:56:37.600 | - And what are the specific benefits that that provides?

01:56:40.880 | - Okay, so earlier in our chat,

01:56:43.760 | we outlined the rule of specificity,

01:56:46.760 | specific adaptation to impose demand.

01:56:49.360 | If you're never getting to that high of a pace,

01:56:51.720 | you're never, it would be like trying to get stronger,

01:56:54.020 | but only going to 60%.

01:56:55.920 | So every cardiovascular adaptation that occurs

01:56:58.360 | with cardiovascular training

01:56:59.320 | is just simply going to get to the topper end by doing this.

01:57:01.720 | So if you just start at the heart itself,

01:57:03.800 | stroke volume increase.

01:57:05.040 | This is the amount of blood

01:57:05.880 | that's kicked out per contraction.

01:57:08.360 | Cardiac output, resting heart rate.

01:57:11.440 | If you go to the endothelial function,

01:57:12.920 | you're talking about nitric oxide release,

01:57:14.740 | endothelial health in general, capillary, mitochondria,

01:57:19.740 | all the way down, like you just walk through

01:57:21.760 | the whole system, pulmonary exchange to the lungs.

01:57:24.360 | All of those are going to benefit

01:57:26.120 | by being challenged to their maximum.

01:57:28.160 | - They also teach you where your vomit reflex is.

01:57:29.920 | - Yeah, there you go, right?

01:57:31.400 | - Let's hope not.

01:57:32.680 | - Stress is what causes adaptation, right?

01:57:34.200 | So if you push your, okay, here's the difference.

01:57:36.720 | If you did 25 minutes of steady state,

01:57:39.720 | you're not challenging the same thing

01:57:41.360 | as what we just talked about.

01:57:43.160 | The way that I explain this is if you understand

01:57:45.120 | the point of physiological failure,

01:57:48.360 | then you understand the place of adaptation.

01:57:50.960 | That's it.

01:57:52.000 | So if you and I both go run on a,

01:57:53.800 | we both did a VO2 max test.

01:57:55.560 | So a classic VO2 max test is gonna take eight to 12 minutes.

01:57:58.840 | And it's gonna look something like this.

01:58:00.060 | We're gonna get in a treadmill and we're gonna run.

01:58:03.520 | And every minute, I'm gonna just slightly increase

01:58:05.880 | that treadmill, either the speed or the grade.

01:58:07.720 | Most of the time, it's the speed, right?

01:58:09.360 | So we get to a high grade, say 10% grade or something.

01:58:12.480 | And then we go five miles per hour, 5.2, 5.4.

01:58:16.480 | And we just go until you can't go any longer.

01:58:21.780 | Now let's say you and I did that

01:58:22.800 | and we had the same exact timeframe.

01:58:24.880 | And so we both went eight minutes.

01:58:26.860 | The time that you last is not the thing

01:58:28.180 | that we care about, right?

01:58:29.320 | It's the volume of oxygen that you breathe out

01:58:31.800 | is what determines it.

01:58:33.060 | But let's say we went with the same time domain

01:58:34.420 | and we had the same VO2 max.

01:58:35.600 | Let's say they were both 50 milliliters

01:58:37.200 | per kilogram per minute, which is like a okay number,

01:58:40.800 | but that's nothing to be extremely proud about.

01:58:43.260 | Just because we have the same number

01:58:45.960 | does not mean we have the same point

01:58:47.560 | of physiological failure.

01:58:49.040 | And this matters because it's gonna answer

01:58:50.680 | the what do I do about it then question, right?

01:58:53.480 | So if you got off and I started asking you

01:58:55.960 | a series of questions and you're like,

01:58:57.840 | I basically said, why'd you quit?

01:58:59.600 | You know, why did you jump off the treadmill?

01:59:00.920 | Why'd you stop?

01:59:01.760 | Like my chest, like I couldn't catch my breath.

01:59:04.760 | I thought my heart was gonna explode.

01:59:07.060 | Okay, great.

01:59:08.380 | If you ask me and I said, my legs were on fire.

01:59:11.200 | Like I was breathing hard, but I couldn't take another step.

01:59:14.200 | This is a very rough indicator of different places

01:59:17.340 | of physiological disruption.

01:59:19.860 | Now, what I've seen a lot with my professional athletes,

01:59:22.180 | especially like fighters, they're going to generally fail

01:59:25.860 | in their legs because they don't often do a lot

01:59:28.060 | of strength training in their legs.

01:59:29.020 | They don't do a lot of leg work.

01:59:30.080 | They're fighting on their back literally a lot

01:59:32.820 | or on top or on their knees.

01:59:34.620 | So their legs tend to give out before, there.

01:59:37.740 | Someone who fails in the cardiovascular system,

01:59:39.740 | like say you did a lot of leg training,

01:59:41.800 | typically like an endurance athlete,

01:59:43.720 | that's not gonna be their issue.

01:59:44.940 | It's just gonna be, they're gonna reach a heart rate

01:59:46.760 | and ventilation threshold that can no longer handle.

01:59:50.800 | If I put you on the exact same training protocols,

01:59:53.400 | it's not gonna be as effective

01:59:54.460 | because you're going to always fail at your legs

01:59:57.280 | and they're gonna always fail

01:59:58.120 | at their cardiovascular system.

02:00:00.480 | I need to flip that, right?

02:00:01.440 | You need to put you in a position

02:00:02.640 | to where you can reach a true heart rate

02:00:05.220 | or ventilation challenge while your legs

02:00:08.560 | are still hanging in there or the opposite.

02:00:11.460 | So the training protocol is based on that point of failure.

02:00:15.120 | The adaptation is in the same thing.

02:00:17.820 | So if you are failing because of your legs,

02:00:21.940 | then you might see a greater increase

02:00:23.200 | in capitalization in your legs.

02:00:25.040 | Relative to somebody else who's failing

02:00:26.440 | in their cardiovascular system,

02:00:28.800 | they may see a greater change in something

02:00:31.020 | on that side of the equation.

02:00:31.960 | So it matters how you're failing at all times.

02:00:35.520 | - What I love about this is that it sounds like

02:00:38.280 | it's like a thermometer for where one is weak

02:00:41.120 | and needs work, but also provides a stimulus

02:00:43.280 | to improve the very thing that you need.

02:00:45.560 | - That's the trick, right? - That you need support in.

02:00:47.040 | So to just get real brass tacks about it,

02:00:49.920 | it would be once a week at 90 seconds

02:00:54.420 | near maximum heart rate, could I do more?

02:00:57.100 | Could I do five or six of those 90-second bouts?

02:01:00.680 | - No question.

02:01:01.520 | You can do, as long as you touch that max heart rate,

02:01:04.320 | I'm good, right?

02:01:05.320 | Ideal world, probably four to eight.

02:01:07.600 | - In that single session. - Ideal, right?

02:01:09.960 | If that takes you 20 seconds or 90 seconds, it's fine.

02:01:13.040 | If you want to do 30 on, 30 off,

02:01:15.340 | you want to do 20 on, 40 off, 40 on, 20 off,

02:01:17.800 | those numbers don't matter.

02:01:18.960 | - And is there an interference effect of this

02:01:20.780 | on the other sorts of training that we've talked about?

02:01:22.200 | - It actually tends to be complimentary.

02:01:25.300 | The evidence available suggests that this high interval stuff

02:01:27.900 | is more likely to be complimentary to hypertrophy training,

02:01:31.300 | probably because of lactate and some other cool things,

02:01:34.460 | which are very beneficial molecules

02:01:37.020 | that people don't understand.

02:01:38.040 | They think it's bad.

02:01:38.880 | It's actually a hugely beneficial thing.

02:01:40.840 | It can be interference.

02:01:43.280 | It can provide an interference

02:01:44.460 | if calories are not accounted for,

02:01:47.140 | if rest is not accounted for, and other things.

02:01:48.780 | But in general, it's probably okay.

02:01:51.160 | I wouldn't add it to your equation

02:01:52.580 | if you don't need it for maximizing hypertrophy,

02:01:55.960 | but for the person who wants

02:01:56.980 | to just get well-rounded physiology,

02:01:59.020 | yeah, I wouldn't hesitate to do these

02:02:00.720 | even in the same session or different sessions.

02:02:03.700 | - Terrific.

02:02:04.540 | So, and if that's done once a week

02:02:06.420 | and the 150 to 180 minutes or so of zone two cardio

02:02:09.940 | is done in the rest of the week,

02:02:12.820 | the person's doing their strength

02:02:14.020 | and hypertrophy training, we would hope,

02:02:15.980 | what other sorts of endurance practices

02:02:19.140 | could one incorporate?

02:02:20.140 | You mentioned muscular endurance,

02:02:21.480 | like the ability, would like a wall sit

02:02:23.820 | or the ability to do a plank.

02:02:25.120 | Was that, is that something, is that useful for anything?

02:02:27.580 | - Yes.

02:02:28.420 | - Except for doing planks and wall sitting?

02:02:30.280 | - No, no, it's extraordinarily useful.

02:02:32.180 | Let's hold on muscular endurance.

02:02:34.880 | I want to finish one more thing on this side.

02:02:36.520 | So if we're building this week of endurance,

02:02:39.720 | once a week hit that number,

02:02:42.280 | if you can do repeated bouts,

02:02:44.040 | you know, we talked four to eight, that's fantastic.

02:02:47.000 | If you can't muscle the,

02:02:50.000 | if you can't manage the mental energy every week,

02:02:53.660 | do it every other week.

02:02:55.560 | It's still very good, right?

02:02:56.680 | 'Cause I get it, like I'm a working person too.

02:02:58.660 | And sometimes you're just like, I cannot,

02:03:00.420 | like those workouts feel incredible afterwards,

02:03:03.460 | but man, they are daunting.

02:03:05.100 | If you love this stuff,

02:03:06.020 | you could do it four times a week.

02:03:07.080 | If you hate it though,

02:03:08.220 | it's not realistic to think

02:03:09.260 | you're going to be able to knock this out.

02:03:10.980 | You're going to end up doing 70, 80%,

02:03:13.100 | which is not going to get you the benefits.

02:03:14.340 | So just don't do it.

02:03:15.460 | - You really have to hit that ceiling.

02:03:16.580 | - You got to get up there, close.

02:03:18.220 | - Have someone chase, I always say, you know the,

02:03:20.560 | when doing this kind of work in my mind,

02:03:24.720 | I'm thinking that I'm basically being chased

02:03:26.480 | by somebody with a syringe full of poison.

02:03:29.180 | - Yep.

02:03:30.020 | - And while there are other ways out of the situation

02:03:31.140 | and for the benefit of what we're talking about,

02:03:33.760 | what I'm referring to is to just run.

02:03:35.720 | - Yep. - Yeah.

02:03:36.600 | - My motivation is typically,

02:03:38.140 | if you just get this done,

02:03:40.280 | we're done in a couple of minutes.

02:03:42.080 | Just get it done.

02:03:42.920 | Like, don't go here if you're not going to do it.

02:03:44.680 | When you show up, check in and it's over really quickly.

02:03:47.920 | - Breathing down regulation afterwards.

02:03:49.740 | - 100%, you have to, right?

02:03:52.100 | It's a huge key.

02:03:53.160 | So if you absolutely can't do it, do it every other week.

02:03:55.080 | That's twice a month.

02:03:56.080 | Give me twice a month.

02:03:58.180 | It can be done on the road, it can be done in 20 minutes.

02:03:59.920 | Like do a really good, thorough warmup.

02:04:02.440 | Don't just jump into those by the way, right away.

02:04:04.380 | It's not going to be as beneficial.

02:04:06.540 | Really nice, good sweat broke, a really good warmup,

02:04:10.000 | and then give me four minutes of hard work and we're done.

02:04:12.500 | Right, get out of there.

02:04:14.120 | If you want to use like a bath or hot thermal stress

02:04:16.560 | to kind of like aid in that warmup process, fine.

02:04:19.340 | Getting a sauna, getting a hot bath, get really hot,

02:04:21.240 | get up there, warm up, knock it out.

02:04:22.960 | Whole thing is 20 minutes plus five minutes breathing.

02:04:26.120 | - I'm going to start doing this.

02:04:27.320 | - It's so, you got a bike right there.

02:04:29.400 | - Yeah, I've got all sorts, every room in this studio

02:04:32.720 | that has a different piece of equipment it seems.

02:04:34.400 | - So I want that once a week,

02:04:36.320 | realistically every week if I have to.

02:04:37.840 | I want that physical activity piece,

02:04:39.500 | call it whatever you want, long duration thing.

02:04:41.860 | Ideally, you'll do as much of that through your nose only.

02:04:45.420 | You're not going to be able to do the interval stuff

02:04:46.560 | at nose only, don't even try.

02:04:49.120 | But if you can go that whole 30 minute time

02:04:51.240 | or 20 or 40 minutes, whatever it's going to be,

02:04:53.920 | that's actually a good way to regulate intensity.

02:04:55.740 | So go as hard as you can while still being able

02:04:57.280 | to breathe through your nose only.

02:04:58.360 | If you have to open up your mouth a little bit, fine,

02:05:01.580 | but try to stay there.

02:05:02.720 | What you'll see is very quickly,

02:05:04.420 | you'll be able to increase your work output

02:05:06.280 | while just breathing through your nose,

02:05:08.120 | which has a bunch of other benefits.

02:05:10.740 | The other piece I want is this middle ground,

02:05:14.340 | which is can you sustain hard work for eight to 12,

02:05:19.280 | maybe as little as four minutes?

02:05:20.480 | I'll give you four to 12 minutes.

02:05:22.120 | This doesn't have to be quite as high as the first one.

02:05:25.440 | You don't have to get to a heart rate max,

02:05:26.640 | but can you get somewhere in the 80% range?

02:05:30.800 | And can you hold that for four minutes?

02:05:32.980 | Maybe give me two minutes, two minutes of rest

02:05:36.240 | and do that twice, something like that.

02:05:38.800 | Ideal situation is what a runner would do

02:05:40.860 | is like what we'll call mile repeats,

02:05:43.440 | 'cause they're running four or five minute miles.

02:05:45.960 | Whatever time it takes them to finish,

02:05:47.800 | they're gonna rest that.

02:05:48.640 | So it's a one to one work to rest ratio.

02:05:50.220 | So a five minute mile rest five minutes can go again.

02:05:54.340 | That's probably pretty unrealistic for a lot of folks.

02:05:56.760 | - Well, the five minute part is unrealistic for most folks.

02:05:59.500 | For me, it would be eight minutes, eight minutes.

02:06:02.260 | - Fine.

02:06:03.100 | - Probably something like that.

02:06:03.920 | - Well, in your particular case, just do the 800 meter.

02:06:06.940 | So do 800 meters.

02:06:08.520 | Do something that takes two to six minutes to work.

02:06:12.520 | It is a lower intensity than the max stuff,

02:06:14.800 | but is a much higher workload.

02:06:17.500 | That is probably gonna give you,

02:06:19.260 | you might even argue the most cardiovascular benefit

02:06:22.120 | because it is sustained work output.

02:06:24.560 | And that's very critical.

02:06:25.440 | The downside of kind of like that conversational pace,

02:06:28.960 | it's physical activity, it's movement,

02:06:31.480 | it's blood flow, it's lymphatic drainage.

02:06:33.200 | It's not very cardiovascularly challenging though.

02:06:35.660 | You're just not gonna get an optimal health

02:06:38.720 | from just walking actively.

02:06:41.560 | - So two to six minutes of hard work

02:06:44.640 | with then an equivalent amount of rest in between

02:06:47.040 | and then repeat how many times?

02:06:48.600 | - Once if you have to.

02:06:51.600 | If it needs to be one rep,

02:06:52.520 | if it needs to be a six minute thing

02:06:53.720 | and then downregulate breathe.

02:06:55.600 | Twice if you can do that, six times, eight times,

02:06:57.600 | like whatever you can really do.

02:06:59.560 | And you can just take that as long of the training session

02:07:01.960 | as you want or short.

02:07:03.000 | Exercise choice can be whatever you want.

02:07:07.320 | So again, you can do sled pushes

02:07:09.660 | or it could be a kettlebell circuit or any combination

02:07:12.420 | of things where you're just, you're working

02:07:13.740 | and you're not giving yourself a break.

02:07:15.480 | You have got to be able to hold on

02:07:17.980 | at a very high waste product production level

02:07:20.700 | as well as a high demand for energy.

02:07:23.320 | And then bring it down.

02:07:26.340 | - And breathing during this two to six minutes

02:07:28.580 | of hard output is mainly through the nose

02:07:32.880 | or combination nose and mouth,

02:07:34.120 | or is that getting too technical?

02:07:35.380 | - Well, it's probably like I like it,

02:07:37.020 | but you tell me if it's too technical.

02:07:39.120 | You're going to try to maintain nasal only

02:07:40.520 | as much as you can, but you're going to lose it at some point.

02:07:43.020 | You can go through Brian and Rob's gear system

02:07:47.960 | and learn more and then you can kind of see

02:07:49.580 | what gear to be in.

02:07:50.420 | If you have to go nose in, mouth out

02:07:52.140 | or something like that.

02:07:53.980 | But I don't really care too much honestly, in that range.

02:07:56.380 | I'm getting most of my nasal only stuff at night

02:08:00.220 | and training and everything.

02:08:01.620 | So if you have to open up the throttle there

02:08:03.800 | to get the work done, that's okay.

02:08:06.960 | Oh, then we'll actually answer your question,

02:08:09.380 | which is muscular endurance.

02:08:11.020 | Let's go back to that piece.

02:08:13.180 | Muscular endurance is incredibly important

02:08:14.760 | for general maintenance of joint health.

02:08:17.060 | In other words, you have got form follows function, right?

02:08:22.060 | It's a very classic science-y physiology saying,

02:08:25.100 | meaning you've got a couple of different, there's a bunch,

02:08:27.820 | but to make it easy, two different types of muscle fibers,

02:08:30.620 | fast twitch and slow twitch.

02:08:32.300 | Fast twitch fibers tend to be, but they're not always bigger.

02:08:35.760 | They contract with a higher velocity.

02:08:37.260 | That's why they are called fast twitch,

02:08:39.140 | but they tend to be more glycolytic and thus fatigable.

02:08:42.900 | Slow twitch tend to be smaller.

02:08:45.340 | Well, not always.

02:08:46.300 | They are more packed with mitochondria

02:08:49.100 | that we're generally better at burning fat as fuel,

02:08:51.060 | but contract with lower velocity.

02:08:52.860 | Well, we have these two types

02:08:55.020 | so that we can regulate function more.

02:08:57.480 | You have some muscle groups that we're going to,

02:09:00.180 | sorry, let me go back up a quick second.

02:09:02.800 | Each individual muscle in a human body has a combination

02:09:05.360 | of some amount of fast and some amount of slow.

02:09:07.960 | That percentage of fast versus slow

02:09:09.540 | differs from muscle to muscle.

02:09:11.400 | So it also differs from person to person.

02:09:14.500 | Easy example is your calf muscle.

02:09:16.940 | There's three, but there's two primary muscles in your calf.

02:09:19.300 | One's called the soleus and one's the gastroc.

02:09:21.580 | The gastroc is the one where if you take your toe

02:09:23.980 | and point it towards your face and then flex,

02:09:26.300 | that's the one that pops out on the medial side, the inside.

02:09:30.480 | The soleus is what we call an anti-gravity muscle.

02:09:33.100 | And it is generally about 80% to even 90% slow twitch.

02:09:38.060 | And that's because it's supposed to be contracted lightly,

02:09:41.260 | all time, it's supposed to be on permanently.

02:09:43.600 | It's meant to keep, we call it anti-gravity

02:09:45.500 | 'cause it's meant to keep you erect, up and moving.

02:09:48.500 | Your spinal erector is supposed to do this,

02:09:50.300 | various muscles for postural

02:09:51.720 | are generally slow twitch muscles.

02:09:53.420 | So we're supposed to be on all times,

02:09:55.860 | not produce fast, not produce force, but don't get tired.

02:10:00.700 | The gastroc is the opposite.

02:10:02.700 | It's not activated very often, but when it's activated,

02:10:05.020 | it's meant for extreme propulsion.

02:10:07.020 | So this gives us the ability to reach up

02:10:08.440 | and scratch our eyeball and also punch somebody, right?

02:10:11.500 | We have to be able to regulate force output,

02:10:13.300 | which is going back to Henneman, right?

02:10:15.420 | Controlling what we use and what we don't use

02:10:17.120 | while also not wasting energy,

02:10:18.880 | which is the downside of activating

02:10:20.580 | a big threshold motor neuron is it requires a ton of energy.

02:10:24.140 | It's a more efficient mode of energy,

02:10:26.380 | but the total amount is really, really high.

02:10:28.660 | So muscular endurance is going to help

02:10:33.420 | those slow twitch muscle fibers

02:10:35.720 | and slow twitch predominant muscles

02:10:37.940 | maintain their working job.

02:10:40.820 | So if you lose your muscular endurance ability

02:10:42.820 | in your spinal erectors or your calf,

02:10:44.220 | you're gonna start slumping into bad positions.

02:10:46.340 | You're gonna be putting joints in a movement pattern

02:10:50.000 | that they're not going to be the most happy with.

02:10:52.500 | So it's more about than being able

02:10:54.200 | to just maintain a two minute wall squat.

02:10:56.540 | It's about maintaining joint integrity.

02:10:58.580 | And allowing that musculature to not fatigue

02:11:01.380 | when you ask it to do heavy and fast.

02:11:04.380 | So what I mean by that is you've got a whole combination

02:11:06.940 | of muscles in your shoulder.

02:11:09.300 | And we will generally call these

02:11:10.260 | like the rotator cuff muscles.

02:11:11.780 | Well, let's imagine those slow twitch postural muscles

02:11:15.900 | get fatigued and they start to lose contractile tension.

02:11:21.700 | And then you go to do something heavy or fast

02:11:23.900 | or an emergency situation.

02:11:25.380 | Those are already pre-fatigued.

02:11:27.220 | You're gonna rely more upon the fast twitch muscle fibers

02:11:29.260 | which are there less for postural integrity.

02:11:32.060 | You're likely to get out of position.

02:11:33.820 | And this is a whole recipe of like,

02:11:35.500 | God, why is my shoulder just hurting?

02:11:37.760 | God, my back.

02:11:39.460 | That's very often a case of the slow twitch fibers

02:11:42.040 | and the slow twitch muscle groups

02:11:43.840 | losing muscular endurance.

02:11:45.100 | So you need to build that back up

02:11:46.460 | so that they can control and hold the joint in the position

02:11:49.640 | so the fast twitch fibers can then contract with force.

02:11:52.340 | - I'm hoping that what I'm gonna say next

02:11:55.860 | meets what you said accurately.

02:11:58.980 | My experience is that getting injured, lifting weights,

02:12:02.840 | or even doing housework or yard work

02:12:04.980 | almost always happens when I'm not paying attention,

02:12:08.960 | fatigued, that's kind of obvious,

02:12:11.140 | but also getting in position to initiate a movement,

02:12:15.420 | setting down a weight or lifting weights off the rack

02:12:18.380 | or picking up dumbbells.

02:12:19.640 | That's almost always when I seem to activate

02:12:23.040 | this lower back thing that happens every, you know,

02:12:25.100 | six or eight months.

02:12:26.740 | And what you're saying, if I understand correctly,

02:12:28.940 | is that this muscular endurance from wall sits or planks

02:12:31.740 | or things of that sort,

02:12:32.580 | maybe you could give us a few other examples of these,

02:12:35.600 | can help us because they actually prepare the system

02:12:38.620 | to do what we normally think of as the more intense work.

02:12:41.900 | So it's really the,

02:12:43.140 | it sounds like it's really the architecture of the body

02:12:46.900 | that includes the nerves and muscles

02:12:47.980 | and everything else, of course,

02:12:49.260 | that lets the limbs and other kind of action end

02:12:53.180 | of the body do its best work.

02:12:54.980 | - Yeah, let it express its own power and force.

02:12:57.540 | Yep, we've actually landed on one of my final laws

02:13:01.280 | of strength and conditioning,

02:13:02.720 | which is similar to what I said earlier, right?

02:13:05.140 | So I said, exercises do not determine adaptations.

02:13:08.160 | Application determines adaptation.

02:13:10.660 | So it sounds similar, but it's quite different.

02:13:12.720 | There are no good or bad exercises.

02:13:15.100 | There's only good or bad application.

02:13:17.780 | Here's a great example of that, right?

02:13:20.420 | So you do not get hurt deadlifting

02:13:23.740 | because deadlifts are dangerous.

02:13:25.460 | You only get hurt deadlifting

02:13:26.860 | because you either got in bad position,

02:13:30.240 | you got in bad position

02:13:31.280 | because you either started in bad position,

02:13:33.020 | which is one of the things you just said,

02:13:34.100 | or you ended up in bad position.

02:13:36.780 | You did too much volume, you did too much intensity,

02:13:41.520 | or you did too much complexity.

02:13:43.060 | Those last three things all hurt you

02:13:45.420 | because they result in the first one,

02:13:47.400 | which is out of position.

02:13:49.340 | Or another way to think about this

02:13:50.700 | is if it's not a visible change in position

02:13:53.500 | is stress got put into a part of the system

02:13:58.120 | that should not absorb that much stress.

02:14:00.040 | So you did too much of it, you did it too heavy,

02:14:02.980 | you got fatigued, and so you broke position.

02:14:05.620 | You got too heavy, so you broke position.

02:14:07.420 | You made the exercise too complex,

02:14:09.300 | you put too many moving parts in it,

02:14:10.800 | you put too many joints in it, and you got out of position.

02:14:13.720 | You did that too many times.

02:14:15.420 | Over time, now we've led for either an acute injury,

02:14:18.780 | bam, you know, back pops and you fall on the floor,

02:14:21.260 | it is like, man, this thing is hurting over time.

02:14:24.460 | All these result in the same thing.

02:14:25.900 | So you cannot ever blame the exercise

02:14:28.100 | for causing the problem.

02:14:29.300 | It's always either the user or the coach.

02:14:32.500 | You programmed way too much here

02:14:34.120 | and I can't handle that position

02:14:35.700 | or you yourself went into it too much.

02:14:37.820 | So if you're getting these little tweaks

02:14:40.060 | and problems going on,

02:14:41.280 | you've made an error in one of those things.

02:14:43.180 | So simply back off.

02:14:45.420 | Reduce the complexity, right?

02:14:47.940 | Give yourself more stability, less moving parts.

02:14:50.480 | Do less volume, do less intensity.

02:14:53.040 | In fact, if you look at the people

02:14:54.380 | from the physical therapy world

02:14:55.780 | in terms of the pain literature,

02:14:57.900 | it's very clear that just stopping a movement

02:15:00.560 | is very rarely going to work.

02:15:02.180 | What you wanna do is back off all the way down

02:15:04.500 | to just below that threshold of that's what aggravates it.

02:15:07.680 | And you wanna train right there.

02:15:09.620 | That's gonna allow you to do two things.

02:15:11.140 | Number one, tissue tolerance,

02:15:12.660 | and then number two, desensitization.

02:15:14.860 | A lot of pain stuff,

02:15:15.880 | and you can probably speak a lot about this,

02:15:18.540 | especially with things like low back pain,

02:15:19.940 | is there's not necessarily often much damage there.

02:15:23.320 | It's a lot of hypersensitization

02:15:25.620 | of just pain signal, pain signal.

02:15:27.380 | Omitting the movement entirely

02:15:30.040 | does not get that signal to go away.

02:15:31.340 | You need to train just below that signal and desensitize it.

02:15:34.980 | So you wanna make sure that the muscular endurance

02:15:37.000 | allows you, you're just putting volume

02:15:39.380 | right below where you start to get a tweak.

02:15:41.740 | And it is beautifully effective for that.

02:15:44.140 | - I've experienced this right side lower back pain

02:15:46.540 | for years, sometimes shooting down the hip.

02:15:48.100 | The two things that really helped

02:15:50.300 | were doing anterior tib work.

02:15:52.700 | So hats off to knees over toes guy, Ben Patrick,

02:15:56.560 | who has created a lot of popularity around tib work.

02:16:01.220 | - Turns out joints, full range of motion,

02:16:04.660 | you're in a better spot.

02:16:05.540 | - Yeah, something about stabilizing

02:16:07.460 | the stuff from the knee down helped my back.

02:16:09.460 | And then also some neck work.

02:16:11.180 | And friends of mine are always teasing me

02:16:12.640 | that my gym is filled with the most bizarre equipment.

02:16:15.020 | It doesn't look like any other gym.

02:16:16.260 | A lot of it is just designed to keep me healthy

02:16:18.060 | and still training.

02:16:19.040 | But I love this idea of getting right below

02:16:23.020 | the threshold of pain activation

02:16:24.740 | and not simply going into complete non-action

02:16:28.300 | or just taking complete rest

02:16:29.540 | 'cause that actually can be detrimental.

02:16:32.100 | I'd love to talk about a few items

02:16:34.500 | that support training of all kinds

02:16:36.620 | and where there's a lot of confusion

02:16:38.500 | and indeed misconception and mystery.

02:16:41.460 | And just get your take on these.

02:16:42.940 | And I just wanna acknowledge at the outset

02:16:45.220 | that for some of these, there's a lot of science.

02:16:46.900 | For some of them, there's less science,

02:16:49.020 | but there certainly is a lot of experience in your camp.

02:16:53.500 | And those categories are cold, heat, and hydration.

02:16:57.780 | Because obviously whether or not you're a runner,

02:16:59.740 | whether or not you're strength training,

02:17:01.860 | if you're a human being, you need to hydrate.

02:17:05.260 | But in terms of work output and physical work output,

02:17:09.540 | maybe even cognitive work output,

02:17:10.940 | maybe tackle hydration first.

02:17:13.300 | There is what I call and what I think is now

02:17:16.080 | come to be known as the Galpin equation,

02:17:18.680 | which you really do deserve credit for

02:17:21.200 | because I think that people realize

02:17:23.800 | that there are a range of solutions out there,

02:17:26.140 | but there is a desperate need for straightforward solutions

02:17:30.320 | that work for 75% of people 75% of the time.

02:17:33.160 | So hydration is key.

02:17:35.580 | Maybe you could underscore just how key it is for us.

02:17:39.060 | And then what is the Galpin equation as I call it?

02:17:42.320 | And I think others are now referring to it.

02:17:44.100 | - Yeah, okay.

02:17:46.580 | Benefits of hydration/consequences of mishydration.

02:17:50.940 | So whether it's dehydration or overload.

02:17:53.140 | Physiology has hermetic curves, right?

02:17:57.900 | Now typically we think about this in terms of toxicology.

02:18:00.280 | So what this means is at some point

02:18:02.380 | giving you a dose of something,

02:18:05.140 | testosterone is a very easy example.

02:18:06.640 | If you're clinically deficient or low in testosterone

02:18:09.700 | and I gave you a little bit

02:18:10.920 | and it brings you back into a normal range,

02:18:12.860 | you generally see an improvement

02:18:14.620 | in health and functionality.

02:18:16.200 | Taking you though from normal to super high

02:18:19.720 | doesn't always necessarily provide additional benefit.

02:18:22.360 | In fact, if you continue to go,

02:18:23.440 | it's gonna provide detriment, right?

02:18:24.680 | So everything has this curve.

02:18:26.440 | And then some things are hermetic stressors,

02:18:28.000 | which means like a small, short, fast insult

02:18:31.360 | is actually beneficial

02:18:32.200 | because then you come back bigger, faster, stronger.

02:18:35.020 | That's how adaptation works.

02:18:36.800 | Basic hormesis, okay?

02:18:38.380 | Hydration is the same way.

02:18:39.440 | So at the end of the curve here,

02:18:40.700 | if you are under hydrated, we all know you could die, right?

02:18:44.800 | You have to have things.

02:18:46.120 | In fact, water is the only thing

02:18:49.000 | that is ubiquitous across biologies

02:18:51.360 | in terms of every living thing has to have it.

02:18:53.600 | There's no other vitamin, mineral, nutrient

02:18:55.360 | that is required among all living things

02:18:56.720 | with the exception of water.

02:18:58.200 | So that should give you a pretty good indication

02:18:59.860 | of it's importante, right?

02:19:02.020 | Like you gotta have this thing.

02:19:04.340 | Down here at the bottom, if you're dehydrated

02:19:06.760 | and I give you more, it's beneficial effects.

02:19:08.520 | However, if you're up the top already

02:19:10.280 | and I continue to give you more water past that,

02:19:12.680 | now we run into actual problems

02:19:14.280 | and we can get what's called hyponatremia,

02:19:16.540 | which is more common than people realize.

02:19:19.300 | Natremia being, actually not referring to the water,

02:19:22.120 | but the sodium concentration being too low.

02:19:25.080 | And you've probably talked about that

02:19:26.180 | at length of why that's an issue.

02:19:28.580 | If sodium potassium balances inside,

02:19:30.800 | outside of cell come off, your heart stops, right?

02:19:33.380 | Muscle contraction ends and all these things.

02:19:36.700 | So you don't wanna be over or under hydrated.

02:19:39.140 | So understanding this rough equation

02:19:41.320 | I sort of loosely calculated one day is helpful for that.

02:19:45.460 | I think the most context is talking about

02:19:47.720 | how much water to drink throughout the day

02:19:49.600 | and then how much water to drink during exercise.

02:19:51.380 | So the very easy answer is half your body weight

02:19:54.300 | in ounces per day is a very loose guideline

02:19:57.960 | for total amount of fluid consumption.

02:19:59.480 | So if you weigh 200 pounds, aim for 100 ounces of water.

02:20:02.880 | It's like a very easy number.

02:20:05.120 | If you hit that, you're probably, I'd say 90% of you

02:20:08.000 | are a good 90% of the time alone.

02:20:10.240 | If you then go to exercise, you need to then account

02:20:12.800 | for that fluid loss with exercise.

02:20:14.640 | And in general, you wanna consume 125% to 150%

02:20:19.640 | of the amount of weight you lost in fluid.

02:20:23.520 | In other words, if you worked out

02:20:25.640 | and you were 200 pounds naked and you went

02:20:28.160 | and did your workout and then you dried off

02:20:29.720 | and you weighed yourself again and now you're 198 pounds,

02:20:32.660 | you lost two pounds of water, that's 32 ounces.

02:20:35.480 | You wanna drink back about 125% of that.

02:20:39.020 | So instead of drinking 32 ounces,

02:20:40.840 | I want you to drink 40, 42, 45, like something like this.

02:20:45.480 | 'Cause one of the reasons why is unless you're drinking

02:20:47.780 | something that is isotonic, meaning the same exact

02:20:50.240 | concentration in your blood and that you're in your fluid,

02:20:53.560 | you're just gonna go closer to that hyponatremia.

02:20:55.920 | You're gonna get a bunch of baroreflector responses

02:20:58.640 | and you're going to actually think you have too much fluid

02:21:01.120 | and you're gonna urinate it out.

02:21:02.520 | - What if I'm not weighing myself before and after workouts?

02:21:05.520 | And is there a shorthand version of this that, you know,

02:21:10.520 | after training for an hour,

02:21:12.920 | I should drink at least X number of ounces?

02:21:15.480 | Assuming it's at kind of taller, you know,

02:21:18.640 | I'm not sweating super heavily.

02:21:20.360 | - Yeah, in that particular case,

02:21:22.780 | you could probably go something like,

02:21:26.320 | if everyone in the world did, I don't know,

02:21:30.720 | 12 to 20 ounces, that's probably pretty decent.

02:21:35.040 | - And they're probably doing that, right?

02:21:36.400 | - Yeah. - Yeah.

02:21:37.240 | And what about electrolytes consuming salt, potassium,

02:21:39.880 | and many things?

02:21:40.720 | - But that thing only works though if you're coming in

02:21:43.720 | at optimal hydration.

02:21:45.200 | And this is the problem.

02:21:46.040 | This is why you have to flag this starting with

02:21:49.240 | a good total daily amount of water.

02:21:51.400 | Because if you're coming in and you're like,

02:21:52.880 | "Oh, I drink two or three glasses of water a day,"

02:21:55.380 | then you might need to drink 50 or 60 ounces post-workout

02:21:57.880 | 'cause you're way behind.

02:21:59.560 | So that like, oh, 12 ounces or so works

02:22:01.820 | if you're already generally very well hydrated.

02:22:03.720 | - And if people are drinking, you know,

02:22:05.600 | four to six glasses of water a day,

02:22:07.000 | but they're also drinking a lot of caffeine in any form,

02:22:10.380 | then they're going to be excreting more water

02:22:12.320 | in most cases, right?

02:22:14.280 | Because caffeine's a diuretic.

02:22:16.160 | - Okay, it kind of is, but it kind of isn't either.

02:22:18.200 | It's not the diuretic that we used to think about it as.

02:22:21.000 | It is still fluid consumption.

02:22:23.080 | So it's only a diuretic if it causes you to excrete

02:22:25.200 | more fluid than it actually was being in.

02:22:27.840 | So if caffeine intake is in a normal range,

02:22:32.840 | I don't have to worry about the diuretic effects.

02:22:36.560 | If someone is drinking 12 cups of coffee a day,

02:22:39.260 | or they're taking caffeine pills or something,

02:22:42.160 | now the excretion is going to out-kick the coverage.

02:22:45.980 | So now we're gonna have problems, right?

02:22:47.040 | 'Cause there's no fluid consumption with the caffeine pill.

02:22:49.360 | So in general, things like tea consumption,

02:22:52.020 | like I'm not super worried about those things.

02:22:53.760 | You can count those towards your total fluid intake

02:22:55.800 | if you want.

02:22:56.700 | So if you're like, I drink 60 ounces of water

02:22:58.760 | plus 20 ounces of coffee,

02:23:00.900 | and then you're gonna add that all up

02:23:03.400 | and you're gonna be totally okay.

02:23:05.460 | So you also have problems with synthetic forms of caffeine

02:23:09.020 | versus natural forms of caffeine.

02:23:11.520 | Natural forms are pretty okay.

02:23:14.120 | - So coffee, tea, et cetera.

02:23:15.400 | - Yeah, all that stuff.

02:23:16.240 | - Pill form is where it gets tricky.

02:23:17.680 | - Always, like always, right?

02:23:19.540 | So general, just eat real food and things.

02:23:24.320 | You're gonna be just fine.

02:23:25.160 | The last piece to consider is your diet quality matters

02:23:27.860 | because the fluid content in your food can vary wildly.

02:23:33.780 | So something like a bagel might be 5% to 10% water

02:23:39.460 | or something like a watermelon is 98%, 95%,

02:23:44.960 | something in a huge range.

02:23:46.160 | Even meat is very high percentage of fluid intake.

02:23:49.260 | Like it's really high.

02:23:50.140 | Even after you cook it,

02:23:50.980 | there's still a lot of fluid in there.

02:23:52.620 | So if you're eating a whole food,

02:23:55.880 | mostly whole food based diet,

02:23:57.560 | your endogenous hydration is actually pretty high already

02:24:00.580 | just from your food.

02:24:01.420 | If you're eating a very highly processed,

02:24:03.260 | dehydrated, oversalted diet,

02:24:06.420 | you're way low on hydration just in your food.

02:24:09.380 | So you have to factor all these things in.

02:24:10.780 | In fact, one of the things that happens to us constantly

02:24:13.780 | with folks that go from a highly processed,

02:24:16.620 | low quality diet to a high quality one

02:24:19.060 | is they're just peeing nonstop.

02:24:20.900 | I'm like, "What the hell is going on?"

02:24:21.740 | I'm like, "Well, you actually have brought in

02:24:23.660 | 60 additional ounces of water in your diet

02:24:26.180 | relative to what you used to have.

02:24:27.580 | And you've gone from 10 grams of sodium there to four,

02:24:32.580 | to two, sometimes one.

02:24:33.840 | Sometimes it gets very low 'cause you're not like salt.

02:24:35.820 | Are you salting your food?

02:24:36.680 | No.

02:24:37.520 | Okay, well, we don't have sodium intake then.

02:24:39.660 | Like we're way down.

02:24:41.060 | So everything that we're considering is based on that.

02:24:43.920 | So let's assume someone's eating a pretty well balanced diet.

02:24:46.540 | They're drinking 60 ounces of water

02:24:48.980 | and maybe some caffeine, coffee and tea, things like that.

02:24:52.400 | We don't exactly know the optimal amount

02:24:56.220 | of sodium one should intake.

02:24:57.580 | It is very clear high sodium concentrations

02:25:00.080 | are still associated with a lot of negative health outcomes,

02:25:02.600 | especially in combination with poor physical activity,

02:25:05.900 | in combination with low food quality

02:25:07.860 | and other comorbidities.

02:25:09.540 | That's a very bad thing.

02:25:10.660 | You need to be very careful about those things.

02:25:14.160 | If everything else is okay,

02:25:16.300 | we're okay playing with a little bit of higher salt.

02:25:18.200 | In fact, you're probably gonna feel better.

02:25:19.960 | You're gonna feel generally pretty good.

02:25:22.460 | You just, it needs to be very clear.

02:25:24.700 | If you are overweight, highly stressed,

02:25:27.300 | and you don't have a lot of these things ticked off

02:25:28.740 | and you have known comorbidities,

02:25:30.200 | you really need to pay attention to salt intake.

02:25:32.340 | It can be very nasty.

02:25:33.540 | So that being said,

02:25:36.220 | what we're generally going to look at, folks,

02:25:38.000 | is are you at least, can we categorize you

02:25:40.620 | as a low sodium or high sodium sweater?

02:25:43.340 | If so, there's a whole list of electrolytes you can look on

02:25:46.540 | that are gonna have something like

02:25:48.580 | 200 to 400 milligrams per serving.

02:25:51.620 | And there's a whole list of these things.

02:25:53.820 | If you're a low sodium sweater,

02:25:54.980 | I'm probably gonna send you after one of those.

02:25:56.740 | If you're a high sodium sweater,

02:25:58.180 | there's a lot of electrolyte supplements

02:25:59.500 | that are closer to six or 800,

02:26:01.280 | even a whole gram per single serving size.

02:26:05.460 | So you want to play with that.

02:26:06.780 | - How do you know if you're a low sodium

02:26:08.140 | or high sodium sweater?

02:26:09.480 | We actually have an episode on salt we put out that,

02:26:12.740 | or is coming out soon if hasn't come out already,

02:26:15.800 | which is when you look at the hazard ratios for salt intake,

02:26:20.720 | basically your probability of really bad things

02:26:23.360 | happen to you, goes way up as you get towards

02:26:26.000 | a lot of sodium intake, 10, 12 grams per day.

02:26:29.000 | And this is translated to teaspoons of salt, et cetera,

02:26:33.000 | but also very low sodium intake is a problem.

02:26:35.000 | - No question about it.

02:26:36.200 | - It's not a perfect U shape.

02:26:37.700 | It's kind of a J shaped curve

02:26:39.460 | or a kind of hockey stick shape more or less.

02:26:41.740 | But how would I know if I'm a low sodium

02:26:44.800 | or high sodium sweater?

02:26:46.140 | Would I just kind of lick my sweat

02:26:47.760 | or have someone else do it?

02:26:48.600 | - You can.

02:26:49.800 | Find a super friend who will lick your sweat for you.

02:26:52.540 | Same with how-

02:26:53.520 | - No willing volunteers that I'm aware of,

02:26:55.080 | but would I be able to tell?

02:26:56.760 | - Yeah.

02:26:57.800 | You can get sweat testing done.

02:26:58.960 | Actually, you have a number of options.

02:27:01.260 | The kind of the original one that most of us used

02:27:04.200 | in the background for many years was called Levelin.

02:27:07.300 | They'll send you out a little patch.

02:27:08.480 | You can wear that, send it in the lab

02:27:10.040 | and they'll measure it directly in the lab and send it back.

02:27:12.100 | It's 150 bucks or something like that.

02:27:14.940 | - Do they bin you into low, medium and high sodium?

02:27:17.420 | - They're going to do that,

02:27:18.420 | but they're going to tell you exactly the milligrams.

02:27:21.500 | And then they're going to actually tell you

02:27:22.620 | what products and stuff that are exactly matched.

02:27:25.880 | - Do you do this with professional athletes?

02:27:27.740 | - We have many times.

02:27:28.940 | - Interesting.

02:27:30.200 | - You can do a more consumer grade version.

02:27:31.940 | Gatorade has a patch.

02:27:33.980 | For 25 bucks, you can get two of them.

02:27:36.220 | You can put that patch on your left forearm

02:27:38.840 | and download the Gatorade app and you can do a workout,

02:27:40.960 | measure it right there and click it over.

02:27:42.520 | And they'll tell you exactly, not only high or low,

02:27:45.280 | but again, they'll tell you the milligrams of sodium

02:27:47.340 | that are in your sweat.

02:27:48.180 | And then you can figure out again,

02:27:49.840 | kind of high, medium or low.

02:27:51.880 | - I do much better on a slightly higher sodium intake.

02:27:55.460 | - Most do.

02:27:56.440 | - But in my carbohydrate, I do eat carbohydrates.

02:27:58.960 | I'm one of those that is pretty moderate,

02:28:00.700 | but I try and eat clean foods.

02:28:01.800 | So I noticed, and I tend to be slightly low blood pressure.

02:28:05.400 | So again, to reiterate the warning there

02:28:07.680 | that if somebody is a pre-hypertension

02:28:09.760 | or has hypertension or obese,

02:28:11.080 | you really do need to be careful with your sodium intake.

02:28:13.600 | But many people seem to find that they feel better

02:28:16.160 | when they increase their sodium intake.

02:28:17.440 | And they're still in that healthy portion

02:28:18.980 | of the hazard ratio curve.

02:28:20.620 | - Most of the athletes, I would say in general,

02:28:23.280 | we're going to go higher in salt.

02:28:24.840 | When they come, we're going to run their stuff

02:28:25.840 | and we're going to add salt.

02:28:27.040 | Almost always, very few times have I gone,

02:28:29.560 | ah, we need to cut this back.

02:28:31.160 | One of the exception of the ones that come in

02:28:32.480 | that eat like 14 year olds.

02:28:34.540 | And I'm like, okay, you're at 15 milligrams,

02:28:36.920 | are you 15 grams a day?

02:28:38.120 | Because you're eating nothing but-

02:28:40.040 | - Garbage.

02:28:40.920 | - So we're like, we're going to come down,

02:28:42.240 | you're going to feel way better.

02:28:43.440 | All this bloating and everything else

02:28:44.860 | that's going to happen, go down.

02:28:46.860 | You can do that.

02:28:47.700 | There are biosensors that are coming out

02:28:49.900 | that are not available yet,

02:28:50.900 | but they're coming very soon in this space.

02:28:52.540 | They're going to give you real time metrics on salt.

02:28:56.400 | So you can pay attention to those.

02:28:59.120 | I haven't seen one and used one personally,

02:29:00.880 | so I don't want to espouse about how good or bad it is.

02:29:04.960 | But I know that those are coming

02:29:06.200 | from a handful of companies.

02:29:08.480 | An easy way to do is just look at,

02:29:10.680 | wear a hat or wear some sort of headband or something

02:29:13.060 | and do your workout.

02:29:14.320 | Take it off.

02:29:15.160 | If you see a just huge white band

02:29:18.440 | or if it's completely clear,

02:29:20.720 | and that's going to tell you big white band,

02:29:22.320 | you're probably a high salt sweater.

02:29:24.160 | Completely clear, very little coming out.

02:29:26.700 | - That's great.

02:29:27.540 | And I can see the posts on Instagram now,

02:29:29.500 | people showing their salt band from sweating.

02:29:33.360 | I mean, obviously salt is so essential

02:29:35.340 | for so many physiological functions.

02:29:37.160 | You don't want too high or too low,

02:29:38.240 | but if you're losing more, it makes sense.

02:29:39.420 | You would need to take in more.

02:29:40.960 | So half of my body weight in ounces

02:29:43.560 | as a just foundation of fluid intake.

02:29:47.560 | Coffee and tea could be included in that,

02:29:49.120 | but that should probably be mostly water

02:29:50.760 | or things similar to it.

02:29:51.960 | And then during exercise,

02:29:56.500 | how do I want to think about this again?

02:29:59.040 | Let's say I'm a high salt output,

02:30:01.280 | then I'd want to drink maybe 40 ounces of water with,

02:30:04.280 | or more.

02:30:05.260 | - Yeah, okay, I'll do this easier.

02:30:07.460 | Let's talk about pre and mid and post, right?

02:30:10.340 | So what to drink pre.

02:30:11.720 | If you come in having hit these rules, you're okay.

02:30:14.800 | And pre workout can be as little as like five or six ounces,

02:30:18.840 | basically a couple of sips of water, fine.

02:30:21.800 | If you come in poorly hydrated,

02:30:23.880 | then you maybe need to go more like 12,

02:30:26.020 | but here's the deal.

02:30:26.920 | If you start off a session in a bad spot,

02:30:29.600 | you're not going to catch back up.

02:30:31.580 | Like you're just, you're in trouble.

02:30:34.160 | Let's say you come and you follow direction.

02:30:35.840 | 500 milligrams salt before, 500 milligrams after.

02:30:40.600 | Very easy rule.

02:30:42.600 | Pick whatever source you want.

02:30:43.680 | That's a couple of sprinkles of table salt.

02:30:45.660 | If you want Himalayan, that's fine.

02:30:47.080 | You don't have to.

02:30:47.920 | Himalayan is actually a fairly low sodium salt.

02:30:49.780 | So it's not the best for this purposes.

02:30:52.320 | If you're higher salt or sweat, a little bit more.

02:30:55.200 | If you want to go choose an electrolyte

02:30:56.800 | of which there are infinite,

02:30:59.260 | you can look on the packet and it'll tell you,

02:31:01.040 | 250 milligrams per serving or 400 or 600

02:31:03.760 | or whatever happens to be,

02:31:04.600 | but around 500 pre, 500 post is a very general rule.

02:31:08.240 | And then during is thanks to you,

02:31:11.420 | my famous Galpin equation now that is all over the world.

02:31:14.960 | All I did is I took the literature and I said, okay,

02:31:17.040 | in general, the research shows pretty clearly

02:31:19.320 | two milligrams per kilogram body weight

02:31:20.760 | over 15 minutes seems to put you in a pretty good spot.

02:31:23.100 | Most people don't think about kilograms or milligrams.

02:31:25.980 | So can I just run that over?

02:31:27.740 | And it turns out it's about your body weight

02:31:29.220 | divided by 30 in ounces.

02:31:31.480 | Like that's all you have to.

02:31:32.360 | - Body weight in pounds divided by 30.

02:31:33.920 | - Yeah, exactly, right.

02:31:35.060 | So you weigh 200 pounds divided by 30

02:31:37.680 | and that's the number of ounces.

02:31:39.540 | You don't want to go every 15 or 20 minutes.

02:31:41.840 | - So I'm getting that amount every 15 to 20 minutes

02:31:45.880 | throughout the training.

02:31:46.880 | And now in the weight room, that's pretty easy to do

02:31:49.200 | as there are rest intervals,

02:31:50.160 | but people will need to do this while running or cycling.

02:31:54.400 | And that can cause a little bit of gastric distress

02:31:57.320 | if you're not used to it.

02:31:58.440 | Is that right?

02:31:59.280 | And learn to run with some water in your belly?

02:32:03.040 | - 100%.

02:32:03.880 | The gut is very trainable in a lot of directions,

02:32:06.600 | but in terms of fluid as well as carbohydrate,

02:32:09.280 | which is another thing that is going to get people.

02:32:12.000 | But that's, yeah, very trainable.

02:32:13.300 | It'll be uncomfortable initially,

02:32:14.800 | but you'll quickly get into it.

02:32:16.480 | The better solution for those folks,

02:32:18.360 | just come in hydrated.

02:32:21.320 | And you might not even need any water.

02:32:22.580 | You could probably perform just fine.

02:32:25.260 | So the ones that don't have as much of an opportunity,

02:32:27.600 | you really have to emphasize walking in.

02:32:30.400 | We have this problem with professional golfers.

02:32:32.880 | They have plenty of time to drink water,

02:32:34.000 | but they're so focused on the shot

02:32:35.600 | and there's a lot of variables coming up.

02:32:37.120 | Once they hit their shot

02:32:37.960 | and they're moving on to the next one,

02:32:39.600 | they're thinking about,

02:32:41.040 | I mean, they're going over a scorecard of 185 yards away.

02:32:44.920 | Can I go 184 and a half yards?

02:32:46.480 | Can I go 186 yards?

02:32:47.520 | What's the slope of that?

02:32:48.360 | What's the wind up here?

02:32:49.340 | What's the wind up there?

02:32:50.400 | Like there's just a thinking and they just forget.

02:32:53.680 | Even though they have four and a half hours,

02:32:55.040 | so we have to make sure

02:32:56.100 | that they immediately get off the course,

02:32:58.540 | we go right into recovery as hard as we possibly can.

02:33:01.920 | They wake up the next morning, they're in a good spot.

02:33:03.340 | We crush recovery.

02:33:05.000 | And now it's like,

02:33:05.840 | hey, if you can remember to drink this, great.

02:33:08.160 | If not, we're still fine.

02:33:09.940 | If it's not a big deal and you have time like in a lifter,

02:33:14.800 | because I deal with that problem with fighters too.

02:33:17.200 | We can only drink so much in the middle of a fight.

02:33:19.600 | A couple sips over there, but we can't go mix them.

02:33:22.320 | Two milliliters, it's like,

02:33:23.680 | can you get a couple sips in?

02:33:24.520 | Oh shit, forgot, like it's not gonna happen.

02:33:26.380 | So we have to take more M&M's before and after.

02:33:28.660 | So start your recovery process immediately

02:33:31.360 | and then come in the next day.

02:33:32.880 | That's your window.

02:33:33.720 | And then whatever you can get in during the workout,

02:33:35.800 | that's fine too.

02:33:36.640 | If you're a higher salt sweater,

02:33:38.540 | instead of doing 500, 500, maybe go 750, 750.

02:33:41.940 | If you have a longer bout of exercise,

02:33:44.980 | especially if it's hot or humid,

02:33:48.180 | then you might wanna consider some salt

02:33:50.160 | in the workout as well.

02:33:51.640 | And 300 milligrams during the workout, totally fine.

02:33:55.920 | It's enough.

02:33:56.760 | If it is a really long workout and it's really hot

02:33:59.440 | and you're gonna lose pounds during it,

02:34:01.440 | you need a specific strategy.

02:34:02.760 | If you're gonna lose less than a pound,

02:34:04.880 | you don't need to worry about it.

02:34:06.400 | It's not gonna be enough of a detriment

02:34:07.720 | for you to really care.

02:34:08.980 | So that's kind of a rough rule.

02:34:11.400 | Now, if you're 200 plus pounds,

02:34:13.720 | maybe that number moves from one pound to two pounds.

02:34:16.440 | But really the number we're looking at

02:34:17.480 | is what 1% of your body weight.

02:34:18.840 | If you're losing more than 1% of your body weight,

02:34:21.760 | we need to start caring.

02:34:22.680 | If it's less than 1%,

02:34:23.920 | it's not gonna really pay that much of a difference.

02:34:26.000 | - Okay, so for myself,

02:34:27.520 | 'cause I don't get super technical,

02:34:29.120 | I don't wear any devices besides a wristwatch.

02:34:32.600 | - It's a nice watch.

02:34:33.580 | - Thanks, yeah, very attached to this watch,

02:34:36.540 | or it's attached to me, I suppose.

02:34:38.240 | My body weight in pounds divided by two,

02:34:42.480 | that's what I'm gonna try and get across the entire day

02:34:45.720 | as a kind of baseline.

02:34:46.760 | And then my body weight in pounds divided by 30

02:34:50.120 | during the workout, every 15 or 20 minutes,

02:34:53.280 | that I'm going to try and consume that amount.

02:34:55.520 | And then I definitely do better

02:34:57.480 | when I increase the amount of salt

02:34:58.920 | that I'm taking in anywhere from 500 milligrams

02:35:02.600 | to a gram of salt, several times a day, actually.

02:35:05.780 | But I'm not eating that often,

02:35:07.560 | which leads me to my other question,

02:35:09.280 | which is I prefer to train fasted or semi-fasted,

02:35:13.280 | meaning first thing in the morning

02:35:15.320 | or within an hour or two of waking,

02:35:17.600 | obviously I've been fasting while I'm asleep,

02:35:19.120 | or having not eaten anything

02:35:20.720 | for three or four hours before.

02:35:22.040 | I just feel lighter and more energetic.

02:35:26.140 | If that works for me, is that okay?

02:35:28.880 | Or should I try, is it better to eat something

02:35:32.100 | before one trains?

02:35:33.560 | - Personal preference.

02:35:34.660 | Easy answer there.

02:35:37.320 | It depends on, of course, how hard you trained,

02:35:41.880 | what the training was like,

02:35:42.760 | what sport you're involved with,

02:35:43.980 | how many total counts, et cetera.

02:35:45.080 | But in general, personal preference for the average person.

02:35:48.960 | - And that probably handles 90% of the questions about that.

02:35:52.540 | Cold.

02:35:55.280 | Cold showers, ice baths, and cold immersion up to the neck.

02:35:58.400 | I always preface this by saying

02:36:00.080 | there are not a lot of studies.

02:36:01.680 | There are some, but not a lot of controlled studies

02:36:04.060 | looking at cold showers 'cause it's harder to control

02:36:07.200 | the variables of where people stand.

02:36:08.800 | So I would say if you have access to cold immersion

02:36:11.960 | of some sort, ice bath or cold immersion, great.

02:36:13.980 | But if you don't, cold showers will be the next best thing.

02:36:17.240 | The lore goes that if you do an ice bath

02:36:21.140 | or cold water immersion after strength

02:36:23.220 | or hypertrophy training,

02:36:24.640 | that you are short-circuiting some of that.

02:36:27.380 | The lore also goes that cold showers might be okay.

02:36:31.240 | And my interpretation of those data and that discussion

02:36:36.240 | is that all that is probably true,

02:36:39.360 | but I have a hard time imagining

02:36:41.700 | that the effects are so robust

02:36:44.480 | that it can completely prevent strength gains

02:36:46.760 | and hypertrophy such that my stance for myself

02:36:49.580 | is try and do the cold exposure training

02:36:52.020 | away from the strength and hypertrophy training.

02:36:54.480 | But if you can't do it any other time,

02:36:57.060 | right afterward probably isn't going to throw

02:36:59.280 | my whole system out of whack and prevent the improvements.

02:37:04.280 | Am I deluding myself?

02:37:05.780 | - Couple of caveats here.

02:37:08.320 | Number one, I would say I have a personal vested interest

02:37:11.140 | in cold.

02:37:12.020 | I've been around this stuff for a long time.

02:37:14.160 | Being involved and being an advisor for XPT

02:37:18.960 | and being in this space a long time,

02:37:20.720 | I'm a big believer in cold, especially cold water.

02:37:23.400 | - Deliberate cold exposure.

02:37:24.440 | - 100%, right?

02:37:25.520 | So that being said, I do think getting into an ice bath

02:37:30.520 | immediately after a hypertrophy session

02:37:33.320 | is getting pretty close to,

02:37:35.480 | you just shouldn't have done the session.

02:37:37.600 | It is detrimental.

02:37:38.760 | - Good to know.

02:37:39.600 | - I wouldn't do it.

02:37:40.620 | I guess it's the most blunt way to put it.

02:37:42.780 | If you're like, hey,

02:37:46.860 | I'm not super concerned with growing muscle

02:37:50.400 | and I want these other things

02:37:53.440 | that come with cold water immersion, fine.

02:37:56.320 | It's not zero, it's not taking you backwards.

02:37:59.660 | How much does it cut you down?

02:38:00.800 | I don't know.

02:38:01.640 | We don't know, that'd be a difficult number to come up with.

02:38:04.360 | Is it 1% reduction?

02:38:05.600 | No, it's more than that.

02:38:07.000 | Is it 100?

02:38:07.820 | Not even close.

02:38:08.760 | I don't know where it lands though.

02:38:09.960 | It's enough though for me to go,

02:38:11.400 | in general, best practices,

02:38:12.840 | don't get in the ice immediately after a workout.

02:38:14.700 | - How long should I wait?

02:38:15.940 | - Well, in theory,

02:38:17.820 | the best answer we could give you would be four hours

02:38:20.000 | because of what we talked about earlier today of going,

02:38:22.780 | okay, immediately you've got this signaling cascade

02:38:24.940 | that takes seconds.

02:38:25.920 | You've got gene expression

02:38:26.860 | that's happening in this rough four-hour window.

02:38:28.740 | After the genes have gone off

02:38:31.060 | and now you're just going through

02:38:31.900 | the protein synthesis process,

02:38:33.320 | the signal's already there

02:38:34.220 | and it's gone back down to baseline.

02:38:35.420 | So then reintroducing cold here

02:38:37.960 | is not gonna disrupt that signal.

02:38:40.460 | That's a very non-scientifically founded,

02:38:44.200 | because we don't know at this point at all.

02:38:46.800 | What is very clear though is if you get off your workout,

02:38:48.800 | go right into the ice,

02:38:49.960 | it's probably 10% attenuation of growth.

02:38:54.060 | I don't know, maybe more, depends on the person.

02:38:55.560 | Some people, if you look at the individual data,

02:38:57.040 | it's pretty bad.

02:38:58.180 | It's enough to where it's like, that's a really big deal.

02:39:00.780 | The benefits of the ice, I don't think now outweigh

02:39:03.720 | the benefits of hypertrophy training.

02:39:05.800 | - What about cold showers?

02:39:07.600 | - I don't think cold showers are gonna do much.

02:39:10.520 | If you've been in both, you know that this is,

02:39:12.360 | like we're not playing the same game here.

02:39:14.080 | - An ice bath or a true cold water immersion

02:39:16.560 | up to the neck with limbs in for one to five minutes

02:39:20.520 | is a completely different stimulus than in the cold shower.

02:39:23.560 | - Especially also compared to a similar cryo.

02:39:25.900 | It's not even the same thing here.

02:39:29.080 | So in general, I would say don't do those.

02:39:30.960 | Cold shower, I don't really care.

02:39:33.300 | Can you work it out so you don't do them at the same time?

02:39:35.280 | That would be my hope, right?

02:39:37.240 | I would actually prefer you do the cold before,

02:39:39.200 | if you really had to do it.

02:39:40.680 | - Certainly will wake you up, get that adrenaline burst.

02:39:44.160 | - No, we've played with that actually years ago doing that.

02:39:47.500 | There's actually some fun stuff you can do

02:39:48.920 | with the endurance piece with cold stuff,

02:39:50.960 | but it's totally not feasible for most people

02:39:53.120 | 'cause you're getting water everywhere.

02:39:55.560 | They're gonna jump on your bike and just get shit,

02:39:57.360 | and it's just a giant mess.

02:39:58.720 | It's fun, but yeah, I would say walk away from it

02:40:01.560 | if you can, that's actually where I stand based on the data.

02:40:04.520 | Based on my intuition and experience,

02:40:07.120 | I don't think it's a good thing to do.

02:40:08.480 | Now, having said that,

02:40:10.360 | that's mostly concerned with maximizing hypertrophy.

02:40:13.520 | Strength is not as clear.

02:40:14.840 | There are some data to show it in actual blocks,

02:40:17.600 | strength adaptations,

02:40:18.420 | but because of what we talked about earlier,

02:40:19.800 | the mechanisms and the drivers are different.

02:40:22.640 | And so I don't think it's as big a concern

02:40:24.760 | for strength development,

02:40:27.100 | though I would still generally say

02:40:28.120 | if you can get away with staying out of the ice

02:40:29.920 | immediately after the workout

02:40:31.000 | and you can at least wait a few hours,

02:40:32.820 | that's the better approach.

02:40:34.180 | Less concerned with strength, more concerned with hypertrophy

02:40:37.180 | in terms of interference effect.

02:40:38.720 | If you can do it on off days or before or any other time,

02:40:41.820 | that's the place to land.

02:40:43.540 | - That's generally when I try to do it.

02:40:45.320 | I was just kind of throwing out an extreme case

02:40:46.940 | 'cause I get asked that question a lot.

02:40:48.500 | What about the use of ice bath or cold water immersion

02:40:52.100 | or cold shower after endurance training?

02:40:54.300 | - Okay, so a couple of interesting things here.

02:40:56.520 | You mentioned we don't have a tremendous amount of data

02:40:59.120 | on cold water immersion overall.

02:41:02.440 | So a lot of this is moving.

02:41:03.840 | There have been some papers to show

02:41:07.560 | that cold water immersion

02:41:08.460 | can actually enhance mitochondrial biogenesis.

02:41:10.920 | And actually even for endurance stuff,

02:41:12.680 | it's been shown to cause improvement

02:41:14.880 | in endurance adaptations relative to not.

02:41:17.520 | It's not enough for me to be truly confident

02:41:20.820 | in that statement yet.

02:41:21.660 | I would like to see that repeated.

02:41:23.100 | Not that I have a problem with the paper or the methodology

02:41:25.420 | that they use in that particular study,

02:41:26.560 | but this is a weird thing.

02:41:30.620 | So I wanna see this repeated more often.

02:41:32.000 | So I have less concern

02:41:33.640 | with doing it immediately post endurance

02:41:35.560 | 'cause you could even argue that there may be some benefit.

02:41:37.900 | I don't think you need to go out of your way

02:41:40.000 | to try to make sure you get into ice immediately afterwards

02:41:42.040 | and thinking you're gonna get some massive adaptation.

02:41:45.240 | We use ice a decent amount when I can get athletes to do it,

02:41:49.480 | but this context is different.

02:41:50.920 | Number one, when we're in camp

02:41:52.280 | and we've got a world title fight coming up

02:41:54.460 | or something else,

02:41:56.060 | we've just pitched in a major baseball game,

02:41:58.600 | I am not concerned about hypertrophy.

02:42:00.980 | I am not even concerned with strength development.

02:42:02.420 | I am now pushing towards recovery.

02:42:04.240 | There's a paradigm that I think is important

02:42:05.960 | with all of these things to understand,

02:42:07.320 | which is are you pushing for optimization or adaptation?

02:42:10.400 | When you're pushing for adaptation,

02:42:13.440 | you don't wanna block the signal for adaptation.

02:42:15.800 | This means less recovery.

02:42:17.440 | You're not going to feel as good,

02:42:18.960 | and you probably should be hedging towards stress.

02:42:22.040 | When you're pushing for optimization, it's the opposite.

02:42:24.780 | So if I'm in season and I had a pitcher

02:42:27.000 | just throw 125 pitches,

02:42:29.320 | I'm not trying to cause adaptation.

02:42:30.920 | I'm trying to recover as quickly as possible

02:42:32.500 | because four days from now, we gotta do this again,

02:42:34.360 | and I gotta do this across 162 games.

02:42:36.920 | You're gonna play five days in a PGA golf tournament,

02:42:40.800 | and you're gonna have to do it again every week

02:42:42.380 | for a bunch of weeks in a row.

02:42:44.720 | I need recovery as fast as I possibly can.

02:42:47.360 | So if I'm blunting adaptation, fine.

02:42:48.940 | I'm not actually trying to do that.

02:42:49.960 | I'm trying to optimize.

02:42:51.520 | If you spend all of your time in one of those two areas,

02:42:54.360 | you're gonna have problems.

02:42:55.400 | So you need to be judicious about thinking,

02:42:57.360 | is this a point in my life or training cycle

02:43:00.320 | that I want to cause adaptations

02:43:02.440 | or am I trying to optimize?

02:43:04.640 | If you spend too much time in one of the other ones,

02:43:06.240 | again, you're gonna have problems.

02:43:07.920 | So that's generally how I will treat the ice

02:43:11.640 | for all those adaptations.

02:43:13.400 | - What about heat?

02:43:15.420 | - Yeah.

02:43:16.260 | - When, and I'll frame this question differently

02:43:18.740 | because I'm sure there are a number of ways

02:43:20.800 | in which heat can short circuit all sorts of things.

02:43:23.100 | I mean, heat in excess can kill you.

02:43:25.960 | - Yeah.

02:43:26.880 | - It can shut down fertility.

02:43:28.400 | It can in excess, right?

02:43:30.760 | It can do all sorts of things,

02:43:32.200 | but it can also increase growth hormone,

02:43:34.640 | increase vasodilation, improve one's ability to sweat,

02:43:38.080 | which can be very beneficial in a number of contexts.

02:43:40.680 | For the typical, for 75% of people, 75% of the time,

02:43:44.940 | when do you think heat is most useful?

02:43:47.780 | And here I'm referring to dry sauna or wet sauna.

02:43:50.400 | I'm not specifically talking about infrared sauna

02:43:52.640 | because the data there are a little unclear to me.

02:43:54.760 | And I don't even know that,

02:43:55.960 | my sense with infrared saunas is they don't go hot enough

02:43:58.640 | for my particular taste.

02:44:00.080 | - You and I have a similar taste there.

02:44:01.440 | - Okay.

02:44:02.280 | - We're not crushing 200 past, I'm not interested.

02:44:04.080 | - Right, and my sense about infrared sauna

02:44:06.820 | is that maybe I haven't seen the data is that,

02:44:09.520 | but that a lot of people like it

02:44:11.720 | 'cause they like the way they look in the infrared sauna.

02:44:13.840 | It feels cool.

02:44:14.680 | It feels like you're doing something unusual.

02:44:15.880 | Now, infrared lights are beneficial for other reasons,

02:44:19.360 | actually for mitochondrial health and the retinas,

02:44:21.120 | they're good data.

02:44:22.120 | But infrared sauna to me, it never goes hot enough.

02:44:25.400 | So I'm talking about 200 or hotter, maybe 180 to 220,

02:44:29.020 | obviously do what's safe folks

02:44:30.560 | and heed all the warnings about pregnant people

02:44:33.320 | not going in saunas, et cetera.

02:44:34.400 | - I assume you're lumping in hot water immersion.

02:44:36.480 | - Hot water immersion, so hot baths, hot sauna.

02:44:39.960 | When would you like,

02:44:41.120 | when do you think most people could leverage sauna

02:44:44.440 | or hot baths to benefit their training

02:44:46.720 | and fitness and health?

02:44:48.360 | - Yeah, okay, I have a handful of things

02:44:49.840 | to say about this topic.

02:44:50.760 | One of them is you never have a hard time

02:44:52.880 | convincing people to get hot.

02:44:54.720 | Everyone feels good, like, yeah, getting a hot bath,

02:44:56.460 | like can you take more hot showers?

02:44:57.600 | Sure, like no problem there, right?

02:45:00.660 | There are a handful of studies that have looked at this

02:45:05.000 | immediately post and it seems to even augment hypertrophy.

02:45:08.480 | - So after hypertrophy training,

02:45:09.880 | getting in the sauna for 20 minutes?

02:45:12.200 | - Yeah, whatever, whatever it needs to be.

02:45:13.860 | We don't have a good titration.

02:45:15.480 | What's the number, minutes wise,

02:45:16.980 | we don't have a temperature titration.

02:45:18.640 | - Hot shower would be a second,

02:45:21.680 | that would be a week second best.

02:45:23.520 | - I would say it's a very week.

02:45:25.000 | - Take a hot bath.

02:45:26.060 | - I think a hot bath is probably a lot closer

02:45:28.360 | to what you're looking for.

02:45:30.160 | It actually kind of goes back

02:45:30.980 | to our initial conversations.

02:45:32.400 | Theoretically, you're just going to aid in blood flow.

02:45:37.280 | So you're gonna put more nutrients in,

02:45:38.800 | more waste product out, metabolic stress,

02:45:40.840 | all that stuff is going through.

02:45:41.880 | So that's the thought anyways, far from no ends.

02:45:45.480 | Plausible, right, absolutely plausible.

02:45:48.260 | Something people will do, feels good.

02:45:51.320 | Let's say with cold and hot, I want to caution you

02:45:55.240 | against a couple of things.

02:45:56.960 | This is true across all physiology,

02:45:58.440 | but you need to be really careful about moving percentages

02:46:02.300 | from molecular to outcome, very careful.

02:46:06.200 | So for example, it's easy to see a paper that says,

02:46:10.560 | okay, we put you in a hot bath or something

02:46:12.160 | and we saw a growth hormone increase 300%.

02:46:14.540 | That is not going to result in 300% increase

02:46:18.100 | in muscle size, right?

02:46:20.380 | In fact, 300% might result in absolutely no change

02:46:24.580 | in physical size, right?

02:46:25.540 | So the, and the reason I'm saying this

02:46:28.000 | is because there's a lot of people in this space

02:46:29.440 | that will misapply the mechanisms

02:46:31.640 | and they'll grossly overestimate what these things can do

02:46:34.760 | and what they do do because they'll find something like that

02:46:38.040 | I mean, you know this, you've done enough cellular work too.

02:46:40.240 | In the lab, if I see mTOR doubled,

02:46:43.480 | I think, shit, it didn't work.

02:46:46.480 | I need to see a 10X increase

02:46:47.580 | before I know it's even physiologically relevant.

02:46:49.920 | So reading that paper, reading someone's social media post,

02:46:52.540 | you're like, wow, it increased mTOR 38%.

02:46:54.780 | I'm like, well, that didn't work.

02:46:55.920 | And you're like, wow, that's huge.

02:46:56.820 | I'm like, that's not 38% increase in muscle size.

02:46:59.480 | So that's a very important point I want to make

02:47:00.920 | because I'm going to talk about the benefits here in a second

02:47:03.920 | but I don't want people to be fooled

02:47:06.200 | into thinking that this is some crazy miracle.

02:47:09.040 | The same thing with the sauna.

02:47:11.320 | In terms of general health outcomes,

02:47:13.640 | it is clearly a beneficial thing.

02:47:15.740 | This is a really good idea to get hot a lot.

02:47:18.240 | It is not a substitute for exercise though.

02:47:20.920 | It's a very important distinction.

02:47:22.320 | If the options are nothing or sauna, get in the sauna.

02:47:27.320 | Really, really good idea.

02:47:29.640 | If the exchange is though,

02:47:31.240 | I don't need to work out because I did the sauna, bad.

02:47:35.240 | This is not a winning solution.

02:47:36.720 | - You and I know some maniacs

02:47:38.420 | that actually work out in the sauna.

02:47:39.840 | - Oh, we do, yeah.

02:47:41.120 | - I don't necessarily recommend that.

02:47:42.760 | That actually would probably kill a large number of people

02:47:46.360 | but it can be worked up to it certainly.

02:47:50.480 | - Yeah, so like every time I talk about that,

02:47:53.240 | I flag that because it's just too easy to hear that and go,

02:47:56.940 | "Oh, well I think Dr. Huberman said,

02:47:58.340 | "if I just get in the sauna, I don't have to work out."

02:48:00.100 | Like, no, no.

02:48:00.940 | Those words have never come out of his mouth.

02:48:01.780 | - It definitely didn't say that.

02:48:02.720 | And I'm definitely not working out in the sauna.

02:48:04.440 | If I'm in the sauna, I'm either sitting or I'm lying down

02:48:07.120 | and I'm trying to make it through.

02:48:08.280 | I tend to do three 20-minute bouts across the entire week.

02:48:12.100 | So I aim for 60 minutes per week of heat exposure,

02:48:15.360 | which is not a ton.

02:48:16.320 | - If I said I've never worked out in the sauna.

02:48:18.480 | - Oh, so you're one of those.

02:48:19.800 | Yeah, people will do air squats.

02:48:21.160 | They'll bring the Airdyne bike in there.

02:48:23.040 | I look at the sauna as kind of a time to get lazy and sweat.

02:48:25.680 | - Totally fine.

02:48:26.520 | Going back to your general question.

02:48:28.920 | So potential to aid, plausible aid.

02:48:30.520 | We need to see more research on that to really get a,

02:48:33.040 | do I need to put this in practice?

02:48:34.120 | I think if you try it, very little harm.

02:48:36.800 | I struggle to see a downside

02:48:39.560 | if you make sure your hydration's on point, right?

02:48:41.600 | 'Cause now you've got to factor in the fact

02:48:42.760 | you just kicked out two or three pounds.

02:48:44.040 | If you're you at 200 plus pounds, I assume, or roughly,

02:48:48.280 | if you're in the sauna for 20 minutes,

02:48:49.360 | I would imagine you can do two, three pounds.

02:48:51.260 | - Yeah, usually I'm hover somewhere around like 225.

02:48:55.160 | And I drink, I drink at 32 ounce.

02:48:59.260 | - Right.

02:49:00.100 | - It's water with a electrolyte solution

02:49:01.980 | that's pretty high salt afterwards and sometimes during.

02:49:04.680 | And sometimes after that, if I do it late in the evening,

02:49:07.380 | I'll go to sleep and I'll wake up in the middle of the night

02:49:09.620 | just feeling so parched.

02:49:12.100 | It's amazing how much water one loses in the sauna.

02:49:14.700 | - Like a normal sweat rate for someone 225, especially,

02:49:17.720 | and 20 minutes in a sauna,

02:49:18.940 | I would absolutely expect you to do three pounds.

02:49:22.020 | Easy, without like really-

02:49:22.860 | - So I should be drinking more, probably even more water.

02:49:24.980 | - Yeah, you're probably half the water that you need to get.

02:49:26.980 | - And you mentioned the possible benefits of doing it

02:49:29.820 | after strength hypertrophy training,

02:49:31.460 | which makes sense for plausible mechanistic reasons

02:49:35.620 | on no official data there yet.

02:49:37.860 | What about after endurance training?

02:49:39.540 | Assuming somebody hydrates well enough

02:49:41.180 | and they're not overheated from their endurance work.

02:49:43.220 | - Yep.

02:49:44.060 | - Could also be a benefit.

02:49:44.880 | - Yeah.

02:49:45.720 | - Wow, so more and more what I'm thinking the framework here

02:49:48.520 | is in an ideal world, one would train and then do sauna

02:49:52.900 | or heat exposure of some kind,

02:49:54.900 | endurance training or strength hypertrophy training

02:49:56.940 | and then do sauna and then do cold exposure

02:49:59.940 | on off days or at least four hours away

02:50:03.180 | from any kind of training.

02:50:05.020 | Or if you had to do it close to train,

02:50:06.540 | do it before training.

02:50:07.460 | - Yeah, I love cold in the morning.

02:50:09.540 | We've actually run this experiment on professional athletes

02:50:11.620 | where we do enough tracking with things like HRV,

02:50:14.420 | which is a global metric of like overall fatigue.

02:50:18.260 | Okay, and you've probably talked about that before,

02:50:19.980 | but problems with it, but roughly idea of overall fatigue.

02:50:23.500 | HRV in general, higher the score, the better, right?

02:50:26.180 | So low HRV is fatigue, right?

02:50:29.160 | Well, if you wake up and take your HRV in the morning

02:50:32.380 | and then you get into ice, what's gonna happen

02:50:33.880 | is you're gonna see that number plummet.

02:50:35.700 | The second you get out, that's gonna fall off the earth,

02:50:37.780 | which means roughly you've moved into a sympathetic place.

02:50:40.860 | Surprising, you get in 30 degree water,

02:50:46.020 | you're gonna go very sympathetic very quickly.

02:50:48.060 | However, if you continue to watch your HRV for 30, 60, 90,

02:50:52.440 | and up to two to three hours post,

02:50:54.140 | you will generally see an improved HRV score

02:50:57.900 | relative to where you started.

02:50:59.380 | So it's back to this hormetic stressor, right?

02:51:02.700 | A really cold, shocking exposure will be a net result

02:51:06.780 | of you being more relaxed throughout the day in general.

02:51:09.940 | And we've seen that now like very consistently

02:51:12.180 | across years with athletes.

02:51:14.160 | So I think it's a great way to start your day.

02:51:16.460 | You won't need nearly as much coffee

02:51:19.460 | after spending three minutes in 30 degree water.

02:51:22.660 | - 30 degrees is pretty darn cold.

02:51:24.660 | I was in the ocean this morning for about three minutes.

02:51:27.220 | It felt, I didn't bring a thermometer,

02:51:28.900 | but it felt like somewhere in the low 50s.

02:51:31.820 | - But 50 and moving is really cold.

02:51:34.140 | - Yeah. - Water's moving, right?

02:51:35.620 | That's really cold.

02:51:36.660 | - That's right.

02:51:37.500 | The thermal layer that surrounds you

02:51:39.380 | when you sit still in a cold water immersion,

02:51:41.660 | I'm encouraging people now, if they really,

02:51:43.700 | I always joke that people like to look real stoic

02:51:46.300 | and tough when they're in there.

02:51:47.200 | Like they're just grinding through it with no pain at all.

02:51:48.960 | But the stillness is actually reducing the stimulus.

02:51:52.780 | If they sift around a little bit,

02:51:54.100 | you break up that thermal layer,

02:51:55.140 | that's where the real action is.

02:51:56.340 | - We've joked about this for years.

02:51:57.940 | Like do 50 degrees with a Whirlpool jet on.

02:52:01.200 | Now I'm impressed.

02:52:02.460 | 'Cause that is hard.

02:52:03.600 | You sit in 35 degree for three minutes.

02:52:05.460 | I guess, but with XBT, I've seen,

02:52:08.100 | I can't even tell you how many hundreds of people

02:52:10.060 | from all walks of life on all age

02:52:12.020 | that we've been able to get in 30 some degree water

02:52:15.720 | for three minutes.

02:52:17.140 | 50 degrees with a Whirlpool going,

02:52:19.300 | that number gets very small.

02:52:20.540 | - Yeah, and if you don't have access to a Whirlpool,

02:52:22.440 | this should be reassuring to you.

02:52:24.480 | Some people say, "Oh, I don't have access to ice."

02:52:26.540 | And ice can actually get pretty expensive

02:52:27.900 | if you're doing a $50 ice bath every day.

02:52:29.540 | So you can fill your bathtub with cool to cold water.

02:52:33.600 | Get in, but just make sure that you keep sifting

02:52:35.280 | in your limbs and it's chilly.

02:52:37.440 | And the studies on the very well,

02:52:40.580 | now well-established increases in dopamine and epinephrine

02:52:43.240 | that occur in cold water exposure

02:52:44.400 | were actually done at an hour in 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

02:52:48.180 | And so you don't necessarily need it ice cold

02:52:51.220 | or an ice bath,

02:52:52.100 | but immersion is really better than the cold shower.

02:52:54.140 | The cold shower is kind of a,

02:52:55.900 | it's the, it's kind of the espresso shot version.

02:52:59.580 | - Yep, no, it's sort of funny

02:53:01.060 | 'cause if you look at most of those initial studies

02:53:03.900 | and you think, man,

02:53:05.680 | how did they get people to sign up

02:53:07.680 | to spend 45 minutes in 55 degree water?

02:53:11.220 | 55 degrees is cold, even if it's not moving.

02:53:13.060 | And then they're gonna not spend five minutes in them,

02:53:14.540 | they're gonna go an hour.

02:53:15.760 | If you've ever done ice baths at that temperature,

02:53:17.360 | you know, like, all right, after a few minutes,

02:53:19.420 | it's not that bad, but man, that's a protocol.

02:53:22.040 | - Yeah, it's kind of a cold endurance protocol.

02:53:25.020 | 'Cause it's one thing to get in for one minute

02:53:26.460 | to three minutes and you know you're getting out.

02:53:28.040 | You could sing a song,

02:53:28.980 | you could do anything to distract yourself,

02:53:30.360 | but 45 minutes to an hour is intense.

02:53:33.920 | Maybe they, I don't know,

02:53:34.760 | I don't think they paid the subjects,

02:53:36.020 | but anyway, that study was done in Europe.

02:53:38.760 | I forget where it was done,

02:53:39.940 | but anyway, they were hardy subjects.

02:53:43.340 | I wanna talk a bit about over-training and gauging recovery.

02:53:48.600 | So there are a couple of methods that I've heard about

02:53:53.400 | and that I use based on some data that I've seen,

02:53:56.900 | but mainly discussions with really informed people

02:53:58.960 | like yourself, Brian McKenzie, Kelly Starrett, and others.

02:54:03.560 | The two that I'm aware of for gauging recovery

02:54:06.380 | of the nervous system and kind of systemic recovery

02:54:09.640 | are grip strength,

02:54:11.360 | especially grip strength on waking in the morning

02:54:14.520 | and the so-called carbon dioxide tolerance test,

02:54:18.360 | the ability to do a long controlled exhale

02:54:21.180 | after a few rhythmic deep breaths,

02:54:23.720 | just which I'm assuming taps into both one's ability

02:54:28.160 | to mechanically control the diaphragm,

02:54:30.360 | but also how well one is regulating carbon dioxide.

02:54:33.640 | First question is, is this stuff fiction, fact,

02:54:38.440 | or a combination of kind of anecdata, as I call it?

02:54:43.120 | Are there any peer-reviewed published data?

02:54:45.100 | Is your lab working on these things

02:54:46.440 | and am I deluding myself using these tools or are they useful?

02:54:50.720 | - It's not fiction at all.

02:54:53.240 | There are, with like CO2 tolerance,

02:54:56.160 | there's less published data.

02:54:57.520 | We've run a study in our lab looking at the associations

02:55:01.640 | between the CO2 tolerance

02:55:02.800 | and what we call trait and state anxiety.

02:55:05.720 | And those are in the publication process is what I'll say.

02:55:10.080 | So you can't really talk about that stuff, as you know,

02:55:12.320 | until it's out.

02:55:13.160 | But in general, I'd say there's a reason I'm still doing it.

02:55:16.640 | I'll just leave it at that.

02:55:17.780 | - Yeah, well, assuming it's not a clinical trial,

02:55:19.320 | I mean, I think sharing preliminary findings

02:55:21.720 | is fine as long as we highlight them as preliminary.

02:55:24.120 | I'm not a reviewer,

02:55:25.220 | but I look forward to reading the paper.

02:55:26.600 | - Yeah, but as you know, scientific, ethically,

02:55:28.840 | like you need to be careful about telling people results

02:55:31.780 | before you've gone through that process.

02:55:32.800 | - Right, which is why I'm flagging this

02:55:34.160 | as these results are not yet passed through

02:55:37.480 | the peer review process.

02:55:38.480 | So you're hearing about it prior to peer review.

02:55:40.560 | - Yep, having said that, there's enough in that field.

02:55:44.320 | I'm not the first one into that field.

02:55:45.800 | And so I'm very confident that that's a real thing.

02:55:48.880 | I mean, in terms of actual tracking and recovery,

02:55:52.120 | the big picture is this.

02:55:53.520 | When we run through a full analysis,

02:55:55.760 | when we have an athlete go through

02:55:57.080 | a biomolecular athlete program,

02:55:59.820 | we're gonna run and we're looking at three major categories.

02:56:02.280 | Okay, category one are what we call visible stressors,

02:56:05.080 | and then we have hidden stressors,

02:56:06.880 | and then we have recovery capacity.

02:56:09.000 | Any time the total stress load outpaces recovery capacity,

02:56:14.840 | you're either going backwards in your physical ability

02:56:19.360 | or you're reducing adaptability.

02:56:21.120 | Now you have levers to pull here.

02:56:23.000 | You can reduce stress intake or you can increase recovery

02:56:25.880 | capacity, right?

02:56:27.880 | What we want in an ideal situation is to be able to implement

02:56:30.880 | the most stress possible,

02:56:32.640 | because that's the driver of adaptation, recover from that.

02:56:35.820 | Now we get the most adaptation,

02:56:37.040 | and adaptation being simply a change,

02:56:38.940 | whatever change you want it to be.

02:56:39.940 | That's our gold standard, right?

02:56:41.480 | It's pie in the eye.

02:56:42.400 | Some people have endogenous differences.

02:56:44.040 | They just recover better, they don't.

02:56:46.080 | There are genetic factors,

02:56:47.000 | but let's talk about the ones that are manipulatable.

02:56:50.060 | If we go to the stress side of it,

02:56:52.160 | you want the throttle to be pushed as far down

02:56:54.460 | on the ones you want stress from,

02:56:56.160 | and as far off of the ones you don't want stress,

02:56:58.720 | so that the adaptation comes in the exact area you want,

02:57:01.800 | and you're not burning gas

02:57:02.880 | in something you don't care about,

02:57:04.460 | because you're taking that total stress bucket too high.

02:57:08.400 | Recovery capacity over there.

02:57:09.780 | So here's how you can do that.

02:57:10.900 | You can run some analytics and measure what we do

02:57:12.620 | with everyone through these very comprehensive breakdowns

02:57:15.740 | to figure out what's that physiology look like hidden

02:57:18.400 | and visible, and then what's the recovery capacity.

02:57:21.080 | Once we have that blueprint,

02:57:22.720 | we can now figure out what are the two or three things

02:57:24.960 | we need to track that are these indicators

02:57:28.040 | of what we call performance anchors.

02:57:30.300 | So an anchor is something that kind of drags behind you

02:57:32.520 | or below you that slows you down.

02:57:34.980 | The analogy being, let's say we're going down

02:57:37.720 | one of these amazing canyon roads,

02:57:39.680 | and I won't say which canyon we're in,

02:57:41.160 | so you can stay hidden here,

02:57:43.100 | and your car's going down at a certain velocity,

02:57:46.240 | and you want to go faster.

02:57:47.960 | Most people's first impulse is to hit the gas,

02:57:51.480 | the accelerator.

02:57:52.680 | We want to push.

02:57:54.080 | Well, that's fine, but if your foot is on the brake

02:57:56.480 | and you push the accelerator,

02:57:57.840 | you might go a little bit faster, but number one,

02:58:00.200 | you're wasting a lot of literal gas

02:58:02.280 | to go a little bit faster,

02:58:03.320 | and two, you're burning your engine.

02:58:05.960 | You're gonna blow.

02:58:07.360 | The easier solution is just take your foot off the brake.

02:58:10.600 | You're going to go faster by just stopping yourself.

02:58:13.100 | Then if that's not fast enough, we can hit the accelerator.

02:58:16.020 | Everyone wants to just push down, right?

02:58:18.700 | More stimulants, more optimization,

02:58:20.340 | bing, bing, bing, bing here.

02:58:21.300 | Our first analytics are where are these performance anchors?

02:58:25.100 | What's dragging you back?

02:58:26.200 | What's putting down the brake?

02:58:29.260 | I want to move those two or three things out of the way,

02:58:31.020 | and now let's see how far you get.

02:58:32.760 | Oh, look at that.

02:58:34.060 | Your recovery capacity has gone way up.

02:58:35.940 | Your adaptations are happening faster now,

02:58:38.700 | or we can do more work because you're recovering quicker,

02:58:41.260 | so we're trying to figure out in those buckets,

02:58:43.020 | and we have a whole host of things that we measure,

02:58:44.660 | biomarkers and surveys and everything else

02:58:47.300 | that we go through to find out what's there.

02:58:50.140 | So after we've done that, now we're just gonna track

02:58:52.340 | a few of these recovery markers along the way

02:58:54.320 | to figure out what's globally happening.

02:58:56.360 | So that could mean grip strength.

02:58:59.040 | I have some folks who we're gonna test grip strength daily.

02:59:01.700 | Others, we're gonna look at HRV or combinations.

02:59:04.220 | We may look at performance metrics like a force plate.

02:59:07.380 | So you're gonna do a vertical jump every single day,

02:59:09.800 | and we're gonna see where that's at.

02:59:10.720 | We've used the tap test before,

02:59:12.400 | which is how many times you can tap your fingers

02:59:14.460 | as fast as possible.

02:59:15.980 | It's a rough indicator of central nervous system.

02:59:18.500 | - In a, say, one minute interval?

02:59:20.020 | - Exactly.

02:59:20.860 | And there's just apps you can do on this.

02:59:21.860 | Like, you tap his finger as fast as you can.

02:59:23.420 | It's gonna say, "Hey, you did 60 taps today,

02:59:25.240 | and your average is 75."

02:59:26.820 | - I like that 'cause it taps into, ha, no pun intended,

02:59:30.540 | into upper motor neuron capacity,

02:59:33.220 | because a lot of things, like grip strength,

02:59:34.980 | obviously I have to send the deliberate signal

02:59:36.520 | to my hand to grip, but at some point,

02:59:38.120 | the lower motor neurons are gonna be taking over

02:59:39.900 | the majority of the work.

02:59:40.740 | Like, the signal is probably one and done,

02:59:42.340 | whereas the tapping is going to be repetitive,

02:59:47.080 | sending of signals from upper motor neurons.

02:59:49.900 | - Yep, so some of the athletes I work with,

02:59:52.140 | we track blood every day.

02:59:53.940 | We track urine every day.

02:59:55.100 | We track, ideally, a combination of subjective

02:59:58.000 | and objective measures.

02:59:59.180 | Everything from how did you feel last night

03:00:01.500 | to environmental sensors of their bedroom,

03:00:04.100 | full PSGs going on, running, like, actual sleep diagnostics,

03:00:08.000 | not an aura ring, nothing against aura,

03:00:09.480 | but, like, full analytics.

03:00:10.540 | 'Cause some of them, it's as simple as

03:00:12.700 | how'd you feel today, and what was your vertical jump?

03:00:15.740 | Right, so we're going to put people

03:00:16.780 | in a position to succeed.

03:00:17.740 | We're gonna figure out what's the lever

03:00:19.020 | that they need to pull, as well as what's their aptitude,

03:00:21.400 | what sport are they in,

03:00:22.300 | what can we realistically get away with.

03:00:23.840 | And some of them will take machines with them,

03:00:26.460 | and we'll do blood every day, and urine,

03:00:27.820 | and all kinds of stuff.

03:00:28.980 | And some of them, it's a lot lower.

03:00:31.060 | - For myself, I'm not, as I mentioned before,

03:00:33.940 | I'm not a big fan of devices.

03:00:35.540 | I'm trying to wear the wristwatch.

03:00:37.660 | I tend to go off feel, which is not,

03:00:41.540 | it's not the ideal objective way to gauge things.

03:00:43.940 | But part of my reasoning for this is my colleague

03:00:48.120 | from the psychology department, Dr. Alia Crum,

03:00:51.380 | has done some studies where they've given,

03:00:53.980 | deliberately given people false feedback about their sleep.

03:00:56.660 | So told people you didn't sleep very well,

03:00:58.380 | or they've told people you slept really well.

03:01:00.580 | And performance can be driven in the expected direction

03:01:04.440 | based on feedback, independent of how well people slept

03:01:06.820 | and didn't sleep.

03:01:07.700 | Now, that doesn't mean you can take someone

03:01:09.020 | that only slept two hours or was up every 30 seconds

03:01:12.380 | 'cause of apnea and tell them they slept great

03:01:13.960 | and they're going to perform great cognitive tasks.

03:01:15.960 | But you can take someone who slept very well,

03:01:18.640 | tell them that their recovery quotient wasn't very good

03:01:20.700 | and their output is going to be worse.

03:01:23.020 | And that's my concern about a lot of devices out there,

03:01:25.340 | not to name specific devices,

03:01:26.840 | but it's still unclear to the general public

03:01:30.600 | what the specific algorithms are

03:01:32.560 | to generate these recovery scores, right?

03:01:34.920 | And so many of the things that reportedly track sleep

03:01:39.160 | aren't tracking sleep,

03:01:40.420 | they're tracking heart rate and breathing,

03:01:42.160 | which are correlates of sleep depth, but that's different.

03:01:44.760 | And again, I'm not knocking on those.

03:01:46.060 | I think the sleep trackers, if nothing else,

03:01:48.600 | have provided a forum whereby people are very conscious

03:01:51.080 | of getting good sleep.

03:01:52.560 | It's sort of like knowing the total caloric intake

03:01:55.280 | of your food, people go, wow,

03:01:56.440 | I'm actually eating a lot more than I thought.

03:01:58.160 | - It's calibration.

03:01:59.000 | - Or less in some cases, but often the case is that it's more.

03:02:01.960 | So I think for the typical person,

03:02:04.600 | I'm wondering whether or not, like myself,

03:02:07.000 | 'cause I'm not a competitive athlete

03:02:09.160 | or certainly not a professional athlete,

03:02:11.220 | competitive with myself, I suppose, but no one else.

03:02:14.760 | Morning pulse rate I tend to take when I'm waking.

03:02:19.000 | If I wake out of a really stressful dream,

03:02:20.800 | I might relax a little bit

03:02:21.840 | and then just take my pulse rate, kind of get a range

03:02:23.560 | and see if it's spiking for whatever reason.

03:02:25.960 | I don't tend to measure grip strength,

03:02:27.480 | although I've heard you can just use a classic scale,

03:02:30.320 | old fashioned scale with the Neo Now old fashioned

03:02:33.320 | or some other more technical devices,

03:02:35.160 | probably there's a low cost one.

03:02:37.240 | - Yeah, they're all low.

03:02:38.160 | - And then the carbon dioxide tolerance test.

03:02:40.280 | So we haven't really talked about that in specific ways.

03:02:42.920 | My understanding of it is it's four deep, slow breaths

03:02:46.640 | in through the nose, out through the nose,

03:02:48.240 | and then a big inhale as max exhale,

03:02:50.840 | and then time duration of exhale through the nose,

03:02:54.240 | and then stopping the stopwatch at the point

03:02:56.480 | where lungs are empty,

03:02:57.900 | not necessarily as long as one could hold their breath.

03:03:00.460 | Did I get that right?

03:03:01.300 | - Pretty much.

03:03:02.120 | I guess we should credit you and Brian McKenzie.

03:03:05.080 | - Yeah, those guys.

03:03:06.120 | - Yeah, and the folks under Brian's umbrella

03:03:09.960 | for really establishing this as a really good metric.

03:03:14.680 | When and how can I use the carbon dioxide tolerance test

03:03:18.800 | to gauge recovery?

03:03:20.360 | Upon waking, post training session?

03:03:25.040 | - Yeah.

03:03:25.880 | - Would that be a good time?

03:03:26.700 | - Number one answer is whatever you do, be consistent.

03:03:29.920 | So do it under any good science experiment.

03:03:32.160 | Do it under the exact same conditions as you can.

03:03:34.820 | That generally means somewhere in the morning,

03:03:37.280 | 'cause that's when you're probably going to have

03:03:38.280 | the most control, most stability going.

03:03:40.960 | So yeah, like you would take any HRV or other metric,

03:03:45.500 | wake up, get under control, get stabilized,

03:03:49.000 | take your metric.

03:03:50.040 | - Got it.

03:03:50.860 | - Gonna be pretty good.

03:03:51.700 | - Got it.

03:03:53.000 | Sodium bicarb, baking soda.

03:03:55.380 | Rumor has it, and data has it,

03:03:58.940 | that it can actually be a pretty effective training tool.

03:04:02.560 | - Very effective.

03:04:03.400 | - Could you explain a little bit about how it works

03:04:06.440 | and how one might explore using sodium bicarb

03:04:09.380 | to enhance training output in a couple of different contexts?

03:04:11.920 | - Yeah, so there's a handful of these

03:04:14.440 | ubiquitously effective supplements for performance.

03:04:18.460 | Sodium bicarb is one of them.

03:04:19.660 | It's a very ingenious idea 'cause it's so simple.

03:04:24.660 | Effectively, muscle contraction happens

03:04:28.400 | because enzymatic function occurs

03:04:30.560 | within a fairly specific pH range, right?

03:04:33.000 | So if it gets extremely acidic, it doesn't like it.

03:04:35.000 | And so whether you're running through aerobic glycolysis

03:04:37.980 | or anaerobic or anything else,

03:04:39.360 | all of these things require,

03:04:40.480 | even ATP hydrolysis requires ATPase.

03:04:43.400 | An enzyme has to do it.

03:04:44.360 | Enzymes don't function well

03:04:45.540 | outside of this fairly special range.

03:04:49.160 | So what happens is generally fatigue,

03:04:51.320 | the sensations of fatigue are actually caused

03:04:54.800 | by some signal that, hey, we're starting to run out of pH

03:04:57.920 | or we're getting in the wrong range.

03:04:59.160 | You're not out of gas usually.

03:05:01.120 | You're not too low on oxygen.

03:05:02.880 | You're not running low on muscle glycogen yet.

03:05:04.680 | You're typically gonna see signs or feel signals of fatigue

03:05:08.600 | way prior to that, mostly being pH issues.

03:05:11.420 | That being said, what if we could regulate pH better?

03:05:14.960 | Enter bicarbonate, right?

03:05:17.140 | So without going too far into metabolism,

03:05:20.240 | effectively what happens is you take an inhale

03:05:22.540 | and you're mostly breathing in oxygen, O2.

03:05:26.100 | When you exhale, you're breathing out CO2.

03:05:28.140 | So the difference is you've gained a carbon somehow.

03:05:31.060 | Well, all of your carbohydrates in your body

03:05:34.020 | come in the form of long carbon chains.

03:05:36.120 | In fact, that's what a carbohydrate means.

03:05:37.920 | It is a one-carbon molecule

03:05:39.200 | that has one water molecule attached to it.

03:05:40.760 | It's a carbon that has been hydrated.

03:05:42.920 | In the case of like glucose, blood sugar,

03:05:45.280 | it's a six-carbon molecule, right?

03:05:47.320 | In terms of fat, which are the only two places

03:05:49.760 | you're gonna get most of your cellular energy,

03:05:51.440 | carbohydrates and fat,

03:05:52.920 | that is also a big, long block and chain of carbons.

03:05:56.300 | So whether you're getting your energy

03:05:57.340 | from fat or carbohydrate,

03:05:59.860 | you're going to split those atoms.

03:06:03.220 | So in other words, you've got six carbons

03:06:05.100 | attached to each other.

03:06:06.420 | And in this part of chemistry, it's exergonic.

03:06:09.020 | So when you break that carbon bond,

03:06:10.740 | so break one of those carbons off from the other,

03:06:13.660 | that's going to release energy.

03:06:14.980 | Just like if you had a pencil in here and I snapped it,

03:06:17.660 | you'd go bang and pop.

03:06:19.660 | I broke the bonds that were connecting that graphite

03:06:22.340 | to the next piece of graphite and that released energy

03:06:24.640 | 'cause I put energy into the system, et cetera.

03:06:27.260 | Okay.

03:06:28.340 | As a result though, we've now had, you know,

03:06:30.820 | say five or six carbons chained together.

03:06:32.580 | We broke one off the end, which is not how it works,

03:06:34.900 | but making the point.

03:06:36.860 | And now you have one free-floating carbon.

03:06:38.840 | You use that energy release to then go make ATP,

03:06:41.780 | to then go make your muscles contract.

03:06:44.320 | But now you've got carbon floating around.

03:06:46.840 | You can associate free-floating carbon

03:06:50.200 | with being at a higher acidic level.

03:06:52.200 | It's not going to happen.

03:06:54.340 | The only way that you're going to go through this process

03:06:55.840 | is if your body says,

03:06:56.680 | do we have an oxygen molecule available

03:06:58.320 | that we can bind this to immediately?

03:07:00.760 | Yes, we do.

03:07:02.040 | That carbon attaches to that oxygen molecule.

03:07:04.080 | You can't just put CO2 in the blood

03:07:05.680 | because of what we just talked about.

03:07:07.280 | So you're going to bind it through this bicarbonate process.

03:07:09.480 | It's going to go through your blood.

03:07:10.760 | It's going to go into the lungs.

03:07:12.120 | It's going to go back into its carbon dioxide molecule.

03:07:14.320 | It's going to trans, go through the alveoli into the lungs

03:07:16.920 | and you're going to exhale.

03:07:18.100 | So you went from carbon to this bicarbonate system,

03:07:21.500 | back into carbon, exhale.

03:07:22.740 | So inhaled O2 plants go the opposite, by the way.

03:07:25.700 | So they're going to breathe in the CO2.

03:07:27.200 | They're going to cleave off that carbon,

03:07:28.660 | stack those carbons together and that's how they get larger.

03:07:32.120 | In your blood, those six carbon chains are called glucose.

03:07:35.980 | If we store that in your muscle, we call it glycogen.

03:07:38.420 | So we take a bunch of glucose and stack it together.

03:07:40.820 | In a plant, we call that starch.

03:07:43.380 | That's effectively what it is, right?

03:07:45.500 | So you took a bunch of carbon from the atmosphere,

03:07:47.020 | stuck it all together and that's a starch.

03:07:49.220 | If you want to do it in the form of fruit,

03:07:51.060 | we take that starch, like from the ground,

03:07:53.400 | you put it up through the tree,

03:07:56.180 | go all the way up to the top, put it into the flower,

03:07:58.020 | break it up into these big, huge chunks of starch

03:08:01.300 | into little forms called fructose or glucose.

03:08:03.920 | That's why fruit has fructose in it

03:08:05.460 | and that's why tubers and stuff have starch in them.

03:08:08.960 | Basically starch in an animal is glycogen in us.

03:08:11.700 | Okay, all that to say, if that's happening

03:08:15.020 | and we know that a by-product,

03:08:16.180 | specifically of anaerobic glycolysis,

03:08:17.980 | meaning the breakdown of carbohydrates for fuel,

03:08:21.020 | typically in a very fast pace

03:08:23.980 | with low oxygen availability,

03:08:25.720 | the downside of that equation is acid production.

03:08:29.480 | We know that that's a problem

03:08:32.460 | 'cause I started the conversation up there intentionally.

03:08:34.720 | So what if we could reduce the acid buildup?

03:08:37.140 | Now, you know how pH kind of works?

03:08:38.940 | I went in kind of double negatives there, right?

03:08:40.900 | You don't want too much acid buildup.

03:08:43.420 | Then could we prolong and sustain energy

03:08:46.500 | in a more effective pace,

03:08:47.340 | especially in this anaerobic interval kind of environment?

03:08:50.640 | And again, that's important because in those things,

03:08:52.700 | failure is not a result of running out of fuel or oxygen.

03:08:57.060 | It's a result of fatigue building up way too quickly.

03:08:59.820 | - Is that also true for resistance training?

03:09:01.980 | There's maybe more of the creatine phosphate system.

03:09:06.840 | - That can be an issue.

03:09:07.940 | It could simply be an issue of force production.

03:09:09.880 | You just don't have enough force.

03:09:11.340 | At least you're not out of energy.

03:09:12.380 | You just can't muster enough force.

03:09:15.560 | You do enough reps, then it's gonna be an issue there.

03:09:18.620 | Creatine phosphate would be the big winner, depending.

03:09:21.260 | So to come back a little bit to the beginning,

03:09:25.540 | and then I'm circling this all together intentionally.

03:09:28.540 | All right, well, the way that we produce energy

03:09:32.980 | is gonna be in two primary categories,

03:09:34.780 | anaerobic and aerobic.

03:09:36.020 | Aerobic meaning with oxygen, anaerobic meaning without.

03:09:39.340 | In terms of muscle contraction,

03:09:40.620 | you're pretty much talking about carbohydrates or fat.

03:09:43.580 | Now, fat is going to be exclusively aerobic,

03:09:46.620 | meaning I'm gonna use fat from the entire body,

03:09:49.900 | roughly equally.

03:09:50.740 | So you're doing a sprint up a hill,

03:09:52.700 | and your hamstrings or your glutes or your quads are on fire.

03:09:55.740 | You can't, you're not just going to use the fat

03:09:57.860 | that's directly in those hamstrings.

03:09:59.300 | You're gonna lose it from the entire body.

03:10:01.220 | It has to go through lipolysis,

03:10:02.420 | so it's in this stored form in adipose tissue.

03:10:05.100 | It's gotta get broken down, put into blood.

03:10:06.820 | Blood's gonna have to go through your body,

03:10:08.460 | get taken up into muscle,

03:10:09.580 | taken up through muscle into the mitochondria.

03:10:11.740 | Then we're gonna have to go through this process

03:10:14.060 | called beta-oxidation.

03:10:15.380 | So remember, carbohydrates and glucose,

03:10:17.980 | especially, is a six-carbon molecule.

03:10:19.820 | Fat, if it's in the form of a triglyceride,

03:10:23.300 | it is a three-carbon glycerol backbone,

03:10:25.260 | and three, you know, try one, two, three, fatty acids.

03:10:29.140 | Three-carbon backbone, and those fatty acids

03:10:31.100 | are just big, long chains of carbon.

03:10:32.860 | That's all it is, right?

03:10:35.260 | So we're gonna break that thing down, put it in the blood,

03:10:38.060 | move it up, move it into our mitochondria.

03:10:39.780 | You can't walk those things across the mitochondria wall.

03:10:42.260 | They're too big.

03:10:43.460 | So what you have to do is cleave them off

03:10:45.260 | into little chunks,

03:10:46.820 | and it turns out we break them off into two carbon chunks.

03:10:49.260 | We call it beta, as in two.

03:10:51.660 | Move those into mitochondria.

03:10:52.900 | That can go through this little thing called Krebs cycle

03:10:55.180 | or triaxialic acid cycle,

03:10:56.980 | and you kick out a bunch of energy out of that.

03:10:59.520 | You add two carbons, so as a result of that process,

03:11:02.020 | you're gonna generate two carbon dioxides.

03:11:04.700 | But remember, you can only go through that process

03:11:06.820 | if oxygen is available because you have to be able

03:11:08.600 | to place those carbons onto something,

03:11:10.900 | or acid gets up way too high too fast.

03:11:13.280 | This is one of the reasons why fat is a nice fuel source,

03:11:16.380 | but it's very slow.

03:11:18.020 | It takes physical time to move from the back

03:11:20.360 | of your shoulder into your blood, down your hamstring,

03:11:23.140 | uptake, uptake, uptake.

03:11:24.580 | In addition, it's required oxygen availability.

03:11:28.340 | If you need energy faster, you simply don't have the time

03:11:30.780 | to bring in the oxygen, transport it through,

03:11:32.600 | go through capillaries, exchange through a tissue, et cetera.

03:11:36.380 | Carbohydrate, on the other hand,

03:11:38.020 | is gonna be stored locally in the exercising muscle cell,

03:11:42.100 | and specifically in the cytoplasm.

03:11:44.060 | - As glycogen.

03:11:45.140 | - As glycogen in the store there.

03:11:47.700 | So what's gonna happen initially,

03:11:48.900 | your initial demands for fuel are gonna come

03:11:51.560 | from the glycogen stored within the muscle fiber itself.

03:11:54.200 | It's just gonna break right there,

03:11:55.780 | and you're gonna be off the races.

03:11:56.820 | So you have the six carbon molecules,

03:11:58.060 | you're gonna break it into two separate

03:11:59.220 | three carbon molecules.

03:12:00.980 | Okay, boom, that breaking provides you a tiny bit of energy,

03:12:04.480 | very small, but some.

03:12:06.640 | Now you're gonna take those two three carbon molecules,

03:12:08.880 | and you wanna be able to oxidize them,

03:12:10.940 | 'cause that's your only next step.

03:12:12.320 | But in order to do that,

03:12:13.200 | you gotta go those into mitochondria.

03:12:15.020 | So you gotta break one of those molecules off,

03:12:19.120 | so then you'll be back to your two carbon molecule,

03:12:21.140 | just like you did with fat,

03:12:22.180 | that's gonna go into mitochondria,

03:12:23.820 | and then it's gonna go through the exact same Krebs cycle,

03:12:26.360 | two carbons, et cetera.

03:12:27.680 | But hold on, if you don't have sufficient oxygen,

03:12:31.480 | or sufficient mitochondrial availability,

03:12:34.180 | and you're stuck at that two three carbon place,

03:12:37.100 | what the do you do?

03:12:38.440 | You have problems, right?

03:12:41.380 | Now we have to say, okay, wait a minute.

03:12:44.200 | We have a three carbon molecule,

03:12:46.940 | and we have a bunch of this acid buildup.

03:12:48.540 | Now acid functionally is hydrogen.

03:12:51.180 | That's what pH, potential hydrogen,

03:12:52.740 | is what pH stands for, right?

03:12:54.820 | So if hydrogen is building up as a byproduct

03:12:57.880 | of muscular contraction,

03:12:58.980 | and then you're having this three carbon molecule,

03:13:00.700 | what it can actually do is grab one of those hydrogens.

03:13:04.300 | And those three carbon molecules, by the way,

03:13:05.660 | are called peruvic acid, right?

03:13:08.260 | If you take a peruvic acid and you grab hydrogen,

03:13:10.860 | put it on top of it, we now have a different name for it.

03:13:13.640 | It's called?

03:13:14.480 | - Hydrogen peroxide.

03:13:15.300 | - Lactate, bingo, right?

03:13:17.880 | That's what lactate or lactic acid is, right?

03:13:21.020 | So we've now built that up.

03:13:21.860 | So number one reason why lactate's not causing your fatigue

03:13:25.420 | is actually preventing it,

03:13:26.620 | and that it does a bunch of other really cool stuff.

03:13:28.960 | But the point is that system can only last so long.

03:13:32.460 | That gets overwhelmed very quickly.

03:13:34.920 | What are you going to do with the rest of this hydrogen?

03:13:37.660 | Well, if you started off in a normal pH range,

03:13:40.820 | you don't have very far to go

03:13:42.280 | before you've now gone into that level of too much acidity.

03:13:45.780 | If you start off in a more basic,

03:13:47.620 | and basic, I don't mean simple,

03:13:48.860 | I mean chemistry, right, and more alkaline,

03:13:51.460 | then that same amount of increase in pH is no longer,

03:13:54.540 | now it just puts you back in your physiological range.

03:13:56.440 | So sodium bicarbonate, whether taken as a cream,

03:13:59.340 | or a powder, or baking soda, or anything else,

03:14:01.860 | can simply put you in a more alkaline state even acutely.

03:14:04.860 | So this is something you can take right now

03:14:06.300 | before your workout.

03:14:07.640 | You're going to delay,

03:14:09.980 | what we call delay the progression of fatigue.

03:14:11.820 | - And how would people start to approach this practice?

03:14:15.540 | My understanding is you can do this

03:14:17.140 | with common store-bought baking soda.

03:14:19.860 | - No question.

03:14:21.260 | - There's always a concern about gastric distress,

03:14:24.260 | that it's a very effective laxative,

03:14:26.380 | sometimes an unwanted laxative effect.

03:14:30.040 | But how would one approach this before?

03:14:32.540 | Let's say I'm going to,

03:14:35.040 | I'm doing the mile repeats exercise,

03:14:40.000 | mile repeats protocol that we talked about earlier.

03:14:42.980 | I'm doing that for a few months,

03:14:44.120 | and now I want to try the sodium bicarb approach.

03:14:46.720 | I'm well hydrated, hopefully I'm well rested.

03:14:49.060 | I'm ready to go.

03:14:50.900 | When am I going to drink this sodium bicarb solution?

03:14:54.680 | How would I make the solution?

03:14:56.420 | Let's say I take 10 ounces of water.

03:14:58.600 | How much bicarb do I want to,

03:15:00.940 | sodium bicarb should I put in there?

03:15:02.300 | Can we come up with it?

03:15:03.280 | Is it half a teaspoon?

03:15:04.360 | Is it a teaspoon?

03:15:05.900 | - Here's what I'm going to tell you.

03:15:07.740 | You will thank me by starting lower.

03:15:10.120 | You can always go more later.

03:15:11.260 | - So a little pinch.

03:15:12.220 | - You cannot go backwards.

03:15:13.140 | - How about I start with a quarter teaspoon?

03:15:14.820 | - Fine, honestly, half is fine.

03:15:16.460 | - Half a teaspoon. - Totally fine.

03:15:17.580 | - Dissolve that, slug that down.

03:15:19.820 | I read a study recently that showed

03:15:21.460 | that people will hit their, the peak benefits of this

03:15:25.040 | at different times, but it's somewhere,

03:15:27.000 | if memory serves me correctly,

03:15:29.080 | somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes later.

03:15:30.980 | So I might want to drink it on the way to the track.

03:15:32.680 | - It can, it can be as low as 20.

03:15:34.380 | - Okay, so maybe as I get to the tracks

03:15:37.360 | since I'm going to do some warm up

03:15:38.540 | with some walking, jogging.

03:15:39.740 | - I say 45 minutes.

03:15:40.860 | - Okay.

03:15:41.700 | - That's just a very rough standard.

03:15:42.920 | But yeah, you're right, it is individualized.

03:15:45.360 | And you probably want to play with that a little bit.

03:15:47.320 | If not, just somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to an hour.

03:15:49.700 | - Okay, and then the perceived and real fatigue,

03:15:54.600 | if done correctly,

03:15:56.400 | the perceived and real fatigue ought to be reduced.

03:15:58.820 | - Yes.

03:15:59.660 | - I can do more work without feeling exhausted.

03:16:02.100 | Will I feel less of a lactate burn?

03:16:04.500 | - Yep.

03:16:05.340 | - Done in air quotes for those listening,

03:16:06.280 | I realize that's a very crude way

03:16:07.500 | to describe a complex physiological process.

03:16:09.980 | - Yep.

03:16:11.380 | - Fantastic, can sodium bicarb be used repeatedly

03:16:15.340 | for longer duration training?

03:16:17.980 | - Yep.

03:16:18.820 | - And we're going to use it with weight training

03:16:21.660 | for whatever reason.

03:16:22.500 | Maybe I'm doing circuit type training

03:16:24.060 | or I'm doing the superset type strength training

03:16:26.000 | that you talked about before, push, pull, push, pull,

03:16:27.940 | where it's a little bit more cardiovascularly demanding.

03:16:30.660 | - Yep.

03:16:32.080 | - Then maybe I'd sip that throughout the workout,

03:16:33.760 | make sure there's a bathroom nearby, it sounds like.

03:16:35.740 | 'Cause I am aware that many people

03:16:37.940 | get pretty serious gastric distress.

03:16:39.620 | - It can happen very quickly.

03:16:40.580 | - Okay, great.

03:16:41.860 | Well, it sounds like an amazing training tool.

03:16:44.260 | I really appreciate you sharing it.

03:16:45.220 | 'Cause I think it's one that doesn't get

03:16:47.320 | a lot of air time these days,

03:16:48.660 | 'cause it's been around,

03:16:49.580 | but it sounds like it has some pretty impressive effects.

03:16:52.220 | - Yeah, you know what's sort of funny about that is,

03:16:54.900 | I mean, I get it, pop culture is what it is,

03:16:56.620 | but still to this day,

03:16:57.900 | if you want to talk about sort of your most effective

03:16:59.980 | general health/performance supplementation,

03:17:02.660 | it's the same three to four to five.

03:17:04.700 | It's because they work really well.

03:17:07.420 | - Without going into the chemistry of each one

03:17:09.540 | and the practice of each one,

03:17:10.420 | 'cause I definitely want to get you back

03:17:11.960 | to talk about nutrition and supplementation at some point.

03:17:16.660 | But I think we need a full couple of hours

03:17:18.840 | to get that right, at least.

03:17:20.720 | If you, as a teaser,

03:17:24.120 | would you mind just listing off the other supplements

03:17:27.060 | that you have found are very effective for many people?

03:17:30.620 | So sodium bicarb or baking soda is one.

03:17:32.820 | What are some of the other ones?

03:17:33.820 | - Yep, and we'll go kind of in reverse order.

03:17:35.320 | Beta alanine is another very classically effective one.

03:17:39.040 | Similar idea of sodium bicarbon.

03:17:42.020 | So it's going to, beta alanine is going to come in,

03:17:44.820 | it's going to be converted and stored

03:17:46.140 | as what's called carnosine in the muscle.

03:17:47.740 | And carnosine is an intracellular buffer.

03:17:49.500 | So in other words,

03:17:50.340 | it's just going to delay the buildup of acid.

03:17:53.180 | So fatigue blocker, if you will.

03:17:54.980 | So very effective, very cheap, very safe, well studied.

03:17:58.800 | The top one, though, of all of them by far

03:18:01.820 | that has an incredibly strong safety profile,

03:18:05.260 | it has, it is a cheap, it is a simple form to get,

03:18:09.040 | has a important magnitude of effect,

03:18:12.960 | and is effective across multiple domains

03:18:15.740 | of physical health and performance.

03:18:16.860 | And it is, because of that, it is my crown jewel.

03:18:19.860 | It is, in my opinion, without question,

03:18:22.260 | the Michael Jordan of all supplementation.

03:18:24.820 | And that's creatine monohydrate.

03:18:26.740 | It affects so many things.

03:18:28.180 | We typically think about it as it's muscle stuff, right?

03:18:30.940 | You've talked kind of, you quickly were talking

03:18:32.420 | about the creatine phosphate system.

03:18:34.420 | But we have to realize the mass majority of research

03:18:37.460 | on creatine phosphate is not in sport performance

03:18:39.420 | and has not been for 20 years.

03:18:41.160 | It's in clinical.

03:18:42.500 | And it has everything from effects on the neurological system

03:18:47.060 | to there have been associations

03:18:48.240 | to mental health and depression.

03:18:50.100 | And to be very clear, I am certainly not saying

03:18:52.320 | you can take creatine and cure anything.

03:18:55.560 | And I'm not saying it's going to stop you

03:18:56.820 | from depression or anything,

03:18:58.060 | but I'm saying there's a lot of research in these areas

03:19:01.060 | and there's a reason people are doing it.

03:19:02.820 | - Yeah, I completely agree.

03:19:04.140 | And if you're willing, I'd love to have you back

03:19:06.040 | for us to do a discussion on creatine and the brain

03:19:09.320 | or creatine and the nervous system.

03:19:10.980 | That would be a lot of fun and maybe we can do

03:19:12.700 | a kind of a journal club in advance of that.

03:19:14.660 | For those that don't know, a journal club is where

03:19:17.020 | scientists read a bunch of papers and then argue about them,

03:19:20.140 | discuss them and try and extract the kind of

03:19:22.580 | agreed upon center of mass, if you will.

03:19:26.540 | I think I've long been taking five grams

03:19:29.400 | of creatine monohydrate per day

03:19:31.420 | mainly for the cognitive effects.

03:19:33.020 | I sense an effect, that's obviously anec data,

03:19:37.420 | but I think there are a lot of data out there as you-

03:19:39.620 | - There's enough, you're not crazy.

03:19:41.460 | There's enough there and in fact there's enough mechanism

03:19:44.460 | now to understand the metabolic needs.

03:19:47.760 | People think the, I'm a muscle guy, right?

03:19:49.740 | So I'm going to think about the metabolism needed

03:19:51.520 | to fuel muscle, but we forget cells, immune cells,

03:19:55.180 | red blood cells, nerve cells, astrocytes, brain,

03:19:58.240 | all this stuff requires energy

03:19:59.880 | and it's all going through metabolism.

03:20:02.620 | - Super interesting.

03:20:03.540 | We will do the deep dive on that soon.

03:20:08.040 | I have a final question for you.

03:20:09.660 | You're involved in a really interesting,

03:20:11.640 | I think really cutting edge project

03:20:13.900 | that I first learned about from you.

03:20:16.060 | I don't know of anyone else doing anything

03:20:18.400 | as forward thinking and frankly,

03:20:21.140 | as relevant to the general population

03:20:24.840 | because of my interest in people getting better sleep

03:20:27.780 | and learning how to do that,

03:20:28.900 | avoiding stress and learning how to do that.

03:20:30.840 | Tell us a little bit about what I believe

03:20:33.820 | is called absolute rest.

03:20:35.740 | - Right.

03:20:36.580 | So this is something that we've been playing with

03:20:38.080 | behind the scenes for a long time.

03:20:40.820 | And this is typically how high performance stuff works,

03:20:42.920 | right?

03:20:43.760 | People want exclusivity and so this has been built.

03:20:46.500 | Effectively what happened is a friend of mine,

03:20:48.940 | Cody Burkhardt, I don't know if you know Cody,

03:20:50.600 | but a famous--

03:20:51.440 | - Down in Texas.

03:20:52.580 | - Yeah, NASA.

03:20:53.640 | - NASA guy.

03:20:54.480 | Yeah, I do know Cody.

03:20:55.640 | - Wonderful, just down the road thinker.

03:20:58.640 | Everyone's interested in sleep, right?

03:21:01.480 | And for forever, I would cover using with athletes,

03:21:04.800 | but everything available tells you how you're sleeping.

03:21:08.380 | Nothing can tell you why you're sleeping that way.

03:21:12.280 | And so we got together in Boulder

03:21:15.000 | and then I met some of his former colleagues,

03:21:16.840 | computer science folks, Harvard MD,

03:21:20.720 | and some really impressive tech folks.

03:21:23.480 | And we were just thinking about an idea

03:21:25.120 | and we came up with, we started to realize the problems,

03:21:28.300 | right?

03:21:29.140 | We use first principle thinking.

03:21:29.960 | It's one of my favorite approaches.

03:21:31.500 | If you're not familiar with that, go Google that.

03:21:33.600 | Like that's just a recipe to solve problems,

03:21:35.800 | this first principle thinking.

03:21:37.480 | And we just started to think about like,

03:21:38.740 | man, all the sleep tech is there, it's real.

03:21:40.600 | I don't need to convince people that they need sleep.

03:21:43.560 | Everyone's done that.

03:21:44.600 | You need high quality sleep,

03:21:46.720 | but how can I provide solutions?

03:21:48.540 | And with the people I work with,

03:21:50.480 | I can't just tell them your testosterone's down

03:21:53.040 | or your sleep's down or recover.

03:21:54.120 | I need to be able to be like, this is down and here's why

03:21:56.560 | and here's our solution.

03:21:57.680 | That's how our high performance world works.

03:21:59.840 | So enter absolute rest.

03:22:01.700 | This is saying, okay, what are the actual nodes

03:22:03.500 | that go into high effective, high quality sleep?

03:22:07.400 | Number one is psychology.

03:22:08.940 | So there has to be some sort of screening diagnostic

03:22:11.180 | for are you not sleeping because of simply

03:22:12.980 | you can't control yourself?

03:22:13.860 | And you've done a wonderful job of giving people tools

03:22:17.040 | or if you can't quiet your mind before sleep, do this.

03:22:19.660 | If you wake up and you can't go back to sleep,

03:22:21.260 | here are a bunch of things, right?

03:22:22.800 | So we have some screens that we can do

03:22:24.140 | and there's some other stuff we can do to analyze.

03:22:26.320 | This is a psychological issue.

03:22:27.560 | Let's say it's not.

03:22:29.240 | You're under control and we have different tricks we use

03:22:31.660 | and stuff on gymnastics we talk about, but it's not that.

03:22:36.320 | Okay, is it physiology?

03:22:38.040 | Which is node number two.

03:22:39.600 | Do we know what your dopamine levels are like?

03:22:41.160 | Do we know what your serotonin levels are like?

03:22:42.680 | What's melatonin look like?

03:22:43.800 | What's this, what's adrenaline?

03:22:45.060 | What's cortisol?

03:22:45.900 | Cortisol being the primary driver.

03:22:47.500 | What is this relationship DHEA?

03:22:50.120 | Where are these things at?

03:22:51.040 | So we're gonna measure all that and track that.

03:22:53.600 | We're gonna measure that during the day prior to sleep.

03:22:55.800 | We're gonna measure that next morning

03:22:56.800 | and even sometimes throughout sleep.

03:22:59.520 | And we're gonna figure out, is this a physiology problem?

03:23:01.280 | If it is, then we have clear corrections.

03:23:03.160 | If not, we're gonna go on to the next step,

03:23:04.800 | which is, is this possibly a pathology?

03:23:08.040 | So you have some sort of sleep disorder.

03:23:09.940 | We're gonna run full, what's called PSG,

03:23:11.660 | so polysomnography, the exact same stuff you would get

03:23:14.380 | in a sleep clinic.

03:23:16.160 | It's a sensor that's gonna go on there

03:23:17.600 | measuring EEG and EOG.

03:23:19.040 | And we're gonna have muscle activation sensor

03:23:21.140 | to see if your legs are moving

03:23:22.440 | and everything else is going on.

03:23:23.840 | And we're gonna get a full diagnostic.

03:23:25.120 | And if anyone's ever done this,

03:23:27.600 | the amount of sleep issues that are happening in people

03:23:30.380 | that they don't even realize is extraordinarily high.

03:23:33.360 | So we're gonna figure this out.

03:23:34.880 | One very quick example,

03:23:35.960 | we just did this with a professional athlete

03:23:38.280 | and he was having like 280,

03:23:40.480 | roughly, of these episodes per night.

03:23:42.520 | And to be categorized as an episode,

03:23:44.120 | you have to meet these four specific criteria,

03:23:46.800 | oxygen saturation, ventilation changes,

03:23:49.080 | brain changes, et cetera.

03:23:50.440 | And he hit that over 280 times a night.

03:23:53.440 | And what this technology allowed us to do

03:23:54.920 | is figure out what position did all these things occur in.

03:23:57.940 | Well, in his particular case,

03:24:00.100 | most of them are happening on his back.

03:24:02.020 | And so we bought a very simple pillow, basically,

03:24:04.880 | that went on his back,

03:24:06.300 | that kept him from sleeping on his back.

03:24:08.120 | And we saw an 85% reduction in sleep-awakeness issues

03:24:12.000 | the very first night.

03:24:13.660 | Now, we did that.

03:24:14.880 | Testosterone eventually tripled after three months

03:24:17.560 | by just improving sleep.

03:24:19.700 | And all we did is move him onto his left or right side.

03:24:23.000 | So huge improvements just by understanding

03:24:26.000 | where the problem occurred and why it occurred there.

03:24:28.200 | We didn't have to change hardly anything else.

03:24:30.460 | He had the basic hygiene stuff down

03:24:32.340 | and temperature and all that stuff.

03:24:33.940 | And he had his chili pad and all that to keep the thing cool.

03:24:37.360 | We couldn't fix it.

03:24:38.200 | Years, by the way.

03:24:39.040 | This took us two years of just trying everything.

03:24:42.100 | We're like, man.

03:24:42.940 | And it was just like, I wish,

03:24:45.100 | wish we could get you to sleep better.

03:24:46.740 | And I pulled out every trick I knew.

03:24:48.460 | And it's just, as soon as we built this dinner,

03:24:50.580 | I'm like, oh my God, it's all,

03:24:52.460 | he's not overweight, by the way.

03:24:53.360 | He doesn't have any, he's not iron deficient.

03:24:54.860 | He doesn't have any of these other classical symptoms

03:24:57.220 | that are associated with bad sleep.

03:24:59.720 | Supplementation, everything, we've done a thousand protocols.

03:25:03.360 | That fixed it overnight.

03:25:04.380 | So if it's not psychology and it's not physiology

03:25:06.560 | and it's not pathology, then the last one

03:25:08.240 | that people don't have any idea about is environment.

03:25:11.180 | And so what you don't realize is we have a box.

03:25:13.700 | We can sit right next to your bed.

03:25:14.900 | You just plug it in.

03:25:15.740 | You don't have to do anything.

03:25:16.940 | And it's gonna run full environmental scans.

03:25:18.720 | So it's gonna look at the temperature in your room.

03:25:20.380 | It's gonna look at the humidity in your room.

03:25:22.220 | It's gonna look at the volatile organic acids.

03:25:24.020 | These are things that are seeping out from your mattress.

03:25:26.380 | It's gonna look at particulates in the air

03:25:27.880 | and possible allergens and things that are floating around

03:25:30.060 | that are closing your nose off so you can't sleep at night.

03:25:32.700 | And now your mouth breathing and you've talked a lot,

03:25:35.620 | I'm sure on the previous episodes about why that's bad.

03:25:38.340 | It's gonna look at your CO2 cloud.

03:25:40.460 | So we've talked, we've already set this point up, right?

03:25:42.420 | You're inhaling O2, but then you're exhaling CO2.

03:25:46.200 | Well, during the day and when we're conversing,

03:25:48.000 | you have quite a bit of force with that exhalation, right?

03:25:51.280 | But at night, it's just barely seeping out of your mouth.

03:25:57.240 | So what happens is CO2 sends to cloud up

03:26:00.000 | and build around your face.

03:26:01.000 | And then you end up re-breathing that CO2.

03:26:03.080 | And this can cause a large number of sleep problems

03:26:05.560 | because you're simply re-breathing in the panic.

03:26:08.440 | Whether you fully awake or just kick out of a sleep stage,

03:26:11.340 | the CO2 around your face is a big issue.

03:26:13.720 | This stuff has all been known, by the way,

03:26:15.220 | with the astronauts for a very long time.

03:26:17.060 | It just hasn't translated into the commercial spaces.

03:26:20.720 | Of course, gone into our high performer space.

03:26:23.760 | So we can measure that as well.

03:26:24.880 | And then we can figure out, for the most extreme,

03:26:27.200 | we can actually come into a bedroom

03:26:29.480 | and build an entire sleep optimization setup

03:26:32.800 | and control the entire thing.

03:26:33.740 | But for most folks, the minimum we can do

03:26:35.720 | is run full diagnostics and check off,

03:26:38.760 | is this environment related?

03:26:40.180 | Is it pathologies or something else?

03:26:42.520 | - So is this a commercial device

03:26:43.840 | that people can eventually access?

03:26:45.840 | - It is now.

03:26:46.840 | - So where can people learn more about Absolute Rest?

03:26:50.040 | - Absoluterest.com.

03:26:51.400 | - Very cool.

03:26:52.240 | And just for our full disclosure,

03:26:53.960 | I wasn't aware that you had done this prior to today.

03:26:56.580 | You mentioned, I always like to ask people,

03:26:58.680 | scientists or otherwise, I always love to ask,

03:27:00.840 | what are you most excited about lately?

03:27:02.240 | And this sounds like an amazing technology.

03:27:05.040 | - And just to be really clear,

03:27:06.080 | that's not like something we're working on.

03:27:07.520 | That's landed.

03:27:08.760 | - That's landed.

03:27:09.600 | - We're ready to go.

03:27:10.420 | - Great.

03:27:11.260 | Well, and that's one of the things I appreciate about you

03:27:13.240 | is that you're willing to sometimes speculate,

03:27:16.320 | but you always say it's speculation.

03:27:17.660 | But in general, you seem like the kind of guy

03:27:19.960 | where if you're going to be public facing about something,

03:27:23.320 | if you're going to make a statement,

03:27:24.640 | there's got to be quite a bit behind it.

03:27:26.840 | You're not going to allude to the,

03:27:28.160 | in 10 years, we might be able to do this or in five years.

03:27:30.440 | You're a very data-driven kind of guy.

03:27:32.120 | - Yeah, well, the people I work with, we need answers, right?

03:27:34.860 | We don't have that timeframe and we typically have like,

03:27:38.440 | hey, we start the season in four weeks.

03:27:40.320 | So that's just where I'm at.

03:27:41.980 | - Well, as I said, I appreciate that about you,

03:27:45.120 | but it is, but one of the many things I appreciate,

03:27:47.600 | I think the listeners and I can well appreciate

03:27:51.000 | on the basis of today's discussion,

03:27:52.560 | what a enormous wealth of information you are,

03:27:56.360 | how clear and potently you communicate that information,

03:28:01.360 | and also how you can take a huge cloud of information

03:28:05.960 | and still distill it into protocols that ought to work

03:28:10.320 | for 75% of people, 75% of the time,

03:28:13.200 | which is an immensely valuable thing to do.

03:28:16.420 | So for me and from the listeners,

03:28:19.320 | I just want to say thank you so much

03:28:20.700 | for taking the several now hours.

03:28:22.920 | I lose track of time, which reflects all good things.

03:28:27.340 | Several hours to take a break from teaching,

03:28:30.540 | take a break from research,

03:28:31.520 | take a break from the other important commitments

03:28:33.020 | of your life and really share with us

03:28:35.020 | all this incredible information.

03:28:36.360 | I'm so, so grateful.

03:28:38.080 | - My pleasure, man.

03:28:38.920 | I'm glad we finally got to connect.

03:28:40.280 | This has been a long time in the making.

03:28:42.040 | - It has, and I'm going to bring the breathing protocols

03:28:47.040 | to my training.

03:28:48.180 | I'm going to start doing more of the endurance type

03:28:50.540 | and interval type training.

03:28:52.040 | I'm going to start moving when I do heat.

03:28:53.560 | I'm going to start moving when I do cold.

03:28:55.160 | I might even start throwing some sodium bicarb

03:28:57.340 | into a very small amount of sodium bicarb

03:29:00.780 | into some water before I train.

03:29:02.720 | And listen, Andy, Professor Andy Galpin,

03:29:06.560 | thank you ever so much.

03:29:07.820 | - My pleasure.

03:29:08.960 | - Thank you for joining me today for my discussion

03:29:10.840 | with Dr. Andy Galpin.

03:29:12.460 | If you'd like to learn more about his work

03:29:14.320 | and learn further information about exercise science

03:29:17.440 | from Dr. Galpin, please find him on Instagram

03:29:20.200 | at Dr. Andy Galpin.

03:29:21.980 | You can also find him on Twitter at the same handle,

03:29:24.260 | Dr. Andy Galpin, spelled with one L.

03:29:26.660 | And if you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast,

03:29:29.820 | please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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03:29:40.260 | up to a five-star review.

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03:30:08.940 | During today's conversation and on many previous episodes

03:30:11.860 | of the Huberman Lab Podcast, we discuss supplements.

03:30:14.700 | While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,

03:30:16.900 | many people derive tremendous benefit from them

03:30:19.260 | for things like sleep and focus and energy,

03:30:21.980 | and many other features of our physiology

03:30:24.440 | and mental functioning.

03:30:25.780 | There are some important issues to consider

03:30:27.260 | when considering supplements.

03:30:28.700 | One of those issues is the quality of the ingredients.

03:30:31.400 | For that reason, we've partnered with Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E,

03:30:35.020 | because Thorne supplements have the highest possible

03:30:37.300 | standards with respect to the quality

03:30:38.900 | of the ingredients they include.

03:30:40.600 | If you'd like to see the supplements that I take,

03:30:42.580 | you can go to Thorne, that's thorne.com/u/huberman.

03:30:48.300 | And there you'll see the supplements that I take,

03:30:50.480 | and you can get 20% off any of those supplements.

03:30:53.640 | If you navigate further into the Thorne site

03:30:55.780 | through that website, thorne.com/u/huberman,

03:30:59.140 | you can also get 20% off any of the other supplements

03:31:01.900 | that Thorne makes.

03:31:02.880 | If you're not already following Huberman Lab

03:31:04.740 | on Instagram and Twitter, please do so.

03:31:07.360 | There I discuss science and science-based tools,

03:31:09.980 | some of which overlap with the content

03:31:11.540 | of the Huberman Lab Podcast,

03:31:12.940 | but much of which is distinct

03:31:14.060 | from the information covered on this podcast.

03:31:16.280 | Thank you once again for joining me for my discussion

03:31:18.340 | with Dr. Andy Galpin, and as always,

03:31:21.000 | thank you for your interest in science.

03:31:22.960 | [upbeat music]

03:31:25.540 | (upbeat music)

Dr. Andy Galpin: How to Build Strength, Muscle Size & Endurance | Huberman Lab Podcast #65

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