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Philip Pape 12/19/23 Philip Pape 12/19/23

Ep 132: The Elf Who Wanted to Improve His Health (and Get Jacked) - A Heartwarming Holiday Story

This is a story about a little elf named Tinsel, to whom many of you may relate. As a father of two young daughters, he has learned how powerful stories can be to inspire us — sometimes just when we need to hear it. So sit back, relax with a cup of hot cocoa and even your favorite holiday treat, and enjoy the tale of The Elf Who Wanted to Improve His Health (and Get Jacked) - A Heartwarming Holiday Story.

Today, Philip (@witsandweights) tells a story about a little elf named Tinsel, to whom many of you may relate. As a father of two young daughters, he has learned how powerful stories can be to inspire us — sometimes just when we need to hear it. So sit back, relax with a cup of hot cocoa and even your favorite holiday treat, and enjoy the tale of The Elf Who Wanted to Improve His Health (and Get Jacked) - A Heartwarming Holiday Story.

Today you’ll learn all about:

1:55 Spotify numbers of the podcast
4:05 A holiday story
11:29 Outro

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

In the snowy village of North Point, an elf named tinsel embarks on an enchanting journey of transformation. Discover how this unassuming little elf with a sprinkle of elfin magic and the wisdom of a friend finds his strength and inspires a whole village, join tinsel and a heartwarming tale of Health Resilience and the power of believing in oneself. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to a very special holiday episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. If you're watching me on video, you see that I have a little special something up on my head. And if you're listening on audio, you're still in for a treat today. In our last episode 131 Andy Baker on bodybuilding for hypertrophy and an aesthetic muscular physique, Andy joined me for his second appearance on the show to talk about bodybuilding style programming. Today for Episode 132, the elf who wanted to improve his health and get jacked, a heartwarming holiday story. I'm doing something completely different and telling you a story, a story about a little elf named tinsel, whom many of you may relate to. As a father of two young daughters, I've learned how powerful stories can be to inspire us sometimes just when we need to hear it. But before I do, you might have heard of the Spotify rap thing that's going around in the podcast world. It's kind of like a gift spot at Spotify is given to podcast hosts. And thank you to the listener this year 2023 has been one of growth and abundance for the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you to you. I'm grateful to you. And I wanted to share just a few of the numbers from the Spotify wrapped results just so you can get an idea of what kind of year it was. So one of the stats is that 95% of our listeners discover the podcast this year. So that's tremendous. That's almost everybody who listens to the show, discovered it this year, which just shows you how much it has grown. We had 859% increase in listeners 577% increase in followers. And in Spotify allows you to rank your podcasts as top, your top 10 podcasts. And we are a top 10 for 487 fans. So if you're listening, and you love the show, and you follow it and it's not yet in your top 10. But you think it should be go ahead into Spotify and put it up there. And I I'd love to see a screenshot tag me on social media. A lot of you are doing that already. So I appreciate it. 88% of listeners joined me for the first time this year. Thank you so much. That means so much to hear these incredible stats, I'm just going to leave it at that. I don't want to keep you hanging too too long here. But as we close out the year of 2023, I am so thankful to you for taking the time I know how precious time is. And you've taken the time to listen, to subscribe to share the podcast and the little bit of results that I just shared with you show that we are reaching even more people and making a huge positive difference out there. And of course, if you find the story that I'm about to tell you, inspiring educational hilarious, whatever it is to you touching heartwarming, please do just share this podcast with a friend so they can hear it as well. By the way, it should be kid friendly. So just giving that warning upfront that it actually is probably kid friendly. Now it's time to tell you the story of tinsel the girl sit back, relax with a cup of hot cocoa and even your favorite holiday treat. Remember nothing is off limits flexible dieting, and enjoy the tale of the elf who wanted to improve his health and get jacked. A heartwarming holiday story. In the magical snow kissed village of strong point. Nestled amidst glistening frost covered pines with Northern Lights often danced in the sky lived in elf named tinsel. Unlike his sprightly, energetic and nimble companions, tinsel often felt lethargic and out of shape his body lacking the strength and vitality of his peers. He longed to be as robust and lively as the other elves, who he watched in awe as they definitely lifted heavy sacks of toys and worked tirelessly in the vast expanse of Santos workshop, tinsel harbored a dream, a burning desire to be as robust and energetic as them. More importantly, he desired to be a better version of himself. One crisp winter evening under the sun glow of the moonlight Tencel shared history with his friend Whitney and weights and Whitney known for her wisdom and compassionate nature, not to mention strong points leading health and fitness podcast, listened thoughtfully for eyes reflecting the flickering flames of the fireplace. Tinsel when he began her voice as comforting as gentle as the gentle snow outside. The journey to health and strength begins with a single step. You have the power within you to make a change. And remember, it's not about what you remove from your diet, but what you add in. Let's start tomorrow. The next day. Emboldened by Whitney's words, tinsel set out with a newfound determination. He visited the village library and discovered buried deep among the dusty shelves in ancient pyramid shaped tome by Elric helm Shire and Andrew Moore Ganis elves renowned for their knowledge of nutrition and strength training. As tinsel devoured each page, he learned about the wonders of progressive strength training, a more flexible and personalized way to eat the importance of eating for satisfaction and satiety and how indulgences can be part of a healthy diet, including those delicious sugar cookies from the friendly Baker elves. Tinsel started applying these lessons, he began incorporating more protein and fiber into his meals. Noticing how they kept him full and energized. He learned to enjoy his favorite treats by planning them in understanding that restriction often led to overindulgence. Whitney supported him every step of the way, reminding him that real magic was found inconsistency, not perfection. However, tinsels initial steps toward transformation were fraught with fears and challenges. The bounty of sugary elfin treats was always present, especially during festive times. The biting cold have strong point often made him want to stay indoors. His muscles and his mind strained from the unfamiliar exertion of squats and deadlifts, and doubt frequently clouded his mind. But Whitney was always there. Her encouragement, a steady present, each day is a new opportunity tinsel. Each challenge you overcome is a victory in itself. Remember progress over perfection, she would say, as the festive season drew near. tinsel and Whitney embarked on a mission to transform traditional elfin dishes into higher protein alternatives. They experimented in the kitchen, creating recipes that were both nutrient dense and delicious. The other elves were pleasantly surprised by these nutrients, which were as satisfying as they were healthy. This initiative helped tinsel take a balanced approach to eating embracing proteins, fats, and carbs, and he soon inspired others in the village to do the same. His next step was to optimize his nutrition to make even more progress with his workouts. Tencel started to track his food using a magical handheld device for even greater awareness of his eating habits, shifting his carbs around his workouts and finding more opportunities to get steps in Santos workshop. And out among the frost covered dunes of strong point tinsels physical transformation became more evident with each passing day. His walks around the village turned into community events, and he became a fixture at Whitney's morning strength training sessions and compound lift camps. He discovered the joy of feeling strong and capable, who tinsel learn the value of consistency, personalized nutrition, flexibility, instead of restriction and the magic of rest and recovery. His confidence reached new heights and he became a source of motivation for other elves who struggled with their health. months into his journey. Tencel reflected on his growth. He had learned that health was about more than just physical appearance. It was about feeling good both inside and out. His was a path of self discovery, resilience and a newfound appreciation for wellbeing. He was grateful for Whitney's mentorship and unwavering support, as well as encouragement from the strong point community, which was essential in his journey. tinsels story had become a source of inspiration for many who now approached him for advice and motivation. The highlight of tinsels transformation occurred on Christmas Eve, Santa having noticed tinsels dedication and hard work, not to mention his physical strength and newfound confidence chose him to lead the team responsible for loading the sleigh with toys as tinsel skillfully and effortlessly lifted each heavy sack helping his fellow elves who needed it. Santa commended him tinsel Oh, Your journey is an inspiration. Your strength is a testament to your commitment and belief in yourself. The other elves looked on with respect and admiration. Their cheers echoing into the crisp frosty night, standing amidst the joy and celebration tinsels heart brimmed with a deep sense of pride and fulfillment. He had not only realize his dream, but it also become a symbol of hope and inspiration in strong point. His journey marked by a positive shift in his self identity, a balanced approach to life and cancer. sistent even if not perfect effort, became a cherished story told each holiday season, tinsel story from an elf who dreamt of being healthy and strong to one who achieved that and so much more was shared every year. It was a heartwarming reminder of the power of finding a sustainable approach for life that works for you attained with progress over perfection, a supportive community and a bit of elfin magic. The end, I hope you enjoy today's heartwarming story. And if you couldn't tell much of tinsels journey parallels my own and that of so many of you that I get to connect with on a daily basis. May it fill your cup with compassion, and hope, give you the inspiration to take that next step. And know that I and many others in our community are here to support you. All I ask of you is that you share this story with a friend who would enjoy it and spread the positive message far and wide. For our next episode. 133 making fitness fun again through adventure with Kelly Howard, we are diving into how the spirit of adventure can revitalize your fitness journey, you'll learn how to overcome common hurdles to staying consistent with your fitness goals, external versus internal motivation and how to embrace a sense of fun and adventure to reignite your passion for fitness. That will be the last episode of the year before I take a week off for Christmas and New Years. So if you and I don't talk before then, I wish you the happiest of holidays, a happy new year and a strong end to 2023. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Philip Pape 12/15/23 Philip Pape 12/15/23

Ep 131: Andy Baker on Bodybuilding for Hypertrophy and an Aesthetic, Muscular Physique

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of bodybuilding? Do you know the most effective way to build muscle mass? What is the most common mistake people make when trying to build muscle?

Philip (@witsandweights) is thrilled to have the incredible Andy Baker back with him today. They discussed Andy’s programming philosophy, strength training for the elderly, coaching principles, and lifting techniques during his previous appearance on episode 60.

Andy, a famous strength coach, co-author of Practical Programming and The Barbell Prescription, and Baker Barbell Podcast host, owns Kingwood Strength and Conditioning in Texas. His three programming tracks in the online Baker Barbell Club include a bodybuilding track that Philip is running for the final three months of his building phase and plans to continue into a fat loss phase.

Philip and Andy thought it would be fun today to talk about bodybuilding, not the big B competitive physique sport but the little b method of hypertrophy-oriented bodybuilding-style training for aesthetic muscle development to improve one’s physique.

They talk about bro splits, the top-set/backoff-set approach, intensity and frequency, the interplay between hypertrophy and strength, and some of the techniques and philosophy behind this training style.

Episode Summary:

This episode is a gold mine for This episode is a gold mine for those eager to understand how to incorporate bodybuilding into their fitness routine for aesthetic muscle development.

We delve into the intricacies of bodybuilding, discussing the importance of intensity versus volume in training and how bodybuilding has morphed over the years. Andy shares his personal experience with bodybuilding and how it has influenced his coaching methods. His insights into the techniques and philosophy behind this style of training offer practical tips for everyone, irrespective of their fitness level.

The discussion extends into the world of powerlifting, where we explore the crucial role of muscle mass in strength. Modern powerlifting standards have evolved to emphasize not just the amount of weight an athlete can move but also the importance of maintaining a lean body fat percentage while carrying significant muscle mass.

One of the key points we highlight is the interconnection between muscle mass, motor recruitment, and intermuscular efficiency. These components are critical to an athlete's ability to handle heavier loads. Using John Hack, the current top powerlifter, as an example, we explore how athletes have achieved this fine balance.

As we dissect the rising trend towards lower body fat levels in powerlifting, we address the debate of whether athletes are shedding body fat due to a race in weight classes or if there are advantages to carrying less body fat. This insightful discussion offers a deeper understanding of the integral components affecting an athlete's capacity to lift heavier weights and how these factors can be manipulated to enhance performance.

This episode is invaluable for fitness enthusiasts, bodybuilders, and powerlifters alike. It is a comprehensive guide that covers the key aspects of bodybuilding and powerlifting, shedding light on the evolution of these fitness disciplines and providing practical tips for incorporating them into your fitness routine. It is a must-listen for anyone looking to expand their knowledge and elevate their performance with their lifting.

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Today you’ll learn all about:

(2:30) Why bodybuilding
(10:08) Muscle mass, motor recruitment, and intermuscular efficiency
(13:11) Advantage of having lower body fat
(26:42) Five-day full-body program
(32:56) Why Andy is running this program
(43:08) Tweaks for women or someone with weaker legs
(46:22) How to modify the exercise to focus on body parts
(50:25) The six-day program
(51:45) The split and top-set/backoff-set
(1:09:14) The mind-muscle connection for a new lifter
(1:19:25) Common mistakes
(1:28:50) Six-week progression
(1:45:26) Where to find Andy
(1:46:06) Outro

Episode resources:

Ep 60: Strength and Programming for Maximum Gains at Any Age with Andy Baker
Andy’s website: www.AndyBaker.com
IG - @bakerbarbell

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Transcript

Andy Baker 00:00

I think a lot of these guys have it backwards where if they believe that volume is the most important thing, if you believe that volume is the most important thing that you're going to reduce intensity in order to get more volume. But if you believe that higher effort training and progressive overload is primary, then volume and frequency become subservient to that.

Philip Pape 00:25

Andy Baker 02:09

thank you appreciate you having me.

Philip Pape 02:11

So let's just jump right in and talk about your personal experience with bodybuilding as a primary style of training. Because a lot of us know we know your history with strength and conditioning, we know starting strength, you know, a little bit of the CrossFit world. And then there's this idea, of course, that hypertrophy is sometimes a dirty word and some of those circles and, you know, inquiring minds want to know how and why do you incorporate this training style for yourself?

Andy Baker 02:34

Well, it's what I started with a mean, if you go way back in the day, from the first time that I picked up weights, when I was you know, 1213 years old. That was the I mean, at the time, if you if you want to if you go back through the history kind of of this stuff, you know, at that time in the 90s, that was the only information that was really available. There wasn't the Internet as we know it today. And so there was no there was no social media, which I know it's hard for a lot of maybe our younger listeners to, to understand, but there wasn't the only sources really out there the primary sources in which people got information at that time was through the muscle Max. It was through publications like flex magazine, and muscular development. Ironman, maybe had one powerlifting article, or Bill star article, but it was a bodybuilding back, you know, everything. All of the information that we had was was bodybuilding. You got publications, like maybe powerlifting, USA, or whatever, but it was obscure, and it wasn't on you know, you could go to any newsstand any magazine rack in the country and find flex magazine and muscular development. But powerlifting USA was very hit or miss for the most part, you just had to be subscribed to it through the mail. And that was it. That was really the only source of information. So when you got into lifting, it was just done bodybuilding style. I mean, pretty much everybody did, you know, unless you were maybe in the sports world, but recreationally. It was all bodybuilding. And then, you know, if you look at participation in sports, like powerlifting, with the time when I was growing up, you know, early 90s or 90s, and, you know, early 2000s, you know, powerlifting wasn't what it what it is today, and that there was one there was no social media. And there was just not wide participation in the sport of powerlifting. It was a very, very niche community. It was a very small sport. And the other thing, the biggest thing is it was all done in gear, it was all done in multiply and lifting suits. That's all powerlifting was done that way when you went to a meet in the 90s, there was no raw powerlifting everybody there were single ply and multiply. But everybody competed in gear and if you showed up to a meet and competed raw, they'd be like, What the hell are you doing? It'd been like showing up to a track meet and dress shoes or something like you know, it just, that's the way it was done. So there, there wasn't a lot of interest in that style. It was a much smaller, niche sport because of that and when things kind of converted over to raw powerlifting I attribute namely to the influence of CrossFit into the strength world, it brought more awareness to the barbell lifts than probably anything else. And by extension into raw powerlifting. Now that's flipped. Now that's flipped, where if you go to a meet, there's very little geared lifting, there's very little multiply lifting, it's all raw. And because of that, there's much more participation in the sport, I just think it's naturally more interesting to people to, you know, see what a guy can do and a singlet and maybe some knee sleeves versus multiply suits. That being said, the my point with all that is that my formative years as a teenager and early 20s, really the only information out there unless you just happen to stumble into a powerlifting gym was bodybuilding stuff. So that's how everybody trained, of course, all kids, all teenagers, you know, when you're 12 1315. So, I mean, everybody wants everybody, there's something about the comic book level development that's appealing, it just is, it's a representation, it's an art of, you know, what is possible of potato, you know, if you want to talk about it artistically of, of potential, you know, something like that. And there's just, there's a draw to it, I think that every young person goes through, then everybody trades that way, I happen to respond pretty well to that type of training. When I was a teenager, and in my early 20s, I found it, you know, I was highly responsive to that type of training, I found it fairly easy to get big, actually was people a lot of people don't know this, but I was actually, I had an amateur, probably the only starting strength coach around, it's actually been featured in Flex magazine when I was 19 years old. So I still have the it was the, I think the October issue of 1999, or 2000, something like that. So I put on muscle pretty easily. And that was not what the that was without the use of drugs or anything like that. So I think when you have some success with something you tend to gravitate to, and do more of it, study it more, put it into practice more. So there was just always kind of a fascination with that. I think what happens though, is as you get older, the fascination with becoming, you know, superfluously, enormous, starts to dwindle, and you start to see a little bit more value, or just get more interested in the performance side of things. And so that's where he's got, you know, a lot of guys follow that natural progression of starting with a lot of interest in the physiques side of things. And then there's a period of time where, you know, you you do want to start, you start becoming more interested in what you can do not necessarily what you look like, especially when you realize that there's a cap on how big you can actually get naturally, whereas theoretically, with strength, there's still a cap. But a lot of times, there's a lot of potential left to be developed. And so I kind of gravitated, you know, at some point in my early 20s, away from the physique development stuff, and into more of the powerlifting side of things, to which I've, you know, met Mark Rippetoe, and became more educated and actually, the performance side of things spent a good decade or more doing that, too, I still do a lot of that, but being more involved in powerlifting, and bodybuilding. But now as I've gotten older, again, just kind of a natural swing back to just part of it, it's just the interest of the customer base, potentially, there's more, again, depend on the pendulum kind of swung away from bodybuilding, into powerlifting, CrossFit, all that kind of stuff during the 2000s. And now you're starting to see the pendulum starts to swing back into the physique stuff. And I feel like now in my 40s, I actually have more to offer, maybe my clients than I did in my early 20s. I feel like, now I have a better understanding as a coach, I have a better understanding of how to put this stuff into practice, in a sensible, dare I say, more scientific way that you know, then I would have in my early 20s, when I kind of knew what to do. But I couldn't have articulated very well while I was doing what I was doing or why it worked. I'd kind of knew what to do. But I didn't really I wouldn't have had the ability to explain it, or put it into practice with more people like I do now. Yeah, I

Philip Pape 09:05

think a lot of us gravitate to your work because of that you're able to articulate it. We were talking before we recorded about how just with all that experience in the gym, talking with people doing this stuff, it comes together. That goal of getting so purposely enormous, a lot of us probably still want to beat the want to get there as a goal. But you mentioned a few things. First of all, the history of all this is fascinating how even the things we dump on like CrossFit had a critical part to play right in introducing barbells to folks that introduced me to barbells and then I came to starting strength and I never I never had had the bodybuilding stuff. Or if I ever did, like a lot of us we were just doing it wrong or you know, doing ineffectively. Yeah, so it's just interesting how it comes together. And you have this kind of open minded approach to, you know, incorporating all these styles, which is why I wanted to focus more on bodybuilding today, you know, instead of just the straight side, but you did mention strength and hypertrophy, and there's always this confusion about how do these Interplay what is the overlap I know sometimes you might get a little annoyed when somebody's like, well, I want to focus on this not strength, you know? Yeah. But it's all strength, right? Like, there's strength everywhere. You mentioned on I think two podcast episodes ago on Baker barbell podcast, three factors, you said muscle mass motor recruitment and inter muscular efficiency, implying that there's this overlap between them on they contribute to each other. Can you just summarize that here? I mean, people can listen to the whole detail episode, but just kind of summarize that. So that

Andy Baker 10:27

was, when you look at strength. I mean, strength is force production, right? It's the ability to, to displace a load or to you know, however you want to define it, but strength is force production, and it's in its you cannot divorce strength from load, you know, the, the person who squats 500 is stronger than the person who squats 400. So what are the elements that affect your ability to move greater and greater loads? What is What are the elements in place that are going to make you go from a 300 pound squat to a 400 pound squat to a 500 pound squat? And really, there's, there's three, and we're gonna we're gonna skip over things like mindset and consistency and determinate, like, yes, those are important, but they're not, we're going to just focus on the more physical side of things. The the primary way in which somebody is able to, well, it's hard to say what's primary and what secondary and all that because I think it changes with the development of the athlete. But by and large, the most important determining factor as to how much weight you're going to be able to move on a given lift, let's just say for one rep max, is the amount of muscle mass that you carry. I mean, in powerlifting, nine times out of 10, the guy with more muscle mass is going to win. You know, it's just you don't see people that walk into the gym or to a meet, you see some enormous big jacked guy with his, you know, traps are coming out of his ears and a big wide back and huge shoulders and big legs, he's going to be stronger, nine times out of 10 than the guy that doesn't look like that. So muscle mass matters. And I think for years, we always assumed it was just the heavier athlete would win. I mean, that was the say on mass moves mass. I mean, in general, the heavier weight classes outperformed the lower weight classes in terms of absolute load, maybe not based on a percentage of body weight, or whatever. But in general, the heavier the, you know, the three weights and the 270, fives are going to move more weight than the 220s and the 190, eights. That's just the way that it is now, is that just weight? Or is that because of the fact that the heavier guys have more muscle. And I think what modern powerlifting has shown us is actually it's not just the mass moves mass or whatever, it's just that when you're 308 pounds, you have the potential to carry a lot more muscle than the guy that's 198 pounds. But what we're seeing now is that if you look at the physiques and the body fat level of modern day raw powerlifting, they're far leaner, I think, and more muscular than what you saw maybe 20 years ago, with some exceptions. You know, there was obviously there's always been big Jack, guys, kirker, loskis, and all that kind of stuff. But there's a realization, it's not just about how heavy you are, but how much muscle you carry. I mean, you the best lifter in the world right now is John hack, in my opinion. And he's the guy is absolutely loaded with muscle mass, but he doesn't care. He's very little body fat, almost, you know, does

Philip Pape 13:11

that? And is was that a race to the bottom with hitting the lower weight classes that led to that? Or is there an advantage of actually carrying the lower body fat?

Andy Baker 13:19

Well, I think that there is I mean, I think that, I mean, I think more and more research has shown that excessive amounts of body fat is can be detrimental to, you know, the ability to build new muscle mass, I mean, things like if you're obese, you know, things like testosterone, and things like that tend to suffer. insulin sensitivity is poor, you know, all those sorts of things. And I think, you know, higher testosterone levels, better insulin sensitivity, those are all things that are good for being able to build muscle mass, you know, just being healthier overall, but it is harder. Most people know just, if they have any experience with this stuff, it's if you're trying to bulk without putting on any body fat, or really trying to minimize the amount of body fat, you know, this is a nutrition guide, if you're trying to gain muscle mass, and you say, Well, I'm gonna gain muscle, but I don't want to put on any fat, it's almost an impossible task. Or it'll take you seven years, yeah, it'll take you forever. But if you want to, like if you're wanting to move up in weight class or just get bigger, there has to be an acceptable level of body fat increase most of the time, unless you're there are a few cases, I think of just genetic outliers, that, you know, most IFBB pros would fit under this category where they just they are able to put on tons of fat free mass. But that's not most of us most, if you're going to want to put on 20 pounds of muscle mass. And you don't want to take 20 years to do it. You're going to put on a little bit of body fat, you know, in order to do so I think and if you're don't care about that at all, if you're willing to put on even more body fat, you can potentially gain muscle even faster. You know, it kind of just depends. It's I don't think that it's a good idea to and I think recent experience has taught most of us this is that, you know, just the seafood diet of I'm just going to pound as many calories as possible. And you know, fast food and pizza and just, yeah, you'll you are going to put on more muscle mass if you're in a massive caloric surplus like that. But even even in a massive caloric surplus, you could still only put on muscle mass so fast. And so you're still going to be accumulating more body fat than is necessary. So there's about it. I mean, you know, you can probably speak to this better than I can, there's a balance there, right? There's, there's a cut off point, where if you say, if you're not willing to put on any body fat whatsoever, you're going to struggle to build muscle mass. If you're doing the seafood diet, where you just eat everything in sight, yes, you're gonna put on muscle mass, but probably at the expense of putting on more body fat than you really want. So yeah, that

Philip Pape 15:45

that was my big turning point after running starting strength of like, needing to learn about nutrition and the folks in your barbell club. That's usually when they come to me, it's like, okay, I got a little bit too much do crazy than on the dreamer bulk. Yeah.

Andy Baker 15:56

Yeah. And so I don't know where I was going with that. Originally,

Philip Pape 15:59

we were talking about the strength versus hypertrophy and the factors you were talking about muscle mass,

Andy Baker 16:04

so So muscle mass, so yeah, okay, I know morale is going out. So item number one is, if you want to dramatically increase the amount of weight you can move, you probably need to get bigger, you need to add more muscle mass, that's going to be the primary determining factor. It's also the most long term solution to getting stronger, because the other two that I'm going to talk about are a little bit more transient adaptations. They are, you're talking about more of the efficiency of a system, which comes and goes, the building of muscle mass, but also the loss of muscle mass is a slower process than the development and or loss of neurological efficiency, neurological efficiency can be enhanced in a pretty short period of time, it can also be lost in a pretty short period of time. And so what were the when we talk about neurological efficiency, I kind of look at it in two different ways. One would be what we call the the, I always get these two confused, but the inch intramuscular coordination, or what we would call motor unit recruitment. So if we look at an individual muscle, like the quads, or whatever, on a squat and their role in the squat, training your ability over time for your body to recruit more of the muscle mass that it already possesses. Okay, so for an untrained lifter, and I don't know what these percentages are, but let's say for an untrained lifter, they're capable of this is a very, very simplified an exercise, fifth guy would rip me apart from my explanation of this, but I'm gonna keep it very, very simple all the time. All right, I think the simplistic version still works as as a way to understand this. So even if some of the nuanced details are wrong, or whatever, it's still, it still works. But let's just say a new lifter, that is, you know, has never been exposed to heavy weight, or whatever, let me say his quads are capable of motor unit recruitment at 30%. In other words, he's capable of recruiting 30 40% of the muscle mass that he has with training, the more that he trains, and in particular, the more heavy training that he does, say with reps, five and below, so the very heavy training especially, that becomes a trainable quality and that he his body will learn to recruit more of the muscle mass that he currently possesses, say in his quads from heavy squatting or whatever. So now, instead of recruiting 30% of the available muscle mass that he has, he's recruiting 40% and 50. And then 60 and 70%. So he's that's a trainable quality. So that's increasing his ability to to produce force without getting bigger in, you know, kind of the muscle mass, you're recruiting the amount of muscle that you have. And then with with motor unit recruitment, you're recruiting more of what you have, so you can increase

Philip Pape 18:45

the tap yes, like untapped capacity that you're gonna finally tapping into. And

Andy Baker 18:50

then you have the third element of it, which is the intramuscular coordination, which is the coordination between muscle groups. So this is why training, leg extensions, leg curls, the adductor machine, the glute machine, set ups and back raises, while doing all of those things individually don't necessarily lead to as big of a squat, as does squatting. Because it's not just each of those, yes, all of those individual muscles play a role in the squat, but they have to be trained to work together in order to optimize the efficiency. So you could have a guy theoretically, that could get that can increase muscle mass in his lower body through through a series of isolation movements, he could leg curl leg extension, adductor machine, you know, glute, whatever those called hip thrusts, or whatever. And, you know, he could take all he could train all of the constituent muscle masses used in a squat individually, would not have the same impact as just training the squat because not only is he working those muscles, but he's working them together and so that they become better at working in a coordinated Fashion, in order to do that movement, if you look at, and again, this is a trainable quality, the more squatting that you do theoretically, there's an upper limit for sure. But the more squatting that you do the more volume and frequency or whatever that you do, potentially, the better you get at it. movements that are highly demanding in terms of coordination and timing, and that sort of thing needs to be practiced more often. This is why Olympic weightlifters tend to clean and jerk and snatch daily. Why do they do that? Because they're they that's what why are they doing that? Why don't they just clean and jerk twice a week, or snatch because that's not enough to really fine tune that coordinate. Because that's those are very complex movement patterns that require its practice. It there's, I think practice could be looked at in two different ways. There's practice in you intellectually understanding what you need to do. So that's me teaching you how to do a clean and jerk, like, okay, you don't know that you need to, you know, brush your thighs with the barbell, or the jump and a certain like, I'm intellectual, like, you're intellectually learning how to do that, and then you're practicing that. But there's a deeper level of quote, practice. At the neurological level, it's your nervous system, learning how to do that. It's why professional baseball players take batting practice every day, even during the season. That's why they because at that level, when those guys develop their swing, it is so nuanced, and so individualized, and so timing oriented and coordinated, it needs to be practiced, almost daily, in order to be for those pathways to be maintained. Where, you know, I think a squat, you know, you could argue that's less, a little less technical, technical, but there's also some there's also some fears, physiological realities, and that there's muscle damage created in a squat that's maybe not as present, say, on a on a snatch or a baseball swing. So that's those are three elements, that if you want to maximize strength, those three things need to be addressed. Now what needs to be prioritized, kind of depends on the lifter, a guy that's been squatting for 20 years, may not need that much quote, practice, like though that movement is kind of ingrained in his body to where he doesn't need but a newer lifter, that's part of why they may only benefit from squatting three days per week, because that pattern is not yet embedded in their neurological system. It's like, you know, to a degree, it's like riding a bike, right? I mean, if you've spent a lot of time as a kid riding a bike, you can take 10 years, and often, you know, that's the same, it's just like riding a bike, you jump back on, and maybe you're a little wobbly at first. But, you know, within an hour, you're back to being able to ride a bike and not feel like you're gonna fall off. So

Philip Pape 22:46

yeah, and I know you see it all the time with the new lifters doing the squat, they're wobbling, they're unstable, and some people are more athletic than others that have kind of have that precision, ability to do it. And some are solid, but it doesn't take long to get at least that first step jump I think in in these elements, you definitely see

Andy Baker 23:03

it in the the effective programming that is used for power lifters at different levels. And guys that tend to focus if you look at the training programming for especially modern day, the guys that tend to benefit the most from high, very high volume, high frequency programming. So these are the guys that are benching four days a week, I've seen some guys that bench five or six days a week, but guys that bench four days a week, maybe squat in some form or another, you know, four days per week, deadlift here. So these higher frequency programs tend to be present much, much more in the lower weight class athletes, your your guys that compete at 165 181 98. You don't see it as much on the big heavyweights. And I think part of that is because if those lower weight classes, they're not building any more muscle. They're not getting bigger. And so what are so what, what lever do they pull will they pull the neurological efficiency lever? Because they are they have the amount of muscle mass that they have is more or less set, they're not getting they're not gaining any weight, they're staying at 165 or whatever. So the only way for them to increase their their total is by the goosing that are pulling that neurological efficiency lever. If that makes sense. They have to get better with the amount of muscle mass that they currently have. Guys that are moving up the weight classes over time, they're going from, you know, 165 to 181 to 198 to 220. As their their obviously as they're climbing up the weight class, they're building muscle. And they may not have to, they may not have to pull that neurological efficiency lever as hard as a lower weight class guy. Does that make sense? Yep, for sure. Right for so. Does that make sense? No. Yeah,

Philip Pape 24:49

it makes sense. No, it makes sense. And so now we're talking about we're for today I want to focus on intermediate lifters. gent general population, right, we're going to assume that the stuff about strength holds for rank beginner, just get stronger, do something like starting strength. You're good. Now the question is,

Andy Baker 25:05

let me let me give you real quick, I want to give it I want to give one more example of this, that this, this, this audience might be more familiar with. This is something that I've meant to point out in a couple of different places that I have it. But guys will notice, often, if they've been, let's say they're squatting twice a week or once a week, and you give them a new plug in a light squat day, somewhere in the middle, they will immediately start to see improvements on their heavy day. So let's just say they've been they've been squatting heavy on Mondays, and that's it. And they've maybe they're having a hard time progressing on their squat. And then you stick a light squat day, so something like three sets of five at 60%. It's not very heavy to medium amount of volume, you stick that in on say, Thursday, within two to three weeks, a lot of times they're heavy day squat starts to improve. Why is that? Well, they didn't get bigger by adding in three sets of light squats later in the week. That's not a very hypertrophy oriented protocol. But what did it do it immediately, that's why I'm saying this adaptation is transient, it immediately increased neurological efficiency. By having that added day, that increased frequency now they're squatting every two or three days instead of once, once every seven days, that that adaptation occurs pretty quickly, the system gets more efficient, really, really quick. And so that's why that, that even that added light squat day. That's why it improves performance almost immediately, because that neurological efficiency thing can be can be manipulated in pretty short order, if that makes sense. Yeah,

Philip Pape 26:39

it makes sense and actually brings up another question because you address this toward the end of your last show. You were talking about bro splits versus high frequency programs for intermediate lifters. And it kind of brings that question to mind of this is getting more popular now. Andy, right. You've probably heard it. Jeff Nipper made it popular three years ago when he was experimenting with it. And now I see it coming up. Again, my own community is asking about it, why not do a five day Full Body program. And you kind of addressed it on your show. But one of the reasons I hear the science guys saying it could be more effective is there's a diminishing point of return with heavy the number of sets. So like if you did, if you do a typical bro split, you're hitting say 15 to 20 Hard sets across that muscle group in one session. Whereas if you do high frequency, you might hit six to eight and eight is kind of that point of diminishing returns. And so therefore, you're able to get more effective reps across the week. What are your thoughts on that?

Andy Baker 27:32

Well, first of all, I don't think that some of it depends on how you define like a heart set, I kind of reject the idea that anybody responds well to say 20 sets per week, 20 hard sets per week, on any muscle group, somebody that, in my opinion, somebody that feels like they need 20 sets, the exception might be back, like back training, but you're also talking about, you're actually talking about different muscle groups. That's that's actually not one muscle group, it gets lumped in. But that would be the only case where I would say that somewhere close to 20 sets could potentially be effective. But say for like the quads, anybody that needs 20 sets of direct quad work in order to grow their quads, is simply not training. Okay, and, and so there's an assumption that you have to either accept or reject it when you talk about volume. And that is relative intensity, how close to failure is optimal. If you accept as I do, it's going to change your opinion on this. So some of it just depends on if we agree or disagree on this, we'll you'll have a different, you're going to have a different opinion on volume and frequency. But if you accept that higher RPE training, if we want to use that term, or training closer to failure is more effective for muscle growth than you then that is going to reduce the amount of volume that you're capable that you either can do or should do. And by extension frequency. So I operate under the premise that, and a lot of the the current research supports this. And I think, you know, most bodybuilders have always kind of known this or accepted this, that training closer to failure is the superior stimulus for hypertrophy versus training very far away from failure. So taking your sets right up to the point where you can't do another one is another rep is more effective than leaving three or four reps in the tank. And so it kind of depends on where you fall on that. But if you accept that, if you say well, training closer to failure is superior. Then you're going to have a different calculation for how much volume is optimal. You cannot like on the quads, you cannot take your sets to failure and also do 20 sets per week when Do you do it all in one workout or spread loaded out? It's just not going to work. And so that, that that's going to impact the volume calculation. So what was your question? I

Philip Pape 30:12

don't know. That was the I kind of wanted to get that out of the way, just because I know we I've had some questions on it as well. And you basically dress it. There's two other things you mentioned on that show I wanted to bring up one is it leaves no room for error, like you have to get everything perfect, right.

Andy Baker 30:26

Like, like when I say, Well, if you're doing 20 sets per week, you're just not training hard. And I'm not saying that because it's like, well, you're not you're just a policy. And it's like, it's not, it's actually because I believe that that that that harder training, taking your steps closer to failure is actually more effective. And I to the degree where I think that that should be primary, and then the amount of volume that you do is subservient to that. And so I think a lot of these guys have it backwards, where if they believe that volume, is the most important thing. If you believe that volume is the most important thing, then you're going to reduce intensity in order to get more volume. But if you believe that higher effort training and progressive overload is primary, than volume and frequency become subservient

Philip Pape 31:18

to that, does that make sense? To intensity training to failure? Yeah, yeah.

Andy Baker 31:22

So there can be a fundamental disagreement, depending on which side of the line that you fall on. But you know, one of the most fundamental rules of programming is that intensity, both absolute intensity, so load, or, or you could as expressed as a percentage of one RM, or relative intensity, which is more effort level. So your RPE, or our IR, however you want to do it, intensity is inversely related to volume. So as intensity goes up, volume goes down, and vice versa. So I tend to believe that progressive overload, and higher effort training is more important than the total, I do think there's a minimum threshold of volume that has to be met. But it's that but that I think, the volume and the frequency of some is subservient to the other factors.

Philip Pape 32:14

And you know, it's interesting, I believe, there, there have been a lot of studies, we want to talk about science and look at Fat Loss phases. And which ones hold on to the most muscle and it tends to be the ones with the higher intensity, right? Sure, it kind of gives you it gives you a good look of what's important when you're especially in an energy starved environment, if that's the thing that kind of keeps it going. Okay, so, go, I want to talk about goals for a second because I want to get into your bodybuilding style programming, some of the details of it, and the bro splits and backoff, top set back off and all that. But I was just talking to my friend, Tony on the way over here, and he's like, What are your goals for next year? And I'm like, you know, my goals are just to progress as much as I can on this bodybuilding program. Like I don't have PRs that I'm trying to hit necessarily having had surgery not long ago. But that does raise the question, Who wants your intermediate advanced? Why would you run this bodybuilding program? Right? What are the goals that you see from your clients? So people don't run the wrong thing for their goals?

Andy Baker 33:07

Yeah, so I mean, the thing is, with when you're trying to talk about like, and again, I'm talking bodybuilding with a small beats are not necessarily competitive. But But still, if you're, it doesn't do any good to talk about this. If somebody says, Well, you know, I don't really want to be that big or that strong, I just want to be fit or whatever, then none of this stuff really matters. Because the, you know, you can basically do anything with any modicum of effort. And it's that's going to satisfy those goals. But if you're talking about I want to be as big as possible, and have as well developed a physique as poss. Even if I'm not, obviously, if you're competing than that, that kind of goes without saying you want to be as big and as well developed as possible. Even if you're not competing, though, and you say, Oh, I just want to have the best possible physique out there. Then one of the fundamental differences between that type of training, bodybuilding training and powerlifting is that there's really no with powerlifting there's only three exercises that you have to do. Right, you have to but with bodybuilding, you have to train everything. Everything has to be trained, you can as a power lifter, you could go in your whole career, never do any work for your side. delts never do any work for your calves never do work for your biceps, there's a whole lot of stuff you could ignore completely, and still be a really good powerlifter as a bodybuilder, you can't really do that, like the and that's why like, there's really the whole concept of say assistance exercises, doesn't exist in bodybuilding. It's all important. Like your side delt work is potentially just as important as your chest work. If you've got it like if you want to be as big as possible and you you have like underdeveloped shoulders, like especially if you're going to step on stage, like you can't have underdeveloped side delts right. You can't have underdeveloped cows or no biceps or what so there's no body part or no area of your body that can be be ignored, which means everything has to be trained hard, and with, you know, with adequate volume. And it's really hard to do that in the context of a full body split. So training your full body, three days per week, or even like an upper lower split. It's so energy intensive to do the type of bodybuilding training that you have to necessarily just, from a practical standpoint, even have just time management, that those things have to be split up into their own, let's say their own days, or at least they have to be given adequate amount of time and energy. In the workout, if you're doing a full body split. And you do, you know, you do squats, and then you do bench presses, and then you do bent over rows on Monday, you're kind of at the end of the I mean, by the time you do all three of those lifts, and you do all three of them with, you know, the amount of volume that they need and the amount of effort and intensity, the amount of effort that they require. The progressive overloading over time, like it doesn't leave a whole lot else in the workout, there's not a whole lot of room for other stuff. And to the extent that you will do other things, they're going to be half assed, like for most people, if you do it, especially as you get stronger, squatting, benching, and bent over rows, all in the same workout, I mean, you're probably pushing an hour and a half, right. And so whatever you do after that is, even if you're trying to push hard, you're just not going to be able to devote the amount of energy and effort level into those sessions in a in a practical way. So it makes some sense to at least split things up, say, into upper body, lower body. But even then, again, as you get stronger, and you develop, as you get stronger and more advanced, you also develop the ability to fatigue yourself a lot more. And so it may be difficult to bench, then over row, shoulder press, dips, you know, five or six different movements, all with the all for different muscle groups, those workouts become both very long, because you have to say warm up new new movements. So you have to move from benching to rowing, there's a whole warmup process for moving to that completely different muscle group. And that just the time and the energy spent just on an upper body workout may not allow you to give adequate attention to all the areas of your body that need development. And so there's a natural progression, I kind of went over this in my last podcast episode of, you know, what that progression might look like if a guy Yeah, even if he wants to be a bodybuilder, let's just say we take some kid who wants to be a bodybuilder on day one, but he's never been in the weight room, I'd still probably start them out with like a three day or week full body program, because he doesn't necessarily need at the beginning to have a dedicated arm day, or whatever he can, he can just kind of hit those big rocks and get stronger on those. And he's going to see progression in his physique. But then as he gets stronger, and he wants to continue to put on even more muscle, he's probably going to have to split things up into like an upper body, upper body, lower body. And then at a certain point, he may have to split that up into like a legs push pole. And then at a certain point, he may have to split up, you know, it's It didn't used to be common, but it's becoming more common now to say split up quads and hamstrings. You know, if you've got a squat, leg press and leg extension, it's hard for to move from that into stiff legged deadlifts, and be able to put in the you know what I'm saying. So a lot of guys will wind up splitting up their lower body work, you know, and then you get to the point where, okay, my arm development sucks, well, you're doing triceps after chest and shoulders, and you just don't have the time or the energy to devote enough volume and intensity to those movements. And I think if you're going to be if you're going to really maximize physique development, you have to treat all of your movements, even the little movements, the tricep extensions, the curls, the side delt work, those have to, those have to be trained with an adequate amount of again, volume and effort level, and progressive overload. And it just, it becomes a matter of resources of time and energy. How do you do that without splitting it up? And so I think that that's where bodybuilders naturally over a course of a couple of years are going to evolve into some sort of body parts split by by necessity. Yeah,

Philip Pape 39:18

it makes total sense. And your your specific program of six days when I first saw it, I was thinking, Man, that sounds like a lot. And then once you run it, you realize makes a lot of sense, especially for us older guys who have less recovery. It actually worked out really well for time management as well. So I'll give you an example for me. My rest day is Wednesday. Right? Your program is a six day program. For me that's four days a week training just like I was always doing on something like a conjugate or upper lower, and then I can work on the weekends and many of us have flexibility to do that on the weekends. You also only have three or four movements so like this morning doing flat bench, incline bench, cable fly, and then I think I threw an ABS or something. You know, you're over in 4560 minutes. It doesn't feel crazy, but you're able to be fresh. for each of those movements, or even the cable flies, you

Andy Baker 40:02

know, I was able to be fresh for those. So yeah, it's, it's a great strategy, the workouts are shorter. And they're also less systemically stressful because you're all of the stress is being directed at one, one area of the body. I mean, when you do a squat, a bench press and deadlift or a squat a bench and a barbell row or something like that, there, you're working way more of your body, the workouts take longer. And I think there's a trade off there between the you know, the the length of the workouts, and your ability to recover that even if you're training more often say five or six days per week, if the workouts are shorter, and less energy intensive, it's actually quite sustainable. And I get like that, that's why I have like in my primer, like, Okay, I know, there's going to be a good portion of you guys that can't do six days per week. But here's an option for five, here's an option for four, that still kind of holds to the same principles, I mean, you don't necessarily have to do six, I lay that out, it's here's the, here's the way to split it up, you know, maximally, and then you can kind of condense that down as needed. And some of that's going to be based on you, and certainly with advanced bodybuilders, all of those guys will train based on weaknesses, you know, most guys and weaknesses and strengths. So certainly, it's like at the higher levels, like guys that are going to compete in bodybuilding, they're going to have a certain, you know, there's going to have a certain amount of genetics that predisposes them to be good in that, and part of that is, most guys will have one or two body parts that are pretty well developed with a minimal amount of work. And so they and, and certain, one or two body parts that don't develop as well that require more work. So to some degree, you're the split that you derive is going to be based on your own individual weaknesses, or just areas that you want to prioritize. So your your movements, if you've got an awesome lower body, than maybe you'll have to split up quads and hams, like if that's if you if you you know, or you just don't care that much about it. Or if you've got, if you've got kids like me, I've I've got, I still train my arms directly. But I've got genetically, probably a fairly gifted set of arms, that if I didn't, I wouldn't necessarily have to train them by themselves, I could tack on triceps at the end of chest and biceps at the end of back and still have reasonably good develops at arms were but somebody that doesn't have that, that really, you know, especially if they're going to compete and they've got very small arms, they're going to need the weight, they're not going to be able to get as good a result to do and triceps. After they do chest and shoulders and doing biceps after back. Like they're going to benefit from having their own day dedicated to just direct bicep and tricep work where again, an adequate amount of volume, effort and load can be dedicated to those muscle groups.

Philip Pape 42:44

So let's continue on that with a specialization, then if you if someone were to run your 60 program, which is I'll call it a balanced program, right. And I know women, I don't know if it's geared toward men or women, but women tend to like more lower body work in their program, and yours has to, you know, to lower body days for upper body, which I kind of like about it, because as a percentage of the week, the dreaded days are smaller. Yeah. But if somebody had weaker legs, or women or whatever, how would How would you make a tweak to this? Well,

Andy Baker 43:13

part of that is part of that is women tend to recover better than men, you know, men, and that's not that they have some superhuman ability to recover. Women are not as good as men at generating the same amount of stress men, generally, because of that higher level, we have higher levels of motor unit recruitment, we have more ability to fatigue ourselves then do women. So it's not that they recover better. They create stress, not as well as we do, if you want to express it like that. They don't, they don't, they don't create as much stress. So they tend to recover like women can operate at a far higher like on strength work, they can they will do their volume work on a strength based program and a far higher percentage of one our end, like women can do volume work at 90% of one RM men can't do that. And it's not that they recover better. It's just that they're their one RM it's not as because they lack the neurological efficiency, that same thing happens, honestly, and this is this is one thing I've and I know like your audience here in mind, too, is not into the drug use and all that kind of stuff. But the same thing happens with guys that are taking a lot of anabolic steroids. Steroids actually don't make you recover faster. They make your output in the workout that much more like your neurological efficiency goes through the roof. So you actually generate a ton more stress during the workout. And I think that's part of the reason why you don't see IFBB pros, training their legs three days per week, or training their chest three days a week. People say well, they recover better, they can do much higher workloads, that's actually not true and they don't actually do more volume. They generate more stress, they create a more significant stress with their training and their adaptation to that stress. It's more profound. Does that make sense? But But But, but their recovery is not is not bad. If you take a steroid user and have them trained legs heavy three days per week, you won't be able to recover from that. So actually someone who's less neurologically efficient could get away with training their legs three days per week. Does that make sense? Yeah, I see. If you have that spectrum, if you want to, you know, if you like, if you wanted to have like a three part spectrum, at one end of the spectrum, you would have this is a very oversimplified version. But on one end of the spectrum, you would have, you know, women on the middle, you would have non enhanced males. And then at the other end of the spectrum, you would have enhanced males. In terms of neurological efficiency, the closer you are, to the female side of that spectrum, the more volume and frequency you tend to be able to do because you're generating less stress in every workout. Does that make sense? Yep, for sure. Yeah. And so that's, I don't know where I was going with that. Oh, for women. Yeah. So women, you might be able to put in, you know, three leg days or, or instead of splitting up, say, if they kept two leg days in there, which I would probably do, I would probably keep two leg days in there. But you might hit quads and hams hard on both of those days, like they might, they might, instead of splitting up quads and like you could maybe they could get away with a higher volume leg workout twice per week as opposed to splitting things up.

Philip Pape 46:19

Got it? That's, that's good to know. So

Andy Baker 46:22

that if somebody like let's say, a guy wanted to specialize in any particular body part, is that a similar approach where they would take the day that's focused on that part and just add, are they adding intensity? Are they adding another movement in there? So I the way that I do, it is like the way that I have my I have two specialization programs. On my website, I have an arm specialization program, and a shoulder specialization program, I'll probably write some other ones. But those are just the two that I started with. Because I have a little bit more familiarity with designing those. So I've got some, I've got more feedback from customers and clients and stuff with those. But what the first thing that I do is I don't look, I don't look at saying, Okay, how can we just blow up the amount of volume and frequency that we do? I don't, that's not again, that's not my primary. My primary, actually, let's say with the arm specialization program is with the training stimulus itself, how can we optimize the amount of stress that this person can put onto their biceps and triceps, so I prioritize that during the week. One is I proceed that day with rest. So I might, so I may give them those Saturday and Sunday off, right, what I do is I bracket the area of the body that we want to prioritize, I bracket that on both ends with rest. So let's say Saturday and Sunday, I'm gonna give them an off day. And then Monday, we're going to hit their arm training. And we're going to do it so that way, they're they are fresh, they're not coming to that workout sore, tired, they're fresh, so that they can maximize loading, effort, level enthusiasm, even volume into that workout. And then the next day, I would do legs, followed by another rest day. So they actually get to two rest days on either side of that workout. And then later in the week, let's say Thursday, we would do like chest and shoulders, and maybe one other tricep movement in there. So I do I goose that frequency a little bit by giving them one really, really hard day of tricep training, say on Monday, and then touch it again later in the week. And then the same thing like we do like a back day on Friday with a little bit of bicep work.

48:30

My name is Tony from a strength lifter in my 40s Thank you to Phil in his Wits, & Weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training. Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros, and chemical compounds and hormones and all that and he's continuously learning. That's what I like about Phil, he's got a great sense of humor. He's very relaxed, very easy to talk to. One of the greatest things about Phil, in my view is that he practices what he preaches, he also works out with barbells, he trains heavy, not as heavy as me, but he trains heavy. So if you talk with him about getting in better shape, eating better, he's probably going to give you some good advice. And I would strongly recommend you talk with him. And he'll help you out. Thanks.

Andy Baker 49:14

And I think where a lot of guys go wrong, as they say, Well, I want to develop my arms. So I'm going to, I'm going to have three dedicated or I'm going to train my arms heavy and hard and high volume Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So I'm just going to go apeshit with volume and frequency effort like and I'm going to just going to annihilate my arms. One, it doesn't work that well, because recovery is not going to be good, too. There's going to be interference effects on the other the other upper body work that you do. So when you do chest shoulder, work backward. Where are you going to put that in? If you're training you're it's like you're going to be now instead of like letting your arms rest and recover after you bomb the shit out of them. You got to go right into like a chest day or a back day or whatever. So you're training alarms. Yeah, yeah, you're training those damaged muscles and I think Like in order for a muscle to grow it, it needs adequate stimulus and it needs adequate rest. You don't the way to do it is to is to maximize the, what I was saying before maximize the stimulus, but not necessarily through just bombarding that muscle with more volume and more frequency. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Philip Pape 50:20

makes sense. Yeah, I was wondering the context, even though of the Six Day Program, is it already? Are you already maxed out effectively? And you're talking about now substitutions for specialization? Or do you take take the day where you're focusing on that one body part, now you have two days around it that don't have that body part. And you can still apply the same approach?

Andy Baker 50:40

Well, if you do this, like if you do the six day, like you said, the six day program that I laid out, it's very well balanced. Like if you just take it, if you just look at it, you know, on paper, it pretty well balances everything. But if you want it to maintain that six day program that you want it to prioritize, say your arms, what I would do, you've got the arm day on Friday, on Monday, on your chest day, I would just add a tricep movement after you do your chest work, and then a bicep, one bicep movement after your back day, and then just keep your arm day in there. So I do I do move that frequency lever a little bit, but not a ton. Does that make? Does that make sense? I

Philip Pape 51:20

guess no, you're not interfering with the body parts day itself. And you're putting it far enough away from that day to kind of just hit it a little bit more. And that's

Andy Baker 51:27

the way that that six day program is laid out. It allows you to do that with just about any muscle group. I mean, you could do I think it might be a good idea to let some people know what we're talking about is to actually lay out the six day split. Yeah,

Philip Pape 51:41

let's try to I'm jumping all over the place to the split. And then I want to get into things like top setback offset, which I think is pretty cool. So that's

Andy Baker 51:48

the split. And you know, it kind of the joke is Monday is chest day, like Yeah, you know, like everybody, but yeah, Monday is chest. Tuesday is back. Wednesday is quads and calves. Thursday is shoulders and traps, Friday, biceps, and triceps, and Saturday hamstrings and then calves again, and then Sunday is an off day. So there is that's pretty well balanced, like every major muscle group has its own day. But again, the idea though, that like the criticism of a split like that is well you're only hitting muscle group, once per week. Well, there's two reasons why that's the well, there's a main reason why that's not true. And that's because the effect of overlap, like overlap is a real thing. Like there's a natural overlap of and this is influenced mainly by your exercise selection. So let me let me lay that out a little bit. So people can see that, even at if you're worried about frequency of oh, I'm only you said I'm doing shoulders on Thursday, like I'm only hitting my shoulders. Once per week. Well, that's not really true. If you look at your chest day, I always have a move an incline movement. On your chest day, it may be the first movement, it may be the second movement, but there's always an incline press on your chest day. All your EMG studies will show that inclines hit the front delts just as well as overhead pressing does. So right there. If your overhead pressing on Thursday with a machine or dumbbells or a barbell, whatever and then hitting inclines on Monday as part of your chest stay right there, you've got two direct stimulus stimuli for the front and the side delts. On your back day, any rowing movement that you do, especially rows where you've got, you know, elbows high, you're pulling in line with the chest, if you're, that's gonna, that's a tremendous rear delt movement, like you're going to get a lot of rear delt stimulus from basically all of your rowing movement, and then you're hitting them again, in isolation on your shoulder day. So rear delts are getting hit twice per week, traps might get hit three days per week, because I would generally have people do like, say a shrug on Thursday. But most of your rowing exercises that you might do on your back day are going to incorporate traps. And then on your hamstring day, I usually have some sort of deadlift variation, the stiff leg deadlift and RDL, or even a conventional deadlift, all of which are also going to hit the traps. So even though we've got quote, one on paper, we've got one day for doing traps, they're actually getting stimulated three days per week, triceps are going to hit Get hit as many as four days per week. You have a direct tricep, you know, workout on Friday, but when you do overhead pressing on your shoulder day, when you do all of your chest pressing movement on Monday, those are those are hitting your triceps. And if you do, certainly things like pullovers but even things like chins where there's a lot of shoulder extension work that actually hits your triceps. So your triceps are actually getting hit four days per week only once really hard and really directly but that whatever need there is for more frequency is more than covered. Yeah, with something like this, you know, and then the leg days the same thing like if you lost if you know if you do a quad workout that has squats and leg presses and things like that there's going to be some hamstring and adductor overlap in there and Then you know, and again, you can be intentional with this by through your exercise selection, if you say, Well, I really want to hit my chest a little bit more, alright? Well, when you do your, on your tricep day, make sure you're incorporating things like close grip, bench pressing, and dense, like you're gonna, those are effective tricep movements, but there's a ton of overlap on the chest. And so you can very, very easily create a scenario where every muscle group is getting hit a minimum of two times per week, even if on paper, it's really only one day. And I actually think that's a better way to do frequency than is trying to annihilate every muscle group two to three days a week, actually think recovery is better. And the idea that you're somehow going to atrophy, or lose muscle mass by, you know, only hitting it hard once per week is not true, like your your triceps are not going to atrophy, when they're getting stimulated four days per week, even if, on three of those four days. It's quote, indirect,

Philip Pape 55:59

for sure. And I'm feeling it. I mean, I'm walking in right now, where as soon as something gets hit, maybe two, three days later, I feel it again, you know, I feel it again. So it's kind of coming back, but not so frequently that you're training through soreness. And for those of us guys who have like the low back fatigue, I've found this program extremely great for that kind of recovery, even during fat loss, like and we can talk about that. But just it which is counterintuitive to a lot of people, because we're thinking six days a week. So part of part of the movements, let's talk about the top setback offset approach they incorporate because I think that's pretty cool. And the fact that not everything is you know, three sets of eight to 12. Right, right. What's what's behind that?

Andy Baker 56:36

Well, it is six days a week still. So you do run the risk is if even even though like I said the workouts tend to be shorter, they're less systemically fatiguing, it's still you're still in the gym six days a week. And if you overdo things on the volume side of things, it is going to wind up being a whole shitload of work that's going to be hard to recover from. And so you really can't bombard you really can't do, you know, 15 or 20, even if it was more effective, which I don't think it is, but even if it was, it still would be very hard to do say 15 to 20 sets per muscle group, like you will wind up still overtraining to do that. And so, again, you have to look at, you know, if you're gonna be in the gym six days per week, the idea is, yes, you're in the gym six days per week, but basically, all of your workouts are under an hour. You know, I mean, it is possible to run them up a little longer, especially if you take more rest time, or you just bullshitting around or whatever. But it's the main reason around that Sunday Ticket is it is. But if you're really focused, and you really get in there, you get to the warmup sets, you time, your rest periods, and you don't have to rush and rest periods, but you keep track of your rest periods, you stay off your phone, you know, all that kind of stuff, you can get all of these workouts done in under an hour, you know. And so that's really the only way that that six day a week program is sustainable over a long period of time, is to keep that volume minimal. And again, if you operate under the notion, like as I do, that your effort level, taking more of your exercises to failure is an important component of muscle growth, then it limits the amount of volume that you can do in a given workout. You can't, you can't do you know, 20 sets of quads and push you're going to be having way too many of your sets be just submaximal junk volume is what I would consider so. So it winds up being, you know, what I have found, as I've gotten both older, but also stronger, and also better at delivering a stress to a given muscle. And that comes through a lot of different things when it comes through just mindset like Do you have the mental toughness and the grit to really push hard and not rack the bar, as soon as it gets hard? Or do you have the grit to really push through that. But I also think that there's a, you know, as you get stronger, and the load increases on all of these exercises, that influences the amount of volume that you can do. But also things like mind muscle connection, and really understanding how you know how muscles work, and how things are supposed to feel and really getting good at like all of those lend themselves to being able to generate a high high level of stress with less work. And the analogy that I always use and also exercise selection. Also pick picking and choosing the exercises that deliver the optimal amount of stress to that muscle group through taking it through a full range of motion. Having a longer eccentric component, limiting the amount of limiting the amount of work that other muscles like this is where you might consider you can make the argument that a hack squat is actually a better quad developer than say like a low bar squat because of the fact that you did it. Other quads are doing all of your taking the quads through a full range of motion and it's really only the quads that are doing the work. So when you take that to failure, let's say or right up to failure, it is your quads that are failing verse is when you take a deadlift, this is the I've made this. I've played devil's advocate on this for a couple of years now. And just to try to get people to think when you take a deadlift to failure, what is failing? You don't know. Right? You could be any number of things. Could when you take the Romanian bottleneck, when you take a Romanian deadlift to failure? What's failing? Yeah, probably. So you take a leg curl to failure, what's failing, you definitely it's the hamstrings, right? When you take a hack squat to failure, what's failing the quads. So that starts to get into that the whole Mike is retail concept of the stimulus to fatigue ratio, the stimulus is increasing on that muscle group. But the overall amount of systemic fatigue is less. So by choosing better exercises, doing the exercises in the right manner, from a from a mechanical standpoint, you know, when you do a hack squat, having your feet low and narrow on the platform versus high and wide on the platform, makes it harder on the quads. So doing when you when you start to manipulate your exercise selection to be more stressful on the muscle that you're trying to target, you're going to need less volume. Make sense? Does that make sense? Yeah, and excited. And then you couple that with extremely high effort level, you know, you can you can do one all out set Hack Squats, is potentially more. here's the, here's the even better comparison, a hack squat versus a front squat, a Barbell Front squat, like people love to point at front squats is like the preeminent quad movement. I don't think that it necessarily is because most people fail the front squat because of their inability to hold the bar on their, like, it's not their quads that fail, it's usually their abs or their low back or their upper back, like you're so limited by something that doesn't have anything to do with the movement, that it makes it not not as good of not as good of an exercise. So you, you probably can't do just one all out set of front squats and get the same stimulus as you would to one all outside of Hack Squats. If that makes sense.

Philip Pape 1:02:09

Yeah, it makes sense. And as you're saying, as I'm thinking of all the different techniques you have programmed in, I was looking at just the last week alone, on squat day, after some sort of front squat or safety bar squat, you had a single all outset of I don't know, it was programmed in there. I did a Platts squat, but it was the same intent it was to hit your quads really hard just for one set. You also have almost every day, the the top setback offset was just two sets, but you're doing it in a heavy range and the more of a hypertrophy, like you know, higher rep range. So then there's the DC method, there's all these things that you incorporate that Keep it keep the session short, but really let you hit the the muscles.

Andy Baker 1:02:46

Yeah, that's so that's, and that's part of the reason that that works, when coupled with the right exercise selection. So when you're, when you're doing movements that really allow you to target the muscles that you're trying to work, you take the muscles to a full eight range of motion, they can be loaded progressively over time, they have a longer eccentric component, all of those sorts of things that put a ton of, they're not limited by other muscle groups, all of those things are going to reduce the amount of volume that you're going to need. Because it's a better tool, it's a more stimulative tool. And so that's, I think that's a part of where, you know, that comes from, is, is and I found that with those types of movements, you can generate more than enough stress with to all outsets. And I typically will do, that's just one of those things that it just comes through trial and error of, you know, you do one kind of heavy, you know, one set to kind of maximize loading that like four to eight rep range, and then strip some weight off and do a second set like maybe an eight to 12 rep range. And you put push both of those sets maximally, you're pretty well done with that movement. After that. It's

Philip Pape 1:03:54

you It's It's hard man, you know, it's hard, you think it's easy on paper, or some people do, but it's if you're pushing the right load, it's it's tough.

Andy Baker 1:04:02

And part and part of that is you look at I look at this, and this is something that you kind of I borrowed kind of from the sprinting world, is, when you're looking at how much how many sets to do on an exercise, it's how much performance drop off is there from one set to the next to the next. And if you're losing a significant amount of performance ability from one set to the next, you're really pissing in the wind or just piling up fatigue with less stimulus. So like if you put on three plates on a hack, squat machine, the four plates, whatever it is, and you push, you know, one all out set of, say 12 reps and it's just you know, that 12th rep you could just barely get it, you know, you took that you could not have gotten a 13 throughout. If you do if you rest say three to five minutes and do another set at that same load. What's going to happen to your reps, well, they're going to drop down to like six or seven like you're going to have a massive so I look at that As I'm not really creating any new significant stress without additional set, all I'm doing is compiling fatigue. And it's the same way sprint coaches tend to look at track workouts is that what speed drops off at a certain amount of repetitions, let's say you're training a guy for 100 meter sprint or whatever, once the speed drops below a certain threshold, they're not training speed anymore. So they have they're going to cut they're going to cut the workout off. Does that make sense? So that's it's not an exact, perfect analogy. But it's something I feel like carries over to the bodybuilding or strength world or whatever is like a certain amount of performance drop off is a good a good way to learn what your cut offs should be volume wise. So I like like to, that's why I like the one heavy top set, followed by the one lighter back offset, take both of them maximally. And then that's it like you've you've pretty much it's time to move on to a different exercise like I've, I've extracted everything that I'm going to get from that particular movement. And I'm going to get more benefit from just moving on to a different exercise.

Philip Pape 1:06:04

Yeah, and just how much more time do you have? By the way? I got? I got plenty of time. Good. Yeah. And it's not like everything is like that, because you'll have pre exhaustion, I guess is what you're going for. When you start with a lighter movement, let's say lateral raises on shoulder to you might start with that. And it's it might be three, four sets. And then you might even have, say pull ups or chin ups on backdate, you might have five sets, it's some places it makes sense right to have.

Andy Baker 1:06:30

Yeah, because their volume. And that's just like the pull up thing like that's just that comes directly from my own kind of training experience is this funny thing happens to me on pull ups is like, let's say the first set that I do, I get like 10 or whatever. And then I do a second set. And I might get like seven. But then I can do a third a fourth offense of a six. Yeah, it's never drops off. And I think again, that's not that the back has some superhuman ability to recover better, it's that certain, it's harder, it's harder to generate the same level of stress on say, a pull up, like you're not actually taking that muscle to absolute and complete failure in the same way that say a half squat does to the quads. Does that does that make sense?

Philip Pape 1:07:16

Like it doesn't, I've always wondered that too. It's like, am I not training hard enough and previous sets? Or is it just recovering that that much, it's

Andy Baker 1:07:23

the same like with a lateral raise or something like that, like you, you can't one you can't load those things up very much less. So there's like an inability to just progress and load. And there's also because they're so mechanically disadvantaged, is that it's actually hard to really create a ton of stress where that where that, that that muscle group is just done like it's exhausted, like you can do, like on the pecs, the quads, even the hamstrings to some extent like, like, not all muscle groups are the same, like it's not that the muscle groups are different, it's just that the movements themselves are harder to generate the same amount of fatigue or like, even like with back like a barbell row or something like that, like, like you don't actually really hit like true failure becomes like technical failure, like they just get really really sloppy, whereas like on a bench, you know, your chest pressure go in, and then like all of a sudden boom, like, it just stops, like no force can be generated from that like and part of that's just your positioning, like the way that you're locked in, you can truly take that muscle to failure. So like pecs, quads, things like that tend to be easier to actually take to like true failure. Whereas other exercises, pull ups, lateral raises certain other things, you just can't, you can't generate enough stress with a low volume. So I tend to operate at a little bit higher volume there to get this equipped, same equivalent amount of work in.

Philip Pape 1:08:45

And let me ask you about that for a newer a newer lifter, newer lifter, but a lifter new to this style of training. There's the mind muscle connection, there's the temple, there's things like that when I think of a lateral raise. Sometimes I have to remind myself just to slow down, take it easy and really pull with adult like Don't you know, don't get too much of the traps involved. Don't like use too much momentum. And then you realize you don't have to go as heavy, either. Like what are your thoughts on helping someone get to that point through their training, so they're really lifting want, it

Andy Baker 1:09:16

takes time? Like mind muscle connection takes time. I do think that it matters. Like a lot of people say well, that doesn't really matter. It absolutely matters. Like, like you're gonna get like if you come off of a set of lateral raises, and your side delts are just blown up and they're, they're pumped and they're burnt, like you're gonna get better growth than the guy who comes off a set a lateral raises that's like, what is this work? Like? I don't know, like, you know what I mean? And that's how most like beginners are especially like backward, they'll come off of a pulldown machine. They have no sensation whatsoever that their lats were worked it's all forearms or biceps or anything other than the her laughs Yeah, right. And it but a more advanced guy. He's going to come off of a pulldown machine or Whatever he's gonna come off of that and his lats are going to be burning and blown up like, it's, it's easier on certain muscle groups like you don't have to teach mind muscle connection on a leg extension, like you put somebody on a leg extension machine and have them beg out 10 or 15 reps, whether they're more gifted athlete or not, their quads are going to be burning, right, they're going to be pumped, they're going to be burning, like, there's no doubt, like what muscle group is doing that work. But that's just because of the mechanical nature of that lift, it locks you in to the point where there is no other muscle group that can contribute to that movement other than the quads. And so it's easy to establish that mind muscle connection on that when it's something that's really, really formed dependent, like a lateral raise, or most of you like most of your rowing exercises, or pull downs, guys do those for years and never really feel their back. And it takes time to do that. And then once, once you start to develop that mind muscle connection, and then you you pair that up with loading and effort level, and all that sort of thing, then it becomes even more effective, because you're really, really aware of like, what you're targeting, and how to how to slightly manipulate your grip, or your back angle or the touch point of the bar, so that you can really, really feel the muscle that you're trying to work. And that is I don't think that's an unimportant thing. Because if you're trying to do a movement, like, are we just trying to row or are we trying to hit the lats or the upper back or whatever like, and you need to learn those types of one is just time. But two, I think, like machine exercises can be really helpful on this, like, you're going to learn like on a like a chest supported seated row machine, you're going to learn how to feel your back on that, more so than you will on a barbell row like you're going to, and then you can take the lesson that you like how to really squeeze the scapula and like really feel all the musculature of your back and your lats and stuff working on that chest supported machine row, which is a more simple movement. Now you take that mind muscle connection that you've developed there and try to translate that into a more complex movement like a barbell row. So sometimes, like just stepping back and going to we think of like a barbell row was like a basic movement. But really like a, like a chest supported, machine row would actually be more basic in that regard in terms of it will really teach you the proper mechanics of rowing. Like you'll develop that mind connection faster on that. And actually like on like lateral raises or something like that, like one of the better like the one of the best ways to kind of learn it's like on one of those seated lateral raise machine, where it teaches you to hear Yeah, like your your, because most guys like on a lateral raise, if you watch them, they're focused on the dumbbell. So they're focused on the dumbbell getting up high, but not their humerus, and the job of the side delts is to actually elevate the humerus up. So like learning how to do that, but with a dumbbell held out in your hand. So you're not just swinging the weight around, you're actually using the side delt to abduct the humerus, like that's like so just like they learned some some of it is just intellectual understanding of anatomy and muscle function. Like what, what is this muscle? What is it actually trying to do like on a like, like on a chest, like your chest, like, the role of the PEC is not to press the bar out. It's to add up to the humerus, it's actually sort of like a fly is actually technically a more direct pectoral stimulus than, say, a benchpress. But if you understand that, what the pecs role in the benchpress is to I don't know if people can see but like, if your arm is, you know, abducted out here, and you're trying to draw it closer to the midline of your body, like that's the role of the PEC. So if you can think about that, while you're bench pressing, it's going to enhance that mind muscle connection and in your chest pressing movements, if that makes sense. Yeah, like

Philip Pape 1:13:48

probably better for the shoulders too, because you're not trying to like fooling the shoulders forward.

Andy Baker 1:13:51

Yeah. Or like even even certain things like, like, I've made the argument before, like, I actually think bench pressing is a good PAC developer, but not in the same way that a power lifter might benchpress like power lifters guard Yeah, power lifters are focused on moving the most amount of weight from point A to point B not not to try to stimulate the packs. And so a powerlifter might take a really wide grip, have a big arch, and lower the bar down low onto the torso and hit even like in the upper abs, like if they've got a little belly like actually hitting in the upper abs, or like far below, you know, the the, like the sternum like might actually be a stronger bench. But if you look at what is the peck doing in that movement, sometimes it's not doing that much as if you were if you lowered your arch a little bit, touch the bar up a little bit higher and focus more on the actual function of the chest like that actually makes for a better that's the argument that like a hammer strength chest press machine is better than a barbell bench press. That would be the argument because it actually takes the PEC through, it's more a fuller and more natural range of motion then does a barbell, but if you're aware of muscle function, you can kind of manipulate those movements a little bit to get better contractions out of them. And so that's, that's, that's a part of that as well. So I

Philip Pape 1:15:08

think it's very important all of this because you know, people listening, I think a lot of people treat accessory and are no, we're not calling them that. But these isolation movements as easy, right? It's just, you just go through the motions, treat them as technical as as low bar back squat, and really learn the anatomy, what

Andy Baker 1:15:25

actually almost almost even more so like, I tell my guys that, like, when I have an online client, you know, that's more interested in hypertrophy, I'll be like, alright, this is our first week together first couple of weeks, like, I want you to send me videos. And it's like, what the videos that they send me are like the squat, the bench and the deadlift, right, like the big movements, but I don't see videos of their lateral raises, and their curls and their triceps stuff. But I'm like, No, I want to see that too. Because actually, the technical execution of those movements is just as important, if not more important than the big lifts, like, like on a squat, I don't teach my muscle connection on a squat, like I teach mechanics, right? Like, but on, you know, you know, some other movement, I'm going to be more focused on like, learning, like making sure that guy is really, really technically executing that movement well, and feeling that movement, where he's supposed to be feeling it. So it's, it is like mechanically, the little, the quote, the little stuff, it's just as important, if not more important than the big stuff. And that's where, again, yeah, the idea that, and even for a powerlifter. Like, if you're going to be doing these bodybuilding style accessory movements, to support your squat bench and deadlift, you still need to do them almost with the same mindset that a bodybuilder does. Like, it's not less important for them, because the idea is still you're doing tricep extensions to what to build muscle in your triceps. It's the same reason a bodybuilder would do it. So like the technical execution definitely matters. And I think the better you get at the technical execution, and the more mind muscle connection you can develop. And again, you couple that with increased strength, more mental toughness, or crit or whatever you want to call it, more of a comfort level pushing to failure and beyond, then that starts to cut down on the amount of volume that you would need to do.

Philip Pape 1:17:12

Here's more for the work. Yeah, yeah, here's

Andy Baker 1:17:14

a great analogy that I love to use, okay. In terms of, if you have a guy, like, let's say we have a board, we have a two by four, and the object is to hammer the nail into this two by four. And I give you a nail, and I give you a big ol heavy crescent wrench. And I say, alright, hammer that nail into that. Can you do that? Yeah. And how many times do you need to hit the nail to drive it all the way into the board? Maybe 70 times, right? And so if you're using a bad tool, for this task, you may come to the conclusion, well, it takes 70 strikes to drive a nail into this board. But what if I take the crescent wrench away and I give you a hammer? Well, now you just drove it in and 15 hits, right, maybe you're not a good craftsman, right? So you still have to hit this nail at times, but you have a now you have a better tool, right? Just in this is exercise selection you're taking you're have a better tool, it takes less volume, less number of strikes to accomplish the same exact task, because you'd have a more efficient tool. Now, give that good hammer to some guy that's been a carpenter for 20 years. You ever see those guys driving nail? It's like my dad, like, yeah, it always pissed me off, because like, we would do be doing fencing or something and heat, my dad would take it and Bobo, you know, two hits, and the nail is driven. And it took me eight times, you know, to drive that same nail, because of the skill. He's and that's the same thing if he's using a better tool, but he has more skill. And so in the hand, the the right tool in the hands of a more skilled person, it's going to take less strikes or less volume, if you want to call it that to accomplish the same task. And I think it's exact same thing with trading is that a stronger, more efficient user of a good tool can do the same, it can get the same benefit from a hell of a lot less work.

Philip Pape 1:19:08

Yeah, and this is training like that's the point even the bodybuilding stuff is training. So treat it like that skill. And it's good reminder to me to you know, get up and go to go to in tomorrow really make the most out of my time. But So besides that, what are what are some of the other mistakes you see people making on this style program?

Andy Baker 1:19:27

I think I think, like, I don't, I don't want to call it a mistake. But learning opportunities. Well, it's a mindset shift. In a way I think it's very it can be very difficult for guys who they, they maybe they're they're coming from a strength background, or whatever they've put a certain amount of time into their say their squat bench and their deadlift, their one of their one RMS and these lifts and they don't when they make a shift, they say okay, well now I want to do hypertrophy or bodybuilding or whatever You Your one Rm is not a get because of the things that we talked about in the beginning of this episode, which was the neurological efficiency, your one Rm is very much going to be influenced not just by the amount of muscle mass that you have, but also the amount of volume and frequency that you do on that particular lift. So you're, if you reduce that, if you already and you switch to a slightly different style of training, like, it is possible that your one rep max is going to go down, because you're not training in a way that prioritizes that because you're not focused on that that neurological development of, of just a given lift. And so there's sometimes can be a mindset shift of it. It's not that strength doesn't matter in a bodybuilding site, it does. It's just one RM strength and the squat bench. And deadlift is not the key component for developing more muscle mass like and so when I talk, like when I say strength is still a part of muscle building, like you have to get bigger to get stronger. But you also have to get stronger to get bigger. Like it's a it's a loop that feeds itself. And so, but what we're what we're now talking about is that maybe your five to eight rep max, in a hack squat is actually more important to quad development than your one rep max low bar squat is. Yeah, does that make sense? So it's the focus

Philip Pape 1:21:28

on these new lists. And we're missing.

Andy Baker 1:21:31

It's Yeah, so there's still the progressive overload is still there. It's just, it's in a different manner. Like if you start on day one of it, you do eight reps on the hack squat with two plates on each side, like that still has to go up, like you still need to be able to progress to eight reps with three plates and eight reps with four plates or, you know, like, you're still have to focus on progressive overload and trying to add weight to these movements as often as possible. But that is different than saying, I need to work on my one rep max, on squat bench and deadlift, because there's an element to one rep. Maxine, that's purely neurological right, does it factor into bodybuilding, just like 20 rep sets. On squats, there's a cardiovascular or component and a muscular endurance component to getting good at 20 rep sets, that has very little to do with muscle growth. So that you you don't need to worry about that. So that's why I like that middle range is the bodybuilding rep range. Like you talked to most bodybuilding coaches, the guys that I respect the Dante true Dells and Matt Janssen, Justin Harris's, all these guys that coach bodybuilders. So I'll tell you the same thing. Like if you had to sum up bodybuilding, it's progressive overload on those middle rep ranges, that five, five to eight, five to 12. Some of its exercise dependent, like certain mood, like you're not going to do five reps on lateral raises, but like, it's your let's just say, five to 15. You know, again, that depends somewhat on, but it's really about building strength in that rep range. Because you get below the five rep range you get into, especially with singles and things like that there's a neurological component there that is enhanced with methodologies that don't really have that much to do with building muscle. Right?

Philip Pape 1:23:24

If that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Right. Like you don't

Andy Baker 1:23:27

need to have like, you don't need to enhance muscle mass, you don't need to have light and medium squat days. Right? Like that's a strength product that those light and medium days are there to enhance neurological efficiency, but aren't going to do that for the singles. Yeah, yeah, they're not, they're not going to do all that much in terms of building muscle mass. So the the way that you're going to train for more muscle mass is that progressive overload in those medium rep ranges pushing to failure and then exercise selection just divorcing yourself from the idea that you that you have to low bar squat bench press, and deadlift and that even if you are you may be performing those movements in a way that actually is like, like bench pressing, you're going to be able to benchpress more weight in a powerlifting style bench laying arch, wider grip, lower touch point, you're probably gonna bench more like that, but you're gonna have less stimulus on the pecs. You know, it's, it's progressive overload but done in a certain manner.

Philip Pape 1:24:25

And there's still plenty of big lifts on this program. I mean, compound lifts every day regardless, and

Andy Baker 1:24:30

I put them in there because partly I put them in there because one of the equipment selection for the mean, most guys are not not necessarily trading in Gold's Gym Venice, so they don't have a pendulum squat and Sunday guys do. But I'm trying to set the program up that is in line with most people's equipment situations. I mean, most people that are doing this program and I say, like don't do this, if all you have is a as a barbell and a rack, you're gonna struggle with this program. It's hard to shoehorn all that stuff in like you You need but most of the guys that are doing this program have a pretty well equipped home gym, or are training in a commercial facility where they have access to machines and cables. And things like that. Because it does, it does make it easier because the systemic stress is lower with machine type stuff, but the local stimulus can be higher. And so you need to have access to some of these tools that allow you to really, really highly stress the individual muscle groups but don't create the same level of systemic fatigue. An interesting observation I talked about this with Dave Tate, actually, a couple days ago when I was at Elite FTS, was that when you saw during the pandemic, when everybody was kind of all at once all these body builders were forced out of their commercial gyms and like, into their home gym, like maybe they had something set up in their garage like just their old barbell and rack that they haven't used in 20 years. Like they were kind of forced into using, like a more basic setup. And they tried to recreate their training program with just barbells. Like a lot of them got injured, or overtrained like, like even Matt Janssen, who's like the top bodybuilding coach in the world, like towards PEC, you know, and I think part of that is they're trying to recreate these, these, these bodybuilding type splits using nothing but a bar with a barbell, and it's not the same thing. Like it's, it's more highly stressful to try to do everything with a barbell, and it's going to be difficult to do, you know, six days a week with all the different exercises and everything trying to recreate it on a barbell. So you need some of these movements in order to do that. And I think so, part of it is if you want to do talking about mistakes guys make is if is if you really want to get into bodybuilding, or you know, maximal physique development, whatever you want to call it, you're gonna have to invest in the appropriate equipment, like you can't just like so either, you're gonna have to get a gym membership, or you're going to have to spend some money on developing a really good home gym, or whatever. But you can't just say, Well, all I have is a bar, how can I do this program like, that doesn't work. And then the other thing you're gonna have to do is divorce yourself from the idea that one rep, Maxine, and squat bench and deadlift is still the primary goal of the program. Because it's not like there may be there's going to be like you've seen it, like, there's going to be periods like I do the six week blocks, where we don't squat bench or deadlift, in any on any of the days like that, usually, we'll put them in there partly because I know guys want to do it. And if I go, if I go too long without letting a bench or squat or deadlift, like they're gonna wind up, go into something else. But part of that is I'm trying to show guys that yes, you can actually build muscle, and maybe even build muscle better. Getting away from these lifts. Like I'm still a fan of, like, I make a lot of arguments that I make about not squatting, benching, and dead lifting. Some of that is Devil's Advocate, stuff, as I'm trying to get people to think about why you might not do that. Like, I still think those are good movements, like I still think deadlifts are probably need to be in the program, at least part of the year. You know, for maximal development of the back, like it's just too good of a, like the loading and everything that you get from deadlifting is hard to replicate with other things. But it's getting guys to think about why we might not deadlift because I think once you kind of understand that you're going to have, you're going to understand the program that you're doing better. And that's better. Yeah,

Philip Pape 1:28:24

I like the variety. It's funny, it took me about three years of telling my wife what to get me for Christmas to get my home gym to where I could easily do a body but because you know, you need some sort of leg develop or some sort of hack, Squat leg press something or other, all the extra bars, you know, the dumbbells and it's quite a bit, you know, but but, uh, yeah, so the last, the last thing I want to talk about, because you alluded to it is the progression. And I'm kind of going to switch two or three topics in one here, but you've got your six week progression with the pretty much the same movements on, you know, you got the six days, and then those movements are repeated over six weeks, maybe a little bit of shift in rep range, but you're progressing them, then you have the week D load and then you go into a new cycle with new movements. Just talk about that a little bit in terms of autoregulation and also why it works well on a cut because this is like usually say this is your number one program recommended on a cut? Well,

Andy Baker 1:29:12

it is auto regulated in that, you know, one of the things I think you can make a mistake on a cut is that you alluded to it earlier in the podcast, which was that, you know, the studies have shown that like the higher IR or higher RPE training, lower volume is actually better at preserving muscle mass than doing like a bunch of like low weight volume or whatever. And I think you know, during the cut that one of the big mistakes that you can make is trying to do a bunch of volume you don't have you don't have the energy reserves to do that for one. So doing a ton of volume. You know if you're if your calories are low, your carbohydrates are lower. Like you have to make the most out of what you have like, like neither one of us believe in like no carb diets but But But typically, in a caloric deficit, your carbs are still going just because you have to cut calories, the cart, and you have to keep the protein up, right. So that doesn't, it doesn't leave a huge budget for a lot of carbohydrates. So you're going to have a limited supply of carbohydrates. And you need to utilize the gas in the tank that you have, right. And you don't want to burn that up. That's why I don't like, like hit protocols, necessarily, because I think it burns up too much glycogen. And the same thing happens with with like really high volume training, you're burning up too much energy without actually doing the real stimulative work on the muscle mass. So I think there's that one, it's just a question of energy resources and trying to be efficient with that. But then also, one of the mistakes that guys make during a cut is you, it's very difficult to preserve maximal strength on a cut. And that's not really the goal, you're trying to preserve muscle mass, not top in strength, top end strength is I mean, even there's, you could probably speak to this better than me. But being topped off on carbohydrates has an effect on the nervous system, like you're going to, you're going to have better nervous system activity in the presence of more carbohydrates, like your nervous system is not going to operate as well in a caloric deficit. So trying to focus too much on preserving maximal squat bench and deadlift, strength, let's say for one rep maxes is kind of a fool's errand. One, it's very hard to do. So you're going to wind up getting overly fatigued, overly frustrated, and worse, potentially opening yourself up to injury. You know, especially if you're late stages in a diet where like in bodybuilding, where you're really low in carbohydrates, because you're trying to pull water out and that sort of thing, you like you're more susceptible to injury, like that tissue is not as pliable. And so you don't. And that's typically where the injuries come from is maximal loading, especially on things like a squat or something like that. So you want to be careful about trying to get too wrapped up in a diet about preserving top end, like top end strengths. Because it's one, it's just not possible and the risk is high. So you want to say, I want to preserve the maximum amount of muscle mass that I have. And that's easier to do with a program like this, because it doesn't take as much to preserve muscle mass, like if you're working the muscle, hard, even at a low volume, you're not going to lose muscle mass like you're going to you may not gain a lot. And you certainly aren't, may not gain as much top end strength. And you may even lose a little bit of strength, but you want to you want to fight to to keep as much strength as possible. But on in those medium to higher rep ranges. You know what I'm saying? And so this a program like this tends to allow you to push as hard as you can at any given workout, but kind of allow whatever happens to happen in terms of I don't know if that makes sense. So, yeah, yeah, no, no, it does. And it's just working within a range. Like I may just say, I want you to perform one all outset in the four to eight rep range on a pitch. Like that's like as long as you if you do that, regardless of what the load is, but you take as much load as you can, and push hard in that four to eight rep range. And then you take a little off the bar, and you want additional set as hard as you can right up to failure in the eight to 12 rep range, you're not going to lose muscle mass with that type of approach, it may not gain that much strength, but you're not going to lose. And that's when you're dieting, the idea is to trim as much fat off as possible, but preserve as much muscle as possible. And so a protocol like this helps with that. Also, there's some some evidence, I think both in the literature as well as just anecdotal. And this, this is really into whether you're dieting or bulking or maintaining or whatever, the harder you're pushing on your exercises. So the more the more you're pushing your sets to failure, and that sort of thing, the quicker you're going to plateau on those movements, like you're, you're going to hit a wall faster on those. And so there's a need to rotate out to different movements. Whereas if you're training more powerlifting style, and you're doing much more of your your work sub maximally like you can because a lot of like my powerlifting programs, and it seems counterintuitive, but a lot of the work is submaximal work, more sets and that sort of thing so maximally and you can actually sustain that's that's actually the only way if you want to train squat bench and deadlift year round, like most of your work is going to actually wind up being submaximal that's the only way to sustain it. But if you're pushing your your exercise, if you're pushing to failure on these movements or right up to failure, you'll actually find that you hit plateaus and burn out those movement patterns faster. And so that you need to rotate out to new exercises. Body builders have been doing that for decades. Some guys will do it physically. So they'll do it in phases they'll do they're going to You know, start their chest day with an incline press and they're going to do that as long as possible until it kind of burns out, they're not making any more progress and then they'll switch over to a flat bench or to incline with dumbbells or something like that. Or, you know, what is more common in bodybuilding programs traditionally, is guys switch out all the time. And sometimes it's just completely auto regulated. So this week I went, I started within client the next week, I started with bench the next week, I started with dumbbell inclines, or whatever. And that looks if you're familiar with like the conjugate method, that's, that's the same exact principle, like most like the most bodybuilding programs are the is the conjugate method. I talked with Dave Tate about this last week, it's going to be on the podcast, but they don't call it that in bodybuilding. But it's the same principle. And when you do the conjugate method, you're what we're, this is a powerlifting program. But what we asked you to do is say every week, you're going to max out for a one rep max on a benchpress variation. Okay, now, why do we use variation? Why don't we say every Monday, we're just going to max out on the benchpress. Because if you max out on the bench press every week, you're going to regress, like you cannot do the same movement pattern. Yeah, you can't do the same movement pattern every single week for a max. But if you slightly alter it, and one week is bench the next week is close grip, the next week is incline the next week is pin presses, you actually can max out every single week, just by that slight alteration in exercise selection. And the same thing happens in a bodybuilding program, because you're pushing, you're not pushing to one rep max, but you are pushing to failure, you can't stay with those movements that long before they need to be rotated out for something else. And so it's because there's similar things that happen, say in a one rep max versus a five rep max or an eight rep max, and that it's very demanding. And you basically burn that movement out. So there has whether it's six weeks, or every other week, or however you're going to do it, there has to be some mechanism in there to rotate the exercises out. Because if you do the same exercises, to failure, or for one rep maxes, or whatever, every week, you're going to wind up actually going backwards. So that's even more true. Again, the more advanced that you are, the more this is going to be true. And so for like a brand new guy that's doing this program, if after six weeks, he still feels like he's progressing on the six week block that he's in, I would actually tell it Yeah, you could actually keep going with that six week block, and then just extended out to eight weeks or 12 weeks or whatever, until you start to see diminishing returns and then switch. So you don't necessarily have to switch every six weeks. I encourage people to push hard enough and load aggressively enough so that in six weeks, you're ready to switch movements. Yeah, yeah, where you've probably reset once during that time, maybe it's really hard when you start at the top of the rep range move down maybe have to set well that's that would be ideal. Like it's like in the program, it might say, okay, you know, first set on Quad Day as a safety squat bar for four to eight rep, you know, one set one all out set of four to eight, like it I don't always say but it is implied that all of those sets are basically max effort, not nuts, like on squats, I'm not necessarily saying you have to fail, like you have to wind up like on the floor, like failure. But basically, you're going to push those sets as hard as you can so that at the beginning of the six weeks, let's say you start off at eight reps at 315. You know, by the end of the six weeks, you want to be down, you've you've wanted to load aggressively enough so that you're safe, barely getting four, you know, so and then you can either reset the way or switch to a different exercise. And that's the thing with hypertrophy is that there's a much much wider range of movements that are available to you like as long as you're pushing maximally whether you're doing a safety squat bar, or a cambered bar or a hack squat or a leg press like exercise selection is as long as they're all kind of check all the boxes, there's there's nothing that you have to do. And lots of movements can be equally effective. And that's one of the big differences between bodybuilding and powerlifting is in powerlifting, you have to squat bench and deadlift.

Philip Pape 12/12/23 Philip Pape 12/12/23

Ep 130: The Hardgainers Guide to Outsmarting Your Metabolism and Maximizing Muscle Gain

Are you trying to gain muscle but still struggling despite being (or thinking you're in) in a calorie surplus? Today we are tackling the hardgainer's dilemma: How do you eat enough to build enough muscle without putting on too much fat when you have an overactive metabolism, whacked-out hunger cues, and potentially years of trying to build without success? Hardgainers can indeed create the conditions for muscle growth and overcome their genetic limitations. They can make impressive gains that they never thought possible.

Are you trying to gain muscle but still struggling despite being (or thinking you're in) in a calorie surplus?

Today we are tackling the hardgainer's dilemma: How do you eat enough to build enough muscle without putting on too much fat when you have an overactive metabolism, whacked-out hunger cues, and potentially years of trying to build without success?

Hardgainers can indeed create the conditions for muscle growth and overcome their genetic limitations. They can make impressive gains that they never thought possible.

Episode summary:

We delve deep into the challenges hardgainers face when trying to pack on muscles. Often, hardgainers feel like they're fighting a losing battle with weight gain, but with the right strategies, they can overcome these hurdles and achieve their desired physique.

One of the key factors that impact a hardgainer's journey is the misconceptions and myths surrounding weight gain. A scientific understanding of weight gain can go a long way in helping hard gainers overcome their unique muscle-building dilemmas. It's important to understand that the body's response to calorie intake and expenditure can vary widely from person to person. This is why some people may gain different amounts of fat for the same increase in calories, which can make muscle-building a challenge for hard gainers.

Another critical aspect we discussed is the power of a positive mindset. Building muscles is not just about physical effort but also about mental resilience. Having a growth mindset, setting realistic goals, and staying motivated are key factors in turning small wins into massive gains. We emphasized the importance of celebrating every little stride made towards fitness goals and reframing the thought process to focus on progress.

A large part of the discussion was also dedicated to nutrition. Achieving a calorie surplus through strategic meal planning is vital for muscle growth. We addressed the fear many hard gainers have about gaining fat and emphasized the role of macronutrients in stimulating muscle growth. Eating more calories than you burn, getting those calories from nutrient-dense foods, and fueling your workouts with enough carbs and protein are all essential strategies for muscle gain.

We also touched on the role of training in muscle building. Hardgainers need to follow a challenging training program that includes heavy compound lifts, progressive overload, and adequate recovery. We discussed the importance of supplementing with protein and carbs and encouraged listeners not to be afraid of incorporating their favorite foods into their diet.

Hardgainers can indeed overcome their genetic limitations and build muscles successfully. It might require a little extra effort and planning, but with a positive mindset, strategic nutrition, and a challenging training program, muscle-building is entirely achievable.

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Today you’ll learn all about:

(2:04) What is a hardgainer?
(5:21) Strategic nutrition and training plan for muscle gain
(6:54) Metabolic adaptation
(9:25) Mental obstacles
(12:19) Four practical positive mindset shifts
(18:48) Consuming more calories than you burn
(20:16) Strategies to stay in the surplus
(30:08) Training for hardgainers
(36:47) Outro

Episode resources:

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👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

hard gainers may struggle to put on muscle, but they can still achieve their goals with the right approach. Whether you have a fast over responsive metabolism feel like you can never eat enough or are worried all that gain is going to fat. You'll learn how to finally maximize your muscle gain in this episode. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 129 Why passively consuming my podcast is getting you nowhere. With Carl Berryman, we discussed how to implement the content you're consuming to integrate it into your life rather than being a bystander and constantly binging podcast without taking action. Carl walked us through his simple but effective mental muscle up mmm you today for episode 130. The hard gainers guide to outsmarting your metabolism and maximizing muscle gain. We are tackling the hard gainers dilemma. How do you eat enough to build enough muscle without putting on too much fat when you have an overactive metabolism, whacked out hunger cues, and potentially years of trying to build without success. hard gainers can indeed create the conditions for muscle growth and overcome their genetic limitations. I work with hard gainers all the time, and we are doing this every day. And you can as well, they can make impressive gains that they never thought possible. And that is what we're diving into. On today's topic, the hard gainers guide to outsmarting your metabolism and maximizing muscle gain. What is a hard gainer? A hard gainer is simply someone who has difficulty or believes that they have difficulty building muscle and struggling to gain weight, despite their efforts to eat more or again, believing that they're eating more. So there's a lot of mindset and psychology here. And so we have a mix of science and reality, a mix of genetics, along with some science and mindset. And we're going to cover both today. And you can kind of identify which one you fall into, it might be a mix of both, as a self described, quote unquote HARDGAINER, you are likely to relate to a certain set of beliefs. So one of those beliefs is that no matter how much you eat, you don't put on weight. And you'll notice some of these are the opposite of people who struggle the other direction and say no matter how much I diet, I don't lose weight. So hardgainers have the opposite approach, which can be just as annoying for folks. So that's one belief. The second belief is that you've quote unquote, tried everything. But you can't gain lean mass, oh, I've tried all the programs I've lifted heavy, I've lifted high reps, I've done different volume, I've done all the diets that it added up, and you can't gain lean mass. The third belief is that you have a fast metabolism. And it's so fast that you just it's impossible to gain muscle. And then the fourth belief is that bulking just makes you bloated, whether it's just bulking in general or eating a certain amount of carbs or whatever. But it doesn't actually make you bigger just makes you bloated, right? Just just big fat bloated, whatever. Now, the only study that I wanted to mention today because the science is kind of sparse in this area. Eric Trexler actually wrote a great article about hardgainers A while back, and he references the article I'm going to mention here as well by who at all in 2022. So it was just a year or two ago. And in that study, which was titled higher than predicted resting energy expenditure and lower physical activity and healthy underweight Chinese adults. They found that different people can gain different amounts of fat for the same increase in calories. And that this was directly linked to how their energy expenditure increased in response to overfeeding, I think to simplify it, this study and several other others, what they basically show is that yes, some people will when they eat more when they overfeed, right? So they eat beyond their maintenance calories, and their metabolism will start to catch up. Not all the way not a one for one relationship. But their metabolism will increase at a much greater rate than someone else. Right. If you think of the population. If you think of a normal curve, a bell curve, we're all going to find we're all going to fall in different areas. Everybody's metabolism is a little bit different due to genetics and other factors. And some people when they add 500 calories a day to their diet, their metabolism ramps up by 250 calories, and now they're really only in a two 150 calorie surplus. And then they wonder why they can't gain, you know, the half pound or pound or the pound a week that they're going for. And they're only gaining half a pound or not or less. That could be why. So there is a genetic component. But as with all of this stuff, whether it's fat loss, building muscle, whatever, you can't change your genetics, all you can change is how do you express those genetics and what you do about it, given your genetics. So the truth here that we just have to acknowledge right off the bat before we go to the rest of the episode is, if you have a strategic plan, strategic meaning you've thought about it, a nutrition and training plan that is tailored to you, building muscle is 100% achievable. Even if you are a genetic, hard gainer. And many of you listening to this episode are not even genetic hardgainers you just haven't taken the right steps and put it all together, or some sort of fear or limiting belief is holding you back from making those steps. So it may require a little extra effort, a little extra planning a little extra know how, definitely something that we help you with on this podcast. And today I'm going to address specifically. Now once you understand why you struggle to gain weight, and then how to fuel and do those other things appropriately for that, why then packing on lean muscle again, is 100% within your reach, just like when someone says I can't lose weight, or I can't lose fat. absolutely not true. Everyone can it is within your reach. You just have to know how might be harder for you than for others, but it's definitely possible. And even if it is harder, it's not going to be monumentally so. Okay, so I'm gonna iterate reiterate that the the reality here is with a strategic plan that's tailored to you HARDGAINER or not, you can build muscle successfully. And you just have to know what to do. All right. Well, some of the things that we have seen confirmed for what would be a typical hard gainer is, first what I just mentioned that you may have a rapid ramp up of your metabolism in response to calorie intake. So either when your activity goes up, your metabolism adapts quickly. And so either that or when you eat more, your metabolism adapts quickly, right. And your neat might go up quickly, whatever. Regardless, what it means is you're burning, you're eating a bunch of food, you're eating a bunch more food feel like you're stuffing yourself every day. And your body's like whoa, I've got this great food environment, I'm just gonna go burn all these extra calories, because you're giving me a feast every day. And like, really, I wanted to gain weight on purpose. And now my body is fighting me. Okay, so that's one thing. The second thing is that a hard gainer may just be and this might be you may just be someone who is moving a ton outside the gym. And this might be because you just love all sorts of sports and cardio and obstacle course races and all that kind of stuff, CrossFit, whatever, or you have a physically demanding job. I mean, if you're a construction worker, if you do something with your hands where you are burning, like you know 2000 extra calories a day just from moving around. That's very possible, right that you just have a high NEET right non exercise Activity Thermogenesis and are going to have to offset that with with your food, or with some conscious reduction in activity elsewhere, it is kind of the opposite of when we're in fat loss when we're trying to ramp it up, you may have to try to find ways to ramp it down. And then the only other thing that I've identified in the research is the potential for fast gastric emptying, that food moves rapidly from your stomach to your intestines, and so you have less time to absorb all the nutrients. And so you're actually more food more you know, foods coming out than for someone else. But I don't know if that I don't know how big of an impact that can be. Because we know that the vast majority of our energy is lost through our breath through our co2, you know, very little is lost through things like urine and feces and whatnot, you know, hopefully you're not eating when you listen to this. But anyway, those are those are three factors that could make it challenging for someone who is trying to gain muscle by by just eating more and gaining gaining weight, right because these things are out. You can't out eat these things. I mean, you can but you feel like you can't. So let's start with the mindset right? Let's just start with the mindset because a lot of you this is really where it's at. Okay, tell me if one of these or not, you know in your head, tell me through the ether, or do tell me by sending me an email or something a note on IG whether any of these hit home with you the first one are you a perfectionist, and someone who gets frustrated by slow progress you have these perfectionist tendencies you try to plan everything out. I mean, I've got this some in mind as well.

Philip Pape 09:53

I did a quick wits recently about procrastination and one of the types of unmet needs is your perfect Accidents and you wait for everything to be perfect. And if it's not just changing now now now you get frustrated. And this, this may come in the form of, hey, I want to build muscle, so I'm bigger. And then when I lean out, I'm like more jacked. But I also don't want to lose my six pack as I'm building muscle because now I'm building fat. And, and just after a few weeks, my six pack starts to get soft, and then it goes away. And now I'm frustrated because my end goal is to be this lean, jacked person, right. So it could come from that you may just be demotivated because you've tried to gain weight many times in the past and failed. And you're like, okay, it just doesn't work, right? Same thing as the opposite where people, they've tried to lose weight many times and they fail. The the third mental obstacle is just a lack of knowledge, you may not know how to customize your nutrition or your muscle building strategies like your training for you specifically, you might be a high volume type responder, maybe you're younger, a younger male, or maybe you just need that extra volume, or you're female. Sometimes females need more volume than men. And I know this episode is going to sound like I'm talking almost exclusively to men, because they're usually the ones that have this problem. But there could be some women that want to build muscle and are struggling as well. Especially very athletic, maybe very active. So you just may not know what to do. Right, you may be training a certain lift not frequently enough, and not getting the stimulus you need. So even if you're eating, you're not really building much muscle, and so then you gain fat and you're like, Okay, this doesn't really work. So maybe your problem is not that you can't gain weight, but you feel like you're gaining mostly fat. And then the last thing is, I just alluded to it, the fear of gaining too much fat and losing the lean physique, or the visible six pack or whatever it is this muscle definition you've had, knowing deep down inside, that it is in your best interest to spend that time building muscle along with a little fat, knowing that that's the only way to add that tissue to your frame. And so it's a temporary state you're going to be in where you're not going to look like you do it your leanness, but eventually you'll look even leaner and more jacked and ripped, which is probably your goal, right? Or most people's goals to improve their physique, in addition to the other things like strength and function. So as far as cultivating a more positive mindset, because at the end of the day, if we can think positively, and reframe the situation, it's going to go a long way toward then taking the practical steps. So I'm going to give you four things to try. Number one, is having a growth mentality, growth mindset growth mentality focused on the long term gains. If we focus too much on the end result, we're just gonna get frustrated. But if we focus on the things day to day that get us closer and closer to that result, such as getting in your workout, hitting your PRs, or your your maxes or lifts, or whatever it is, you know, your sets and reps pushing the weight up, pushing the reps, whatever the volume is to progressively overload because again, we're talking about being in a gaining phase where you should be able to make continual progress, that focus on the process, that growth mentality will give you lots and lots of wins along the way to know that this is worthwhile. And at the end of the day, you might find that that is really where the fun is, I've discovered now, even even if I sit sit around for three or six months, with a little bit of a soft belly, that I don't mind, in the least I am proud to wear that little bit of fat on my belly, because I am my lifts are going up, I'm going to the gym feeling energized and strong and being able to lift and you know, I still have some muscle popping out through the arms and the shoulders and everything. But I know there's some fat covering whatever else is in there, but I'm really loving that process. So if you can do that, it's gonna go a long way. And then it serves the other choices you make, like the fuel, right, what you eat, and having carbs and things like that. So that's one, adopting a growth mentality. Number two, is celebrating the small wins. So I alluded to that already, but every day you're gonna have wins like PRs, you're gonna have strength increases, you're gonna have increases on your circumference measurements. Even when you gain body mass that can be a win. Now, we talked about in fat loss, not focusing on the scale, but scale scale is one of many metrics. And if you see it slowly trending upward over time, that itself can also be celebrated. Of course, the third thing for a more positive mindset is to go ahead and set mini goals. So this is again, we're tying or integrating these ideas, but instead of just having that six or nine month or 12 month goal to gain a certain amount of weight, because that's how long it's going to take much longer than fat loss. Okay, set many goals to stay motivated through that time. And for me, the mini goals are going to be every strength training session I have, I have numbers that I want to hit. And so I do everything in my power to make sure I'm free Pair to hit those numbers, I don't think, Okay, I hope those hit those numbers. No, I say, all right, did I get enough sleep? Am I eating enough? Am I fueling enough carbs and my heart hydrated, I'm getting enough sleep, am I you know, is my workout plan appropriately for the volume, and on and on. Like all those things, I'm setting myself up to achieve that mini goal that's going to happen tomorrow. And then the next day, and then the next day. And the days that you don't go to the gym, you may have other goals related to your food, or related to recovery or self care. So many goals are a huge tool in the toolbox for anyone, but especially in this case, what we're talking about with hard gainers, because it's a long process to build muscle. The fourth mindset strategy is to understand that results require what I'm calling aggressive consistency, over time, aggressive consistency over time. And it sounds kind of like a catch 20 tour Contra, what am I trying to say contradiction a little bit. By consistency. I mean, you know, you show up every day, and you get about 80 or 90% of the things done you intend to do every single day, you're gonna achieve massive results that way, because most people either don't show up, or they show up very sporadically, or they show up and they try to be perfect for a day. And then they don't show up at all for three days, you're going to be aggressively consistent. So that means if you go to the gym four days a week, you go to the gym four days a week, maybe they're not perfect sessions, but you went to the gym and you try it and you you didn't just give up and not do the lift, you try the lift, maybe you didn't get all the reps because you didn't sleep well the night before having a food the night before. So aggressive consistency over time is where it's at. And if whatever you're doing is not allowing you to be consistent. This is where we rewind, and we say why not? What is preventing the consistency? Are we trying to do too much? Do we need support countability coaching? Do we need to focus on just one thing at a time, whatever. Okay? So just like training a muscle requires some sort of stress to kind of break it down to tear it down. Not not not muscle, tear him so much. But just to kind of over stress it so that it can come back stronger the next time. Right. Training your mind in that way of progressive overload is important overcome these beliefs. So hopefully that was helpful. I do want to get into the nuts and bolts now because you know, that's often where a lot of what I talk about lies. But if you are struggling with the mindset stuff, definitely please reach out to me and say, Hey, here's this thing struck a chord with me. Let's talk more about it. Let's dig into details. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape 18:46

All right, so hardgainers. Gaining Muscle Gaining weight requires a very simple thing, consuming more calories than you burn. But just like energy balance in the other direction, consuming fewer calories than you burn to lose weight is simply the outcome. We know that there are million things standing in the way of us doing that that we might need to figure out hardgainers must eat substantially more than expected. And if you're a true hard gainer, it's more than the the person next to you to gain the same weight. Because your metabolism is probably ramping up more quickly. Now, here's the reality. Do hardgainers exist? Yes. But it's very individual. And it also shifts. And what I mean by that is I've seen one single person be a hard gainer at one point in their life and not in another. I've been in that situation where my metabolism has just been skyrocketing. And I'm like, Whoa, I have to just eat way more calories and other muscle burning phases where that didn't happen. And so then the question is, does this just change with our lives and our situations? Is this more epigenetic than simply genetic? And at the end of the day, then maybe we shouldn't worry about all that stuff and just fall Guess on understanding our metabolism right now. And what surplus we want to be in and identify that number. And if that number is climbing quickly, we're going to have to ramp up the strategies that allow us to stay in that surplus. And we're going to talk about those. Okay, so the first strategy, you've got to be tracking, you've got to be tracking your food, and your expenditure. So here's where I'm a stickler for an app like macro factor. And I've had, I've had some arguments with people recently about other apps like chronometer, and my fitness pal. Look, My Fitness Pal is junk, in my opinion, because the database is unreliable. The features are terrible, it doesn't do anything for you. It's just a it's just a database to put numbers in. And you have to figure out what numbers to put in there. And what targets you want to go for. It's Chuck, so don't use my fitness pal. chronometer. Okay, I like chronometer I used to like chronometer, I mean, it's got some nice nutrition features and a decent database. It's a verified database, like macro factor, but it doesn't calculate your expenditure automatically. It calculates your expenditure, but it's not accurate. Do you know why, if you go look up the Help Page of how it works, all it does is it takes the one of the standard formulas that you can just plug in, and then it adds in your activity. That's one of the most inaccurate ways to do it. Because first of all, the formula is, can be off by several 100 calories, it doesn't know you and how your body responds. Secondly, using your activity from a device, we know is terribly unreliable, up to 80% inaccurate, and it's just all over the place. totally worthless. So it's junk. And so definitely go and use macro factor. Yes, I'm an affiliate proudly. So because I use it all my clients use it. And it's the only app that does what it does. And that is it auto adjusts your weekly, calorie and macro targets to your true expenditure. And it calculates that expenditure in a very elegant way, by looking at how your body adds or gains or loses weight over time, and looking how much you're eating every day. It needs two things, your weight and your food. That's it. And then it has a nice, elegant, probably slightly complicated algorithm in the background that says, Okay, this week, you're burning about this many calories a day. And it's pretty darn accurate. Pretty darn accurate, I would stake my coaching business on it, because I do I have my clients use it for that very reason. So track using macro factor use my code, Wits & Weights, all one word Wits, & Weights, when you download it for the first time to get an extra week in your free trial. And then yes, it is a paid app, it's something like 72 bucks a year. If if that is too much for you, then I'm sorry, your health is not worth it for you. That's just I'm sorry, that's just my take on that. Alright, so track your food and track your expenditure over time. And by doing so this, this honestly is probably the most important step of all the ones I'm going to tell you. By doing so you will know that your metabolism is ramping up like a rocket like you think it is as a hard gainer. It may not be you may you may discover it's not, you may discover that you're just simply massively under eating. And you're not even eating that much you maybe your metabolism maybe around I don't know, say 2800 calories, and you've just been eating 2400 thinking that you're eating a lot because maybe you eat a lot of protein, maybe eat a lot of Whole Foods and they're just filling for you. Right maybe you drink a lot, maybe move a lot you just are and you don't have good much hunger signals. That's the awareness that you get from it. So track your food and expenditure over time using macro factor that is number one. Number two, this is the food part. How do you just eat more food? Okay, very simple strategies. First, you need enough frequency throughout the day, I would aim for five to seven feedings instead of what I'm sure a lot of you hardgainers are doing right now you're probably only eating three or four times you eat four times thinking yeah, meaning four times three meals and a snack that's that's a whole bunch of times, split it up into like five to seven, you know, first thing you get up post workout mid morning, lunchtime, mid afternoon dinner, and then dessert or a pre bed snack, there you go, that's 678 times right there, you'll be able to eat more, okay, your stomach will never get fully empty and never get fully full. And you'll be in this kind of consistent state of just being able to continually feed yourself and you won't feel stuffed and you won't feel hungry either. So it's kind of in between. You also get a constant influx of nutrients, you're gonna feed your muscles with the protein, all that good stuff, muscle protein synthesis, making sure the protein is spread out throughout the day. You're not going to have these long fasting periods, which could be affecting some of what's happening to you, right, other than when you're asleep, you're fasting. I wouldn't train fasted either like I wouldn't make any drastic changes in your, your workout or nutrition relative to each other. I would just kind of have a nice continuous feeding throughout the day every day. I think this frequent higher calorie meal approach is one of the main reasons one of the main things that unlocks success for hardgainers Yeah, okay, so that's what that are. That's number two. Number three, having your carbs around your workout, I think this is great no matter who you are, right carbs, carbs replenish your muscle muscle glycogen after post exercise, I would, I would have your higher carb meals before and after your training, you'll probably find that you have more hunger for them, then your body needs them, your body wants them, and you'll just be able to fit in more food that way. Okay, if you have to use something like highly branched cyclic dextran, it's a simple digestible powder form of carbs, use it, use it, put in a scoop and get 100 grams of carbs that way, you know, that's easy. If you need four grams of carbs, that's a quarter your carbs right there, and you hardly will feel it in the stomach. Number four, I want you to optimize your protein distribution. And this should be super easy. If you're eating five, six or seven times a day. I'm just gonna leave it at that do both and you'll be fine. Number five is the calorie density now is the opposite of what you do in fat loss. Now you want higher calorie dense foods. But, but still nutritious Whole Foods for the most part, for the most part, okay? You can still or not can I still want you to have 10 20% of your diet reserved for things that you just want to eat. I don't care if it's ice cream, pizza, doughnuts, the things that you love. This is great when you're trying to gain and you need more calories. Actually, those become even easier, like a donut is just a fairly fat dense piece of carbs, right that has the fats and the carbs in there, hardly fills you up and give you a lot of calories, which is a good thing in this case. But but let's let's take a step back to what I was starting with here and that is eating foods that are higher in calorie density, which usually are things with more fat, so eating salmon instead of whitefish eating ribeye instead of sirloin eating whole eggs don't even think about a whites you don't need them. eating cheese. I mean, have you been avoiding cheese, now's the time to enjoy cheese, nuts. Oh my goodness, handfuls of nuts will go a long way toward giving you calories nuts and nut butters. For example. Have your starchy carbs. Now I know some carbs like potatoes actually are kind of filling. But you still need the carbs. So it's good to have Whole Foods sources of carbs like rice potatoes. This is where you bring in the beans and lentils you know Beans are high are fairly calorie dense actually do get the carbs and some protein. You can add oils, nut oils, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, like dump them in stuff, have your salad and just go crazy with the oil this time make sure to track it of course, right make some homemade blue cheese dressing. If you got oil and cheese together, you can see I'm just like working up an appetite myself because I'm in a gaining phase right now. So great time to do this podcast. Number six, if you still need more calories, supplements, okay, not not just protein shakes. I don't even think I mentioned it. But obviously, liquid forms of stuff is going to be easier than solid to fit it in your stomach like liquid protein shakes the liquid carbs that I already mentioned, or even making smoothies and taking fibers things and mashing them down into the where they're effectively pre digested. But I'm talking about like, I don't know, meal replacement shakes like first form has a meal replacement protein shake that has the carbs in there as well already, so they're more convenient. They're things like weight gainers, I'm not a big fan of all these, like, you know, kind of overly marketed stuff used to get a GNC type type thing. But like the higher quality meal replacement shakes or meal replacement bars, there's actually a bar made it here in Connecticut called the muscle up bar that is made from sweet potato and it's it's like 260 calories in a really densely packed bar with very simple ingredients. It's got whey protein isolate, it's got sweet potato,

Philip Pape 28:44

maybe dates, maybe some nuts, maybe some monk fruit or stevia or something and sweetened and stuff like that, right, maybe some chocolate, maybe peanut butter, and so on. And if you're getting hungry, listening to this and your hard gainer, take advantage of it, walk to the kitchen and make some of this stuff right now, right now and eat it, enjoy it, track it. Number seven. Okay, so when you have days of the week, this is another big challenge I see you will have days a week when you're not training, maybe you don't walk as much. Maybe you're sitting around the couch all day because it's a weekend you're watching football, or it's the holidays. This is where you have to watch out because you can do kind of the opposite of what some people in a fat loss phase worry about. They worry about overeating on some of these days, you might actually be under eating. Because you don't have that routine, you don't have the training sessions kind of pushing you the days that I don't train, I have to intentionally get that extra feeding in because I'm not training where I would have the before and after. So now it's just one feeding when I had to fit in another one not have to but I choose to fit in another one to get the same calories for the day. I'm not a big fan of cycling calories, especially when you're in a surplus because you've just got all these calories coming in anyway. There's no need to go like really high on Sundays and lower on others. So the goal here or the moral the story here is meal planning like to plan ahead and make sure you know how you're tackling the training days versus the non training days to make sure that calorie surplus is nice and high. So I'm going to mention one last thing. I know some of you are worried about gaining too much fat. But muscle gain requires being in a surplus. And the main variable that's gonna cause you to build muscle with that surplus is your training is your training. So there's the mindset side of it, of course, we have, we have to celebrate the wins, do all the short term, focus on the process and so on that we talked about focus on non scale metrics, like your circumference measurements, and maybe getting some new shirts that like where you fill them out, because you have these nice big traps and big arms. Now nice, big broad back, even though you have a little bit of a belly, you're going to look big and strong out in public, you know, if you're not walking around with your shirt off all the time. Okay, so great time of yours is winter to do this. But training is the most effective part of this whole thing to actually build the muscle and not just gain fat, and offset the fear of gaining too much fat even though I'm sorry to say you're gonna gain some fat. And it depends on the rate again, you go at and I did an episode not long ago, called like, oh man was it called it was like the best way to gain for building muscle or something. Just to summarize, point, two 2.3% of your body weight per week is a decent rate of gain. Okay, so that's a super good rule of thumb. For most people, even a hard gainer, it's just a hard gainer might find it harder to get to that surplus because of these other factors we talked about and are going to have to just eat more food. And if you track it with macro factor, it's going to tell you to eat more food. Okay, so how should you be training, just like anybody else should be training, heavy compound lifts, progressive overload principles, like adding weight, or reps or set or some other form of volume, having enough recovery, right, having enough frequency using intensity techniques as needed, right. Supplementing with with, you know, protein and taking creatine, you know, whatever other supplements you need, getting enough carbs, getting enough protein around your workouts, all of that. That's it. Like that was the entire section on lifting for today that I wanted to cover, because I've done plenty of other episodes, specifically about training. And today was more about the distinct challenges that hard gainers face, which is trying to eat enough food and having and struggling to do so. And by the way, I have clients who go through this all the time. And I can I see them struggle for a few weeks, but because they're getting feedback from me where I say, look, we've got the data you're tracking with macro factor, you're just not eating enough. Here's why. And then it gives them ideas. Okay, what do you like, oh, you love peanut butter? Well, we'll go crazy on the peanut butter. Oh, really? I can do that. Yeah, absolutely. You like this particular process food because it's just delicious. And you've been avoiding it, or cutting it out because of some low carb diet, Iran, put it back in, it's fine, put it back in if it represents 10 or 20% of your calories. Go for it. All right, you have my permission, and you have your own permission to do that. Alright, so and then there's the lifestyle component, which again, really applies to everyone to make sure that you're optimizing your recovery and your growth, and that is the seven to nine hours of sleep, right? You've got to get those muscles to, you know, to have the right environment to get built and repaired. And to have optimal hormones. You want to keep that stress low, keep the cortisol low, the anxiety low because all of those, believe it or not, could come into play with you, not having regulated hunger signals and thus feeling like you're to fall. More often than not, it's the other things we've already talked about. But sometimes it is, you know, you're just too stressed. And we talk about stress going the other direction and like making you overeat but but when you're trying to eat a lot of food, having too much stress could maybe suppress your appetite as well. So, adequate sleep, you know, adequate stress management, sufficient hydration and electrolytes. Yes, even though we don't want to, you know, be so full on water that we're hungry. We do want to have enough hydration. So it's it's quite a balanced. Alright, I think I covered what I wanted to cover. What we've learned today, basically, is that true hard gainers definitely have challenges because of things like an overall response and metabolism. misfiring hunger cues, potentially years of being discouraged by slow gains. But if you have the right fuel, you train smart. You have a constructive growth oriented day by day celebrating the daily win mindset and you support things like recovery. Even if you are a true hard gainer, you can just as easily just as easily make progress as anyone else. You may want to do some things more precisely, and think ahead and have a plan and maybe have some accountability or a coach. You want to monitor your energy intake and expenditure. You're going to obviously eat more calories than you burn and the only way to know that is know how many calories you're burning. You want to get those calories from dense foods but still mostly whole nutritious foods. But now it opens up the palate to things like nuts, beans, all the other stuff. We talked about oil. You want to fuel your workouts with enough carbs and protein don't Train fasted, you know, don't do long fasting periods, eat healthy fats, follow a challenging training program that has progressive overload, and rest and recover and keep the stress low. This is the way to gains all of my HARDGAINER friends out there. And here's the thing, if you want to explore what this entire process might look like specifically for you, because as I've alluded to this entire podcast, it's got to be tailored to your needs. If you want to do that, I will go over the strategy that I use with all my HARDGAINER clients, but personalized for your situation. So I have a call called a free results breakthrough session call. It's just a 30 minute zoom call. I don't sell I don't pitch. It's just a conversation between two people who are looking to solve what seems like a pesky problem, but absolutely has a solution. We'll make it happen. Just use the link in my show notes. Schedule a free call. Again, it's called the results breakthrough session. You should see it in my show notes. I always leave a few spots open on my calendar each week. So let's do it. Alright, so our next episode 131 Andy Baker, on bodybuilding for hypertrophy, and an aesthetic muscular physique, Andy the man, he's my coach, he's one of the best programmers out there, and strength conditioning coaches, he is back to talk about bodybuilding style programming. Last time we talked more on the strength side today. In this episode, we're gonna get into bodybuilding. We'll get into techniques like the top set back offset approach, training up to six days a week, the contribution of hypertrophy to strength, the methods like the DC rest pause method, and lessons that Andy has learned from coaching people through these programs, including yours truly, who is one of his, you know, barbell club coaching clients. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Philip Pape 12/8/23 Philip Pape 12/8/23

Ep 129: Why Passively Consuming My Podcast is Getting You Nowhere with Carl Berryman

Are you an avid podcast listener who binges on shows but struggles to integrate the information actively into your life? In this episode, Carl J. Berryman, the host of the Inspired by Impact podcast, is back on the show to demonstrate the Mental Muscle Up (MMU) approach to show you how to take action on the content you consume!

Are you an avid podcast listener who binges on shows but struggles to integrate the information actively into your life?

In this episode, we have back on the show—for a record third time— Mr. Carl J. Berryman, the host of the Inspired by Impact podcast and one of my closest brothers from another mother.

Carl had me on, along with Paul Salter, on his show, and we discussed the very important concept of INTENTIONALITY—of being intentional, deliberate, and directive with your actions after you hear something notable, helpful, inspirational, or profound in some way.

How are you using all this content you consume? If you're a podcast listener like me, you've probably binged shows, even Wits & Weights, which I'm happy for, but are you actively applying that information to your life?

Carl listens to this program and is an expert at implementing information, and he will demonstrate the Mental Muscle Up (MMU) approach to show you how to accomplish this yourself. All I ask is that you attempt it in this episode.

Episode Summary:

Content consumption has become an integral part of our daily lives. However, it's not just about passively consuming information; it's about actively integrating valuable takeaways into our life fabric. In this episode, we dive deep into this concept with expert Carl J. Berryman. He shares his unique method, the Mental Muscle Up (MMU), a potent tool for personal growth.

The key to personal growth is intentionality in content consumption. Instead of being a passive observer, we must engage actively with content and use it to improve ourselves. This process involves being intentional about the content we consume and integrating the information actively into our lives.

Transforming thoughts into actions can seem like an elusive concept, but it can be simplified by using potent tools like quotes. These nuggets of wisdom can effectively drive your self-improvement journey. By turning a quote or idea into a question that represents a challenge you are facing, you can harness its power for personal transformation.

It's essential to define your situation and the desired transformation to make the most out of these quotes. A useful technique is to list four things you don't want and four things you do want in your transformation. This process can help clarify your goals and provide a clear direction for your personal growth journey.

An integral aspect of personal growth is physical health, productivity, and relationships. Being organized and productive, coupled with nurturing relationships, can significantly enhance your mental and emotional health. For instance, MMUs can be a transformative tool. By tracking your energy levels in relation to carb intake, you can improve your physical health.

Ultimately, achieving personal growth is about taking action and getting results. It's about knowing what you want and being committed to achieving it, rather than just being aware of it. It's essential to be clear on our values and targets, and establish specific behaviors that will lead us to our goals.

Active content consumption is a powerful tool for personal growth. By being intentional, taking action, and utilizing tools like quotes and MMUs, we can drive our self-improvement journey.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

(3:32) Importance of being more than a passive content consumer
(5:50) Role of intentionality in daily life
(8:25) How Carl curates what he listens to
(11:58) Process for active improvement from passive listening
(13:36) Applying and refining the MMU process to Wits & Weights episodes
(34:09) Unexpected actions resulting from podcast listening
(35:51) Advice for those overwhelmed by information without change
(37:34) Managing and prioritizing content takeaways
(40:27) Accountability in the MMU process and involving others
(48:18) Examples of behavior or mindset changes from podcast takeaways
(52:53) Learning from unsuccessful podcast takeaway implementations
(54:54) Aligning actions with core values and avoiding reactionary changes
(1:02:12) Carl's biggest regret with his health and fitness
(1:07:34) Outro

Episode resources:

The Brotherhood Bootcamp Training Manual (free digital copy)
Inspired by Impact – A Podcast for Men
IG: @ignitetheimpact

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

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Transcript

Carl Berryman 00:00

Let's say I'm listening to your podcast and it's just notable, quotable, after notable chordal after notable quote a while I'm like, You know what, as I'm listening to this podcast, I'm limiting myself to four. That is it. So then once those four are done, every other piece of content that you say that really triggers something in me and inspires me, I now have to compare it against one of the other four to see which one I'm going to ditch because I've maxed myself I've made my overwhelm limit, four.

Philip Pape 00:29

Carl Berryman 02:47

I'm excited to be here as well. And I wanted to pick apart that intro a little bit, but of course, you've just completely blown it out of the park. So thank you for that. And thank you for putting just a tiny bit of pressure on me for the for the MMU, because I didn't realize I signed up for a workout here, but actually yeah.

Philip Pape 03:07

I mean, coaching this process, man, you're not gonna get away from it. You are you are, I love it. I love it, who also learns from you every day. And I'm really excited because you're you're running a challenge. Now in parallel with our 21 Day Challenge, you're doing a 24 day challenge. And I want to get into the drivers behind that in the process and the steps. But before that, as always, let's go back to principles, right first principles. Why is it why should we care? Why is it important? Why is it necessary to be more than a passive consumer of content? You know, and I ask that seriously, because there are people who listen to content for entertainment, for information for learning, maybe a mix of all three, I mean, I have stuff in my feed that has nothing to do with fitness. It's you know, science fiction, or news or just entertainment stories or true crime? Why is it important to be an active consumer?

Carl Berryman 04:01

Great question. I'm going to play both sides of fence. Number one, it's not if your goal is not expansion. If your goal isn't to get better, then it's not important at all. Like listen to like there's some times say for example, when I'm when I go in the sauna, I don't like like after every one of my workouts, I don't like taking notes on the stuff that I'm listening. So to so that's when I'll listen to like a modern wisdom podcast, right, because I can. While there's a lot of good takeaways there. I'm not going to apply anything specifically to the MMU unless something really jumps out at me in that case, like, one thing that I've learned over the years is that the good ship sticks, so I'll remember it anyways. Or I'll just quickly take a timestamp but I I consume that more so for relaxing purposes. Whereas if I'm listening to your show, you're specifically because I don't listen to every single episode. I go through the ones and it seems like more often than not now. They're very applicable to specific goals. And I think that kind of goes hand in hand with how much more intentionality you've given me with regards to my my physique transformation and in nutrition, but, so to put things into context, it's not important. Unless you are consuming content for the sake of getting better in a specific way, then it's important to make sure that we're going from passive to active.

Philip Pape 05:24

I like that you mentioned, you pick the topics out that are relevant to you. And also notice that they are specific, I occasionally will come across a new podcast that looks interesting. And then I start going through the episodes, and I'm like, What is the purpose of the episode? Like they'll they'll even have a big name guests on this Olympic medalist who experienced all the success and this podcast is all about success. And like, what are they getting at? And the questions are just kind of rambling. And, and so you're right, that is an aspect of being efficient with our time and being intentional is the content itself, not even what you do with it has to be worthwhile content. Right.

Carl Berryman 05:59

And so the thing, the analogy that just came up there is like, you and I, I know you, you phrase it in terms of going from exercise to training, and I like to think of it in terms of going from working out to training. And this just to me, I look at podcasting or sorry, consuming content, no differently. Like when I go into the gym, the next time I go in the gym, I just have to look at my journalist See what I did last time. If for whatever reason I forget, which I won't, but just to confirm, Kay, what is today? Okay, today's legs. Okay, so what am I doing for legs? Okay, well, today is leg day one, because I have a two day option now. So I know I'm doing squats, dads, and ham curls. Like, those are the three exercises I'm doing. I'm not guessing I'm going in specifically to do those things to accomplish a specific target. So when I'm consuming content, relative to old Carl, who would just I'd be the guy who essentially mentally went to the gym and just got on as many machines as I possibly could and pounded out as many reps as I possibly could without really thinking about okay, is this actually taken me where I want to go? Like, it doesn't make any sense for me anyways, and the reason why it didn't make any sense, because I noticed finally, when I had a hardcore wake up call, that all the time I was putting into the gym wasn't doing anything. And then when I found when I looked at that I was like, all this time and literally 10s of 1000s of dollars, I'm investing in coaching and programs and communities like, my life hasn't changed. And yet, had asked me throughout the day, oh, yeah, man, I got this great idea. This is so good. I'm gonna do it. And it's like, no, no, what you're doing isn't working. Like when are you going to stop and wait the fuck up? Like, oh, you know,

Philip Pape 07:46

that's like so many workshops and seminars and Guru like speeches you go to and you're all fired up, you might even get some material and then it just goes on the shelf and you're done two days later is back to normal. Okay, so you're talking about intentionality, I want to I want to address again, how, okay, let me give you my personal experience, I've got a lot of podcasts in my feed, and I try to whittle them out, you know, when they're relevant anymore, but I do notice that some shows will build up and others immediately when the episode comes out, I want to watch I want to listen to it. Right. And that's, that's a form of intentionality, in my opinion, right? Where I know that there are things that are serving me, but it's not as rigorous as what I'm hearing from you, which I'd be curious about, how do you curate what you listen to? And when you listen to it without it becoming? You know, some people might say, Well, I'm not gonna have a calendar for like, what pocket pack has listened to win? How do you do that?

Carl Berryman 08:39

Another awesome question. Phillip, thanks for that.

Philip Pape 08:42

That's what we're here for man. Exactly. Awesome questions.

Carl Berryman 08:47

And mediocre answers. Okay. So how do I curate it? There's a couple different ways. So specifically, when I'm doing my mental muscle ups, like in the morning, that journaling experience, I have to make sure for me that I'm not just spending every single morning focused on purpose, because purpose is the one thing that I can't stop ever thinking about. I just can't like the podcast, the training manual, everything like that, right? So because when I was younger, I hated doing legs at the gym. But I don't want to be one of those guys who's got a jacked upper body and just these ridiculous chicken legs, like you have to train every single muscle group you have to. So that's how I develop intentionality in terms of I'll go back in my journal and I'll just look at all man, you haven't done ironically enough physical health and fitness is the one that gets skipped the most for me. And I say that because my physical health and fitness is probably the aspects that I'm least concerned with at this point. time because of your help. And my intentionality, I've gotten myself to a point where I'm content but not satisfied, because I definitely want to achieve more. Yet at the same time, if I have to allocate my time, which is limited to other areas of the prep work, say, for example, relationships, or my mental and emotional health and fitness, those are going to take a priority. So really, it boils down to what haven't I been training? Or where does it hurt the most? Okay,

Philip Pape 10:38

I like that, because you in your training manual, which I'm showing on the video here for YouTube. This is the Brotherhood boot camp training manual, you've got the prep work, as you call it, the P R EP, right purpose relationships, emotional and physical. And you're saying that you can choose on any given day, which one you're going to focus on. And sometimes you just don't focus on something for a while. Yeah. And maybe you need maybe you need or want to. You also mentioned though, sometimes you do that intentionally because it doesn't need that right now. There's all these things to balance, you only have so much time in the day, you kind of go between them, and maybe one can uplift the other when you know when you focus on it, right? So people listening, like Carl's really good with the analogy of taking the gym and applying it to life. Like he said, the chicken legs versus the strong upper body. Which is like the opposite for women. Right? Big legs. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So all of this aspect of intentionality is really important. And you're wondering why the hell do I have Carl on here to talk about this on a fitness show? Besides, you know, he's, he's one of the best dudes in my life, and you learn a lot from him, is when you're listening to this show, I put out two episodes a week and two short episodes a week. And if you're listening to every single one of those, that's a lot of time commitment. And I thank you for that. But I want you to take action with that. Right. And so I want to understand, Carl, you're now let's drill down a little bit more. With your focus on integrating lessons from podcasts in your life, what are the steps that somebody can take without being overwhelmed? Right now?

Carl Berryman 12:06

Okay, so really, really quickly. Inside the gym, again, I really like to as I'm teaching classes, or working with clients, I really like to use the scale of level 123. and So level one is taken nice and easy. Level two is dial up and you can dial back when you need. And level three is give it everything you got. So as it relates to, sorry, remind me the question so I can make sure I dial this in. Right. The question

Philip Pape 12:35

is, when you are listening to podcasts, how do you take the next step from that to action? Okay, excellent. So

Carl Berryman 12:42

when I first started, like the the training manual that you're holding in your hands, that is the level three, as far as I'm concerned, like, those five questions are level three. So it might be a little bit intense for everybody, because or not everybody for some people because it requires a lot of introspection. And if you're not used to introspection, it's gonna be a bit much. It's like putting too much weight on the bar. So the first level is just kind of contemplation. So you hear something and man, like, just kind of sit there with it for a minute. Like you don't have to do anything, just let it sink in. Because eventually, what I found, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this, is it's going to come back in some way, shape or form. And there'll be something that happens in your life where you can apply what you were contemplating on. But I don't really want to leave it to chance like that. So level two,

Philip Pape 13:32

let's address that though the contemplation when he says it, when you say it comes back, do you mean because you're continuing to consume content that the theme reemerge is because it's relevant to you or something else? You

Carl Berryman 13:43

know, something else? I'm glad you asked for clarification on that. So for example, I can't think of a specific No, I can't think of a specific example. So day one of our challenge like the 24 before 2024 challenge was all about values. Right? So this morning when I'm going for a walk, I actually it was something that happened later in the day. I was in Instagram and I saw Chris Williamson from the modern wisdom podcast post a post that he got 1.5 million subscribers Okay, so instantly that triggered a little bit of an like just insecurity in me like man this guy's so far ahead of me right? So but now since values is top of mind for me, I immediately asked myself the question Question Carl, what do you truly value like what do you really value do you value the number of subscribers or downloads you have? It's like no, what I truly value is the connection I have with the people that I love the most and the video you sent me today and then Alan sense and then Dennis text me as well like, that's what I value. So am I going to feel horrible about something that means nothing to me, in this case, subscribers, or I'm going to feel amazing about what means the most to me. And that's connection with For the guys in my life. So that's what I mean by if if you're just contemplating something, now you're kind of putting it into into your RAS so that you can start keeping an eye open for it more. So that's it. That's level one. And then level two, which is what we're doing in the challenge right now for part of it is just answering a question that's relevant to what you're consuming. So for example, if I hear from your podcast, like the one with Mike Milner, what was that? 126? Oh, geez, no, no, was 123 123. So there were a lot of gems in there. But the one that I that hit me the hardest that I did an MMU on, was this idea of depositing trust money into your bank account, like self trust, right? So now I'm asking myself the question, How can I continuously make deposits into my self trust bank account? And then I'm literally writing down and finding an action step that represents me putting those words that inspired me into action? So That's level two. So that's inspiration? Yes. Okay, level three, the difference between level three or level two, and level three is the difference between exercise and training. So it's all good to hear really, really good stuff and implement it right away. But that's like going to the gym without a plan. It's better than sitting on the couch, but it still might not get you anywhere. And even if it does, you're going to hit a plateau, and you'll probably stay there. So what really helped me go from level two to level three, in other words, exercise to training was making sure that those steps I was taking, were linked to a very specific outcome that I was wanting. So for example, with you. The goal is to gain muscle, right? Like I want to add some muscle. So if I'm listening to your podcast, and I'm like, oh, man, that's a really good idea. I should start tracking my calories. Okay. Yeah, that's good. And everything like that. And this is a really good example, because you know, better than anybody I, I hated tracking calories. And now I love it. The reason why I hated it before is because it wasn't linked up to a specific target. I knew I should do it. I knew there was benefits to it. But it wasn't linked up to something specific that I was measuring. And this is where I used to go wrong big time. I would have goals like I want to get bigger, I want to get stronger, I want to be in better shape. Those aren't goals. Like those are just words. Like what is what does that even mean? Like? What does that look like? So what do I want to look feel and perform? Like if I can define those to the point where I can measure them? Now I'm going from exercising to train? Does that make sense? Makes

Philip Pape 17:53

perfect sense. So you can either contemplate That's level one, right? And one of the things you talk about in your manual and on your show all the time is no level zeros. So at least doing something here is but way better than nothing. It's kind of like going from from zero to 80% Then you go from 80 to 90 and then 90 to 100 level to answering the relevant question getting inspired putting it what you've heard into an answer a question to yourself that you then answer and then level three linking that to specific outcomes that you are measuring. And in your challenge you're doing kind of an escalating approach to get there for the brothers in that because people might feel overwhelmed doing it all on day one just like I told you you need to train need to sleep needy do this this all on day one. Forget that. I'm gonna go back to keto again keto. That's the boogeyman for

Carl Berryman 18:46

the boogey man, I like that I like that the Keto boogeyman

Philip Pape 18:51

it's the trigger. So alright, so you gave a little example there from the episode 123 with Mike Miller, I don't know if you want to dive into more of that. Or another example that's specific to this show. So people listening to me like okay, that's how I can do it. Yeah,

Carl Berryman 19:04

we'll do another we'll do another one. And actually, I'm not going to do so I sent you the three this morning. But I'm going to I'm going to skip the one or I'm going to call an audible on the one from your episode. 100 Do you happen to have that handy what the quote was that I got from you there? I don't remember off hand if you don't take it

Philip Pape 19:23

away. You sent me there this morning with Okay, I

Carl Berryman 19:25

got it Okay, which means I can pull it up right away. Give me two seconds. Yeah, go for is the one with all the photos. Yes, it is so Okay, so I got it right here. Okay, so, this is what Philip said in Episode 100. He said quote, skepticism is not just questioning everything that comes at you. It's questioning everything that comes from you. And quote, I remember specifically when I was in the gym listening to that I had to stop what I was doing, like, Ah, that was gut wrenching. It was a gut wrenching aha moment. So I'll I'll just you know what Yeah, I'm going to call an audible on this one and pull it through the MMU. So the situation that's so the first question in the in the MMU is what is your situation? And essentially, think of that, like you're determining what you're going to be training inside of the gym, like what is, what is the outcome that you're kind of going towards? So you define what the situation is. So if you're going to the gym, oh, I want to increase my bench by 20 pounds. Okay, well, that's the situation. In this case, I'm realizing that I have some stories and some beliefs when it comes to my physique that probably aren't serving me. So what are those beliefs? And how do I change them to ones that are serving me? So that's what I would put as the situation. So

Philip Pape 20:47

let's, let's break that down real quick. So you took a quote that I said, and by the way, this is really cool that you can talk to the person who said the quote, right, because is sometimes the things I will say at a podcast, and I'm sure you've seen this the same, they just come out. It's not like some profound thing. Yep. And it hits somebody else. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to diminish that at all. I'm not going to say, oh, you know, that's I didn't mean anything by it. When you took something from that. That's, that's awesome. So the skeptic skepticism, not at you, but from you. You heard that that's your notable, quotable that the phrase you use. And you turn that into an interpretation for you of limiting beliefs. Yes. Which is extremely profound concept in everything we do to approve. And then you said, Okay, that's the beginning of my inspiration. Right? Yeah.

Carl Berryman 21:35

Right. So that's like, that's where you then link it back to the situation. And side note here, when I do, you can look at it a couple different ways. It's like if you go to the gym, and it's leg day, and you normally like say, for me, it'd be squats, deads. And then like curl, right? Well, let's say all the squat racks are taken. And for whatever reason, there's no Olympic bars, well, I don't want to do leg curls first, for sure. Because like, that's definitely going to limit my squats and my dad's. But at the same time, I don't want to wait half an hour to start my workout. So unfortunately, I'm gonna have to go there. So there's flexibility in the way that you do the exercises. Same thing with this in the mornings, I always start off with the situation, because I want to, I'm lucky that I have access to hundreds of quotes that I've gotten in my podcast that I have readily available on my phone. So I know who the author is. And it's like, Okay, so today, if I'm working on physical health and fitness, I'll just go to all the Philip Pape quotes that I have, and I'm going to pick one that is relevant to whatever I've defined the situation and be. And so then, but if you get your notable, quotable first, chances are it hit you for a reason. And that reason is something that you can probably put in the form of a question. That is a challenge that you were facing. So applying the notable, quotable, and then defining your situation in the form of a question that represents a challenge you're facing. makes it so much easier that you're going to are much more likely that whatever you took from the podcast is going to serve you well.

Philip Pape 23:13

Okay, okay. I like that. So you take a quote that you hear, turn it into a question, I would expand on that. And I know you have as well that it doesn't have to be a verbatim quote, if you hear a general idea concept, some of your paraphrase. Maybe it was half an hour ago on the podcast, and it's been sticking with you. And now you just want to get it out. You don't necessarily have to find the timestamp. We want to make this easy for people to get what you want out of it. And and there you go, okay. Yes. No,

Carl Berryman 23:39

no, that's perfect. Because then in this situation, if I didn't have the timestamp, I'd have been like, Oh, what did Philip say? It would have been something along along the lines of Don't believe everything you think, okay. And then I just write down Don't believe everything you think. And that would be my, quote, unquote, notable, quotable. And so then, the next question inside the MMU is what is your transformation? And this one really, really helped me i? Where did I hear it first? I think I can't remember. I think I read it somewhere, actually, where you hear about this couple, and they're looking to go on vacation. So they go to the airport, and they're talking to a travel agent, and they're like, Oh, well, where do you want to go? They're like, we're not quite sure. It's like, Well, what was the last vacation? You went on? Oh, we went, we went to this place. We went to that place. Well, what did you like about it? Well, you know what? I'm not really sure. But then so he's had enough of this, like just going around and around. So he says, What didn't you like about the vacation? Oh, man, the food wasn't really that good. Oh, the hotel was not that clean, and people can just rattle off what they didn't like about it, right? So he's like, Okay, so now he makes a list. He has a list of all the things that they don't want. So it's like, okay, so then a vacation that you wouldn't be looking for would be one that has great food, one that has pulsar, one that has whatever it is they listed, right, so we just list off like five things. So I found that for me, what really helps to get me clear about what I do want is to first list out what I don't want, which is why What is your transformation, you look for things that you don't want versus for things that you do want. So in this case, this case, if I'm looking to be a skeptic for myself, and keep in mind, I'm just doing this impromptu. If I'm looking to be a skeptic of my own beliefs, what I want to make sure is that I'm not letting my limiting beliefs guide my behavior. So what I would want on the opposite that is I want empowering beliefs to guide my behavior. And then I would keep going down list just saying the opposite of what I don't want to get very clear about what I do want, because now it's going to be dialed in to what I want at the end of the day, right? Yeah, it

Philip Pape 25:36

makes a lot of sense the way you explained it, where, because of psychology, we love to criticize, we love to say we don't like, you know, if everything goes well, we tend to be it's like going to Amazon looking at a product you're gonna see the one star reviews and the five star reviews and five star reviews are probably all bought for one star reviews are the all the honest reviews, and nobody reviews in between, right? So and that just for listeners, right? Again, in your training manual, that is the next section, what is your transformation, and it is just four lines that say don't versus do. And what Carlos said is, if you can't think of what you want to do, think of what you don't like, and then turn it into the opposite of what can serve you.

Carl Berryman 26:17

And so as it relates to our physical body, right, like, for me, if I say, You know what, I don't want my arms to be small, I don't want to have a flat chest, I don't want to not be able to see my six pack. Okay, well, what do I want, I want jacked arms, I want a full chest, I want to rip six pack like it's just, it comes so much quicker. If you're stumbling upon the things that you do want if you first list things that you don't want. So anyways, not to be no

Philip Pape 26:46

and and Carl probably notices me looking down a lot. But again, I'm just admiring his training manual, as we go through today, like cover fields, I like the way they come. That's nice. It's but it's structured. You know, it's like you've got it all listed in here and the whole first like 30 pages, explain this whole process and give you a bunch of examples. So alright, so that's the transformation. You've got your situation, your notable quotable, your transformation. And then what's next?

Carl Berryman 27:13

The next one is what is your inspiration? And what I found with this one, and this actually ties back to what you said. Because what you said is that sometimes you say things on your podcast that become aha moments for somebody else that weren't necessarily what you meant. So what I found for me, is that the the fourth question, what is your inspiration that allows you to make this really personal and customized to you? So it's where you're essentially, what I do is, right before I'm about to write out, what is my inspiration? I go back, and I just really quickly review. Okay, what was the situation? What's the notable, quotable, and what's the things that I don't do want? And then I'm trying really to come up with an answer for what is the situation, and I'm just kind of word vomiting on the page to let my own inner wisdom come through. Like what does this mean, to me, it might be a place where I let out some more frustrations about the way that in this case, the way that my limiting beliefs have been holding me back. Why I need to let them go, how it's not serving me. So this is kind of a free for all. But it's where you you kind of bring everything together and put it into context before the final and what I would say is the most important step so

Philip Pape 28:22

that makes sense. So you've taken this these pieces, you're now putting them together in freeform, it kind of reminds me of the classic classic like journal I know I know. You don't necessarily want to use the word but that's like to me is kind of putting it together which is nice because then you get you get the brain dump away from the all the initial information you wrote down. You're synthesizing it right? It's kind of like when you have all your notes and you need to write a paper or do a podcast now you synthesizing it together and then what comes after that?

Carl Berryman 28:50

So before what comes after that, though, I just to give an example. I want to demo whatever is down for this one specifically in today's MMU. So what is your inspiration? I put what if I'm completely wrong? I love and hate this question, because at first glance who wants to be wrong, yet isn't being wrong? Typically the first step to being right. So what do I want to be right about as it relates to my body? And what does right look and feel like both tangibly and intangibly? So now I'm just I'm really just asking myself more questions to help me get clear on the next step, which is, what is your integration? And this one? Oh, man, if I were to show you the different pieces and versions of the training manual, that's this is this is the one that's given me the most headaches because like I've been doing this since 2017. And it for such a long time. I was doing the I was doing it used to be called implementation. I was doing the implementation, implementation implementation, but nothing was really changing. And there would be times where I didn't do what I was supposed to do. You won't, I wouldn't realize it until the next morning, I opened up the training mountains. Um, and yeah, that's right. I was supposed to do this. And I just, I just forgot. So there's five extremely critical steps there. Because the question, what is your integration, the whole, the whole idea behind that is to get you to take one small, specific and simple action the next 24 hours, whatever that is. So the first three of those five little check, like literally checkboxes in the training manual that you want to check off to make sure you're doing the right thing. There you go. Thank you, Philip. That's awesome. So are small, specific and simple. But then I added to, that made a huge difference number one was scheduled. So I had to, like literally set an alarm in my phone to remind me when I was going to take the action that I come up with, and then shared. So I shared I might change in the next version of the manual to either say spot so that I can ask somebody for a spot with that, or shout out because if you were the one who inspired me with your notable quotable, I want to give you a shout out for helped me take this action.

Philip Pape 31:11

So that's the that's the community slash accountability slash brotherhood aspect of that.

Carl Berryman 31:17

Yeah, you know what you're gonna count. I'm not a huge fan of that word. Accountability

Philip Pape 31:21

beyond Okay. Support Community says, you know, whatever you want to call it friends. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I liked the scheduled, right, because I think I don't know if any of this was inspired by the SMART acronym. Which specific, measurable action or whatever it is. There's a million versions of measurable actual, realistically bound. Bound.

Carl Berryman 31:40

Yeah. time bound, even realistic. Like,

Philip Pape 31:44

I know, that's realistic.

Carl Berryman 31:46

That's why yeah, anyways,

Philip Pape 31:48

the schedule part is important, though, because sometimes that comes up a lot with I know, with my clients where it's just add a reminder to your phone like that, if you do nothing else, just put this reminder in your phone. And like you said, it might be a reminder to remind yourself or something like it may not even be a thing itself. Because you don't know when you're gonna do that thing necessarily, right? Yeah.

32:08

My name is Tony from a strength lifter in my 40s Thank you to Phil and his Wits, & Weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training. Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros, and chemical compounds and hormones and all that and he's continuously learning. And that's what I like about Phil, he's got a great sense of humor. He's very relaxed, very easy to talk to. One of the greatest things about Phil, in my view is that he practices what he preaches. He also works out with barbells, he trains heavy, you notice that he has made but he trains heavy. So if you talk with him about getting in better shape, eating better, he's probably going to give you some good advice. And I would strongly recommend you talk with him, and they'll help you out. Thanks.

Carl Berryman 32:53

Yeah, another piece of that though, the that I got from James clears book atomic habits. And that's why the first part of the integration is your I Am statement. So I found for me that linking behaviors to the type of person I know myself or that I want to be, and he talks about this and atomic habits is extremely powerful for getting us to follow through on the things that we have difficulty following through on. So linking it up to an identity statement. So in this case, my identity, my identity statement for physical health and fitness because I have one or two for each area of prep work that are just standards that when I say them, and I think them they generated a very, very empowering feeling in me. And one of my I am statements for physical health and fitness fitness is I am one jacked, motherfucker. And as soon as I as soon as I read that, it's like, yeah, whatever this action is, it's getting done.

Philip Pape 33:56

That's like a vision board, man. You know, it's like, hey, Arnold, and like Ronnie, and all these guys on the vision board, like that's cool, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. self identity. Yes. Yeah,

Carl Berryman 34:09

the integration is easily the the most important part in terms of making sure that Listen, you're listening to brilliant guys. Like, Philip, let's, let's put their words to some actual action. And the reason why I switched it from implementation to integration is because I wanted to get myself to start thinking about rather than just like, one hit wonder steps, because that's what I was doing all the time. I like to think about little, like the atomic habits thing where little tiny habits that I can start developing into practices,

Philip Pape 34:39

right. Rather than are part of your new routine. Yeah. Right. So say for extended comfort zone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Carl Berryman 34:45

Like the other day when Derek had that whole thing on gratitude, right. So one of the things that I this was just a conversation with a friend of mine that when I had him on my podcast, and he mentioned how gratitude for him is the first step to self awareness. Somebody Okay, I'm going to start practicing gratitude a bit more about how am I going to do it. So now, since I'm going for walks everyday things to fill up, I have two different types of walks, I have a walk with the block, which is, the block is my inner enemy. Let's call him that. So I give him some airtime and let him come out and tell me why he's doing, what he's doing, and what he needs from me. And then I do the same thing with gratitude. So I'll go for a gratitude walk where it's like, Hey, what is the one thing I'm really going to be grateful for during this walk and just giving that some emotionality? So what what are the practices that I can potentially make into an integration that way it is actually integrated into my life, and therefore has a much more likely chance of sticking?

Philip Pape 35:44

Okay, so then I have a follow up on that. And it's actually two parts. One is, how do you avoid getting overwhelmed because you're doing this every day, and now you're coming up with a new action every day, where those would stack up? If they were all new habits every single day, five days, seven days a week, you're starting something new? And you could you could just imagine these layering on top of each other. There's this overwhelming set of things you're doing. If they're not one hit wonders. That's, that's one. And then the other piece is how do you close the loop? You know, you've written it down. How do you hold yourself? I guess I will use the word accountable, but it's self accountability to that.

Carl Berryman 36:19

Okay, are you gonna remember both those questions? Because yes,

Philip Pape 36:22

I will. Outside. That's what media does, right to the politicians. Questions and once Yeah, okay.

Carl Berryman 36:30

So the first question is, how do you prevent overwhelm? Yeah, how do you prevent Okay, so let's say in the gym, right now, there are so many different principles that I could be using during my workouts, right? Like, I could be super setting, I could be doing five by fives, I could be doing German volume training, I could be doing long range partials, which I am right now. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pick one, and then I really have to decide, okay, how long am I going to test this for? Because I don't know if it's going to work, but I want to test it. If I'm coming upon new stuff all the time, I then have to compare it to say K. Number one, have I given my previous thing enough time to actually see if this works? If these answer's no, then I just discard it. And if the answer is yes, it's like, Okay, we're gonna move on to this something new or do I really, really like long range partials? I'm getting great results. So there's no need to change it. So how long have I been doing it? Have I given enough time to test and then another really, really simple way thing that helped me? Oh, man, you should have seen my notes before, whenever I was doing. Let's say, I'm listening to your podcast. And it's just notable, quotable, after notable cordial, after notable quote a while I'm like, You know what, as I'm listening to this podcast, I'm limiting myself to four. That is it. So then once those four are done, every other piece of content that you say that really triggers something in me and inspires me, I now have to compare it against one of the other four to see which one I'm going to ditch because I've maxed myself, I've made my overwhelm limit, four, which means if anything else comes after the four, it's either replacing one of the four, or it's not making it to the list, just like exercises, like how many exercises do I have time for in the gym today? Well, I'm going to be there for 45 minutes. I know, given how I'm doing it. Three exercises good for me. But what if I want to do five? Too bad? You've got time for three? Yeah.

Philip Pape 38:23

Let's get more specific, though. If if you're doing your prep work every day in the journal, yeah. And you're writing down a integration action, because you have the statement here. I am committed to doing something by some time. Yep. Right. And and generally, I'm guessing like, it's what you said it's within 24 hours. Yep. Is that action? Something you can do once? Or is it sometimes an action that then becomes a repeated action? It's both. Okay. And the ones that repeat, repeated actions couldn't get overwhelmed every day by adding a new one? Or do you sometimes repeat the one you did yesterday? And if I'm overthinking this, let me know.

Carl Berryman 39:00

You are not overthinking us. This is a brilliant question. And it takes us into IBI principle number one, right quality versus quantity. So a lot of the times when I'm doing it's like it, so when I'm doing the MMU Now I've done it so many times, it's like, if you're doing a squat, for example, I found one of the things that really helps me add weight to my squat is if I focus on at the bottom of the squat, forcing my knees out, like really thinking about forcing my knees out in order to get up faster. Like that's just a, that's just a cue that works for me, doesn't have to work for everybody. But what I found with the MMU is, is at some point in time, those cues, you're not gonna have to think about them, they're going to become unconscious, because you've done them so many times. So now when I'm going into that fifth question, what is your integration? I'm automatically thinking of quality over quantity. So I'm probably going to ask myself a question that will represent me doing something that I'm already doing with a higher level of quality. Okay, so that way you're not really piling on more and more things to do. You're going for depth instead of with like

Philip Pape 40:11

it. Okay. Yeah, that's actually a really good answer. And, you know, I might, I might throw that in our group later as like inspiration, right as like, okay, that's my action.

Carl Berryman 40:25

And then the second question, what was it again?

Philip Pape 40:26

The self accountability. So now you have that the next day comes along. What if you didn't do it? Like, there's a chance you didn't do it? So yeah, what does that? Yeah, yep. Oh, okay.

Carl Berryman 40:35

So there's a couple things that happened there. Number one, is I scheduled it. So in my phone, I have a standard alarm that just says MMU. And then I change it to whatever time I've designated during my morning routine that that is gonna be the time that I do my MMU. But sometimes stuff comes up, and I can't get to it. So there's a couple different options that I do. Number three, if you think about it, number one, well, if I didn't do it, maybe it wasn't important enough to be done. So then I'm really gonna evaluate if I needed to do it. Maybe I just got lazy, maybe, maybe I got busy. So now it's like, okay, well, do I need to put this on top of the thing that I that I'm planning on doing today. So again, now it's like going back to that thing of where I have four notes, but now it's really two. So but what I usually do is most of the things that I come up with in terms of integration steps don't take very long at all. And there are things that I can do in really a few minutes. So what I do is, every morning, I go to my previous pages, and I don't have this in your current training manual, but at the top where it says PRP, I'm rating myself out of three in every area of prep work to give myself a daily score. Okay, so then I do that before I start a new MMU. So then if I'm going back and was like, Ah, I didn't do that thing for physical health. Now, it's like, did it need to be done? No. Okay, we'll move on. Yes, it needed to be done. So say, for example, your latest not your latest episode, but Episode 126, where he talked about the importance of carbs and making sure that I'm not going to like, I'm not ripping down my muscle and using it as fuel, essentially, that's an important one for me. So if I didn't do yesterday's MMU, and today's MMU was based on that from your podcast, guess what? Yesterday's, it's gone. I'm forgetting about it. Because focusing on my carbs, which is essentially what I did this morning, really long story short with that MMU, I realized I'm not thinking macro factor, I'm hitting my calories, I'm hitting my protein by hitting my fat, but I'm not hitting carbs. And I've noticed that it's really affecting my energy throughout the day. So what I came up with long story short for the integration, is going into macro factor today in advance making sure that my day hits my my carb targets. And then, at the end of the day, and I set alarm for this, is I'm going to give myself a rating for my energy as it relates to my carbs. So I'm going to write down what was your energy out of three? What was level three in the evening? Okay, well, what was your carb count? Well, your carb was 367. And that's what it's supposed to be. Okay. Awesome. So now, over a couple of weeks time, I'm going to be able to see, does the does the amount of carbs that I have actually affect my energy in the evening? Because that's what I want to know. So I'm going to do that for a couple of weeks.

Philip Pape 43:28

Everyone listening should do that. Really good. This integration

Carl Berryman 43:33

step, how much? How much time does it take me to write down my energy level and compare it to my carbs? Like, that's 30 seconds. So a lot of these steps? Sure, there can be a lot of them. But they'll take like 1530 seconds, and some of them are dynamic.

Philip Pape 43:46

And that's, that's actually part of the answer right? There is just keep them short and simple, because you aren't gonna get overwhelmed if it's like, make a list of 100 Blah, blah, blah, and then do this and do this and do that. It's funny, because I, I am a little bit well, I'm organized in a different way. But like, I will keep emails unread. In my inbox, I have a very small inbox, I'm a zero inbox type of person. I like to just take care of things, or file them away if it's just information or leave them unread if I'm going to get them done. But those lower they get on the list that I realized that they must not be that important. And eventually it's like, they go. Yeah, so same kind of thing. You just never know. Because in the moment, you're all excited, you're like, Yeah, I got to do this thing. And then you realize, you know, time is an interesting moderator.

Carl Berryman 44:28

I do that with a lot of your text messages. Actually. I'll read them and I'm like, this isn't important. I'll make it unread. And then I just completely delete it all together. So

Philip Pape 44:37

that explains it explains a few things. All right. So if I haven't lost the audience with getting too much technical about this, hopefully not. I think it's pretty cool approach no matter what like, what do you have Karl's journal The principles are, you know, time tested and you've referenced things that you've borrowed from right like atomic habits and behavioral psychology and all this stuff. You know, Carl's The man reached out if you have questions about this, I want to get into some follow ups on this outside of the specific application, for example, doing this process, is there something that has really surprised you, you know, over the years after listening and then going through this process?

Carl Berryman 45:15

Great question. And it already makes me think that I can't believe I haven't thought of an answer in advance to what your last question is going to be. But yeah, the thing that surprised me, and this may sound like it's not gonna sound like a broken record to your audience, but it sounds like a broken record to me. One of the reasons I first started doing this journaling process, if you will, was because when I hit rock bottom back at the end of 2020, beginning 2021, I really wanted to evaluate and figure what the lead domino in my life was, as it related to the prep work. So is it my physical health or fitness? Isn't my emotional health and fitness, my sense of purpose? Like, what is it that if I take care of it, it's going to take care of everything else. And it made sense to me that it was my emotional health and fitness, because I'm like, Man, if I can, if I can become the master of rather than the slave of my emotions. And despite how I feel, I can take the actions that I know I need to take. That, to me is like the lead Domino. So I followed that for a long time. And nothing changed. In fact, it got worse, because I was putting so much pressure on myself. So then I just asked myself that, again, at that point in time, I was being skeptical of my own beliefs. So saying, okay, Carl, what is the thing? I kind of pulled a George Costanza, in that I did the opposite. So if you don't know who George Costanza is and what the opposite is, then just stop listening if you're not in the Seinfeld, because I don't want to talk to you. Anyways, so relationships was the bottom of the prep work for me, like the bottom, hence why Jenny Lee and I had our three months separation, and just Yeah, I had you asked me if our relationships were important. Mavenlink Yeah, they are. But if you look at my actions, they're not because I'm canceling on friends. I'm not returning messages. I'm not returning calls. I'm not spending time with Jenny Lee. So I said, Okay, well, what would happen if I did the opposite? What if I made relationships like the lead Domino? And wouldn't you know, that changed? Everything? Absolutely. Everything. So what surprised me. And this has become a fundamental belief of mine is that if I wanted to improve any area of my life, whether it was my body, my sense of purpose, and especially my mental, emotional health, It all depended on the quality of the relationships I have with the people I cared the most about. I was not expecting that. And

Philip Pape 47:47

that has carried forward into your mission today. I mean, it shines in everything you do is connecting, connecting people to each other and connecting with them. So if someone listening feels like they are struggling, and they're like, why, like your idea, but I'm overwhelmed, and I'm not sure where to start, and maybe it's a mental health, maybe it's something else, like you said, emotion sounded like the obvious root cause because it was tied into mental health, but something else was holding it back. Even if you had, quote, unquote, leveled up your emotion as best you could. How can someone figure that out? Well,

Carl Berryman 48:19

to me, it's like, I didn't figure out what the squat, that's my knee that if I focus on doing my knees out and tell, I'm gonna say this was within the last 18 months, and I've been a personal trainer for 12 years. So it's going to be a matter of taking in testing, taking and testing, taking and testing. So consuming something that works or that you think is going to work and testing it out. The hard part is, you got to figure out okay, how long do I need to give this but it's like a diet, right? So if people are going to try, say, for example, shred tilbyr. Okay, well, if people are going to do that, you got to stick with it for the two weeks to see if it actually works. You can't you can't do shred Tober for a week, and you can't do it for six weeks, you got to do it for the specified amount of time. So you got to figure out okay, well, if I think this is really going to help me, what's a realistic amount of time that's, I need to give this to see if it actually works. And more importantly, this is one of the this is one of the questions. It's called the Miracle questions from the book switch, which is a phenomenal book on habits. miracle question that therapists would use with their clients. Say, for example, if they're an addict, and or an alcoholic, say, Hey, you work you wake up tomorrow, and your problem is 100% gone and you're like, you're just a new person. What would be the first sign that you know it's gone? So when it comes to our goals, and changing them from goals to targets, if we can get clear about what the first sign is that what we're doing is working, then we'll be able to really tell if we know what we're doing is working. So for example, like I've got a client who had to come decision with him the other day about macro factor he went in, and he changed his goals to weight loss because the scale wasn't going down. And we had a very interesting conversation. So he changed it back. But I said, dude, like, what are you measuring? Like, what specifically are you measuring? He's like, Well, I'm measuring my waist circumference and a measuring how my clothes fit. Like, I want to lose weight, because and then I asked them why? Because I want my clothes to fit better. I want to feel stronger. Like, do your clothes fit better right now? Yeah, they're looser. Do you feel stronger right now? And do we have the numbers and the evidence to support that? Yes. So then why are you changing your fucking targets? Because he lost sight of what his targets actually work? Well,

Philip Pape 50:40

that's okay. I'm processing this, because I'm trying to think of what the people who are listening, you just gave them a few different ways to approach this one one way sounds like first of all, the prep work has has different areas, right. And if you can identify the different areas of your life, at least spending time on all of them, to some extent, would help versus neglecting one completely. Right that that comes to mind. And then the second thing is testing, measuring, and then going by the things that are improving, that would have improved if you knew the problem was gone. Yeah. So I had a client recently who long term client. And it's similar situation, you said, like she knew what to do, and wasn't doing it. And it was showing the results, right. And as soon as she, for example, started eating more, whatever it was, in the next day, hey, feeling great. I was scared about regaining weight, for example, but I'm not anymore. Because I realized that what's more important is this other thing, and I was, you know, way worse off with that. And I'm not going into details here, but it's good, Carl. Okay, so

Carl Berryman 51:49

one thing I want to add there, that shirt really, really important. Yeah, we don't give ourselves enough credit when it comes to looking at our past experience. So for me in terms of training, for example, I, I knew what I like to do for training before I was as consistent as I am now. And I deviated from that. So when I had my wake up call, I'm like, Carl, just what do you what do you like to do for training that, you know, gets you results? And so that's why I'm doing the style that I do now. So if we can get quiet and reflect on once upon a time, when we were experiencing the opposite of that, which we don't want to be experiencing right now and put the pieces of the puzzle together of what was different than its compared to now hence, the second or the third question, don't want versus do want it, it becomes pretty clear that you already know the answers.

Philip Pape 52:36

So that's interesting. That brings up the also the idea of if you are testing and measuring and taking action, and things are not going as planned, right, what what how you learn from that experience. I mean, that's that's what comes to mind to me as well, because I'm sure you've done your prep work, and you did some integration. And it's not. It's not giving you what you want. Right, right. Yeah. And, yeah, yeah, no, no, go ahead. No, no, no, you go ahead. Just

Carl Berryman 53:05

that, to me. This is where the 8020 rule really applies. Like, I know, my results are going to come from 20% of the work. But typically speaking, if I'm not getting results, from the integration steps that I've been dedicating my time and energy to doing, there's really about 20% of my excuses, or reasons that are going to be why. And one of them is going to be you haven't been doing it long enough. Plain and simple. So say, for example, my podcast, right, like, I don't have the quote unquote, amount of followers and downloads that I want right now. And why is that? Oh, well, there's 1,000,001 reasons. But the main reason that I am choosing to entertain, I just haven't been doing it. I haven't gotten in the reps yet. I need to get more reps. I am convinced because this is what so many successful people in front of me have told me is that you just need to get in more reps. So I am committed to getting in the reps. So if if ever anything's not working, it typically boils down to have I really given it a chance. Sure. I mean,

Philip Pape 54:18

we talked about consistency, and it's become a buzzword. But really, it should be replaced with commitment. Yeah. Commitment. Yeah, right. Getting doing something for repeated basis over time. Not perfectly and not necessarily every day, continuously over time. You can miss a podcast episode, but you do the next 10 years. You're still golden. As soon as you drop off that's that's where the challenge comes in. All right, one or two more things you got time. A couple couple minutes. Yeah, okay. You and I had a I think was a conversation over text not long ago about not being reactionary or conversely being reacting too quickly when you hear something on a podcast and be like, Oh, that blows my mind and you know, it just opened my mind and changed my mind. Whatever, you probably know what I'm talking about. Right? Almost like, sometimes the what might be a notable, quotable is really just a soundbite that just sounds great in the moment. Yeah. And then you and you're like, you want to take action on it, but maybe you shouldn't maybe step back and like, just wait and sit with it. So what are your thoughts on that?

Carl Berryman 55:23

It because, okay, so I'm trying to think of who quoted this on my podcast? Oh,

Philip Pape 55:32

it was actually I think we're not saying yeah, weird, or, or was it the awareness and either last step is not awareness or whatever. You know, I'll

Carl Berryman 55:41

summarize it right now. But di talked about when you know, your values, it gets really, it's very easy to say yes or no to things. So if you know specifically, what your targets are in a specific area, say for example, your physique, okay, well, I know what I'm eating today and macro factor already, because it's programmed in there. And I've left some room because it's Friday, so I'm probably going to have a cocktail. So there's room in there for that. But if something comes up, and I want to Jenny Lee wants to go somewhere, something's like, Ah, it's not part of the plan right now. Like, it's not macro factor, we're going to do this. So when I'm crystal clear on what my macros are, it's easy for me to say no, I can't have that. So what if instead of macros, whatever area that prep work you're talking about, you are so crystal clear on the behaviors that are taking you to where you want to go, that you do only those behaviors. So say, for example, with my podcast, right, like the podcast, I'm not gonna say it's my life. But in a way it kind of is, like it kind of is. So I know, actually, let me put it this way. In my phone, I have an app called done. It's a free app, it's a habit tracker. And inside of there, I've established what my big lifts are, for each area, the prep work. So what is my squat, my bench, my dead? For my purpose? What's my squat, my bench, my dead for my relationships? I forgot, I have one thing for each area that prep work. But I know what those three lifts are for me. So those are the things I'm focused on on a daily basis, I have to hit those things. If I get other things in Sure, that's fine. But I don't need to because I am crystal clear on what is most important. And the less clarity you have on what's most important to like, the more likely you are to do that, which is not important. Okay, I get that.

Philip Pape 57:36

So what about the situation where you haven't been able to crystallize that yet? Because there's so there's so many angles, and potential, quote, unquote, facts and evidence and things and I'll give you I'll be very concrete, somebody, one of my followers, reached out by email and said, You know, I really trust your opinion. But um, here are 10 things that are all different and conflicting, that I'm hearing from influencers, and this doctor and this person, this person about all sorts of things, whatever carbs and keto listen, and they all conflict. And it's like, she, you know, she felt that a lot of them were trustworthy sources. And she's not sure which one to go with. And that's just an example. Like, I gave her clarity. Give me my strong opinion, on which way to go. She's like, Alright, cool, I'm good. But when people are just not sure, from the from day one, they haven't gotten to that point, like I was for 20 years, and the health and fitness space, just didn't know what to do. How do you get that clarity? Right? That's like the premise. Yeah. Okay. So

Carl Berryman 58:40

I'll address two things. The first one, this is what I would say to Carl. Okay, so I'm not necessarily going to say this to your listeners. But I would be sharp. And for me, I would really appreciate it if somebody if I came to you. And I was listing all these things, I would really appreciate because I know myself well enough that this is what I'm doing. I'd appreciate if you said Carl, why do you keep using this as a as an excuse to not take action? Like why are you so afraid to fail? Because I know if I'm const if I'm skipping from one thing to the other? It's because I'm afraid of failure. If I'm if I'm making excuses and finding all these things is too. Now I know which one I don't want to do. It's because I'm just uncomfortable with uncertainty. So I would ask myself, Carl, when are you going to allow yourself to be okay with uncertainty, because we don't know which one of these is going to work like Philips, a brilliant guy, we can take his advice. It might not work for you. But at some point in time, and that time is right fucking now. You're gonna have to make a decision to take action. So ask yourself which one of these feels the best and then be okay. If it doesn't work out, like cool.

Philip Pape 59:50

That's good. Yeah, I agree. But

Carl Berryman 59:54

then the clerical piece of it right? Well, wait, wait

Philip Pape 59:57

so and like you said, if it doesn't work Get out. So all it really comes down to is take action on something, do it test, see if it goes if it doesn't off the list go to the next thing. Yeah. Right. I mean, I mean, granted, you know, you can get complicated and say like certain things are going to be more out there than others and blah, blah, blah. But I can tell when I when I got to 2020. And I started and I found like starting strength and muscle strength pyramids and all of that. And I'm like, Oh, this this new way to lift for me. I also didn't know if it would work. But I'm like, it seems like it should based on what all these people are saying like, these are smart folks. I'm just going to do it. And it worked. And so I stuck with it. Anyway, continue.

Carl Berryman 1:00:35

Know that and that's that's exactly how it goes to. It's like, it's interesting. I was having a conversation with a brother of ours yesterday. And it it had to do with relationships. And what do you do when there's a recurring conflict in your relationship? Like, when do you sweep things under the rug? And when you say, Kay, I know, we don't want to have this conversation, but we need to have it. And the bottom line is, how much does it hurt? Like, how much does the pain of continuing down the path you're going on supersede the pain of taking action to potentially change your trajectory? And the answer to that question will give you the answer that you need. But you don't want to hear. Because we all know we like if you're contemplating taking action on something, you're already at the point where you should have taken action a long time ago. And that's like, that's the way that I look at it's like, Oh, should I have done this? Yeah, of course, you should have done it sooner. So like, they like we always hear better late than never. But let's, let's not even make never an option. Like Jake action.

Philip Pape 1:01:41

Coleman. Good. No, I just wanted to put it out there for people this this is this whole episode, this whole discussion is about that. It's about taking that action. And the only way you do it is identify do it. Identify, do it and then test it. Alright, cool. So you know, you know, you could ask yourself the next question, which is, is Is there anything else you wanted me to ask? That you did cover? Ask?

Carl Berryman 1:02:02

Yeah, I you know, it's funny, as we were talking, I had a good one in my mind. And I should have written it down because I forgot it. Here's a question that, yeah, this is this is coming to me right now. So I'm not sure where this is gonna go. But I'm curious what I would have said, if you asked me, What is the biggest regret you have right now as it relates to your health and fitness? The biggest regret right now in year half of this? Okay. Yeah. And the answer was in my head, before I was even done the sentence, I would have gotten a coach a lot sooner, I would have gotten a coach a lot sooner. Because the transformations that you and again, I'm not Philip didn't sponsor me or anything. This is just what came up the transformations I've been able to make on a multitude of levels as a result of our our friendship, the bond that we have, but then your coaching and your willingness to press me compassionately, have changed, not just my physique. But my relationship with food, my relationship with fitness, like food I, I do food prep almost every single day now, like every day, like it's all I'll do food prep before I go to the gym. And not like schedule wise. But if I have to pick one or the other, I'll do my food prep. And that was like pulling teeth before. But now as a result of tracking my calories, I realized just how important that is. But sure, I can see that my relationship with food and my relationship with fitness is so much better. And I'm enjoying those. And that is not a small feat at all. Because even being a trainer, I would have to drag my ass to the gym a lot of the time now I can't wait to go. But like all that has translated into my relationship with you and my relationship with Jenny Lee specifically, like, I've got Jenny Liam macro factor, she's a lot more conscious about what we're eating. And as a result of me feeling and looking a lot better. That's translated into me being a better podcaster and a better partner for Jenny Lee. So it's stuff that I would tell myself I could have done on my own before, but if I could have done it on my own, I would have done it on my own. So it wasn't until I got a coach.

Philip Pape 1:04:20

It means a lot to me, man. And, and for folks listening. I think they hear this message a lot. And don't take action on it. Do you agree?

Carl Berryman 1:04:30

There's a lot of people like yeah, because I'm the same way like how long did it start me to take me to start doing the shit that you told me to do forever and a day ago and that I already knew I needed to do but then also from from other areas of life as well like I know and there's still places like I could I could be investing way more in a in a business coach. I could be investing way more. Yeah, it would never hurt to have a relationship. Coach like Jalen I really good so I don't know if that sucks. cost benefit ratio would be there. But yeah, if you're constantly on a treadmill to nowhere, and you don't have a coach, the coach is going to tell you to get your ass off the treadmill. And let me show you the real way to walk. So, yeah, yeah,

Philip Pape 1:05:15

it's true. And I think we can't deny that having other people of some kind in our life that are supportive, is kind of where it starts. Right and you have to the coach is that's what a brother is. That's what a friend a really good friend who, who isn't sabotaging you, right, who's positive and with you on that is, that's what a online community could be too. So, you know, because sometimes people hear all their that they are selling a coach and I can't afford a coach. First of all, I would say like, you'll find a way when it comes to money to do things that are the most important in life, and that are going to change your life compared to all the other junk we spending things money on. But besides the money is just don't do it on your own is really the key message. Exactly. Don't do it on your own. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, this has been a pleasure it was every time we meet on this show. It's like it's a very different kind of feel and topic that I think is super valuable to the listener. And I hope everyone listening will take Karl's words and, and actions and thoughts to heart. I want you to reach out to him. I'm definitely going to include Carl's IG, which is at Ignite the impact because remember that the podcast is, hold on. Oh, man, no, because your IG is different than your podcast. So

1:06:28

tell it tell the audience the difference. And so we can be clear, inspired by impact as the podcast is the podcast. I tried to get inspired by impact from my IG and it was taken so it's ignite the impact because when

Philip Pape 1:06:40

I went to IG, you I started typing inspired. I'm like, just type Carl and I

Carl Berryman 1:06:45

should I should have come up with this idea like 10 years ago.

Philip Pape 1:06:47

No worries.

Carl Berryman 1:06:48

Is that where you want people to reach you from this? Yeah, definitely reach out on there. Or you know, what would be kind of cool to see too. I know, at least on Spotify, they have that area where you can like it pops up and you can leave some feedback right there. Right. Like when you're listening to the q&a. Yeah, yeah, q&a. Thanks. So yeah, just ask a question. And if you want, like, I've got the MMU blueprints, if anybody's interested in that, like it's a digital download, just shoot me a message and I'll send it to you. It doesn't cost anything. So we really we have to we have a link for that. Yeah. I'll send you the link for that. Yep. All right. Because people want to know where do I get this this incredible format that they can guide guide them to this exact process? The physical training manual?

Philip Pape 1:07:27

are that the five physical you said you have a digital one? Yeah, yeah, that way I just give it away for free. I don't care so yeah, for sure. So we'll include that we include Reggie will include the link to the podcast as always, you guys know where to find me where to find Carl and man. Thanks again for coming on.

Carl Berryman 1:07:42

Thank you, my man. This was beautiful. As always.

Philip Pape 1:07:46

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Philip Pape 12/5/23 Philip Pape 12/5/23

Ep 128: My Favorite Gym Things (7 Gifts Under $100)

Are you ready with your gifts for this holiday season? Whether you’re shopping for a fitness enthusiast or someone just starting their fitness journey, I have you covered.

Today, I’m answering a question I get all the time about what equipment is most useful in your gym bag or your home gym, so rather than focus on the big stuff like a power rack or barbell, I put together a budget-friendly list for you just in time for the holidays or any occasion where you’re looking for a gym-related gift or toy to buy.

Stick around for the entire episode because I might have one bonus idea near the end.

Also, I’m not including affiliate links or anything like that because this is more about the equipment itself, the benefits, and how and why you’d use them. But if you want to know what I use in the gym or ideas for you or someone you like, just hit me up on IG @witsandweights or by email at philip@witsandweights.com.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

(2:58) Dip belt (dips, calf-raises, belt squats)
(5:32) Lifting straps (deadlifts, rows, shrugs, pull-ups)
(9:38) Any power rack attachments [multiple in one]
(14:21) 12” box for box squats, step-ups, and others
(16:27) Microplates (BB and DB types)
(19:19) Deadlift jack
(21:15) Wrist wraps (wear them properly!)
(24:15) BONUS
(26:59) Outro

Episode resources:

Say hi to Philip on IG @witsandweights
Email at philip@witsandweights.com

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

stick around for the entire episode because, in addition to the seven gift ideas, I might just have one more bonus idea near the end has a little twist on it and you'll see what I mean when I get there. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 127 Five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid what to do instead, we talked about why women should think twice before jumping right into a fat loss phase, the five most common fat loss mistakes women make and how to set yourself up for a successful healthy and sustainable fat loss phase. Today for Episode 128, which is going to be a fun one. It's titled My favorite gym things seven gifts under $100. I'm answering a question that I get all the time about what equipment is most useful in your gym bag or your home gym for maybe a gift idea or just something you want to buy for yourself. So rather than focus on the big stuff like a power rack or barbell, which I talked about many moons ago in one of my earliest episodes about setting up your home gym. For today, I put together a budget friendly list for you just in time for the holidays, or any occasion where you're looking for a gym related gift or toy to buy. And I'm wearing my Super Mario shirt that my girls got for me. Because when I was six back in the mid 80s. That was one of the most exciting gifts I got was a Nintendo Entertainment System. For those of you who are into games at all. I'm still a gamer. It's one of the fun things I do for fun on the side to relieve stress, but definitely getting in the spirit of gift giving right now. So stick around for the entire episode because in addition to the seven gift ideas, I might just have one more bonus idea near the end has a little twist on it. And you'll see what I mean when I get there. Also, I'm not including affiliate links, or anything like that in my show notes because this is more about the equipment itself. What are the benefits, how and why you would use this equipment. These are the most useful things that I found among the most useful things in my gym. If you do want to know what I personally use exact brands and Amazon links and stuff like that, or other brands that I use for ideas that you want for yourself or someone who you like or even don't like just hit me up on IG at Wits & Weights or by email at Philip at wits & weights.com all those links are always in the show notes. Alright, let's not waste any more time. Let's get into it. Here are my favorite gym things seven gifts under $100. Gift number one, a dip belt. What I'm talking about here is a what looks like a canvas or sometimes leather strap or belt that you can put about around your waist and it will have some way to cinch it up. And then hanging from that belt will be either a chain or some sort of strap with a hook that you can put into a plate and hang that plate from your body. And so it's called a dip belt because it's designed to add weight while you're doing dips, or dips are the most effective exercises you can have in your routine for your both for your chest and your triceps, there's different angles you can hit them with. And doing loaded dips is a fantastic way to progress the movement when you're working in say the anywhere from eight to 15 rep range and you want to push your press for example is really good at pushing the overhead press for a lot of people when you get plateaued on that movement. So dips are fantastic.

Philip Pape 03:54

I regularly have them in my routine. And you can't go wrong with a dip belt. Now be careful especially for the guys, the the cheaper belts, they might be effective. But sometimes they'll have hooks or chains that hang in the wrong places if you know what I mean. And you got to be careful to avoid pinching in that in that area. But even for the ladies, you know you gotta watch out how it interacts with your clothes if it pinches your clothes and stuff like that. My brother got me one and again, I'm not including specific links, but you can find ones designed like this that the belt straps tight together. And then there's a long Canvas strap with a hook that connects to the other end and so that strap goes into the plate and there's really no chance of pinching whatsoever with that design. So I love it. A dip belt can also be used for things like calf raises. Yeah, if you want to get creative, this is where this stuff I love multi uses for these things. You can hang a bunch of weight from your body and use a power rack and just a calf block or box or whatever wedges and do calf raises with that weight hanging down from you You could even bend forward and do like a donkey Caffrey style movement with a dip belt. The other thing that dip belt is good for is belt squats at home. So if you have two platforms that you can stand on on either under either foot and hang the weight between, you can go down into a squat and have it loaded in a different way in a way that doesn't give you as much low back strain as a typical back squat. Okay, so that's number one dip belt. See, I told you this would be useful episode, it's not just telling you what to get, it's telling you how you can use them. Okay, gift number two lifting straps, and I'm talking about deadlifting straps. Now, there are different types out there, there, everyone has an opinion. When I first started, I got the ones that were figure eight shaped, but quickly found those were not the most effective. So I then moved to the kind that has a single loop. Now you can get the single loop deadlift straps, or you can go even all the way to the kind of hardcore, just a pure strap. And then you have to learn how to wrap it around your hand, which is a little tricky first few times. But there's plenty of videos on that. And honestly, if you're just kind of the average home gym goer, let's say or even if you go to the gym, the kind with a loop can work perfectly well. The way I like to use the lifting straps, and then I'll tell you what I use them on is I will send them to my non dominant hand first and use my dominant hand tighten it, and then tighten it around the bar. And then I'll use my dominant hand and tighten it around the bar, looping the strap with the same hand. So it's hard to describe on a podcast, I know I have video here too, but I'm not going to show it show that to you. You can just reach out to me or again, there's plenty of videos to show you how to use them. If you buy one from like Amazon, for example, there's usually videos that show you how to use a lifting strap. But why I like lifting straps. And again, some people you will hear I think even like the mind pump guys, for example, will say like Yeah, you never really need to use them. I liked them for a few things. First, I liked them for deadlifts when there's a lot of volume involved. So I'm a big fan of not using lifting straps when you're doing your novice linear progression when you're deadlifting for the first time, and trying to build that grip strength. And keep doing that as much as you can like to this day when I do very heavy deadlifts and lower reps, I will do at least one or two sets without the straps. But if I get into like testing my one RM, I might throw the straps on. The other time I would throw on straps is high volume work. So I'm doing if I'm doing you know, 10 sets of four or something like that. I'm not as concerned about the grip strength as just getting in the volume for the deadlift for my legs for my back and so on. So there's no shame in using them. And if they help you avoid the bottleneck of your grip, use them. Now, the caveat to this is, I also encourage you to learn the hook grip. Some people like an alternate grip as well, but I don't like the asymmetry of that. So for me, I like the hook grip, the front facing hook grip for deadlifts, but doing it the right way. And there's a special way to do that. I think I put a YouTube video about this like a couple of years back, but it involves having your thumb out at kind of a parallel to the bar as opposed to up and more across the bar. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent has nothing to do with the straps themselves. I'm just saying that these are the things that you don't want to just give up and use straps too early. Okay? So lifting straps are good for deadlifts. When you're doing high volume or you know on your second, third, fourth set, whatever. They're also good for movements like barbell rows, for example, anything where you're lifting a heavy bar and you don't want the grip to be the bottleneck, you're actually trying to get back work done. And you don't care about the grip, you're just trying to get all those reps in and really focus on the mind muscle connection and contracting that back and getting the squeeze and, you know, pausing at the top for a split second things like that, that can get bogged down or be harder to do when you're just trying to hold on to the bar. shrugs are another great example both with a barbell and dumbbells or trap bar or whatever you're using for shrugs where you just take the grip out of the equation, you're you're trying to load up as much as you can for those traps. And then the other. The other place I use lifting straps all the time is pull ups. Okay, I don't use them for chin ups, which is the supinated grip palm facing you. I use them for pull ups which is the pronated grip with the palms out right where you just have a wide grip and you're pulling yourself up, classic pull up. I like lifting straps there again, so that the grip doesn't give out before my back is fatigued. I want to fatigue my back when I'm doing those. So there you go. Number two was lifting straps. Number three is this is kind of a multiple gifts in one idea, any power rack attachment. So this is generally going to refer to a home gym. I suspect if you go to a regular gym where you know what the rack dimensions are and they allow you to bring in some sort of attachment great, but this is mainly for a home Jim. And what I'm thinking about here are things like J hooks. So a J hook is the hook that holds the bar when you rack the bar. And, you know, when I first got my power rack, I had one pair that wasn't enough because I wanted to have a couple bars on at a time or I wanted to leave hooks in place. So I didn't have to kind of figure out where they go. And so I might have two or three pairs of hooks all over my rack. So those are J hooks, and there's different designs of those, there's the kind that are just like a small piece jutting out and then they have ones that have like a big back piece against the rack. So when you slam it into the rack, you're not scraping the racks, metal, you're putting it right on the hook, etc. So J hooks, a landmine attachment which can go on the bottom of your rack, right your rack is this big, heavy thing so it can hold the landmine in place. And, you know, a landmine is where you can put the barbell in the in this cylinder down on the floor and then it pivots in all different directions. So you can do things like landmine presses or landmine rows, landmine calf raises whatever. Okay, spotter arms are another great power rack attachment if you if you have say, you know spotter arms or spotter pins depending right like pins are good, because they go kind of inside the rack but spotter arms can be put outside the rack, giving you more versatility. Again, for safety, you want to have spotter arms, whenever you don't have a human spotter and there's an opportunity, you might miss a rep and you need to set the weight down. And then another one I love is dip attachments, you can get either the separate attachments, those are the ones I have that I like because when I say separate I mean there's there's one for the right one for the left, and they kind of go at a diagonal angle so that you can pick the width of your dip grip, because everybody has different anthropometry, right like your fit your body is different. So like a smaller a petite female might need to go up to where it's really close together. And then really big guy might need to go where it's farther apart. So I like that now, a less flexible version of a dip attachment is called a matador. And that's a single attachment where it comes out at a diagonal, and you can do your dips inside the diagonal, I find that it doesn't have quite as much width outward for me. But that's just me. So this was number three is pretty much any attachment that goes into power rack. The caveat here is you got to understand the size of your rack and the spacing of the holes. So for example, I have a small two inch by two inch, right, I wish I had a bigger one or rogue or something. But it's the one I've had since I started lifting and it works just fine. But it's two inch by two it so I need to buy two inch attachments. And if I buy one that isn't made by the manufacturer of my rack, the hole spacing may not work. And so some attachments, it doesn't matter. Like it just has one peg that goes in one hole, then it doesn't matter how it spaced others though, might have two pegs, for example. And then of course, it won't fit if it's not designed for that space. So if you have a well made rack that has their own brand of attachments, that's always a good approach. So think ahead when you get your rack but otherwise there's there's plenty of generic attachments that will still work with most racks. So I think yeah, that's those are the ones I can pick up for that.

Philip Pape 13:17

Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com and click on coaching or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. Gift number four is getting a 12 inch plyo box plyo meaning plyometrics meaning jumping, but this is not for plyometrics. I'm not going back to CrossFit here, a 12 inch box I like 12 inches and not 18 inches, for example because 12 inches for most people will allow you to get into a below parallel squat when you're doing box squats. So if you haven't progressed to that point, if let's say you're brand new and you have mobility issues and you're using boxes to progress to your squat, and you're at a high box now and you're eventually going to get to a low box. The 12 inch box is the ultimate goal. right to get you below parallel, and it's also low enough that if you need it a little bit higher, you can always put it on a 45 pound plate, for example, or put it on a mat to bring it up a little bit. But if it's too high, if you buy too high of a box, you can't lower it, right. So definitely get that 12 inch box, I have one that's metal, and it has like a rough textured, kind of reminds me of like sandpaper or stucco or it's very nice, high friction, textured top, which is you know, no, no slip top. And I use it for box squats. I use it for step ups. So like if you do barbell or dumbbell step ups, you could do it for CAP music for calf raises. So think of a step, but now you're up, you know, decently high height. So you've you can go deep in the stretch at the bottom. And then you could use it as a platform to get up onto things. So if you if you're kind of short, and you need to get up to the pull up bar, you could use it to get yourself set up or to get up and do you know hanging leg raises, or I don't know anything, just use it as a step, right. So I really love having a box. Now if you get a second box, you could then do the belt squats that I talked about with your dip belt. Okay, I actually don't even have a second box, I keep thinking I should just get another box. So I have that option. So maybe that's that's a gift that I will be asking for here. All right, so that's the 12 inch plyo box. And I like the trapezoid shape. By the way, I feel like it's just more structurally sturdy, like it's not going to tip over. Alright, gift number five is microplates Oh, these are super useful, okay, microplates, both for barbells. And dumbbells. Even if you go to a gym, there's a decent chance they will not have these, they might have the two and a half pound plates, which are def a definite must, okay, in any gym so that you can go up by five pounds. But what I'm talking about are the little plates that are in increments of a quarter a half, three quarters and one usually maybe also one and a quarter pounds. So that you can get you know, when you double it, you get, say a two pound jump or two and a half pound jump or a one pound jump. So it's a way to increment and progress on a barbell in much smaller increments. That's the barbell microplates. And those are simple. They just look like you know, smaller disks, small plates with the two inch hole in the middle dumbbell microplates. There are a lot of different types of those. I've talked about these wax I don't know if I have on the podcast, I did a video long time ago. But you could get either the magnetic type that will go on a cast iron dumbbells and they just snap on, or the ones I like are the thereby micro gains. And I have no affiliation. And I think Gaines has a z there. These discs that look they remind you of like Pac Man, but they actually don't really have as open of a mouth as Pac Man. And they snap right on to the handle of the dumbbell. And so you could get two pairs of one and a quarter pound each. And if you do the math, one and a quarter plus one and a quarter is two and a half pounds. Now you can take a dumbbell add two of those plates and you get an increase of two and a half pounds. Since in the gym, most dumbbells go five pounds at a time, right? You go from 10 to 15 to 20 to 25. Well, if you are going from 10 pound dumbbells to 15 pound dumbbells, that's a 50% increase. That's a lot. Even though you know you can say oh, they're only 10 pound dumbbells, but it's all relative. So adding those microplates will let you go up from 10 to 12 and a half, and then eventually to 15. And they snap right on. And if you have adjustable dumbbells, some people find that when you put these microplates on the handle on the inside of the weights, it's too tight of a squeeze for your hand. Like my wife tried this out and she was fine with it because she has smaller hands, but for me it like squeezes both sides of my hand. The trick there is to simply snap the microplates on to an empty part of where the discs are. So again, we're talking adjustable dumbbells, you're going to have like empty slots when you take the dumbbell out. Unless you're at the max weight in which case you're probably not going to need the microplates you can use you can snap it right on to the to the spindle if that makes sense. Where were the one of the empty slots is that's the way I've done it. So microplates can be hugely helpful in not making excuses about why you can't progress your weight. Okay, number six is a deadlift Jack now I think I heard about this first from Juji MUFA right crazy guy you don't know who that is look him up but anyway I think and the one he used was this fancy name brand one that looks like a hook and everything I was cheap I just went again online and just like googled it and found a cheap deadlift Jack whatever works folks right like it perfect is always the enemy of the good. So if you want the whiz bang more expensive one and it's a little more convenient, go for it. If you've got the money great if not any deadlift Jack will work the way a deadlift Jack works. It's very simple. You can position it under the barbell and just push it flip it up in kind of angle it up just like a jack like as if you're jacking the car up to change the tire, but it's not hydraulic or anything, it's just a simple wedge, if you will, that's at an angle that when it's under the bar the bars just above the ground. And now you can put the plates on the bar without having to shimmy them on, or, you know, all the fun dances that we do trying to get a plate on the bar for deadlift, we're like scooching, and holding it with one arm and kind of jimmying it on. This just holds it up in the air, you know, few more inches clears it from the ground, so you can slide plates on. And then you can bloop. Like, you know, drop the jack now, you know, get your foot out of the way, drop the track down, do it on the other side, same thing. And then when you're all done now when you've got your four or five or 495 pounds, right, because you've been progressing your deadlift, and you've got 440 fives on each side, you can just stick that Jack in again, and then slide him right off without all the the crazy dancing. Okay, so deadlift Jack, you might find you might not have ever thought of it before, but it can be an extremely useful piece of equipment, anytime you have to load up a heavy barbell on the ground. Okay, give number seven. Now this is the last gift, but then I didn't I hinted before, I'm probably gonna have a little bonus gift in here. Gift number seven is wrist wraps. So this is different from lifting straps when we're lifting straps. I don't know if I thoroughly described what the heck they were earlier. But lifting straps allow you to put straps around a bar and have a better grip, you know, with the bar. So you can avoid slippage wrist wraps, they actually wrap around your wrist just like they sound and most of them have a little loop that goes on your thumb. And then you can start to wrap it around. Now the biggest mistake people make and I made this myself for a long time is they will wrap it around their wrist and you're like wasn't at the point, well, where on your wrist are you wrapping it, most people will start to wrap it where the base of their hand meets their wrist, you actually want to wrap it where part of the wrap is over the base of your palm. So it should clamp practically clamp up your thumb to your hand when you wrap it nice and tight. Where it's like a little cast so that it's connecting your hand to your wrist. And they cannot pick they cannot bend like you don't want to be able to bend your hand. That's the whole point of wrist wraps, wrist wraps, keep your wrist neutral beach from your you know your fingers all the way through to your forearm. So when you wrap them, and again, you could probably Google this, but there might be a lot of people that are telling you the wrong way to do it, you want to you want to wrap nice and tight up a lot higher than you think. So that it kind of closes in your thumb against your hand. And now you've got these leg, okay, you can move your fingers, we can't really move your thumb type of deal. And so what that lets you do is when you get under the bar for a bench press or an overhead press, let's say or even dumbbell bench presses, you know, you you keep a nice neutral angle, so that all the load is transferred through your arm to where it needs to go. Instead of extending your wrists like a lot of people mistakenly do. And now you're putting force, you're creating a moment arm that makes the lift much harder, increases chance of injury, it puts the load in the wrong place. Okay,

Philip Pape 23:17

so the neutral wrist with wrist straps really help you kind of get a feel for okay, this is how I do it. And then you're going to find like in the bench press and overhead press that your fingernails are now facing more forward. That's one of the cues I learned early on when I was overhead pressing is fingernails, looking at the wall, like fingernails staring at the wall. If they're staring at the ceiling, your your wrist is probably to extend it. For some people this is going to feel like the bar is going to like maybe slip forward but there's a sweet spot where it's sitting right on the base of your palm and transferring that load where it needs to be. So it's wrist wraps can help with that proprioception as they call it. Like I said that right? And I still use them. I like the feel of them. I like to feel like it's just the solid structure. And I feel like I can get just a tiny bit more weight on the bar that way. Okay, so that's number seven. So we had number one dip belt, number two lifting straps, number three power rack attachments number 412 inch box number five microplates number six, deadlift, Jack, number seven wrist wraps. And now I have a bonus number eight for you and it is a food scale. You're like really had to do it right you had to go there a food scale only because only to imply that nutrition is always a big part of your strategy here when it comes to strength, muscle health, fitness, physique, body composition, all of it. And we just never want to forget the fact that what we put in our mouth has a huge impact on our results in our performance. And if you don't have a Food Scale. And you've been listening to me and you know the importance of tracking and awareness. What are you waiting for this is the perfect time get it as a gift. They run the gamut in terms of price, he gets super duper cheap Home Depot food scales, and you get big fancy ones that have removable displays and special bowls and whatever, you know, have fun with it, right like experiment get to get three, I have three food scales, I have a big fancy one. I have a little one for kind of the the table to the side, like the snack table, just for convenience. And then I have a tiny travel food scale, which I rarely use, I'll be honest, but if I ever want to pop it in my jacket or pocket, it's there if I need to use it. So food scale is the bonus item for your gym. Because again, the gym, you know only means so much when you are not fueling properly and when you are fueling properly, then your results go through the roof. Alright, I hope you enjoyed the list that I put together for you. And as always, you can reach out to me anytime at any of the links in the show notes if you have questions about these. Any other questions for the podcast? I do occasional q&a episodes. Or if you just want to chat about what's going on with your health and fitness journey. I love meeting people I love having honest authentic conversations. So if you just want to bounce ideas off me if you want to share what you're going through, I'm all ears. I'm here for you anytime you need it. In our next episode 129 Why passively consuming my podcast is getting you nowhere with Carl Berryman. Carl is back for his third appearance, this time to talk about how to implement the content you're consuming to integrate it into your life. Rather than being a bystander and constantly binging podcast without taking action and you know who you are. So many of us do that. He'll share his mental muscle up formula that I will be using myself over the next few weeks. So you can do this yourself. As always stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong

Philip Pape 12/1/23 Philip Pape 12/1/23

Ep 127: 5 Fat Loss Mistakes Women Need to Avoid (What To Do Instead)

Are you struggling to achieve your fat loss goals? You might be making one of these common mistakes! Today, we will go over why females should think twice before jumping right into a fat loss phase, the 5 most common fat loss mistakes women make, and how to set yourself up for a successful, healthy, and sustainable fat loss phase.

Are you struggling to achieve your fat loss goals? You might be making one of these common mistakes!

Today, we will go over why females should think twice before jumping right into a fat loss phase, the 5 most common fat loss mistakes women make, and how to set yourself up for a successful, healthy, and sustainable fat loss phase.

Two-thirds of my clients are female, and most of them are over 35, putting them squarely in the peri- and post-menopause phases where hormones become an even more sensitive factor during fat loss, though it doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker.

I wanted to create this episode to focus specifically on aspects like low energy availability, carbs, and even the discomfort of change that comes up most frequently with my female clients and listeners.

You can grab my totally free guide called “FEMALE FAT LOSS” now available HERE or at witsandweights.com/free. It’s a nicely organized summary of all the topics discussed on today’s show as a reminder of what’s important, mistakes to avoid, and how to approach successful fat loss.

Episode summary:

In this podcast episode, we delve into the world of sustainable fat loss, specifically tailored for women. Many women fall prey to the common misconception that drastic calorie cuts and quick-fix diets are the answer to weight loss. We're here to debunk this myth and show that a sustainable approach to nutrition is the key to successful fat loss.

The journey to sustainable fat loss starts with a body recomp phase, focusing on muscle building and boosting metabolism before fat loss even begins. This counters the typical dieting pitfalls many fall into, opting for quick fixes rather than embracing healthy change.

A crucial point we cover is the danger of extreme calorie restriction. While it may seem logical that less food equates to weight loss, extreme calorie restriction can do more harm than good. Instead, we guide you towards a healthier approach, focusing on foods high in nutrient density.

Micronutrient deficiencies are a common problem during a fat loss journey. Incorporating a range of nutrient-dense foods into your diet can help combat this issue. But it's not just about what you eat; addressing potential underlying health issues, like hormone imbalances, is crucial before embarking on any fat loss plans.

Hormones play a vital role in fat loss, and we dedicate a significant portion of the episode to this topic. The Macro Factor App, which we discuss, is an excellent tool to help you track your food intake and optimize hormone production. In addition to using tech aids, we explore natural approaches to hormone optimization, such as stress reduction and improved sleep quality.

We offer a free guide to female fat loss, to help you redefine your relationship with food and set the stage for successful, sustainable fat loss. This guide complements the information provided in the podcast, making the process of sustainable fat loss easier to understand and implement.

Remember, the path to successful fat loss has nothing to do with drastic calorie cuts and more to do with a sustainable approach to nutrition!

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:47] Low energy availability
[8:01] Training fasted
[12:28] The 5 nutrition mistakes women make before a fat loss phase
[26:06] How to have a successful fat loss phase
[42:55] Hormonal imbalances can cause fat loss plateaus
[45:34] Proper food tracking
[49:19] Get a coach or join the community
[53:27] Outro

Episode resources:

Female Fat Loss Guide (free)
Jeremiah Bair's podcast: Living Lean

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

This is maybe the most important for getting a setup for fat loss for everybody really, but females especially, is doing a body recon phase, doing a primer phase doing a prep phase, a pre diet, maintenance phase, whatever you want to call it, spending about four to eight weeks before fat loss on a few key behaviors and routines or habits or systems, whatever you want to call them. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights

Philip Pape 00:51

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 126 more carbs, more muscle why low carb and keto are keeping you skinny fat. I discussed all the reasons a moderate to high carb diet is essential. If your goal is to build muscle get stronger, improve your body composition get leaner and make fat loss easier. Today, as promised, for episode 127 Five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid what to do instead, we will go over why females in particular should think twice before jumping right into a fat loss phase. The five most common fat loss mistakes women make and how to set yourself up for a successful healthy and sustainable fat loss phase. Now two thirds of my clients are female. Most of them are over 35 Putting them squarely in the Peri and post menopause phases where hormones become an even more sensitive factor during fat loss, though they do not have to be a deal breaker. And I wanted to create this episode to focus specifically on aspects like low energy availability, carbs, and even the discomfort of change that come up most frequently with my female clients and listeners. Last thing before I jump in, I did create a new and totally free guide called female fat loss now available at the link in my show notes or at wits & weights.com/free. It's a nicely organized summary of all the topics discussed on today's show. As a reminder of what's most important, what mistakes to avoid and how to approach successful fat loss. Again, just click the link in my show notes, or go to wits & weights.com/free, to download the female fat loss guide. With that, let's get into today's topic five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid and what to do instead losing body fat. It's often seen as an aesthetic goal. But we have to understand that for women especially there are additional considerations here regarding your health, your hormones, your performance that needs to be factored in, I'm all for going after the physique that you want the dream body, whatever it is. And at the end of the day, we all want to have a healthy level of body fat. We want to look and feel our best. But we do have to understand the unique considerations that come into play. Now every individual is different regardless. But there are some differences between men and women. I wanted to focus exclusively on women today. So approaching fat loss with realistic expectations. And a plan. An appropriate plan is really the key here. And before I dive into these, I do want to give a shout out and give credit words do I want to give a shout out to Jeremiah bear of the living lien podcast for inspiring this topic because he had Brandon to cruise on who by the way, was on the show twice before. And they did a female fat loss series it was something like six or seven episodes very detailed if you want to go check those out. And I definitely borrowed generously from some of the key points, as well as my own experience and working with female clients. But I wanted to give a shout out to them. And I'll include a link to that. I'll include a link to Jeremiah's podcast in this episode. And I'll go ahead and tag him. So he knows, give him a shout out. All right, let's start by talking about how fat loss especially when done aggressively affects women in particular, and why you should avoid just jumping into a fat loss phase before you're ready. We want to be ready for fat loss. So it's not just another crash diet. So there's really three big things here that I want to talk about. The first is that females you know women are more susceptible to the negative effects of low energy availability and calorie restriction. This is probably the biggest one. Many women are walking around for years and years and years in a state of low energy availability. I just talked to a client this morning on her check in a longer term client who she told me you know After, after she was done with her fat loss phase and she went back to maintenance. I was asking her to eat a little bit more than that, like, not just exactly at maintenance, but a little bit more, because I felt like her body needed to recover, and wasn't getting the opportunity to do that. And she's like, Well, I really want to maintain my results, I don't want to gain too much weight, I'm just going to kind of stick around maintenance for a while I said, Okay, you can do that. But just just understand that I think you'll get better performance and quicker recovery, if you just kind of pop above that threshold for a bit. And recently, she did that. And lo and behold, everything just started to improve, right? Her performance, her hormones, her even her menstrual cycle, her sleep, stress, just the psychology of it, everything. And you may be walking around in a state of low energy availability, not even knowing it thinking that, okay, because I've maintained my body weight, I'm eating what I need. No, it could be that your body is simply in that purgatory, and that no man's land in between, you know, full energy availability and a diet where you're losing weight, we're actually what's happening is you are in a very, very, very, very slight deficit. And so it doesn't even look like you're, you're losing weight. And every time you get a pop on the scale, because of a little extra carbs, you freak out, right, tell me this doesn't sound like a familiar story. So being in that state of low energy availability, it's going to cause a perpetual disruption to your hormones, it can cause issues with your cycle, it can decrease your bone mineral density, everything gets downregulated. Because your body says, well, you're giving me 90% Of what I need, but not 100%. So guess what, I'm gonna dock everything by 10%. And I might dock certain things more than others. And you have a higher risk, the deeper you go have what they call red s right, which is relative energy deficiency syndrome. In all honesty, that tends to be in the more extreme cases, when you're severely in a deficit, I'm just talking about being in an unintentional deficit constantly. That's the big thing. So if you are in that state, if you feel like things are not right, things are foggy. Maybe it's my hormones, maybe it's because of my age, whatever reason you tell yourself, and you're doing a lot of other things, right, like your strength training, for example, and keeping the stress moderate, it could simply be that you're not eating enough. And I know, I know, it's a simple thing. And you've probably heard people say, Well, you need to reverse diet and eat more food. I'm not a fan of reverse dieting, I'm a fan of knowing exactly where your metabolism stands, and then eating just slightly above that level. So that you have all the energy you need, and you feel great and you perform great, but you don't really gain any weight. And if you do gain weight, it's going to be the most infinitesimal amount of weight over many, many, many, many months, which is easy to cut off in a very short period of time with a fat loss phase. Okay, so that's the first one is understanding that you may be in low energy availability, and that females are even more susceptible to this because of your hormonal situation relative to men. The second thing is training fasted. All right, a lot of your training fasted. I'm going to suggest that you try training with some food in your stomach and seeing what the difference is, I'm not going to say oh, it's better. We're gonna say let you decide that for yourself. But training, fasted does a number of things, it increases your cortisol, believe it or not, it increases your cortisol, okay, it increases muscle breakdown, it can impair your workout performance and recovery, you definitely have the risk of other hormonal issues down the road if you train fasted for a long time, and training intensely while fast, it seems to exacerbate these effects. So before you even go to a fat loss phase, I would want you to evaluate how you train when you train and the timing of your food. Sometimes when people ask me about meal timing, they're looking to optimize and I'll tell them, you know, that's not as important as getting enough protein and getting enough food. But in other cases, if you're for example, training fasted and you literally are just not eating around your workout, that can have a much bigger effect. Like even if you aren't getting enough food and protein the rest of the day, the training fasted piece, especially for females can be detrimental and backfire before you've even gone into a fat loss phase. So I want you to strongly consider that it might be more beneficial to have a banana and a protein shake an hour before you workout, right? It doesn't have to be anything huge. It can be a bowl of oatmeal, right? Mainly protein and carbs and little to no fat and you're good. Um, the third thing that I wanted to mention here with regards to why women would avoid aggressive fat loss or going into a fat loss phase before you're ready, is and this is maybe the most important for getting a setup for fat loss for at for everybody really but females especially is doing a body recon phase, doing a primer phase doing a prep phase, a pre diet, maintenance phase, whatever you want to call it. I'm spending about four to eight weeks before fat loss on a few key behaviors and routines or habits or systems, whatever you want to call them. And they include the following number one, building some muscle. Now this could be building muscle and body recomp phase, or this could be spending a longer period of time actually building muscle, even in a surplus. But, but best case, or worst case, doing it at maintenance calories in what we call a recomp. And for those of you interested, we are doing the let me see what does this episode come out, it might already be happening, but we're doing our body recomp challenge in December. But regardless, that's just like a kickstart. For three weeks, a real recon phase should take anywhere from like four to eight weeks, sometimes longer. And that's definitely the phase that I take my clients through first, before we do a fat loss phase. You're trying to address the metabolic issues, the hormonal issues, the the lack of fuel, the things like fasted training, you want to make sure you're lifting heavy that you're lifting the right number of days per week for you and not doing too much, not doing too much cardio, making sure you're getting enough steps, making sure you're hydrated, making sure you're getting enough protein. It's all of those things, right. And I don't mean to overwhelm you by saying like, you've got to fix 20 things all at once. What I'm trying to suggest here is taking that four to eight weeks to slowly add in one to three of these tiny habits a week so that by the end of the 40 weeks, you're in a great state for fat loss, rather than jumping right in, they want no I gotta lose a fat, what do I do? Oh, calorie deficit, let's do it. And then all these things are way off where they need to be. The fat loss phase is not going to be successful. And it's just another crash diet. Just give me another yo yo diet. All right. There's things like improving your relationship with food, thinking of food as a fuel that serves you that aligns with your goals that that helps your performance. Eating for satiety, like all of all of these skills that we've developed in a body recomp, or pre fat loss phase are extremely important to address before we go on to fat loss. Okay, so I just wanted to lay all that out first, just so you know that this is a long game, that we want to take this the right way we want to do it sustainably. And if you work with me as a coach, or if you're one of my challengers or even in the Wits, & Weights Facebook community, you'll see these themes come up time and again. And we can help you get to that point we can put in place some of those foundational habits. All right. So now I want to cover the five big nutrition mistakes that most women make. So you can avoid these when you're setting up your fat loss phase. Now, we all love odd numbers. We like fives, we like lists. Could I have done seven? Could I have done three? Could I have done 10? Of course. But I spent some time on this. And I think these five come up the most often? Or could be the most helpful. All right. So you know beyond what we just talked about, like not taking this overly aggressive approach and just jumping in? What are the common pitfalls that women run into? All right. The first one is really about behavior, psychology, it's getting stuck in old habits and being unwilling to change and accept the discomfort that is inevitable. When you're going after a transformation like this. Yes, this is the long game. Yes, this is your life. But you also have been stuck for years doing something that hasn't worked. And even when it quote unquote, worked in the short term like you lost a bunch of weight, you gain it back, didn't you? And when you lost the weight, did you have the physique and the health that you wanted? I'm pretty sure the answer is no, you probably lost muscle. Right? Doing it the right way is going to get you the results. But it requires a little bit of discomfort. And so I actually talked recently in the podcast about getting about pushing your comfort zone into the expanded comfort zone and being willing to change. But you don't have to change so much that it feels overwhelming, right? None of these diets you've done in the past work. They don't work for a reason. They don't work because they're not sustainable. They're not flexible. They don't work with you and your lifestyle. Wouldn't you rather live in the identity of a person who enjoys her life and enjoys what you eat, and never feels guilty about it? Right? And so accepting that change is inevitable, but also realizing that the cost of that change is far less. In fact, it's a basement bargain, compared to the cost of not changing and continuing to do what you've always done. So for some reason, especially, there's a difference I see between men and women when it comes to this kind of thing. I you know, not sure what it is. And I'm not going to dissect that because every individual is different even within that spectrum. But I think this is maybe the number one pitfall is just not being willing to accept change. Now if you're working with a coach like if you work with me, you've already shown that you are open until that kind of change and are willing to listen and an experiment, I've seen many people who don't work with a coach, or they're looking for a quick out, or the answer, right? They'll send me a question like, What do I do for this? I just want the answer. And then even if I give them a suggestion or an answer, it's like, well, I don't want to do this. Because this, this, this. And there's always excuses, right? If you are making excuses, step back and ask yourself, whether it's an excuse, or just a reason not to change. Okay, two different things. All right. So that's the first one. All right, I told you tough love today, a little bit of tough love. Because we all we all want to hear this sometimes. And we know we know what it takes. And it's, it's not that hard, it just takes a little bit of a little bit of change and discomfort. Alright, number two, the second big pitfall or mistake is the yo yo dieting, which is yo yo dieting on the large scale weekend dieting on a short scale. And either way, it's a form of a Yo yo, it's an up and down pattern. And this up and down pattern results in what I mentioned earlier, have low energy availability. So it's this metabolic whiplash, where you think that when you're on the downside of it, right, when you're quote, unquote, in the diet, the dial is turned on, I'm going all after I'm using my discipline and willpower, you think that, okay, now I'm going to be losing the fat or the weight or whatever. And it might happen in the short term, and then you gain it back and then have the short term gain back and then you hit a plateau. And you constantly feel like you're dieting, and yet you get nowhere, and things get worse and your body composition gets worse, and you get weaker, and the hormones get worse and the sleep gets worse and sleep gets worse. Does this sound familiar? Does this sound familiar? And so on the short scale, what might be happening is very simple. You may be Monday through Friday, sticking to that diet, Saturday, off the rails, and I'm using terms that are kind of the standard conventional terms. And when you are taking the right approach to fat loss, and you're taking a sustainable approach, no longer are you going to have, you know, sticking to it, stayin on track, getting off track off the wagon, none of that, because it's not so rigid. But what you've done before is rigid. And so Monday through Friday, you're like a machine, you're rigid, you're perfect, quote unquote. And then Saturday, I'm not going to track today, I'm going to go out with my friends, I'm going to have just everything right, the alcohol, the appetizers, the deserts. And before you know it, you've over consumed by 2000 calories. But because you're not tracking, you don't know what your metabolism is, you don't even know what your exact, you know, weekly calories need to be to get where you want to go. You're not in touch with their hunger signals, because you eat like a monk during the week. And then you eat like, you know, a queen or whatever. I was trying to think of like, kind of a gluttonous I was thinking of a king really. But then I thought, Okay, this is about women. So what's the analogy, but you get what I'm trying to say. So that happens on a weekly basis. And then on a monthly or yearly basis, you're doing these like strict diets for three months. And then you're just ravenous for carbs and sugar and fats and you over consume and you binge and you get it all back. And before long, you weigh more than you did before and more of it as fat than muscle. And the irony, I guess it's ironic is that you have been in a low energy state the vast majority of that time, and yet it still hasn't gotten you anywhere. Because the net energy balance has not been favorable. But the majority of the days you've been suffering in this low energy state. Right? Does that make sense? So when you're hearing this, you're like, Oh, you're speaking to me, like, I'm constantly feeling like I'm dieting and I'm not making progress is because you're not actually in a consistent energy deficit for fat loss. You're probably not doing a lot of the other things to him, but that's okay. We'll talk about that. And you're offsetting those.

Philip Pape 18:52

Any progress you do have with the yo yo aspect of it. So we're gonna stop doing that. But that's number two. Number three, cutting calories too aggressively. Very simple. Most of these diets whether it's keto, carnivore or whatever, even Weight Watchers doesn't matter. Are the really bad ones like Octavia Octavia? Yeah. Really rely on the simple energy balance equation, right calories in calories out. And yeah, you're gonna lose weight if you just starve yourself. But you're gonna get a lot worse than that you're gonna lose a bunch of muscle, you're going to dramatically slow down your metabolism. You're gonna ramp up your cortisol and get super stressed, you're gonna shoot down your performance in the gym, you're not even be able to build and hit your lifts. You're not going to feel like going to the gym, right? And you're gonna do what's called a crash diet. You're gonna lose muscle, you're gonna get hungry, you're gonna binge it all back. Same idea. It's kind of tied in with the yo yo, yo yo dieting. And so this is why we want to understand our calorie intake. We want to understand our metabolism. And we want to understand how much weight we are losing every week like body fat and Body Weight wise, so that we can stay within a reasonable rate of loss, which you've may have heard me say before, but I'll just reiterate is 1% of your body weight per week, that's the maximum you would want to lose. And most of these crash diets, you'll, you'll, you'll lose 40 pounds in a month, which just do the math and based on whatever you weighed before, that's probably like, you know, three or 4% of your body weight a week, it's insane. You're losing so much muscle doing that, actually, a lot of what you're losing initially is just fluid, but then you're losing a bunch of muscle, it's not what we want. Okay, number four, mistake, mistake number four, avoiding or restricting carbs. Yes, you know, I was gonna say this. So number, the earlier things we talked about related to just restriction overall, and, you know, not being willing to change cutting calories too aggressively. And I'm not even mentioned protein, as one of the five Believe it or not, believe it or not, I'm not, because for some reason, that ends up being something a lot of women get, find out pretty quickly that they need to do and then they start to increase it. If they are focused on it. We're talking about carbs. Okay, and I talked all about this on the last episode, so I'm not going to rehash everything. But by eating too few carbs, you are impairing your, your performance, you are impairing your muscle growth. Yes, carbs are needed for muscle growth, not just protein. For a lot of reasons that I talked about in the last episode. Carbs are protein sparing in so many amazing ways. Not having enough carbs means you're going to disrupt your hormones, you know, increasing your carbs, I've seen time and again, have improved hormone production, testosterone, for example, reducing cortisol helping with your insulin sensitivity, believe it or not, okay, it sounds counterintuitive. You increase carbs, you get more insulin, you combine that with strength training, better utilizing the insulin, you're more insulin sensitive, and now easier to lose fat because you have more carbs. And now if that's not the opposite of what so many influencers are saying, you know, tell me I'm wrong. Right? That's that's exactly the opposite of what a lot of these influencers, say when they say carbs will make you fat, carbs from ride fuel, they help with recovery, they support muscle growth, muscle building, optimize hormones, all the things. So that's Mistake number four is just not having enough carbs. We all have these have an asterisk behind them. And that is, if it's right for you. But what I'm sharing here are the pitfalls that affect the vast majority of women who are having trouble with this. And I will never say you have to do this or have to do that. What I'm suggesting is that many women are restricting carbs unnecessarily, and having more carbs would help them with all these things. And once they introduce the carbs, voila, a lot of these problems go away. Okay, mistake number five, is neglecting nutrient density. So we talked about flexible dieting, and we talked about diets or good and bad foods and these restrictive diets, and it's always about the foods themselves. The thing is, you can eat any food, if it serves your goals. The question is, will it especially for fat loss. Also serve your health, serve your satiety, serve your digestion, serve your performance, like once you add all the list of things where we want to improve with what we eat, we realize it's not about specific foods. It's about the density of those foods, the nutrient density of those foods, which ends up being primarily Whole Foods, but not a restrictive list of Whole Foods, all Whole Foods, meats, you know, eggs, seafood, dairy, all the plants, grains, starches, right? Fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, all of it is okay. Right? Unless you have an intolerance or something like that, or just don't like it. It's all okay, and having a diverse food matrix. A diverse diet will improve your chance of not having micronutrient deficiencies, and improving all these other things, hormone production, thyroid function, metabolism, digestion, and the list goes on and on and on. Right. So instead of like cutting out carbs, and now all of a sudden you're eating just meat, and you're missing out on all these other nutrients and dense foods that will fill you up and so on. Have a diverse diet. Okay, so we're going to talk about that. Some of the details when we talk about specifics for fat loss at the end, or actually shortly. But what I wanted to do here was establish you know, when it is appropriate for women to consider fat loss and in the mistakes women make so you can look for those as you're going through this process. Now, I want to lay out exactly how to execute a successful fat loss phase, the moment you've all been waiting for. And remember, you don't have to write all this down because I created a free guide called female fat loss that covers everything in today's show. Just click the link in my show notes for the free female fat loss guide or go to Wits. & Weights dot dot com slash free. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape 26:06

Okay, women, you are looking to drop fat in a healthy sustainable way, what do you need to do. So I have a decent list here of things and again, so that you're not overwhelmed, you may just want to go download the free guide where I summarize all of this stuff kind of in CliffsNotes style. And you can re listen to the episode along with it, make notes, all that good stuff. At the end of the day, what's important is that you take action, whatever that action is, I would take one action today based on this podcast episode, that is based on how you were inspired by the show and what you are not doing that you want to do. Okay, first. So this is gonna sound What is this gonna, this is gonna sound counterintuitive, or a cop out. The first thing to do for successful fat loss phase is don't do a fat loss phase build muscle first. That's the first thing. I'm not even talking about the prep phase, I'm talking about the opposite of a fat loss phase going into a very slight surplus, a lean gain phase, where you just pack on your first you know, 1015 pounds of muscle over the next six to 12 months, having more muscle is going to boost your metabolic rate. You're going to be lifting heavier, you're going to be building that strength, building that muscle, improving your hormones, improving your insulin sensitivity, all these things, it's going to basically shift everything toward a metabolically healthier state so that when you do fat loss, it's even easier. Yeah, you're delaying the fat loss. But you're going to thank me for it, you're going to be thankful that you went through that process of building muscle first. So that's the first thing but now I'm going to get the rest of these are okay, fine. I got it. Philip, I need to build muscle. But I really damn, I just really want to build lose fat right now. Okay. So again, assuming you've done all the other things we talked about and are not making the mistakes, what should you be doing? First we have protein. All right. Protein, you know what? Hold on, I got to look at my list here. Because the one thing I wanted to add to this actually don't actually didn't have in my notes, which is kind of silly is is training strength training. And that's primarily because today I wanted to focus on the nutrition side. But even if you aren't going to build muscle first, you need to be training as if you're building muscle before you do a fat loss phase. And this can happen in the body recon phase. So training for progressive overload, lifting heavy and all that. I recently did an episode on progressive overload Look, isn't this so nice? Every one of these topics, I've got like a full episode that goes into details on it. And you can always reach out to me on IG at Wits & Weights and say, Hey, what was the episode about this? What was the episode about that? Do you have a video training on this and I will send it to you. Okay, so training. But assuming you're doing that the next thing is prioritize protein intake. can't say it enough. In fat loss protein becomes even more important than when you're not in fat loss. Because this is going to help you preserve and repair and regrow your lean tissue, your muscle mass, this is how you hold on to it. So that your body will be really stingy with the protein and instead it's going to go to the next source of energy which is fat. Okay, it's gonna go to fat. If you don't have enough protein, then it's going to your body is going to break down that muscle protein tissue because you also don't have very many carbs coming in and let's be honest, the calories are low, and you're going to lose muscle. We don't want to do that. So what's the target? I would shoot for the full one gram per pound of bodyweight, which is like 2.2 kilograms, grams per kilogram, or even a little higher like 1.1 Give yourself a little bit of a stretch goal 1.1 grams per pound, which is about 2.4 grams per kilogram. And how do you do that? Okay, that's the big challenge. You want to consume high protein foods. So eggs yes are kind of in that category, but you got to be careful for the with the fat in the yolk. So I would supplement holy Eggs with egg whites during a fat loss phase. Chicken is always a good option in Turkey fish, low to emit low to moderate fat or even no fat dairy are all good options. And of course, you can supplement with protein powder if needed. And most people do need to like the amount of protein you're going to want to get usually requires at least one protein shake for most people just to kind of get through the day with with everything intact, and then distributed evenly throughout the day is the best advice I have in terms of how to fit it in. A lot of people say well, I'm too full, or I can't fit it in or, you know, I can get my calories, but I never get my protein. Plan ahead, look at your day. How can you get three feedings, maybe two feedings, three feedings, four feedings, depending on what it is. And just divide just subdivide the protein. If you need 120 grams, and you eat four times, that's 30 grams per meal. Now one meal might have 50 And one might have 20. And one might have 15 or 35, but just distributed throughout the day. So you can you can get it. Okay, prioritize protein. Second, I'm gonna I'm not gonna use numbers because I have these bullets on my notes. So the next item is ensure adequate carb intake. Okay, so again, we're just focusing on macros right now just to start simple. The thing in fat loss is your calories are low, right? So and your protein is high, and your fat needs to be at some certain minimum level. We talked all about the benefits of carbs for muscle in the last episode. But I also suggested that it gets really difficult or gets to be more of a trade off during fat loss because you only have so many calories to play with. Carbs are anticon up catabolic, they prevent the breakdown of muscle protein, they provide fuel for high intensity exercise. So my suggestion is after the protein needs are met, let's say it's 1.1 grams per pound. You can experiment with different fat and carb levels, mainly to ensure you have enough carbs. But some women respond better to higher carbs versus fats and vice versa. And I've had female clients who the carbs are pretty low, the fats are pretty low, we increase the carbs not much difference, we increase the fats and all of a sudden the the started to perform better. So you just never know until you try it yourself. But I wouldn't just pick a fixed number and go with it. As a one size fits all. I would experiment with different levels. So for women, the fat can come down to as low as like 15, even 10 grams. I mean 10 is getting sporty, I think Eric Trexler mentioned seven is like the rock bottom. But I would give yourself a little buffer and say 15 and all the rest, go to carbs, anything that's not already reserved to protein, and give it a shot right now, part of it for a lot of women. It's the timing of the carbs. And here's what I see. For example, let's say you train in the morning. First of all, don't train fasted or at least experiment with training fed to see how it feels. So that's that's one problem is training faster. But let's say you're not training fasted, and you are eating, you know, three meals a day, and you trade. If you are not shifting those carbs toward your workout, you may experience a performance degradation. And so time, the most carbs around your workout, if you work out in the morning, get like 60% of your carbs or even 80% of your carbs around the workout. If you work out around dinner in the evening. Same thing, if you work out in the middle day, same thing, shift your carbs so that they are parity workout pairing meaning in the vicinity of your workout. So that's the second thing, especially important for women, especially cuz you're gonna have lower calories to play with and most men, sorry to say it's just just reality, right? You're smaller, your metabolisms are lower, you have less muscle mass, etc. That's one of the differences. Okay, next is the

Philip Pape 33:49

the wealth, nutrient timing around the workouts I think I already covered. But the last one was carbs specifically than I wanted to talk about nutrient timing, specifically around training, both carbs and protein. So in addition to shifting most of your carbs to around your workout, also make sure to have protein before and after. And by before I mean, two hours, you know, before or less doesn't have to be half an hour before and after. I mean, like within an hour to have protein. So again, you're kind of shifting a lot of your calories, you're really important calories to the workout period to maximize the muscle preservation and the use of that training signal. Okay, the next thing for successful fat loss is eating high nutrient density foods. So the very simple approach here is the 8020 or even in fat loss might be 9010 approach, where 90% of our foods are Whole Foods. The other 10% is indulgences, whatever you want, right and so it's a little tighter during fat loss than if you weren't in fat loss. So you're going to focus on whole foods, lean protein, fruits, veggies, dairy, whatever Whole Foods That fill you up to have a lot of nutrients. So I have a preference or bias toward more green veggies, more salads, more steamed vegetables, roasted vegetables with your dinner, like putting vegetables wherever you can. As well as fruits that are lower in calories like strawberries, a huge bowl of strawberries can really fill up your stomach, at the cost of like 100 calories, you know, very few calories, but it fills up your stomach. But don't discount other things like even in your indulgences, if you like popcorn, I mean, you can eat a huge bowl of just lightly salted popcorn, air popped popcorn. And that's very few calories, compared to like a tiny bowl of you know, chips, which are which are cooked in fat, right, they're gonna have a lot more calories. Again, I'm never saying anything's good and bad. What I'm saying is during fat loss, nutrient dense foods are going to be your friend, because they are going to have more fiber, they are going to fill you up, they're going to take up more space, okay. And they ensure that your diet includes some, at least the minimums of certain things of certain nutrients like magnesium, zinc, iron, chromium, all those things, which leads me to the next item to address micronutrient deficiencies, which become way more common during fat loss because you simply can't consume as much food. So even if you are focused on nutrient density foods, you just may not have enough mass of it coming in to give you optimal levels of all the different vitamins, you know, vitamin D, iron, zinc, and so on. And this is where you could use bloodwork, like if you want to if you want to take this to the next level and be totally sure get bloodwork done, you know before the fat loss phase, and then maybe halfway through, and kind of an even at the end, and you can see what you are susceptible to in terms of deficiencies, correlated with the calorie deficit, right, not just in general, because everybody has certain deficiencies, because they eat a certain way, or genetics or whatever. And this is where you would use supplementation strategically. So the common supplements I recommend for most people in most of my clients are going to be a multivitamin of some kind. Magnesium for most people, vitamin D, for some people, fish oil. For some people, it depends on if you're deficient and really need these, if you get a lot of sunlight, you may not need vitamin D, if you eat a lot of fatty fish, I mean, the fish oil, but in a fat loss phase, you might be eating super lean fish or white fish, and not getting very much of the Omega threes, right? So in fat loss, it becomes even more important that you're addressing your micronutrients where you can't, okay. And the reason I say that is because these minerals and these vitamins cascade into lots of performance related aspects of your life, how you feel how you sleep, your stress on and on and on. And it could be the simple remedy, you need to for example, get a better night's sleep, like you may be deficient in magnesium, you may be getting migraines, you may be whatever. And it can be a nutrient deficiency. And this is more common in women, because you're eating fewer calories than men. All right. Next is improving your relationship with food. Now I'm not just going to say do it. Like, okay, improve your relationship with food go. It's more complicated than that. But it doesn't have to be. So the big rule I hate to call it a rule because we're talking about getting away from rules and rigidity. But if I had a rule of be don't view foods as good and bad, it is what it comes down to eat foods because they satisfy you. Because they are important in your lifestyle for who you are, what your schedule is what you do what you like your preferences, your social calendar, your you know, the things you do with friends and family plan in the indulgences because we don't want to binge eat, we don't want to emotionally eat, we want to be able to have the things we enjoy occasionally by choice. And then part of that is learning your hunger and satiety cues, you know, physical versus emotional hunger. And I know I'm throwing a lot at you here. But the overall the overall picture here is we want to be consistent and be able to add here to our diet during fat loss and not feel like we are suffering. Like we're miserable. Like we can't eat things. Instead, I want you to take one or two indulgences that you enjoy and plan them in. plan them into Saturday plan them in every day if you if you want to write like if every single day you want to have a cookie, this this awesome cookie that you like and it satisfies a sweet tooth and one cookie we'll do it or two cookies or whatever. Plan it in, look at the macros calories planning in and work the rest of your diet around it. As far as hunger, you're going to have higher hunger during fat loss. And so this is why going back to nutrient dense foods high fiber foods high volume foods is going to make a big difference. If you can drink a lot more water and eat a lot more veggies and eat more strawberries and watermelon and whatever and things that fill you up in addition to the things you need for protein because protein is also satisfying and filling. Then you've got it covered. You can still fit in okay white potato white potatoes are the highest satiety food because they are resistant starch. A lot of people don't realize that, right? They're more way more satisfying the sweet potatoes, people think of sweet potato is this amazing nutrient food, dense food and potatoes. white potatoes is bland, inferior cousin over here. Not true. white potato has a ton of nutrition. And it's extremely filling. So slice it up, put some seasoning on it, and cook it you roasted in the oven and have that with your dinner. Right? Okay, so being consistent rather than perfect. Eating for satisfaction, planning in indulgences, not viewing foods is good, bad, all of that stuff related to your relationship with food. If, if you are not there yet, before you start a fat loss phase, it's just gonna get worse during fat loss. This is why the body recomp or the prep phase is important because at least there we can say, okay, all these things are in place. I know how to eat like my 8020 I know how to plan things in I know how to do meal prep, I don't eat with guilt, I know that I can enjoy my indulgences, I understand why when I'm physically hungry versus emotionally hungry. All that. And this is where we're working with a coach. I know I say this a lot. And it sounds like I'm plugging my service. But I got into this, because I saw these problems and I had them myself. And when you can help somebody and guide them through and take the stress off in this area, a lot of the other stuff just gets easy. So it's very important. And especially for women, I just see this way more with women than with men, for whatever reason, okay? And it's probably the pressures you put on yourself, the pressure society puts on you. It's the body image. It's the dieting, it's the this this this, okay? Okay, the next thing, hormones, we want to make sure hormone production is optimized as best we can with the natural approaches. And by natural I mean, your lifestyle. Yes, supplementation to an extent or even herbal supplementation in some cases, and then some form of hormone therapy or treatment if needed. Now, if if you've got a dysregulation or an imbalance in your hormones, whether it's thyroid or testosterone, DHEA, whatever, right? You're perimenopause, menopause, whatever. And you haven't addressed that I would not want to be, I would not want to have you do a fat loss phase until you do. So, I'm going to make the assumption that you've gotten bloodwork you've gotten urine metabolite testing, or saliva testing, you're working with maybe a hormone specialist, you've gotten your free testosterone checked through bloodwork, you've got your progesterone, estrogen, estradiol, all that stuff checked. And you've taken steps during the body recomp of the pre fat loss phase, to improve your training, your stress, your sleep, all that stuff, naturally, to get it to the best level possible. And then, if you need replacement therapy, you're getting that as well. But for you do a fat loss phase, I know not everyone can do that, I realized that it's sometimes a longer process. But just know that during fat loss, if you hit plateaus, or if your body isn't responding, or your metabolism drops, like a rock, it could be related to some hormone imbalances that are not lifestyle derived, you know, your ovaries produce testosterone, while your ovaries produce less and less until they produce zero testosterone at some point. And if your stress is through the roof, that also affects your testosterone. Well guess what testosterone is a huge player in all of this. I'll actually be covering that in my first one of my first episodes in January with Karen Martel, we talked about that. But anyway, my point here is, hormones for women are extremely critical. You know, I don't You don't need me to tell you that. natural ways to improve it are going to be the big one is reducing stress, and getting better sleep quality and quantity. If you're getting five hours of sleep. If you're running around constantly with a busy schedule with no time for yourself whatsoever, that is going to be

Philip Pape 43:52

that is going to make fat loss a lot harder. And the reason is, is those hormonal imbalances lead to a downregulation your metabolism that's really what it comes down to, you're simply going to burn fewer calories, and that means you can't eat as much. And then if you can't eat as much, you might be in low energy availability, and guess what happens? It all gets worse. And it's a vicious cycle. So reducing stress by improving your adrenal function, improving your sleep quality and quantity. Okay, and I have a lot of resources in past episodes where I talked about some of the stuff so reach out if you need specifics, make sure you have normal menstrual function. Make sure that you've gotten things checked as needed, like thyroid and cortisol, your reproductive hormones, testosterone, estradiol, DHEA, estrogen, progesterone, all of that. And if you need to be taken therapy under the guidance of a specialist or doctor, go for it. One more thing is adaptogens. I'm a big fan sometimes of certain adaptogens like ashwagandha I just came I just found out about something called gorilla mind sigma as well for women to potentially boost your testosterone. Now again, these are all herbal, supple Since I'm not a medical doctor, I'm not dispensing advice, I'm just saying that those options are out there. And if you want to experiment with them, go for it. Okay, so this is really important during fat loss because if you don't have your hormones optimized, you're just shooting yourself in the foot by down regulating your metabolism by potentially hundreds of calories. And not only that, it could be to such an extent that as you cut calories, your body just further down regulates to catch up, and you just stay in a plateau. And that's why we want to address these issues first. Okay, almost done here. Second, the last item here is setting up and running your fat loss phase with proper tracking. Okay, so now we're talking about the nuts and bolts of the actual fat loss phase. Here's where I'm going to suggest using macro factor to log your food. I don't like any other food apps on the market, food logging apps, they all suck this is the only one that I think works really well because it is adherents neutral. It doesn't punish you doesn't give you flash ups you know read numbers because you were over on your on your calories. It simply says, hey, here are your targets. Here your minimums here targets based on how many calories you're burning this week. And then next week, your your new targets next week. Are you new targets, oh, you changed your goal. Okay, we'll give you new targets. very objective very neutral. And what it does is it calculates your expenditure. Go back and listen to episode 98, episode 98. If you want to learn all about food loggers, but definitely go get macro factor use my code, Wits & Weights all one word Wits & Weights to get an extra free week on your trial. And reach out to me for help. If you need help setting it up, definitely have to log your food for one minimum reason alone. And that is awareness. When you're in a fat loss phase, if you don't know what's going in your mouth, from a calorie Mac and a macro perspective, you're going to be all over the place, you're gonna go back to yo yo land, and you're going to be over consuming on the weekend, or you're gonna be grazing and not realizing you could be snacking, and you're gonna have alcohol, and you're going to just have lots of uncertainty floating around. But if you can just track your food, you're gonna have that awareness. And if you've been tracking food and use it for targets because the food lager knows how many calories you're burning, even better. All right, so then once you've got that set up, you're going to go at a reasonable rate of loss. Remember, before I said one of the biggest mistakes is cutting too aggressively. And the most you want to go is the most you want to cut is 1% body weight per week. But I found that most women because of the tighter calorie budget are better off at around half to maybe point seven 5% body weight per week, so that you're not restricting those calories too low and causing all the other issues we talked about. Yes, it's going to take a little longer. But wouldn't you rather it take longer be able to get through it successfully, and not have to feel like you're suffering on low, you know, lower and lower calories. Probably most people would take that trade off, you can shift calories around within the week to work with your lifestyle. So if you're a big weekend partier and you'd love to go out to eat on the weekends, shift the calories a little bit toward the weekend. Now the more you do this, the more extreme you get with this, the less consistent your schedule is, and that actually could backfire with your metabolism. So I wouldn't go too much, I wouldn't do that too much. I would shift a little, you know, a few 100 calories here and there not like 1000 calories where you save them for the weekend. And then you can as you go through the dieting phase, the fat loss phase, you can use tools like refeeds and diet breaks, to give you some psychological relief as needed, or to fit within your lifestyle. Like if you're going on a trip, right? A refeed is like a one to two day period where you eat up at your maintenance calories and take a little break. Worst case, it's just going to pause your fat loss for a few days. Diet breaks are just longer versions of that where you might go for a week. Like maybe you're going on a cruise, maybe you're going on a trip you go for a week. Now, if you're if you still log during that time, you'll at least know where you stand. If you don't just be aware of all the other things of selecting protein you didn't right amount of carbs, you didn't nutrient density and like stick close to that when you're on your cruise, so that it doesn't completely backfire progress, but it is still just one week. And so we've got to enjoy life, right? It's fine. Sometimes you just need the break and that's fine too. So whatever works for you. Last thing is if you want to get the best results possible, having accountability from another person or community is going to make a huge difference. It just is every time I look in my life where I you know wanted to go after a goal and I floundered around and I experimented and I tried to do it myself, you know, DIY and I read podcasts and read books, is just fits and starts and fits and starts and sometimes going down the wrong path but then kind of reconnecting and back and forth. And then I'd hire a coach and it was like boom, one month done or whatever whatever you're trying to achieve. You know, you would you would do it. You kind of take a shortcut right to that direct path. So a free The way to do this right if coaching is too expensive is to join our Wits & Weights Facebook community in there, you have the opportunity to ask me questions that I answer live, you have the opportunity to ask a whole bunch of smart people in the group questions about your training your nutrition, recipe ideas, just to share your wins, share your frustrations, talk to people, you know, have that support people who are positive by the way, our community is positive, and not in a delusional way, in a genuine, we all want to help, we've all been there kind of way, there is no room for people who try to bring others down, people are toxic, I've only had to kick out like two people from the group the whole time it's been open. So we invite positive people and generally have positive people, you can gain a lot from that the Wits & Weights, Facebook community, link is always in the show notes. And then the other way to get accountability is working with a nutrition coach. I am a Nutrition coach. But there are many others out there. There's lots of different levels of service people provide. And you know, you've got to find what's right for you. If you like what you hear on my show, if I sound like a decent enough guy that you could stand listening to giving you feedback on a weekly basis, so that we get you that result, please reach out. And if not, you know maybe I can refer you to somebody else. Or at least join into the community and say hello. Alright, so accountability is the last piece. That's quite a list. I hope it wasn't overwhelming. And again, there's this free guide that will go through it all again for you. Hopefully it is clear, it is crystal clear that losing body fat requires some strategy. It requires some thinking ahead, some patience, and some special considerations, especially for women, we want to support your body's needs your hormones, we want to have realistic expectations. We want to adhere to an appropriate for you nutrition and training plan. So you get there the right way, and avoid all these other mistakes that so many women make. So if you are ready to chat about your specific situation, and how to go through a proper body recomp prep phase, you know the primer, the prep phase we talked about if you want to avoid the negative effects of low energy restriction, if you want to train properly for your body to improve your health, your physique, hormones, and execute a successful fat loss phase. And if you want to lose some more like 20 to 30 pounds of fat the right way. Just reach out to me and set up a free results breakthrough session. Totally free every week, I clear spots in my calendar to chat with women about their nutrition and training strategy. And what we're going to do is just map out here are the top two or three steps to take right now to get unstuck and make real progress. And that's it. No selling no pitching none of that simply a strategy that we work out together, click the link in my show notes for the free call. Let's make it happen. Okay, in our next episode 128, my favorite gym things seven gifts under $100. I've put together a fun but highly useful list of equipment and accessories that I recommend for your home gym or gym bag, just in time for the holidays, or maybe your birthday, or just a gift to yourself to celebrate a recent win. Make sure to subscribe to the show, please subscribe. It's one of the best ways that you can support me is just tap the little toggle in your podcast app right now that says follow or subscribe so you get new episodes. And you'll get all these new episodes as soon as they drop. If you don't want to listen to them, you just delete it. But please subscribe and you'll get notified. And I really thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting the show and for listening and I always welcome your feedback. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast.

Philip Pape 53:42

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong

Philip Pape 11/28/23 Philip Pape 11/28/23

Ep 126: More Carbs, More Muscle (Why Low-Carb and Keto Are Keeping You Skinny Fat)

Are you scared that carbs will make you fat and avoid them completely? Did you know that a balanced diet rich in carbohydrates is not just good but essential for building strength muscle, and shedding fat?

Today, I will be going over all the reasons why, 9 reasons in particular, eating a moderate to high carb diet—or what I like to call a balanced and healthy amount of carbs—is absolutely essential if your goal is to build muscle, get stronger, improve your body composition, get leaner, and yes even make fat loss easier.

Let’s call this the “I love carbs, and you should too” episode. You’ll definitely want to share this with a friend, especially if they’re a low-carb or keto zealot who loves to brag about how they haven’t looked at, let alone eaten a potato or bowl of oatmeal in a while. They are leaving massive gains on the table, and this is a very fast road not only to skinny fat but to a miserable existence in terms of enjoying your food.
If I sound a bit sarcastically aggressive today, it’s because I lived the low-carb delusion for an entire decade and paid the price. Now that my bloodstream is flooded with nature’s sweet glycogen drug 24/7, I look back and feel sorry for my carb-deprived former self and want nothing more than for YOU to put that person in the rearview mirror, too.

Episode summary:

Carbohydrates have often been misunderstood and maligned. There exists a widespread misconception that carbohydrates, or carbs, contribute to weight gain and are therefore detrimental to achieving a fit and lean physique. This misleading belief has given rise to various diet trends such as low carb or keto diets. However, in the latest episode, we seek to debunk these myths and illuminate the crucial role that carbs play in muscle development, recovery, and overall performance optimization.

Carbohydrates serve as the body's primary source of energy. When consumed, they break down into glucose which fuels our cells, tissues, and organs. For individuals who engage in high-intensity workouts, such as weight lifting or resistance training, carbohydrates are particularly important. This is because these activities deplete muscle glycogen, the storage form of glucose. Consuming carbohydrates helps to replenish these glycogen stores, providing the necessary energy for muscle contractions during workouts and promoting faster recovery post-exercise.

One of the major points discussed in the podcast is the protective role of insulin, a hormone released by the body in response to carbohydrate intake. Insulin is often misunderstood and vilified due to its association with diabetes. However, insulin serves as a powerful anti-catabolic, protecting muscle tissue from breakdown and driving nutrients into muscle cells. Additionally, carbohydrates play a vital role in preventing muscle protein breakdown, a common concern for athletes and fitness enthusiasts striving for muscle growth and retention.

Another important aspect of carbohydrate consumption highlighted in the podcast is its influence on the testosterone to cortisol ratio. Proper carbohydrate consumption supports a favorable testosterone to cortisol ratio, which is beneficial for muscle anabolism and recovery. Testosterone is a hormone that promotes muscle growth, while cortisol, often referred to as the "stress hormone", can lead to muscle breakdown when levels are too high. Therefore, a higher ratio of testosterone to cortisol is desirable for those seeking to build and maintain muscle mass.

Furthermore, the podcast episode stresses the importance of maintaining a balanced macronutrient intake. While carbohydrates play a pivotal role in muscle development and recovery, it is equally important to consume adequate amounts of protein for muscle repair and growth, as well as healthy fats for optimal hormonal function. It is also crucial to dispel the misleading belief that carbs invite weight gain. Weight gain is primarily a result of consuming more calories than the body burns, regardless of whether these calories come from carbohydrates, proteins, or fats. Therefore, rather than demonizing carbs or any specific macronutrient, the key to a healthy diet lies in balance and moderation.

This episode debunks common misconceptions, advocates for a balanced and moderate carbohydrate intake, and emphasizes the multifaceted benefits of carbs for muscle building, recovery, and overall performance.

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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:44] Carbs are beneficial to muscle growth
[7:34] Energy for high-intensity workouts
[8:52] Glycogen replenishment
[10:16] Protein sparing and mTOR activation
[11:56] Insulin release and hormone balance
[15:45] Prevent muscle protein breakdown
[18:05] Carbs optimizes testosterone to cortisol ratio
[20:02] Reduce muscle soreness post-workout
[21:18] Support muscle retention
[23:58] Improve overall performance
[27:13] Outro

Episode resources:

Ep 124: How to Use Progressive Overload the RIGHT way to Build Strength and Muscle (Even in Fat Loss)

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

When it comes to carbs, you fall into one of three categories. You're scared they will make you fat and avoid them completely. You're testing the waters but whether they will make you fat, or you've realized that a balanced diet rich in carbohydrates is not just good, but essential for building strength, muscle and shedding fat. My goal today is to help you find your way into this pleasant third category. Stay tuned as we uncover nine compelling science backed reasons to embrace carbs for a leaner stronger you. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our latest episode 125 peptides, hormone therapy, medical esthetics and personalized wellness with Kristin Jim. We discussed peptides, hormone therapy, medical weight loss, and other ways to complement lifestyle interventions to optimize your health today for episode 126 more carbs, more muscle, why low carb and keto or keeping you skinny fat? I will be going over all the reasons why nine reasons in particular, eating a moderate to high carb diet, or what I like to call a balanced and healthy amount of carbs is absolutely essential. If your goal is to build muscle get stronger, improve your body composition, get leaner, and yes even make fat loss easier. Let's call this the I love carbs and you should to episode you'll definitely want to share this with a friend especially if they're a low carb or keto zealot who loves to brag about how they haven't looked at, let alone eaten a potato or bowl of oatmeal in a while they are leaving massive gains on the table. And this is a very fast road not only to skinny fat, but to a miserable existence in terms of enjoying your food, at least for 99% of people. If I sound a bit sarcastically aggressive today, it's because I've lived the low carb delusion for an entire decade. And I paid the price. Now that my bloodstream is flooded with nature's sweet glycogen drug 24/7. I look back and feel sorry for my carb deprived former self. And I want nothing more than for you to put that person in the rearview mirror too. So let's get into today's topic, more carbs, more muscle, why low carb and keto are keeping you skinny fat. So as often is the case, I love to look at the science look at what the studies say. And I'm going to reference one in particular. But I will say that there are multiple studies that support the idea that carbs are beneficial for building muscle. And there don't seem to be any, there was one that was retracted that support the opposite. So there's a plethora of evidence in support of this case, not to mention, my clients, the very vast majority of them come to me not eating enough carbs, we increase their carbs, lo and behold a lot of the issues they had before not just related to muscle building, but energy recovery, sleep, which all contribute also to muscle building. just magically go away just from having more carbs, hormones, etc. You name it. So I want to get into the exact reasons why this is a beneficial thing. But let me mention one study that Bill Campbell reviewed in his research review, I think it was back in Issue two in the study is by Paoli at all 2021. So it's just a couple years old. And the title is effects of two months of very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet on body composition, muscle strength, muscle area and blood parameters in the competitive natural bodybuilders. And the study looked at the effects of a keto diet, you know, a keto diet versus a normal Western diet, which we're going to call moderate or high carb throughout this episode, but frankly, we can just call it normal carbs. But this is all in the IODP eye of the beholder. If we think of how language works, we've gotten so used to the idea of low carb and keto being somewhat of a norm that the any contrast to that is considered high carbs. By the end of the episode, I hope you'll come to the conclusion that moderate high carbs as we call them, are really just balanced, diverse and balanced diverse diet and a healthy level of carbs. Okay, anyway, they looked at keto versus normal on body composition and strength in 19 Male natural bodybuilders so people were already knew how to train they already knew how to eat control their macros and so on. The keto group consumed very low carb, very high fat, moderate protein, the normal diet group ate higher carb lower fat and that same amount of protein so same calories, same Protein Protein equated diet very important. After eight weeks, the normal diet group gained significantly more muscle mass five pounds of muscle, compared to the Keto group, only 1.2 pounds. That is a 5x difference. The keto group gained very little for all that training and all that work. And they still gain the same amount of weight. So what does that tell you? If they didn't gain muscle mass? What did they gain? Okay, so now we're already seeing one of the differences. Both groups increase strength similarly, right, but muscle wise, the non keto group gained a lot more. The researchers did confirm that the Keto group maintained ketosis based on their ketone levels. And so overall, the studies suggest that a normal higher carb diet may be better for maximizing muscle growth in people who lift. And this is actually one of the first studies on keto diets in bodybuilders that also should, you know, that also show that lower carb intake impairs muscle building capabilities, compared to a more balanced diet that can has adequate carbs. I think Brandon Cruz covered this topic in a recent episode of chasing clarity as well. And he mentioned another study, I didn't get time to verify it. But it showed that women in particular, also experienced a performance hit a performance impact when the carbs are lower, even more than men did. And there's probably some reason for that a validity for that, that I'm going to be covering in I think my very next episode actually is going to be covering female fat loss, specifically for females, because there are differences between men and women. And I think it's important to talk about those differences, both physiologically and also in terms of stigma and society and kind of the the culture as well. So I'll be covering that in the next episode. But for today, let's get into nine reasons. The carbs are just awesome. Like that, you should just eat more carbs, period. All right.

Philip Pape 06:59

By the end of this, if you're not convinced, nobody's gonna convince you. And honestly, I'm not even trying to convince you so much as enlighten you as to what the evidence says. Because I am so excited by the fact that I could always eat way more carbs than I ever used to. And every day I wake up thinking, here's another day, I get to just eat a bunch of foods I love and I just have to balanced approach. That means by goals, it isn't that what we all want is that like rule number one with sticking with it. I feel so bad for the people who are just cutting out entire food groups thinking that that's going to get them results, I just I feel sad for them. And if you know someone like that, please share this episode with them. All right, number one, energy for your workouts. Alright, we're not even talking about strength training here, I wanted to get this one out of the way. High intensity and Glagolitic workouts, glycolytic aerobic workouts like high intensity interval training, cardio, even CrossFit, okay. Carbohydrates are the crucial energy for those modes of movement. And these movements may be part of your overall programming, they may be part of your, you know, muscle building repertoire, even though we often I don't want to say I denigrate cardio, I think cardio is very important for just general conditioning and cardiovascular health. But if you're doing any sort of glycolytic movement, just know that having carbs is also supportive of this. So I just wanted to mention that muscle glycogen is the predominant fuel source during moderate to high intensity exercise. And its availability can make or break the performance you gained during that. And so if you don't have it, it can really wipe you out. And that could actually impede your recovery for other things like you're lifting even more than if you didn't. And so a high carb diet gives you a ready supply of glucose for glycogen synthesis. And this keeps your muscles primed and energized even for those types of workouts. Okay, so that's it energy for high intensity workouts was number one. Number two, glycogen replenishment. One of the most important things we have when it comes to cars, post workout, carbohydrate consumption, replenishes your muscle glycogen, we can drain as much as something like 40% of your glycogen during a heavy lifting session. And if you train frequently, you know, if you're working out four days a week, maybe five days a week, this is a daily thing almost right? And having a more optimal glycogen storage meaning you're filling up the tank, you're having the the carbs around your workout, not necessarily just after but also before just kind of around your workout will improve the it's effectively a form of endurance is it not? Right even though you're you might be lifting very heavy weights, you might be doing singles or triples, you're still draining this, this energy tank. And once it's drained, you're gonna feel wiped out you're gonna feel like you can't quite get enough reps. You might feel like you have to cut the workout short, or you just may feel like you're dragging and this also doesn't make it as enjoyable either you because next time you're like, I gotta go back to the gym and I'm going to feel like that again. Right. So, the carbs for glycogen before and after are important now. After New York out, you've, you actually have greater insulin sensitivity. And so you're gonna be able to make really good use of the glycogen coming in, you're gonna be able to replenish that tank even faster. So that is a really nice synergy there. Alright, so that's number two, glycogen replenishment. Number three very important one, this one comes up a lot. And I think it confuses people, or they don't even realize that this happens. And that is the protein sparing, and mTOR activation. So a couple of mechanisms here, I want to explain. By consuming sufficient carbs, you're effectively telling your body, here you go, here's the easiest, most ready source of carbs or energy for you. And and you're good. Without the sufficient carbs, you're going to start to utilize muscle protein for energy. But when you have carbs coming in, well, now your muscles didn't get repaired and built using your protein directly. It's very efficient. All right, and part of this process is called the mTOR pathway. The mTOR is considered the master regulator of cell growth. It's influenced by nutrient availability. So this is why we want to have protein, protein and carbs coming in. So we get this optimal muscle protein synthesis, right? The carbs enhance the body's anabolic response by activating mTOR. When paired with adequate protein intake, this is probably a very key mechanism as to why carbs are anti catabolic, why increasing carbs helps with the use of the protein to build muscle. Does that make sense? So carbs are protein sparing, partly because they activate the mTOR pathway. I forget what mTOR stands for. It's like mammalian. Oh, man, don't I forget, but a mammalian something of Oh, don't forget, I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna say here. I could look it up and I'm gonna move on. Alright. mTOR pathway, MTR. Alright, number four, insulin, insulin release and hormone balance. All right, so carbs stimulate insulin release, it's one of the reasons they have a bad reputation. People, oh my god, if you eat too many carbs, you're gonna spike your insulin. Now, if you're sedentary, and you're over consuming calories and gaining weight, and you're not training, and most likely the majority of calories are coming from carbs and fat, you probably don't have much protein, then yeah, you're gonna gain a lot of weight, you're going to head toward that pre diabetic, by pre diabetic, eventually diabetic state of metabolic disease. And it's correlated with higher insulin and insulin resistance, but not because of the carbs in and of themselves, because of the carbs being consumed in a hyper caloric environment, right, you're over consuming. You're not training you have in your, you don't have any muscle mass data, data, that right the whole thing, ties together. unhealthy lifestyle means more carbs, and calories are not going to be good for you. But when you are working out when you do eat, the appropriate amount of energy for your needs, carbohydrates stimulate insulin. And this helps with things like nutrient transport into your cells and also modulating other hormones, right? Insulin can reduce cortisol. So there's a reason when you work out, you feel a little bit calm down, like you might feel ramped up mentally, right, like in terms of you're energized for the day. But you've also, quote unquote, burned through some cortisol, because the insulin spike has reduced the cortisol levels. Guess what that does? It mitigates muscle protein breakdown, it increases growth factor, IGF one. And all of this helps with the recovery and the muscle building. I mean, it's a beautiful cascade, I say beautiful a lot I know. But it's a wonderful cascade between carbohydrate, insulin, and the other hormones that are synergistic with building muscle and avoiding muscle protein breakdown. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com and click on coaching or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. So insulin is a powerful anti catabolic Like, it protects muscle tissue from breakdown, right? And elevated insulin post carb intake then drives nutrients into muscle cells, which supports growth and prevents catabolism. So we love insulin. If you're a lifter, if you're lifting weights or training heavy progressive overload, you're getting the calories you need to get the protein you need. Embrace that insulin release, we want it. We want it because it does all these wonderful things to anti catabolic. All right, you're actually becoming more insulin sensitive, because you are lifting weights. All right, number five. This is the fifth out of nine beautiful reasons. Again, beautiful Saturday, again, sorry, that carbs are worth having as one of your best friends. Okay, number five,

Philip Pape 15:46

preventing muscle protein breakdown. So again, we're talking about the anti catabolic effects, right? Anti catabolic, catabolic is breakdown of tissue. Carbs are anti catabolic. Alright. Now, when you are in a low energy availability state, which is common when you are on a low carb diet, right, or when you're in a calorie deficit, the body is going to accelerate muscle protein breakdown to use those amino acids for energy. Going back to the protein sparing thing, this happens both during fat loss and in a surplus. Now, we're not talking too much about fat loss today, because with fat loss, all of us experience some of the challenges of low carb, because we have to keep the protein relatively high, we need a certain essential level of fat for health. And we're left with kind of a limited level of carbs. So my limited, I mean, oftentimes around 100 grams or less, which I'm going to call low carb slash keto territory. Whereas something like 150 grams or higher, gets into more normal moderate to high carb levels. And a simple formula for that is one gram per pound, very much like protein, right? So if you weigh 150 pounds, and you're getting 150 grams of protein, consider that moderate. And then it can go up from there. Anyway, what I was saying is that when you're losing fat, when you're in a fat loss phase, we know that one of the hardest things is to hold on to muscle. And that's because the body is going to break down the muscle protein and use that energy, because you just don't have much energy coming in. But here's the thing, when you're at maintenance, or when you're in a surplus, you get the same negative effects by not having enough carbs. That's the powerful thing here. That is why the bodybuilders in that study I started with could barely put on new muscle when they were deprived of carbs and the ones had the carbs flowing in. They're like, yeah, pack it on five pounds of muscle. Let's do it. And so adequate carb intake prevents that scenario, right? Here. Here's how the body uses its energy. But just to simplify it, I realized it's more complicated this, the body's energy hierarchy is going to use carbs first, fat second, and proteins as a last resort, adequate carbs adequate consumption, right dietary carbs, ensures that protein is reserved for its primary function that we want it for, which is muscle repair and growth. So carbs prevent muscle protein breakdown, super important. Number six carbs can optimize the testosterone to cortisol ratio, or this is one of those that I was refreshed in my if I even remembered it to begin with for my nutrition education. When I was researching this topic, proper carb consumption supports a favorable testosterone to cortisol ratio. And this is also favorable for muscle anabolism. And recovery. just intuitively think about it, the more testosterone the more anabolic you are, the less cortisol, the less stress the better recover, you have men and women, right? Even though men have multiples the amount of testosterone has women. You know, it's still important in both. And we mentioned before that carbs also help balance hormones. Well, conversely, a low carb diet can lead to hormonal imbalances that can impede your muscle gains. And in this case, the testosterone to cortisol ratio is one of those balances. So whenever somebody tells you like, you know, women over 40, they need to keep the carbs low. Watch out. I honestly that that's pretty terrible advice, just as generic advice, because at the end of the day, the right advice is you need to eat for you and your goals. And he's tested out and experiment with yourself. But also don't just assume that cutting something out to an unnatural level of aloneness. I just awkwardly worded that. But you know, what I mean, would somehow benefit you, right? Whereas a moderate to high carb diet is not moderate to high carb, right? It's a balanced level of carbs. And that actually maintains hormonal balance. So again, women over 40 Way more often than not, in my experience, and two thirds of my clients are women, and most of them are over 40 are going to thrive on higher carbs, their hormones are going to just balance the heck out of each other generally, right generally, unless you have other issues, but I'm just saying relative to a lower carb approach for most women, and And also for most people, all right, number seven, recovery, okay, and soreness. So these are very important aspects, carbs will reduce muscle soreness after your exercise. And they're going to speed up your recovery. I mean, we talked about glycogen, right? But even during and right after the workout, and up to like a day or two afterward, a higher carb diet will decrease the perception of fatigue. And they're going to lower the markers of muscle damage. cart. And the reason is, this is so cool. Carbs enhance the repair and rebuilding process of muscles. And I think that's because of the mTOR pathway. It's because they're anti catabolic is because they allow protein to be used for what they need to be used for just building muscles. You can see this is all related. It's all related. So carbs enhance all of those things. And guess what that means? You don't feel as sore you don't feel the tearing of the muscles as long they recover better. Also, who you know what else that means? Sar stress adaptation recovery I talked about in my last solo episode, progressive overload, this means you're gonna have better adaptation and growth over time. This is why you're gonna build muscle faster. It's so cool. I mean, improve recovery, less soreness, more energy, more anti catabolic, the list goes on and on. Alright, now we get to number eight. So carbs support retaining muscle in a calorie deficit. Okay, I alluded it to I alluded to it earlier, but we have to address fat loss. What does this all me? All right, especially for women, okay, because women apparently will see it and even bigger performance drop with low carb intake. But either way men and women need sufficient carbs to preserve muscle mass during calorie restriction. And I know that's hard to do, because we're also trying to keep the protein high. So if I were to prioritize that, I would say, hit your protein minimum. And that might look different for different people, but it's usually around point eight to one grams per pound, hit the fat minimum, this is where you have a little bit of a lever to play with, because a lot of us might just be consuming more fat than we really need relative to carbs during fat loss. And sometimes just dialing that fat a little bit down from say, 30% of the calories to 20%, or 25 to 15% of the calories and saying keep it pretty tight, gives you that extra room to crank up the carbs a little bit. Now I've also seen cases where just a small drop in protein can go over to a slight increase in carbs, and like these are like dials on a machine. And all of a sudden,

Philip Pape 22:30

the stress response gets reduced, right? Your expenditure starts to climb back up, or at least not drop as fast. And you're still able to retain muscle. It's a fine balance between multiple various variables. And I know it's tough. And this is why it really helps to have a coach like when I'm working with clients and fat loss. It is not just about the calorie deficit, it's about so much more than that. It's about how are we playing with the protein, fats and carbs for you, to give you enough energy to hold on to muscle, as measured by your lifts, and how you feel in the gym and your strength and all that. To give you enough energy, I think I said an energy to help with your sleep topple the recovery, it's all this balanced with the end goal to number one, get through the diet. That's number one, because you can't even do that you're gonna you know, you're not going to be successful. And then number two, hold on to as much muscle mass as possible. Okay, so it just remember even though the carbs might be down to like 100 grams, 80 grams, even 50 grams Aikido territory, do you have some dials to play with on the fat protein side give you a little bit more carbs if it seems to be affecting you. Otherwise, the only other options are to reduce the aggressiveness of the diet. So you eat more food, or, and or to increase your expenditure in other ways, like a higher step count, for example, or maybe you need more sleep or whatever a number of other areas, right. So it's all this kind of budget that we're playing with. All right, number nine, for why carbs are so important. Beyond muscle building, carbs improve your overall athletic performance. And this is this is different than recovery. And this is different than glycogen, this is just that just everything about how you're able to push the weights, you know, handle the intensity of from one rep to knock another and one set to another, to be able to ability to handle smaller rest periods, your work capacity, like all of your athletic markers, during a training session, whether it's lifting or cardio, both. You can have higher quality, more intense workouts in general, by having those carbs in your bloodstream, period. This is why I don't like fasted training, right? When people ask I say just don't do it, unless you've want to compare the two and then see which one works better for you. And 99% of the time it's going to be having the carbs in your system or having the food in your system. So if you only have a little bit of time before you work out out something very fast digesting like banana is a good option. If it's a little farther out, you have more options, it could be a slower digesting carb, like a grain like oats. And if if you have to fast train at all, I would eat a lot more carbs as my dinner the night before and have the dinner a little bit later. I mean, not so late that it impedes sleep but late enough that it kind of carries over into the next day, but it's still suboptimal in terms of the glycogen in the tank when you work out. So sufficient carbon take ensures that the muscle and liver glycogen stores are optimized like we talked about before. And this helps you with your training performance. So a lot of what I said today, these nine things inter weave, right like there's dependencies on each other, so they're not like completely isolated in a vacuum. But I thought it was important to bring up the whole picture so that you understand why carbs are so important. Now, we're gonna go over the negatives of a moderate to high carb diet and they really are not okay, so that was that section. And if you enjoy fruits, rice, pasta, oats, potatoes and the many other sources of carbs in a diverse balanced diet, please, by all means do enjoy them. Okay, so if you found this trip down carb lane, enlightening, or even just entertaining, I don't know. I'm gonna I'm in a good mood today. For some reason I'm always in a good mood but but a little bit more of a cheeky mood today, I guess, as my friends would say. share this episode with a friend please if you found this enlightening entertaining helpful in any way whatsoever, please share it with a friend, especially a low carb keto zealot who thinks that carbs make you fat, please share it with them, and then share it with them in the hopes that we can save one more soul from the misery of constantly cutting out carbs. I mean, that would do a huge service in the world. And it would probably help you know the agricultural industry as well. Anyway, in our next episode 127 Five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid what to do instead, we will go over why females in particular should reconsider jumping right into a fat loss phase. The five most common mistakes women make and how to set yourself up for a successful fat loss phase instead. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Philip Pape 11/24/23 Philip Pape 11/24/23

Ep 125: Peptides, Hormone Therapy, Medical Aesthetics, and Personalized Wellness with Kristin Gemme

How safe is hormone therapy? What are peptides, and how can they help you improve your health and wellness?

Today, I am joined by Kristin Gemme, a board-certified physician assistant with over ten years of experience as a PA and 16 years in the medical field. She is the owner and operator of Ethos Medical Aesthetics and Wellness in Avon, CT, and we connected through my coach and recent podcast guest, Andrew Romeo. Iwanted to bring her on my show to discuss peptides, hormone therapy, medical weight loss, and other ways to complement lifestyle interventions.

Kristin is passionate about helping people achieve optimal health through personalized holistic interventions such as skincare, injectables, lasers, PDO threads, and wellness programs. As I mentioned, she is also the host of the Just a Pinch podcast, where she discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly side of aesthetics, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

Episode summary:

I was joined by Kristin Gemme, a board-certified physician assistant and owner of Ethos Medical Aesthetics and Wellness. Kristin brought her vast knowledge to the table as we delved into the fascinating world of peptides, hormone therapy, and aesthetic medicine.

Peptides, short chains of amino acids, play a crucial role in our body's functions. They can mimic hormones and neurotransmitters, helping optimize our overall health. Peptide therapy is a growing field, with extensive research supporting its safety and effectiveness. Kristin shared how peptides can boost natural growth hormone levels and support lean muscle growth, leading to improvements in weight loss and fat reduction.

Next, we ventured into the complex world of hormonal health. The importance of hormone balance cannot be overstated, as imbalances can lead to various health issues. Kristin emphasized the importance of personalized treatment plans and accurate testing methods for hormone replacement therapy. We discussed testosterone levels in men and their impact on men's health.

We also touched on the controversial world of medical weight loss, discussing the potential misuse of certain drugs and the importance of incorporating lifestyle changes such as sleep and exercise. Kristin warned against relying solely on medications for weight loss, emphasizing the need for careful titration and gradual tapering off once weight loss goals are achieved.

Moving on, we explored the realm of aesthetic medicine. Aesthetic treatments can have a profound psychological impact on patients. It's essential to address body dysmorphia and promote body positivity and self-love. Kristin also shared valuable tips on skincare routines, highlighting the importance of sun exposure and using high-quality skincare products.

The episode concluded with a discussion on the importance of sun protection and blood work in skincare. Regular check-ups can help identify potential skin issues early on, and sunscreen is vital for preventing skin damage from the sun. Kristin also emphasized the importance of using products with antioxidants and peptides to promote skin health.

The episode provided a wealth of knowledge on peptides, hormones, skincare, and overall health optimization. The importance of personalized treatment, accurate testing, body positivity, and high-quality skincare were key takeaways.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:03] Becoming a PA in aesthetic medicine
[4:33] Guiding principles in aesthetic medicine and personal wellness
[9:07] Peptides and their role in health
[13:20] Identifying candidates for hormone therapy and testing methods
[20:49] Integrating medical weight loss with holistic health strategies
[23:01] Benefits of peptide therapy and the evolution of the field
[30:11] Using lab tests to craft personalized health interventions
[38:15] Testosterone replacement therapy
[44:15] Hormone replacement therapy for women
[48:41] Adaptogens and nootropics
[50:18] The future of medical aesthetics
[1:00:51] Psychological effects and misconceptions with aesthetic treatments
[1:12:47] The benefits of getting your bloodwork done
[1:14:49] Where to find Kristin

Episode resources:

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Transcript

Kristin Gemme 00:00

peptides are really running the show with our physiology and how our bodies work. And as technology has moved throughout the decades here, we as a scientific community have really figured out how to harness them and utilize them synthetically, to kind of biohack our bodies and make it do the things that we want it to do.

Philip Pape 00:24

Kristin Gemme 01:49

Thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to be here.

Philip Pape 01:52

I'm excited as well, because it's been a while since we talked and I want to get a little bit into your backstory first and then dive into some of the specifics here people want to know everything about so you know what inspired you to get into this field to become a PA but also specifically pursue a career in aesthetic medicine.

Kristin Gemme 02:09

I so my road to becoming a PA was a little bit complex, but I don't think outside the norm. I was in my undergraduate education over at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, and I was in the nursing program. And while I was going through so in my clinical rotations, I found myself being very much so drawn to what the doctors and the PAs and NPS were doing and drifting away from my nursing care plans and IV drip titration. So, I had a real kind of come to Jesus moment with myself and my advisors, and said, You know what, I think I want a little bit more than I think I want more of the science, I want to be the one making the decisions and making the calls, as opposed to implementing the plan, the way that nursing typically goes. So I jumped ship, I switched my major in the middle of my education into biotechnology with a biology concentration, and pre med. So I wasn't sure at that point if I was going to go through to medical school or what I was going to do. But I had some friends and family members that were going through the medical education and really recommended that I investigate physician assistant as as a career versus an MD, and I am so happy that I did. And from there, I went to Springfield College and did their graduate master's program to become a PA. And it was during that time that I really found a love for aesthetic medicine and skin. But I wanted to do a little bit more than just classic dermatology. I love skin. I love the science of it. But I like to do stuff, I'm a do stuff kind of girl. And I like to do procedures, I like to use my hands as well as my brain. So I found the aesthetic side of dermatology and skincare to really be where I would thrive. So all day I am using my hands I'm you know creating these treatment plans in my head and using the science and then implementing that with my hands, whether it's utilizing laser technology, doing a lot of injectables, placing IVs, all sorts of different things. So it was just kind of the perfect blend for me. Okay,

Philip Pape 04:25

and I liked that combination of doing and coming up with a plan but also using your hands and brain aesthetic medicine. Tell us just a little bit more about that because we don't get into that on this show as you would imagine as much because I want to be able to tie it in a relevant way to you know the listeners thinking where does this fit into an overall nutrition or fitness plan? Absolutely.

Kristin Gemme 04:46

And so I mean a lot of that comes from my my personal background so I did not enter the PA space directly into aesthetic medicine. I always knew it was something that I wanted to do. But it's not where I started because I know that it's I needed a good base, I needed a really strong medical base. And I love medicine, I love all of it. So I worked for several years in primary care, treating ages five to 100 plus. And from there, I worked in the surgical trauma critical care unit in Hartford and took care of critically ill patients, you know, going through some of the worst days of their life and their family's lives, I did some part time and full time work in urgent care. So I've kind of seen it and done a lot, I've had a lot of exposure to medicine, and especially to primary care, because I, I like the concept of being able to take care of somebody across the lifespan, but I was really, really disenfranchised, truly being directed by insurance companies. And I mean, that's a huge conversation to get into with just the current state of medicine in America. But it made it really difficult to take care of people the way that I wanted to take care of them, and to be able to give them the time that they deserved, and to investigate and utilize tools that aren't readily available in the primary care world. So from there, I was able to transition into aesthetic medicine where I got to do the stuff. And I got to learn the skincare even more. I studied under a facial plastic surgeon in Massachusetts and was able to see things from the inside out assisting in facial plastic surgery, which I think was really imperative in my knowledge today, of skin and anatomy. And what aesthetic medicine ultimately is, is we're utilizing medicine, technology, biotechnology, for elective interventions. Now a lot of what we do is truly taking care of the skin, but it's nothing that insurance companies are going to be covering. So this is all out of pocket costs for the patient, trying to improve the health of their skin. You know, you can, you can go I mean, the gamut of aesthetic medicine goes everywhere from purely aesthetic, you know, reduce my wrinkles, I want a brow lift, I want bigger lips, I want all of these things to make me feel and look more beautiful, all the way to treating burn scars, acne scars, surgical scars, helping erase trauma from people's skin and helping them on different levels. So there's a real wide range of aesthetic medicine. So aesthetic, dermatology, aesthetic medicine, it's all there's a bunch of different terms out there for it. But I do everything from you know, plumping the lips of 25 year olds to helping erase domestic violence scars off the bodies of women and everywhere in between. And when I opened up ethos, not only was aesthetic medicine important to me, but wellness was to where I kind of circled back to my primary care days, and even my critical care days. And I really wanted to integrate total body optimization. And that's kind of my tagline for ethos is total body optimization. Because it's not just how we look on the outside, it's truly we need to be healthy on the inside and feel good. And that's kind of how I define wellness too is it's you're not just not feeling bad. You're feeling good. And that is what we're looking for with wellness.

Philip Pape 08:14

I love your answer I think a lot of people can relate to you call the disenfranchisement disillusionment, whatever of the GP and primary care industry as well as the lack of options or the even the gaslighting, whatever phrase you want to use when it comes to hormone issues, women's health. I mean, I've seen it all with my clients with my wife, you know, with so many people. Yeah, and the idea of pursuing wellness for its own sake for you, whatever that comes in whatever form is a positive thing. Like, it doesn't matter if it's everybody has different reasons, right? And there may be a physique or physical reason there may be a an underlying tie in between something that happened to you, like you said that domestic violence scar and, and trauma or how it makes you feel all that. So I'm fully on board with that. And the total body optimization approach is really cool. So why don't we get into some specifics? Because there's areas here that I may have talked about on the show once or twice, but you can really shine a light on it. The first one is peptides, right? Yes. They what are they? I know they're proteins. I talked to Dr. Ron Maclean a long time ago on the show about it. What are they? How do they work in the human body just so we can start the conversation there? Oh, I mean, we

Kristin Gemme 09:24

are we're made up peptides. We function with peptides. peptides are nothing more than short chains of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. And these peptides are doing, I mean countless different functions in our body. It's also part of a lot of medications such as like insulin, insulin was really truly I believe it was the first peptide based medication available. So peptides are oftentimes signaling they're mimicking something, they're turning something on, they're turning something off. You're going to work in our body and either mimicking Have a hormone, or a neurotransmitter, or they're just helping your body function better. There's certain peptides that get released by your body naturally to say, hey, release more more insulin release more glucose, release more of this neurotransmitter, release more of the serotonin, all of these things are signals. So peptides are really running the show with our physiology and how our bodies work. And as technology has moved throughout the decades here, we as a scientific community have really figured out how to harness them, and utilize them synthetically, to kind of biohack our bodies and make it do the things that we want it to do. And peptides, for the most part are extraordinarily safe as well. There's a lot of research behind them. They've been being used for decades across the world. And there's a wide range of them. Now, within peptide therapy for what I do, we're really focusing on the growth hormone releasing peptides or stimulating peptides. So these are products such as Sermorelin, ipamorelin, CJC, 12, nine, five, those are some of the more common ones, but there's a whole bunch of them out there. And what these are doing is you're injecting them into your body about five, three to five nights a week for cycles of anywhere between three to six months. And what you're doing is right before bed, you're injecting it so that your own natural growth hormone that's getting released by your brain at night, when you hit that deep sleep cycle is boosting up more. So growth hormone really peaks when you're about 20 years old. And after that time, all it's going to do is your natural production, is just going to slowly go down. Like with everything in our body, we just stopped producing as much. So we want to give it a little boost. So what's the alternative to it? HGH? Everybody's pretty familiar with that term? And is it an option? Yeah, it's an option, it's not an option that I offer. Because it's a little bit more dangerous, there's a lot more side effects that come with it, you're supplying an exogenous outside hormone. So when you do that, your body's going to stop making your own. So it becomes a lot more of a chronic thing that you need to stay on. Whereas peptides, all we're saying is, Hey, make a little bit more, but it's staying within your body's own natural feedback mechanism. So it's almost impossible. I never say impossible with anything with the body. But it is almost impossible to overshoot your target and to start cranking out so much growth hormone that now your heart's enlarging, your organs are enlarging. And we're creating, you know, situations that could even give you diabetes, that's those are things that we see more so with HGH that we don't see with peptides. So peptides are a safer alternative to helping boost your own natural HGH while staying within your body's own safety parameters. Okay,

Philip Pape 12:55

so I want to explore that a little bit specifically, if someone want to understand which populations this is for, because it sounds like there's an aging component to it because of the loss of your natural production. But also, you know, I'm a big fan of understanding like the before, after, like, what kind of data what kind of tests do we get to actually see that it worked? And it's not, you know, some magical elixir that because people are going to be skeptical of this stuff, especially if it's newer on the market. How do they know that it actually made a difference other than that, and how they feel? So I want to, let's talk about that. Yeah, so

Kristin Gemme 13:25

for me, the way that I practice medicine and utilizing peptides is safety always first, we always start out by doing some blood work and blood work, we can either have you go to a lab or my preference is I draw right from you right in my office in my chair during our consultation. So when we look at your blood work, we're really trying to look at a snapshot of your overall health. So we're looking at your metabolic health. We're looking at your thyroid function, we're looking at your hormones, especially with men. bloodwork tends to work best for hormones. So looking at testosterone, free and total sex hormone binding globulin, estrogen, ultra sensitive estrogen at that, we're looking at C peptide, we're looking at a fasting insulin level, your hemoglobin a one C, which is kind of your average blood sugar over the course of three months, I'm going to look at how your kidneys, liver, electrolytes, a complete blood count all of it. We may even dive deeper into some other things too. And one of the most important markers that I like to look at when looking at peptide therapy is an IGF one level, which is an insulin insulin like growth factor level. This is ultimately what we're trying to target when it comes to growth hormone. And with these peptides, so we want it within a certain range. We like to see high normal we can even see outside of high normal but only for short periods of time. If we were to have that level be too high too long. That's when we can look at some some studies that show that it can affect your cardiovascular health or your your your glucose metabolism and Things like that. But that's why we have all of these safety parameters set already with how we do peptides, there's really safe protocols. And if you follow the protocols and you're monitoring these things, they're extraordinarily safe. So we always start out with that bloodwork. When I draw it in my office, I get results back, typically within 48 hours, which is faster than any any lab that you're going to see around here. If you go to quest, we're waiting two weeks before we get results back. So love to see you in my office for this. So once we have your baseline health, we look at everything we say, all right, are you a candidate for peptide therapy? What is your IGF one level look like most adults that are over the age of 40, I'm seeing their IGF one levels, pretty low, either remarkably low or low normal. And these are people that are going to benefit honestly the most for peptide therapy, because they are deficient. And we know that they're not producing enough of their own natural growth hormone. Now even people that are completely normal within their IGF one levels, or even high normal, you're still a candidate. As long as you're not off the charts high at baseline, you're all of your organ functioning is good. You have no major chronic medical problems, like big things that are affecting your organ function, we can go ahead and get started. And with that, I always start slow and low. So we're going to start you off at an introductory dose, we're going to see how you feel, see how things are going for you see if you're having any side effects or not. If you're doing good, each month, we're gonna bump you up a little bit until you're going to really feel that difference. And so far, the results have truly been amazing. And by results, I mean subjective and objective. So subjectively, people feel great, you feel better and better every week with peptides, typically week one and two, you're just gonna be sleeping better, it can tend to make you a little bit sleepy, which is awesome, because that's what we want, you're injecting it right before bed. So you're gonna be sleeping deeper than you ever have. If you have any of the wearable biometrics, like I have an aura ring that I like to wear. This showed me after two doses that I was getting much, much deeper sleep and for longer periods of time. So my restorative sleep was better than it was by itself with just my own body here. And for for reference, I am, you know, 36 years old, so, okay, got much, much better with just that. As the weeks go on, I start noticing at the gym, it almost feels like when you first start taking creatine where you feel like oh, I've got a little bit more in the tank that I used to, you know, I can tap into that extra gear that I couldn't really get to last time. And I'm recovering better, I'm not as sore as I was. All of those things that make your your gym going experience better get better. As time goes on, aches and pains start to go down kind of that chronic, oh, I have that tendinitis that I just can't get rid of. All of a sudden you wake up one day and you realize that like, Oh, um, it doesn't, it's gone, it's fixed, it's better. And then from there, your energy levels get better, your energy levels get better. Also, because you're sleeping better, you're more restorative, you know, we all know top to bottom that sleep is the most important thing that you can focus on when it comes to your own wellness, wellness and well being and being able to get over illnesses, injuries, and get those gains in the gym to you have to sleep. You know, sleep is more important almost on your training session itself. From there, it's going to help improve your metabolic health. Everybody that I do repeat bloodwork on, which if you're on peptides, we're going to do repeat bloodwork at the end of your first three months cycle. And it's amazing people that didn't have metabolic issues, you know, their cholesterol was normal, their blood sugar's were normal, nothing that any doctor would ever look at and say there was a problem with still improved people's a onesies that were normal, or even better normal. Cholesterol was good. It's amazing now, so we're seeing real improvements in metabolic health. And as we're seeing those improvements in metabolic health, we're seeing changes in body composition as well. body composition with peptides does take a little bit longer to happen. That magic really happens between months three and six, just a longer, longer exposure to the medication. And you're going to support lean muscle growth. So it's going to be easier for you to put on lean muscle, you're not going to bulk, especially for women like you are not going to just get swell off this stuff and feel like you're getting bulky and big. It's not HGH and I can't repeat that enough.

Philip Pape 19:35

And the women listening to this podcast by now should know that muscle is the best thing in the world.

Kristin Gemme 19:39

It's good athlete. So and we also know here the more muscle that you have, the more fat you burn because we are increasing your basal metabolic rate. So we see weight loss, we see fat reduction because of all of these health metrics. It's not a magic pill for weight loss. It's not something that you take and all of a sudden you should All this body fat, it's a long term, long term thing, you know, and it's it's fixing you from the inside out. Now, the reason that we take you off of it at six months, is ultimately not because it's dangerous to stay on, but because we want you to be able to utilize it long term in cycles. And if you were to continue to use this without breaks, there's a chance that your body just gets used to it, and you're not going to get those benefits from it anymore. So we give your body a break, everything goes back to normal, there's no withdrawal, I just came off of a six month cycle myself, I am about a week off of it. I feel no different. I feel no different. There's no withdrawal whatsoever.

Philip Pape 20:40

Yeah, I'm on board. So that's that sounds like, you know, a lot of the benefits people hope to get from testosterone or anabolics or other things. And it sounds a little bit safer than that. Well, how do you separate that from natural intervention? So for example, IGF one, you know, we've talked about here can also be increased by increasing in protein, you know, a lot of people are deficient, also by strength training itself. How do you divorce the two? Because, you know, we want to understand that that is giving you the impact independent of those factors, do you, you start somebody on lifestyle changes? Where does it come into play.

Kristin Gemme 21:12

So I mean, I always promote lifestyle changes, if we are if we're doing an intervention, like peptide therapy that you are committing to, and you're investing in, I mean, sure, you can sit on the couch and change nothing about anything that you're doing and decide to not work out and not eat right and not do the things and you're still going to get some benefits, because you're still going to boost your own natural growth hormone. But it's a waste in my opinion. So anytime that we're starting these things, we're also discussing the need to do some weight training, to exercise to dial in your nutrition to make sure that your your lifestyles including good sleep, you know, I don't want you, you know, injecting yourself at 3am with this stuff, when you're getting into bed to get up at 630 for the day, like we're kind of defeating the purpose of it. Now, how do we differentiate between what's coming from the peptide versus what's coming from the other parts of your lifestyle, you cannot, you cannot unless you were to do a controlled study where you are doing nothing other than utilizing your peptide and not doing the other things. And ideally, I don't want you to do that. So it's all a cumulative effect. And one thing I didn't mention with peptides too, especially with men, if men are a little bit on the low side of their testosterone, because like I said, I like to look at that when we're looking at peptide therapy, too. If you're a little bit low, we don't necessarily need to reach for testosterone right away, either. I do you typically see testosterone levels boost, you know, mildly, it's not going to shoot up into a huge range. It's not testosterone replacement. But because we are dialing in your body and your metabolic system here, I do see nice modest boost in your testosterone level as well with peptide therapy.

Philip Pape 23:00

And you mentioned the increase in lean mass and improvement in body composition, which which we know comes from both adding muscle and losing fat, usually through diet. Is this because of the additional performance you can gain in the gym? Or does it is it somehow directly making it easier to synthesize muscle? Right? Well, what's the mechanism there? All

Kristin Gemme 23:17

of the above all of the above. So if you look at things like HGH and growth hormone, those are the benefits that you're getting from peptides, you're just getting it in a smaller pulse. So every thing that you are doing is augmented, you know, think of like every rep that you're doing every squat, every curl, everything that you're doing is augmented and almost on steroids, right? So you're getting more out of each of those things.

Philip Pape 23:45

Yeah, I'm gonna have to come in and experiment with this. And to talk about it on the podcast in my next next cycle of my building phases. Let's talk. Yeah, because I'm curious about that to see the differences and get some blood work or whatever. How do you see this evolving over the coming years and decades is peptides? I know you said certain peptides like insulin is have been around for a while. But I've heard the term used more often in terms of these specific types. Yes, yeah. Tell me more about how the field is evolving.

Kristin Gemme 24:13

So it's, there's a lot up in the air, honestly, with how it's going to evolve. Very recently, if you were to do a Google search right now on peptides, specifically ipamorelin, CJC, 12, nine, five, I butum. Morin, any of these, you're going to see a big pop up all over Google saying FDA shut it down. And these are illegal and we can't use them now. Yes, and no. peptides, the ones that I'm talking about have never been FDA approved. That's an all of my consent forms. That is what we talk about with patients. These are not FDA approved medications. They are not FDA approved, mainly because they are not as efficacious, as he Ah, and for something to get FDA approval, it has to prove its place, it doesn't matter that it's safer, it doesn't matter that it's doing very similar things in a safer manner. The end results of studies obviously, are not going to be as potent as HGH. So that is one of the main reasons why they're not FDA approved. Now, the memo that went out several weeks ago regarding taking these peptides off the market, it's not that they're illegal, it's not that you cannot use them, what they did was they made it so that compounding pharmacies, which is where we get them from, can no longer obtain the raw materials to synthesize them. And now what I'm about to say is going to be nothing more than my opinion. You know, nobody truly knows the nitty gritty, you know, backdoor deals going on here. But I've spoken to many providers that do similar things that I do here with peptide therapy. And we're all pretty much in agreement that the wrong people were making money off of peptides. And the powerful people were not so well, because they're not FDA approved, big pharma companies are not able to synthesize them, they are not able to put their price tag on them and a brand name and put them on the market. So they're not getting paid off of it. And unfortunately, a lot of those companies also have their hands on the FDA. A lot of high ups in the FDA, are old executives of these pharmaceutical companies. So there's a lot of conspiracy opinions about all of this, the memo that I read from the FDA that went out to the compounding pharmacies, it just shook my head. You know, they're saying, Oh, we saw safety issues with this medication when it was administered intravenously? Well, it's a good thing that we don't administer them intravenously. I mean, if you grind up carrots into a puree and inject it intravenously, you will die. Does that mean that carrots are unsafe and should be taken off the market? No. So there's a lot of drama around it. But in all of our opinion, for the providers that have been using these for years, and have seen incredible changes in their patient's health coming off of, you know, chronic medications, sometimes being able to come off of, you know, lifelong medications to treat metabolic conditions, or even anxiety, medication, depression, mental health, all of these things, people are taking less pills, because of peptides. And, you know, to not sound like a conspiracy theorist, I think that has something to do with all of a sudden the shutdown of those specific peptides. Now, there's just a couple of them on there. So not everything is on there. And we can still get them completely fine from all of the pharmacies that we've been getting them from, you know, ipamorelin, which is my personal favorite, it has a very low side effect profile, it's very safe, it's easy to dose, it's very reliable, that one, I'm no longer going to be able to get believe me, when I got that memo, I stockpiled it. So I have a hefty pile of it in my stock here. For all of my patients that are currently on it, they need to be able to continue their cycles. But Sermorelin was not taken off the market, which is crazy, it does the exact same thing as ipamorelin, the exact same thing. So that's just the one that I'm going to be transitioning patients on to. So there's a ton of research about a lot of different peptides out there right now. And some of the biggest players in the world of peptides in medicine, some of the physicians out there, I mean, they're using peptides that like we've never even heard of. So the technology is there, the advancements are there. So I think over the next decade, we're going to see kind of a whittling down of peptides into ones that are, you know, really tried and true, are safe, have a lot of data behind them. And that we can trust because that's the main thing, especially when we're working off label, you know, or non FDA approved procedures or products is you as the provider really need to feel confident with what you're offering patients what you're doing. Yeah,

Philip Pape 29:14

a lot of what you said, makes a lot of sense. When you look at the health care industry as a whole and how, you know, the sick care versus health care paradigm the you know, the money is definitely made from keeping people in a certain state where they're gonna buy meds, I mean, we know it and I don't even call it conspiracy. It's just truth. You see it out there. Now

Kristin Gemme 29:31

we're a Sikh culture. We're not a well culture, you know, no, makes money when people are healthy. Yeah,

Philip Pape 29:37

and I think the same thing for hormones because this is a good segue hormone treatment. I've seen it with so many women in my life, that it is like pulling teeth to get I pretty much say don't talk to your primary care like your PCP anymore about hormones because they're not gonna help you like I just seen that 90% of the time. There could be a few good ones out there. But both access to treatment, the types of testing you know, Oftentimes the testing that's performed is inadequate, because it's, you know, maybe it's not the free version of the hormone. And maybe they need, I don't know, saliva or metabolite testing and all this. So let's get into hormones laid on me, you know, the testing side who benefits what kind of therapy men and women, you know, all of that

Kristin Gemme 30:18

there's a wildly wildly diverse range of, of hormone therapy out there. And most of it is being done. Now, by these wellness centers, you basically, in order to truly take care of somebody's Hormonal Health, not just testosterone, not just estrogen, I mean, just about any hormone in your body. You can't involve insurance companies, insurance companies have these really bananas standards. And like just numbers that say, if you are this number, we will cover this medication. If you are this number, we will not they're not treating the patient. They're not insurance companies don't allow you to treat the patient, they're just treating a number. And they're not covering a lot of the testing and the testing is done incorrectly for men. Yep, we can pull blood, we can see some really good results easily with blood with women, bloodwork for hormones, depending on what we're looking at is relatively useless. You know, it will tell you if there is a massive problem with a hormone, but it's not going to give us the information that we need to know to be able to determine really your hormonal replacement levels, and saliva testing dried saliva is truly the best for that. And as we know, women's hormones are wildly complex, and are so different than men. Men are simple. They my men treatment in many ways. One equals two, here we go here, like here's our algorithm, this is great, easy to treat, you give me a female, and it's like, Let's put on our thinking caps. Let's stare at this for a while. Do a ton of physic physical history, we need to know exactly where you're at in your menstrual cycle, what day you're on. If you are Peri menopausal and irregular or you are postmenopausal. Yay. Now we get to figure that out too. So it just makes it a lot more difficult, but it can absolutely be done. Now there is a lot of weird distorted old studies when it comes to hormone replacement as well, specifically, the sex hormones. So estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. And if you look at some old studies, they were saying, oh my gosh, this gives you testicular cancer. This gives you all sorts of different types of cancer, it's going to give you blood clots, it's going to make you have a heart attack and die. And unfortunately, a lot of physicians and providers in the space, whether it be primary care or urology, OBGYN, they read those studies and then just said, Okay, we're not doing hormones, we're gonna wipe our feet of that we're not touching them, because it's not worth it. And it really comes down to those studies were flawed design. Testosterone will not give you testicular cancer, if you have testicular cancer, testosterone replacement can potentially expedite it, it can make it advance faster. However, recently, there was another study that just came out that showed that now some forms of testicular cancer are actually being treated with testosterone. So there is a lot of combative data out there. And when it comes to cardiovascular risk, with testosterone therapy, the thought was always it's bad, it's gonna give you a heart attack, it's not good for your heart. It's actually very false. If you have you are causing so much more damage to your cardiovascular system, being deficient in testosterone than being on it. So you're actually boosting your cardiovascular health when you are on replacement. Now from a medical legal standpoint, this is where it gets really kind of into uncomfortable territory for some providers and people and it really depends on your providers. Comfort level, some people will say, Listen, I don't care if you've had a cardiovascular event, you're really low and I think that you're going to benefit from going on therapy. Absolutely. And they're gonna go on it. Other providers are gonna say, Oh, you you have a personal history of a heart attack 10 years ago. I'm not taking that risk and

Philip Pape 34:40

somebody else's same reason, right? Yeah. No, it's

Kristin Gemme 34:45

It's tough. And it's it's really personal preference on that. Now, when it comes to female hormones and those studies, those ones are also a little bit complex to a lot of the poor data that was coming out of those was were based on synthetic hormones. Progesterone especially right? Yes, exactly coming from like the pregnant pregnant marier and the PMU, foals, all of that so coming from synthetically made hormones that data is not supported by bio identical hormones bio identical are exactly what they sound like bio identical, they are molecularly identical to the ones that your body makes on their own. So those kind of let

Philip Pape 35:29

me stop you. So the synthetic progesterone, is that also in the pill, or at least one variant of the pill? Yes. And doctors have no problem prescribing that to women of all ages, for whatever reason, instantly. Okay, continue.

Kristin Gemme 35:42

Welcome. Welcome to Oh man. No,

Philip Pape 35:45

I've heard it. I can empathize against so many women I know after this.

Kristin Gemme 35:50

Okay. Absolutely, absolutely. So now when it comes to replacing hormones, there are a ton of different ways to do so. And your local compounding pharmacy that is of high quality standards is going to be your best friend. Because going to your local CVS to pick up your prescription is likely going to be not covered by insurance and take your hat off when we go through compounding pharmacies to get either an injectable form of testosterone, which is my personal preference. Or you can get compounded creams or lozenges or pills there. I mean there are you name it. If you need a way to get a hormone or substance into your body, your compounding pharmacy is going to be the one to do it and to do it well. Now with that being said, not all compounding pharmacies are built the same. You really need to be careful about who you're going through making sure that they are third party tested and vetted and have a very good reputation for for standards of quality. I have a handful of them that I use. And I trust them and they're wonderful and they are affordable, which is the main important part here. So with testosterone, I really like it injectable form testosterone cypionate is one of my favorites. There are different ways that you can play with it. You can use different testosterone blends so that way they have different halflife. So you're, you're missing big peaks and valleys. If somebody's really sensitive to that, but testosterone cypionate is my favorite go to to get men on it and to get it just started and then we go from there. Start simple. I like to keep things as simple as possible for people.

Philip Pape 37:24

Yeah, the minimum minimum minimum effective dose.

37:27

Yes. Hi, my name is Shawna and I want to give a big shout out to Philip Wits & Weights. I discovered his podcast just a few short months ago. But I quickly realized how valuable this content is. With all the many fitness and nutrition influencers out in the world today. I often suffer from information overload. But Phillip poses careful questions to his guests that get to the meat of the subject matter. While most everyone offers free guides to this in that what I found most unique about Phillip is his live training and weekly q&a sessions. If I can't make it live, I can always catch the replay. I am very grateful to find someone I feel is so passionate and genuine to His purpose. while also being hands on within the Wits & Weights online community he is truly only a click away. Thanks Phillip for all you do.

Philip Pape 38:16

Let's talk let's assume for a second while we're testing men, because I've heard so many different so many different guidance on the ranges of values, right we have the population range that doctors use, yeah, then we have the symptom centered kind of approach of like, it almost doesn't matter if you have symptoms. And then we have kind of different ranges in between what what is what's your guidance.

Kristin Gemme 38:38

So my personal philosophy on it is is a blend. So you need by law, you have to have a symptom. In order to go on testosterone, you have to have a documented symptom. The crazy thing is that it can be as simple as I have chronic fatigue. I am tired all the time. I don't feel like myself. I feel depressed. I'm not sleeping well. I am not getting morning erections anymore I'm having difficulty with with sexual activity, I have decreased desire, you know, my wife hates me right now because I'm not acting like myself, I just feel like a lump on a log. This is kind of the chronic condition that we see with men with low tea, at least on some level. So you need to have at least one symptom. From there. You don't need to be real low, but you need to be suboptimal. You know, if you have a testosterone level naturally when we pull it of, you know 900 You know, you're you're you're flying high you are a high tea king here as I like to call them. And, you know, you're just like, Yeah, I'm tired from a little depressed. We're not we're not going that route. You know, I don't think it's the most appropriate because for the most part once we start testosterone you're on it, you know, we're we're replacing it. We are Replacing a hormone. So your natural production of it is going to kind of come to a halt to some degree. So it's not something that I take lightly. So when somebody wants to start testosterone, you know, we have a real conversation about this being lifelong treatment the same way, if you need thyroid replacement, you know, I gotta take my thyroid pill every day, I gotta do my thing got to replace what's what I'm missing. This is that too. So my personal ideal ranges for testosterone when I'm replacing somebody, if they are symptomatic, and on the lower end, my goal, as long as they are tolerating a well is to get their testosterone level between 700 to 1100. You know, that is that is like optimal functioning. And as long as they're not having any sort of crazy side effects from it, you know, again, I'm not just cranking it into people trying to just like, you know, ramp up. Yeah, you know, we're not using it in that way we're doing it, we're titrating your dose based on your symptoms and your levels and your side effects.

Philip Pape 41:00

If someone is like, let's say, a moderate case, like in their in the five hundreds, and symptoms are minimal, but again, like you said, you have to have at least one symptom is that is that still in the range? Because you said you currently have 711, but I've always thought of like four or 500, as probably enough at the low end. But yeah,

Kristin Gemme 41:19

so we have it in, I would say, probably not just this country, but in the world right now we there is a I'm gonna call it a pandemic of low testosterone, and hormonal imbalances. You know, our world is just saturated with endocrine disruptors, between all of the chemicals and plastics and toxins that we are exposed to, across our entire lifespan. You know, being the age that I am, I grew up in the plastic world, everything that we touched as kids was plastic and artificial, you know, everything was just plastic, you know, I only imagine how much plastic is sitting in our bodies now. And it's been there since we were, you know, infants. So all of these things disrupt our hormones. And so there are far more men almost of all ages now that have lower testosterone levels than what they should have, you know, based historically, a lot of things can play into it, the endocrine disrupters, chronic stress, sometimes even people that work out a lot, you know, you can literally train your testosterone. So there's a lot of different things that can play into it. But post traumatic stress, a lot of military vets come back from overseas, and they will have chronically low testosterone and feel symptomatic from it all because of that PTSD and the trauma that they sustained over there. So there's a lot of different scenarios that cause that. So if somebody is, let's say, 35 years old, and otherwise healthy, you know, works out takes care of themselves, no real reason why they should have low tea, their tea should be higher than 500, then especially if they are feeling symptomatic at all, you know, and when you go through my questionnaire of symptoms, people are oftentimes alarmed of being like, I didn't even think that that could be a part of it. You know, a lot of people think, Oh, my, I'm just depressed, you know, and they reach for their SSRI take the Prozac take the Paxil. And it's not a primary depression issue. It's a low testosterone issue. So I do think that people with mental health issues do need to have some some endocrine and hormone testing done before just immediately reaching to some of these other drugs as well. Because it could be very easily fixed primarily from that. That reason there.

Philip Pape 43:36

I'm with you. I'm with you there. Yeah. For folks listening for the men listening definitely just get it tested, at the very least have a number there have a baseline. It's so easy. It's done. Now, women Okay, so now we get open up Pandora's box of all the potential, you know, DHEA and testosterone and estrogen thyroid. And I have clients that are a lot of my clients are perimenopause, post menopause, on treatment or need it or in some cases, they you know, the dosage has been able to bring brought down once lifestyle interventions come into play, which is Yeah, I think yes. But inevitably, with age humans weren't, like you said they weren't designed necessarily live this long, but also the endocrine disruptors. So what does the profile for woman look like to somewhat simplify it? So it doesn't get too complicated? Oh,

Kristin Gemme 44:19

my goodness, there's really unfortunately, no real simple way to simplify women's hormones.

Philip Pape 44:26

Like what's step 123. For women, step one is

Kristin Gemme 44:29

going to be let's get your let's get your testing done. So we're gonna draw some blood, we're gonna get a saliva sample, we're going to send it off to the lab, we're going to see where you stand. You know, ideally, you're going to come in and you're going to be able to tell me that like, this is where I'm at. This is my day cycle. This is where I'm at in my menstrual cycle. So we can kind of pair things in or Nope, I haven't had a period for a year. So now I'm technically postmenopausal. So we need to know some of that we need to know your medical background. So we need to know your medical history, what medications you take you You know all of it, it's all super important because this is all prescription medication. Now from there, I will say that most women are going to they find that they do have a deficiency in something a lot of it is estrogen creams these days are doing bioidentical creams. Most women will have vaginal symptoms, they will have vaginal dryness, pain, decreased sensation, decreased lubrication, just everything. And so now they don't want to have sex either. And that's now going to put a huge stress on things in their own life and with their partners. So estrogen creams can be very commonly used there to help improve vaginal health. Testosterone is oftentimes low too. And sometimes that is also a cause of decreased libido, poor mood depression, kind of overall, crankiness almost. And testosterone for women can be done with creams with pellets. Pellets is a super common way to treat. And that is a like to call it a set it and forget it procedure. So with that, there's really little to no titration with it. And pellets are literally tiny, tiny, tiny little pellets, little pearls of medication. And what you do is it's an in office procedure, we bring you in, we inject a little bit of lidocaine for numbing in the upper part of your of your butt, your butt cheek pick aside, and then from there, we take a little tiny scalpel blade, we poke a little hole. From there, a sterile trocar gets introduced into that you don't feel anything but pressure at this point. And then we put those pellets into it. So those pellets are gone now going and they're living in your tissue in the butt cheek ultimately. And then it's just closed with a little steri strip, and you're going to get a steady release of that testosterone, or sometimes even a blend of other hormones to it's not just t. And that's just going to be a slow release. And a lot of women really like that, because they don't have to do any maintenance with it. They'll come in, you know, once every six months to a year for a little top off. But again, app before you do any dosage changes with any of these medications, you're always doing bloodwork and saliva testing to see where people's levels are at. Right?

Philip Pape 47:10

That actually simplified. Pretty well, pretty nicely. What about what about DHEA? Is that a precursor to testosterone? Was there any benefit.

Kristin Gemme 47:17

So that is a precursor. I mean, you can it's not one that I personally reach for that often. Usually, if people are coming to see me, they're like ready to do something a little bit more aggressive about it. But DHEA is always a potential thing that you can look at, you know, also sometimes looking at cortisol to cortisol is, that one's a little bit trickier to do testing on because it's not just a one time thing, and it's not a blood test, you do a blood test for cortisol, we can tell if you have a gross disorder of it, we can tell if you are non existent, you know, with with your cortisol or if it's wildly high, but what we want to see is your your daytime curve, so we need to have you do a test, kind of within the first hour of waking, and then we need to see it again towards the end of the day. And there is a cortisol curve that we try to follow with that. And if your cortisol is off, it's, it's a little bit of a thief. And it can actually steal hormones from other parts of your bodies, because hormones are kind of transfer. They're not just all separate molecules, they will borrow from each other and transform into each other. So if one is low, it may steal from somewhere else too. So that's why it's important to look at all of your hormones, because they will steal from each other. If you have one problem somewhere, there's a chance you might have another problem.

Philip Pape 48:40

Yeah, I did have a question about adaptogens and nootropics. Why don't we start there? I mean, what what do you what are your thoughts on those like Ashwagandha or holy basil, etc. So

Kristin Gemme 48:50

there, I can kind of take them or leave them. You know, I don't think there's any problem with them. Ashwagandha I find is really just kind of good for mood. So if you feel like your mood is just a little bit miffed, then it's good to do you know, you're it's, I'm not gonna say you're not going to hurt yourself with adaptogens and herbs because medications come from adaptogens herbs and plants. So but I mean, it's if it's something that you want to play with and try out to see how you like it first, by all means you absolutely can even with testosterone, some men, they're just like, Okay, I got my testing done. I know where I'm at. I'm not ready yet to take the jump into actual testosterone replacement. What else can I do? So those are the cases where first and foremost you gotta sleep. If you're not sleeping, your testosterone is going to be in the toilet. So really dialing in lifestyle, so you need to work out but not overdo things you need to eat right? You know, you need to hit all those lifestyle markers first. And then you can look at some supplementation. There's like Tangata Li. There's a couple of different supplements out there that are kind of pro hormones or precursors to some of these things. And it's all anecdotal. Some people find that they work really well. Other people are like, didn't do a darn thing. So, okay, yeah.

Philip Pape 50:07

Yeah. And real quick, the Dutch test. What do you think about that?

Kristin Gemme 50:12

Honestly, I don't use it mainly just because it's wildly expensive. Okay,

Philip Pape 50:16

got it. So you talked about lifestyle. This is a good segue into talking about medical weight loss. Super hot topic right now controversial. Yep. They just FDA approved yet another one the Manjaro I think, yeah, that gave

Kristin Gemme 50:28

me Manjaro. Yeah, exactly. So they're now saying you can use it just for weight loss, and they're gonna slap another fancy new name on it. Make more money? Yeah.

Philip Pape 50:38

So we have ozempic. We have that we have GLP one agonists agonist is some magnetite. There's a lot of strong opinions all over the place. And my opinion is still forming, because it really depends, right? And context. And these are peptides as well. And then peptides as well. Okay. Because they signal that hormone, right? We're talking about the appetite hormone or the suppresses appetite.

Kristin Gemme 51:00

ones are glucagon like peptide. Yeah, exactly. Fair point.

Philip Pape 51:05

Yeah, fair point. So, so where does this fit into a holistic approach? Then let's talk

Kristin Gemme 51:10

about that. So I personally have a lot of feelings about them. Do I offer them? Technically yes. Do I have some patients on them that I am helping lose weight and monitor and doing their thing? Yes. Do I tell more people know than I tell people? Yes. Also, yes. I think that these drugs in general are being I don't want to say abused but overused. They're being used by people as a quick fix or a crutch. I think that there's a lot of providers out there especially in the med spa and wellness fronts that are using them as a money grab. And I don't agree with that. Anybody that walks in that says I want to lose 10 pounds, as long as there's nothing wrong with their their health history are getting put on these compounded versions of you know, semaglutide or chews up the tide.

Philip Pape 52:16

I've even seen bodybuilders using them like Yeah, crazy. Like just to get that last shredded, you know, yeah.

Kristin Gemme 52:22

And so from a business standpoint, this is my warning to all of these, you know, businesses that are like building themselves on these medical weight loss just cranking out you know, buying vials and vials of semaglutide interest appetite from these compounding pharmacies, because right now you can get them from there. You don't have to get brandname ozempic Are we go V or Manjaro. The only reason that you can obtain these medications right now from a compounding pharmacy is because they are on the FDA shortlist. So they are on shortage because they are unsure rootage these compounding pharmacies are legally able to compound them and offer them. So that's why they're able to be bought a lot more affordably from clinics like myself, I do get it from compounding pharmacies, ones that I actually think are good quality, because you can buy semaglutide almost anywhere. And that's terrifying because this is this is an endocrine medication. So once the FDA takes these medications off of the shortage list, now, poof, you are no longer going to be able to obtain them from compounding pharmacies. And if you want to utilize them for a patient, you are going to be sending a prescription to the local CVS or Walgreens. And the patient's going to go there and pick it up. Does their insurance cover it? Unlikely. So they're going to be paying out of pocket and they're going to pay out of pocket more than what they're paying your clinic right now for it. So the run of these things is going to be short lived and because of that, I don't base my business off of a medication that is on a temporary list of availability. Yeah,

Philip Pape 54:07

that's fair enough. Yeah. And I know I would really like to do a podcast episode on this because the more I hear about it, if there are aspects of this we have to be careful of like the ability to maintain results long term. Yes. You know what it does for some level of dependency when you're not quite fixing your lifestyle or even when you do what happens when you come off of it? Or can't get it? Yep, absolutely.

Kristin Gemme 54:29

Yeah. So I mean you you have to titrate on to it so you're not just popping in and you know, cranking in a 2.4 milligram doses semaglutide On day one, you are going to be hospitalized and ill if you do that, so it's a titrate up and it should be a titrate down. Once somebody has lost the weight that they are looking to lose they are now in a healthy BMI they're in a healthy you know, body fat percentage they've they've achieved their goal. Now what we do is we start to slowly back them down off of that dose. And I do it slowly, so that we can see how they feel. Because odds are, they're going to gain some weight back on average, people gain about 25% of the weight loss back. So if you've only lost 10 pounds, let's look at that, you know, so this isn't for the person looking to lose 10 pounds, this is for big weight loss. This is for meaningful weight loss. This is for people with metabolic risk factors that maybe have high cholesterol are pre diabetic or diabetic, you know, have all of these risk factors. This is kind of like who I'm saving this medication for. You know, I have somebody on turns appetite, right now, does he need to lose a little weight? Yeah, he does need to lose weight, his triglycerides were through the roof, his cholesterol was awful. And he was already taking prescribed cholesterol medication to his appetite works on two different pathways. It's the GLP one, and it's a gf gap. So what that's going to do is it's also going to help with a Dipa lysis. And it's going to help break down some of those fatty acids. So I put him on that primarily for his metabolic health, and not just to shed weight to aesthetically look better, you know, it was truly to get these metabolic markers down. So there was a time and a place for them, they have to be used judiciously, they have to be titrated down, I think that it can be used as a lifestyle modification tool, because it is decreasing your gastric emptying when you eat a meal, now that meal is going to sit in your gut for at least seven hours before it transits through, you're not going to be able to eat as much, you're not going to be able to eat trash food, if you eat a high fatty meal or ton of sugar or something that's really truly not good for you, you're gonna pay for it, you're gonna feel terrible, you know, you're gonna get that negative feedback. So in that sense for people that don't necessarily have a great relationship with food, and overeat, or make really poor choices, and like aren't doing the right things, that can be a good tool to help get them through that. And to help break some of those habits, while they're losing weight. Kind of just help reinforce some of those habits, teach them how to eat correctly, teach them how to eat smaller portions, all of that can be really beneficial. But it also has to come without warning that you're you're likely going to gain some weight back. Some people, especially if they have all those metabolic risk factors already, they may need to stay on it long term, it D this very well needs to be a lifelong medication. When used for diabetics, type two diabetics, it's a, it's not a short fix for them, you know, they're not using it for six months and coming off. It's a long term medication. So I mean, have have some people had life changing results with weight loss. And now they don't have to worry about those risk factors of type two diabetes. They've come off of cholesterol medication, they're awful blood pressure meds, everything else in their life got good because of this medication. Yes, there are tons of stories of that. And it's great for that. But my problem is more so with the providers that are prescribing it really irresponsibly, the bad apples out there. Yeah, yeah, it's a complex money, money grab, you know, and it's not without risk, you know, these medications all have risks. The main, the big, big one here is pancreatitis, and pancreatitis can kill you. So you have to really, you know, weigh your your risk factors out here, you know, looking at the, the thyroid cancer, you know, that was only in mouse studies that wasn't shown in human studies at all. I'm way more concerned about somebody's risk of pancreatitis than I am about thyroid cancer when it comes to these meds. It's

Philip Pape 58:44

a complicated topic, because I know that even the marketing says, you know, you, on average, lose X amount of weight. Yeah, in combination with how, you know, lifestyle, positive lifestyle. And of course, what immediately comes to mind. Whether I'm being judgmental or not, is why don't we try that Heil healthy lifestyle on its own and see if I can make the change. And I understand that people, some people are, you know, have an excessive unhealthy amount of weight that they need to deal with right now. And there's a lot of emotional and environmental factors involved. So yes, all right, let's, let's move on. Okay, go ahead.

Kristin Gemme 59:13

This is one important thing that I think a lot of people don't also know. You're seeing the scale go down. Unless you're doing in body scans or some sort of body composition scanner, you're not seeing what I'm seeing. And what I'm seeing is that most of the weight loss is coming from muscle breakdown. It's not coming from that. So we are taking you and we are turning you into skinny fat. So most of I've actually seen people gain body fat percentage and decrease their muscle mass. So they're like

Philip Pape 59:44

I'm losing weight. That is a great point. Loss Yeah, at what cost

Kristin Gemme 59:49

and so a lot of my older women will come to see me and they want to lose weight, but they're like by I need to healthy muscle mass because I'm starting to get to that age where I need to worry about osteoporosis and falling and breaking a hip, I'm not putting them on that that's not appropriate for them, you know, we're gonna go more of the route of peptides, let's help you with your lean muscle mass. So that's something to take into consideration with these GLP one medications is you need to be really, really careful about muscle wasting, because you're not taking in enough calories to support your muscle and you're just breaking that down.

Philip Pape 1:00:22

It's true. Because even we know even when you exceed something like 1% of your body weight a week, you're gonna start losing muscle mass. This is an extreme crash diet version of that, just like any other even if you did a normal crash diet, you would see this a similar result. Yeah, and I wonder if this medication even accelerated further, right. So yeah, for sure. I know, we only have a few minutes left. Do you have a hard stop? Can we go a little bit past?

Kristin Gemme 1:00:46

I'm good until about 320 or so.

Philip Pape 1:00:50

Okay. Okay. Just Just a couple more questions, because I want to tie it back to the very beginning with with how you got into this field of aesthetic treatments. And the psychological impact of that, I guess what I'm curious about is how do you work with clients to make sure it's appropriate for them and that there are not, you know, negative aspects of body image and history there. And I know you've talked about this before. So I want to understand the nuances there.

Kristin Gemme 1:01:15

Absolutely. So Body Dysmorphia is real. And it's a huge thing. I actually had a conversation about this exact thing with a patient of mine, I think it was last week. And the way that I look at body dysmorphia, it's not you have it or you don't it is a spectrum. And I think that we all fall onto that spectrum of body dysmorphia, we all see ourselves a little bit different than how other people do, we may see something that bothers us every day that nobody else sees. When Body Dysmorphia becomes pathogenic or becomes a problem is when it's interfering with your daily life. And it becomes an obsessive thought, it's now interfering, you're now doing things irrationally, or doing things outside of your norm to deal with it. Let's say for example, you know, you have this, we're going to go super simple, you see a wrinkle that nobody else sees. And you see it when you squint an eye and you turn your head to 75 degrees, and you're looking at it from upside down with a light just in the right angle. And in this one particular mirror. I'm not kidding when I say that, I hear that, you know, that's not me being crazy saying that as an example. Those are things that people do. That is disordered thinking. And those are patients that you should not be treating, and that you should be referring to mental health services, because they need some help, or you need to take them under your wing, not treat them do other things that are just basic healthy skin care. And you need to be able to counsel them and talk about it and have a real conversation about it. This is a medical problem. It's nothing to dance around, you're not going to offend somebody, maybe you will. But you know why? It's for their benefit. It's a medical condition, it is diagnoseable it has an ICD 910 code for it. Like it's something that needs to be addressed. It's like seeing a medical problem with a patient and just not addressing it because it's uncomfortable to talk about. So you need to be aware of where everybody falls on that spectrum. With esthetics people are coming in because they want to feel better about themselves. They want to boost their their, you know, personal image of themselves. They want their outsides to match how they feel on the inside, or they have something that they've been insecure about for a while that they want to fix. And that's okay, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. It's like saying, you know, I have really weakened small muscles, or you know, my glutes are really small. I'm going to go to the gym, and I'm going to really work on building up my glutes. And I'm going to do that because I want it to look the way I want it to look. And I'm going to be healthy about it too. There's nothing disordered with that. And that is a normal, healthy thing. We all want to be our best versions of ourself. And that also falls into aesthetic medicine. But hearing the way people talk about themselves, are the only things coming out of their mouth negative, can they not give themselves a compliment? Something that I started implementing this year during my consultations is before we talk about what the problems are, tell me what you like about yourself. Tell me what you love about your face. What's your favorite facial feature or your favorite body feature? You need to be kind to yourself, and you need to recognize that we're not all perfect, and it's okay. So listening to red flags. I've seen six providers this year, and nobody's been able to make me happy, but I know you're going to be able to make me happy, not touching you with a 10 foot pole. That is such a huge red flag. It's unbelievable. So it's really just having conversations and that's why you need to talk to your patients. You need to really get to know them. You need to understand the drive and force behind why they're asking for these things, why they want to have procedures or interventions done. And you need to, you know, be educated about body dysmorphia to know, is this appropriate, if I start treating this person, am I actually adding fuel to the fire? You know, if some people you don't know, some people definitely have have duped every provider that does what I do has been duped, where somebody you know, keeps it together until you start treating, and now all of a sudden, they're becoming angry, they're becoming combative. You know, they're they're pointing fingers blaming you that you didn't give them what they want, but theirs did. And they will never see it for what it is they can't see it for themselves. They think they are just ugly, and are never fixed. So mental health is huge. It's absolutely huge. And if you're not addressing it in, you know, your aesthetic practice, you are doing such a disservice to your patients.

Philip Pape 1:05:59

Yeah, I like how you ask your patients what they like about themselves, right? Because kind of leaning into their strengths and making sure it's, it's a filter for that. And then also understanding why someone wants to do something, like I just came out with a mini episode called, it's okay to want to look better and improve your physique. And it was around that whole theme of like, there are many reasons we do things. I don't envy how, how different, how much more difficult, it might be in your type of practice, like, you know, nutrition coaching, it's, it's, it's a little bit easier. But even there, you see people who the red flag is they just want to lose weight at all costs, for example, right, and there's a red flag there. Are there any misconceptions people have? I'm sure there are but like, what are some of the big misconceptions people have about medical esthetics? And how do you work to educate them on those? Sure. So

Kristin Gemme 1:06:42

I mean, a lot of misconceptions, you know, come from people that just genuinely have no idea what we do. And all they do is they see examples of celebrities with bad plastic surgery, and they just think it's Botox. It's always lips, Botox is always just the go to our bad Botox, you know, and it's, there are people out there with bad work. Yeah, There absolutely are. You know, unfortunately, there's there's very little regulation when it comes to aesthetic medicine, if you have a medical license, you can, you can do it, you know, there is no governing body for anybody other than dermatologists and plastic surgeons. And even then there's, there's little standards with it. So there are plenty of places out there that Roque will give you botched work and you know, give our industry a bad name. And they don't have ethics and they're just going for money grab somebody comes in and says make it bigger, I want my lips bigger. And now they're you know, out to here and just look distorted. You know, there's always going to be somebody out there that will do the thing that you ask them to do. And it's unfortunate, but I mean, that's just about in every industry, you know, and ultimately I look at it, it's skincare, it's your skin, it's your biggest organ, and we're taking care of it. When I speak to patients about you know, the reality of aesthetic medicine, doing in office interventions with lasers or injectables is hands down the least important thing that we're going to be focusing on first and foremost, we're looking at your lifestyle, we're looking at your sun exposure, we're looking at your skincare products, you know, not using good quality skincare products to take care of your skin on a daily basis. But coming in for you know, one or two lasers a year or your Botox is like going to your dentist for a cleaning and then not brushing your teeth at all at home, you know, it's that same thing, we're taking care of skin. And when you have healthy skin, you have beautiful skin, you know, you don't need to be augmented and have cosmetic interventions, it can be more restorative and I like to look at it in those two, two realms here. You know, restorative medicine, we're restoring you back to the way things should be you have volume loss from from, you know, fat atrophy and your cheeks, we're replacing it, we're not augmenting you and making you look deranged. We're just restoring it. It's like restorative dentistry, you know, they're not giving you you know, crazy looking teeth, they're restoring it back to a natural looking form. Whereas more cosmetic medicine, we're taking somebody that there's nothing wrong with them, they're young, their volume is perfect, and they want something a little bit more dramatic, a little bit more augmented for just an aesthetic cosmetic outcome. So those are the kind of two ways that I look at it, but the best injectables truly should be undetectable. You know, nobody walking down the street that doesn't know you should be able to point out what you've had done. Okay,

Philip Pape 1:09:36

and there are gender differences for a fact and I am clueless about all this stuff. I don't use any creams. I don't use product and I'm probably like 95% of men, I'm guessing what what are what are some what's some interesting differences and I'm sure you work with men, but like, what are your thoughts on the matter?

Kristin Gemme 1:09:51

So first off, it's easier to get a man in the door to do Botox than it is to get them to put any sort of cream on their face at home. Hands down, stop washing your face with shampoo, I'm speaking to all of you stop doing it. So I mean, basically, if there's one thing that you're going to put on your skin, and I tell this to all of my women who are trying to get their men to start taking better care of their skin is you need to wear sunscreen. I mean, you just do you need to wear sunscreen as the most important thing that you can do to help prevent poor aging and help improve skin health and also fight skin cancer. So the basics of wear sunscreen, you know, you don't need this crazy 12 Step skincare regimen to take good care of your skin. If we're giving you daily antioxidant protection, taking all those free radicals that you're exposed to, you know from from blue light, from pollution, from the sun from intrinsic factors inside of your body, all of it, you need to be fighting those with antioxidants, vitamin C's are really good one to utilize with that. We can even use topical peptides to help with that to helping support collagen. Collagen is what gives us our nice firm skin. It's what makes it elastic. That's why kids skin is so bouncy and tight and looks good. And as we get older, we get kind of saggy and thin and wrinkled. You know, that's from loss of collagen and elastin. So for using some peptides or growth factors to help stimulate that help keep your skin looking youthful, wear sunscreen to protect you from the sun. I mean, we're done there. And a lot of these skincare companies have really gotten smarter when it comes to men's skincare. Knowing that we'll be lucky if we can get you to put one thing on, they have made combination products to where you can grab one bottle, and it is your skin treatment. It is your skinny antioxidants, and it is your eight hour long sunscreen. My favorite one that's come out comes from a company called police. It was developed by a What was she she's a chemical engineer, either Harvard or MIT, I'm screwing that up. And basically, it's a sunscreen mineral based sunscreen that you put on your skin once a day stays on for eight hours, so you don't have to reapply. And it also contains anti aging elements and antioxidants to help take care of your skin. So I'm really pushing that for men to make it easy, it's not going to make you shiny, it's not going to make you you look literally and shimmery. It's going to make you look good. You know, it's going to make your skin look healthy. And really at the end of the day, for me, it all comes down to skin health, we want your skin to be healthy, like the rest of you.

Philip Pape 1:12:27

I mean, even just the sunscreen alone is definitely important if you're concerned about skin cancer and things like that, but I these are some great tips that I didn't think we'd get to talking about, you know, skincare advice for men, but it's awesome. For so I'm gonna look up that previous myself, I take high dose vitamin C, but not really any of the other stuff, though. Yes, I used to I just use the touch up feature in zoom. And that does it. All right. So I like to ask this of all guests, Christina. And that is what questions did you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

Kristin Gemme 1:12:59

Oh, boy. What did I wish you asked to? One? I think you've asked really great questions. I think that we've really covered everything well, I don't have anything else burning inside of me that I didn't get to get out here. You know, I mean, I guess really my main takeaway point for listeners, especially in the wellness front is get your blood drawn, like don't stop being scared of what your bloodwork is going to show and get it done. The best thing that you can have is knowledge and to know where you're at. And if you get bloodwork done, bare bones minimum once a year, if you can get it done every six months, you are so ahead of the curve. And we can really identify early issues with you. You know, just recently I had a patient come in, she was interested in starting peptide therapy, and we pulled her bloodwork, I'm looking at things that your primary care is not I'm looking at fasting insulin, I'm looking at C peptide, those levels on her were triple what they should have been. So we may have identified an insulinoma in her which is a tumor that secretes insulin. And if she had just gone to her primary care for her basic yearly screenings, they would have looked at her a one C which was totally fine and been like, Oh, you're good to go. Your metabolic health looks great. While lying underneath is a potential huge problem. So we look at things that your primary care will not and does not. Because insurances either not going to cover it or they just don't have the time to look at it.

Philip Pape 1:14:35

There you go. So if you're listening, get the blood work and the saliva test if that's indicated. Talk to Kristen, you can we're gonna I'm gonna ask her now where people can reach you but reach out to her even if you're not in Connecticut. I'm sure she can help you even with a discussion online and actually, why don't you let us know where people can find you and then for people who are remote versus people local to the area,

Kristin Gemme 1:14:57

so you can find me first foremost ethos medical esthetics in Avon, Connecticut, we're located at 51 East Main Street. From here ethos, ethos, medical esthetics.com. From there, you can look at my full list of services. And there's even a book online function. So if you want to book a consultation or any services, you can do it right from there. On Instagram, most you're going to find me is injector Kristin, k, r i s t i n Scandanavian. I n on that one. So you'll find me on there everything is also over at ethos aesthetics, that's the best way to find me is truly on Instagram or make an appointment, I do have some virtual options as well. However, if you are interested in testosterone replacement, or hormone replacement therapy, those are controlled substances. I need to physically see you in the office once you need to come in and sit in my chair and face me and have a conversation so that we can do our examination. One time and after that, if you're a candidate for treatment, we can do everything virtual, we can do virtual follow ups, all of that medications can be sent right to your door. Depending on states, I don't have it right off the top of my head, some states, I cannot practice telemedicine and you can't have certain things shipped to. But for the most part, we cover most of the country. So peptide therapy, you know, ordering bloodwork, all of that we can do remotely. So there's a lot that we can do

Philip Pape 1:16:22

there. That is great to know actually that distinction. You can find Kristen at ethos, and Avon, I'm gonna include all the information in the show notes, if those medical esthetics.com at injector, Kristen at ecosystemic. I know it's a lot. I'll have it in the show notes. And then also the podcast, which is going to start up again for another season. And just a pinch podcast. So go follow that. And what was a was one more thing I was gonna say. And I can't remember what it was. But it's been awesome. Oh, I know what it was. For folks listening. I definitely vouch for Kristen. I mean, I met her through another man a very high standards and ethics and Andrew and that's how we find people we trust. And again, Kristen mentioned this, this industry is rife with charlatans. And so you've got to be careful and find good people. And Kristen is one of them. So Kristen, thank you so much.

Kristin Gemme 1:17:05

It was an open book and is more than happy to talk to anybody about his experience with both testosterone and peptide therapy, everything that we've been doing. I mean, if you go on to the Instagram, you'll see he's written out like how it changed his body, his body composition, his blood, work, all of that. So if you have any questions, you can also seek him out. He'd be more than happy to give anybody a personal testimonial for how his experiences been awesome.

Philip Pape 1:17:31

And I'm declaring right now that I'm going to set something up with you and talk to you about it. And then hopefully I'll be able to talk about on the show of depending on what happens from there. So absolutely,

Kristin Gemme 1:17:39

knowledge is power. You just got to know where you stand. All right.

Philip Pape 1:17:43

Thanks so much for coming on.

Kristin Gemme 1:17:44

Thanks so much.

Philip Pape 1:17:47

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Philip Pape 11/21/23 Philip Pape 11/21/23

Ep 124: How to Use Progressive Overload the RIGHT way to Build Strength and Muscle (Even in Fat Loss)

Are your workouts actually making you bigger and stronger? Why do some people gain muscle and strength so much faster than others? Today, we’re diving into the concept of progressive overload—what it is, why it’s important, and how to implement it in your training program.

Are your workouts actually making you bigger and stronger? Why do some people gain muscle and strength so much faster than others?

Today, we’re diving into the concept of progressive overload—what it is, why it’s important, and how to implement it in your training program.

I’ll explain the science behind how it drives muscle growth and strength gains and then provide specific methods for progressively overloading your workouts by increasing weight, reps, sets, intensity levels, and other creative approaches. These strategies apply to all training levels, from beginner to advanced. Finally, I’ll go over how you can use this principle even during a fat loss phase.

If you want my free detailed guide on progressive overload that you can download and reference whenever you want, just use the link in my show notes under Episode Resources or go to witsandweights.com/free.

Episode summary:

Progressive overload is a term that holds significant importance. As the principle that drives muscle growth and strength gains, understanding and correctly implementing progressive overload is essential to achieving physical self-mastery.

The principle of progressive overload refers to the gradual increase in stress placed upon the body during exercise over time. This stress can come in the form of increased weight, reps, sets, or intensity. By continually challenging the body beyond what it is already adapted to, we stimulate muscular enhancements and increase bone density.

An often misunderstood concept in the fitness realm is the Stress, Recovery, Adaptation (SRA) model. This model explains how the body responds to stress and the critical role of recovery in reaching new fitness levels. In the stress phase, the body experiences challenges to its musculoskeletal and nervous systems. The recovery phase then sees the body working to repair and adapt to these stresses, with adaptations occurring in the form of neuromuscular enhancement, hypertrophy, strengthening of connective tissue, and increase in bone density.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of progressive overload is the idea that it's impossible to build strength and muscle during a fat loss phase. This misconception often leads many to miss out on the benefits of progressive overload during their cutting phase. It's entirely possible to maintain, and even build, strength and muscle during a cut, as long as consistency and optimal recovery are prioritized.

Adding to the complexity of progressive overload are the various techniques used to increase weight and reps in weightlifting routines. One method involves adding increments or basing the increase off a percentage of one's maximum weight. Another strategy involves manipulating rep ranges, either by increasing reps each session or using a pyramid approach. All these techniques aim to stimulate muscle growth and help individuals progress in their weightlifting journey.

Moreover, the episode delves into different techniques for increasing intensity in workouts. One such technique is top set back off, where the first set is heavy and the following sets are lighter. Alternatively, you can perform multiple sets and then increase the weight for one final heavy set. The use of intensity techniques such as reducing rest periods, drop sets, and rest pause sets can also help save time and add variety to workouts.

In conclusion, understanding and correctly applying the principle of progressive overload can significantly enhance your fitness journey. Whether you're a novice or an experienced gym-goer, this episode offers valuable insights and practical strategies to help you reach your fitness goals.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:20] What is progressive overload?
[4:01] Stress recovery adaptation
[10:06] The four things that occur during adaptation
[14:23] The relationship between strength and hypertrophy
[18:14] Progressive overload for beginners
[23:30] Programming for progressive overload
[29:00] Progressing by weight
[30:42] Progressing by reps
[35:16] Progressing by sets
[38:48] Progressing by intensity
[46:16] Mind-muscle connection
[48:43] Post-activation potentiation
[49:30] Accommodating resistance
[51:31] Combining the progression variables
[53:29] Training during a fat loss phase
[59:15] Outro

Episode resources:

Free Progressive Overload Guide – https://witsandweights.com/free/progressive-overload-guide

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

Are your workouts actually making you bigger and stronger? Or are you just going through the motions and spinning your wheels? Why do some people gain muscle and strength so much faster than others? If you want to learn how to use the highly misunderstood and misapplied principle of progressive overload to actually build strength and muscle, even in a fat loss phase, you'll love today's episode. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 123 Why you're not achieving your fitness goals with Mike Milner, we unpack the DNA of success. To understand why so many of us failed hitting our health and fitness goals getting deep into the mental game. Today for episode 124. How to use progressive overload the right way to build strength and muscle even in fat loss. We're diving into the concept of progressive overload what it is, why it's important and how to implement it in your training program. I'll explain the science behind how it drives muscle growth and strength gains, which is one of the most misunderstood pieces here. And then provide specific methods for progressively overloading your workouts by increasing weight rep sets intensity and other creative approaches. These strategies apply to all training levels, from beginner to advanced. And then finally, I'll go over how you can apply this principle even during a fat loss phase buckle in because this is going to be an epic, all encompassing episode on this topic. And if you want my free detailed guide on progressive overload, that you can download and reference whenever you want. Just use the link in my show notes under episode resources, or go to wits & weights.com/free. Alright, let's get into today's topic, how to use progressive overload the right way to build strength and muscle even in fat loss. Oh, I took a lot of time to research this topic because it is so important. It's probably progressive overload is probably the most important principle for building strength and muscle, and also one of the most misunderstood. Progressive overload refers to the gradual increase in stress placed upon the body during exercise over time, this stress can come in the form of increased weight sets, reps intensity, the key is that the body is continually challenged beyond what it is already adapted to. Now our muscles have a remarkable ability to adapt to whatever demands we place on them. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. I talk about muscle first health and a muscle centric approach. Muscle is an organ, and it is the organ that we have the most control over we can change we can add to it skeletal muscle is just a beautiful thing. And it elevates everything in our health and fitness. But in order to become bigger and stronger, we have to force further adaptation by providing a new overload stimulus. Now real quick, the term overload, I think is a misnomer. Because you are not actually going past the point of your your ability, you are pushing the very limit of your ability, thus causing the adaptation. So just want to get that out of the way, in case the term is misused. Now, if you don't have progressive overload in your training, your results are going to quickly plateau. And so if you've been in the gym for years, hitting the same weight, not making progress not getting stronger, not building muscle, maybe not using fat either. This is likely very much the reason why. Now I've heard progressive overload explained in many different ways. And I'm going to share the one that I find the most helpful today. And that is through the stress recovery adaptation model Sra. Now you might see it referred to as the stimulus recovery adaptation model as well, same thing, we're going to use the word stress, it gets the job done. So progressive overload is the gradual increase of stress placed upon the body during exercise over time. And this stress pushes the body out of homeostasis. And this force is a physiological adaptation during the recovery in order to return to homeostasis. So that's 30,000 foot view. Now let's get down to the 10,000 foot view here. Let's start with stress. The stress in this case refers to the challenging of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems through exercise induced fatigue. Now as to the mechanisms of how this occurs in the body, I want to clarify something here. Because the old theory was the muscle tear and repair model, also known as the muscle damage hypothesis, and this has been challenged in recent years. This is the idea that, you know, muscle hypertrophy occurs because your, your muscles get torn up and damaged, and then they have to repair themselves. And while it is clear that hypertrophy can occur can occur with some of that muscle damage existing, it's not necessary for growth, that's a key distinction. And so you might see them happening at the same time. But it doesn't mean that it's the cause of it. In fact, too much muscle damage can be detrimental, right, because they can impair your recovery and impair your performance. And this is why one of the things I say is don't chase soreness, soreness is an indication of tearing, but it has nothing to do with hypertrophy, it may be an indication that you're doing something new for the first time, it may be indication you've torn muscle fibers. But those are independent of the stress that we need for progressive overload. So key point there. What the evidence does suggest is that two things mechanical tension, and metabolic stress, okay, mechanical tension and metabolic stress are the critical drivers of muscle growth. Mechanical tension is simply the force that you put on your muscles during lifting, especially when they are stretched under load. Right, so you think of going into a full range of motion, the full contraction and he centric loading of a muscle that involves mechanical tension. Now, metabolic stress results from the accumulation of byproducts of anaerobic metabolism, things like lactate, when you're doing more high intensity or high volume exercise. So this would be more higher higher rep type movements or pushing to failure or fatigue or whatever. But it still occurs when you are undergoing a high level of mechanical tension. So these mechanisms, what they do is they induce muscle protein synthesis and hypertrophy, the growing of muscle size, without necessarily causing muscle damage. So that's the distinction. So again, while muscle damage may contribute, or may be associated with hypertrophy, it's not the sole or even primary driver, and it's not required for muscles to grow. So regardless of all that, because I am getting somewhat into the science here, by progressively increasing the demands we place on our body, again, whether through increased weight sets, reps intensity, we cause this greater disruption to homeostasis from that stress. So that's stress, then we have recovery, talk about the recovery aspect of the SRA model, the body has to work harder during recovery. Okay, that's the time between your workout sessions where you eat sleep rest, it has to work hard to return to that baseline, get homeostasis, so that it can supersede the previous level of fitness. So your level of fitness will remain static unless you've got the stress. And then during recovery, your body works to get beyond that previous level so that it can handle the stress that's similar to what you just placed on it. So after a workout, the body does four things. All right. The first is muscle protein synthesis. probably heard this before MPs. This is where the body repairs, debt, repairs damaged proteins, and it builds new muscle tissue. And this is the process behind muscle growth. And this is why we need our protein

Philip Pape 08:36

and our energy overall calories. The second thing after workout is it replaces your glycogen stores your energy, which gets depleted during exercise. The third thing your body does, it removes metabolic byproducts, substances like lactate that accumulate during exercise, these are cleared out. And then fourth, it restores hormonal balance. So catabolic hormones like cortisol, the stress hormone, and anabolic hormones like testosterone and growth hormone are restored. So like IGF one right, these get restored these are all important things that your body are doing during the recovery phase. And you need sufficient recovery to then enable the final part of this model of this process adaptation. So again, stress recovery adaptation, adaptation refers to the body's process of becoming stronger and more efficient. Following recovery, TIG those are important points stronger and more efficient. Now, you may also have muscle mass that goes along with that to to enable those increases in strength and efficiency, but that is more of a byproduct. Okay. Remember, the body tries to maintain a stable internal environment what we call homeostasis. When stressed, it not only returns to baseline, but then adapts to better handle future stress. Right higher level of fitness, also known as Super compensate Asians. This adaptation phase is where the gains in strength and size occur. And so I want to mention four things that occurred during the adaptation phase. The first is neural muscular adaptation. This is a very important concept. So listen up, this is where you have improved efficiency in your nerve signals that cause muscle contractions. Right? This leads to an increase in strength early on, especially when you're beginner or when you're doing a new movement, even if you don't have noticeable muscle growth. So this is a this is a leading mechanism that's very important neuromuscular adaptation. The second thing that occurs during adaptation is hypertrophy. So this is simply your muscle fibers growing in size. The third is the strengthening of connective tissue. All right, for the older folks out there, if you're in your 40s, you're in your 50s, this is really important too. Because this, these, these things start to get a little bit worn down with age, let's say, your tendons and ligaments will become stronger in response to the loads placed upon them. This is also why we don't want to overdo it, especially as we age, right, we don't have the right amount of volume, right amount of stress and progress over time and not overdo it. And the fourth thing during adaptation is an increase in bone density, bones become denser and stronger in response to the stress of resistant strain. So we, we can see here already that this process is creating a lot of changes in our body that are super beneficial for our health, for our strength for function, for longevity, for for everything you can imagine, it's all all good. It's all benefits. And so for these adaptations to occur, what I'll call optimally, the body needs, what adequate nutrition, okay, so it's not just about the lifting, we need enough protein, we need enough calories for the muscle protein synthesis for replenishing your glycogen stores. And we need the rest and sleep that goes along with it. To facilitate the maximum recovery. Now I'm going to talk toward the end of the show about how you can still train with the principle of progressive overload during fat loss when you don't have enough energy coming in. I'll talk about that. But to maximize it, you need to be in a maintenance or in a surplus. So the most critical piece of all of this is that this adaptation allows us to subsequently handle greater workloads and demands. But then you need an even greater stimulus the next time and a greater one after that, right. You can't just keep building without the added stimulus. Because you need to keep driving these new adaptation upward to support continued gains in size, strength and power. So this is why beginners can squat three times a week, and can make very rapid progress. Because the the stress just isn't that high in absolute terms, but it's high enough in relative terms to cause the adaptation and cause a very quickly. So you can recover in two days, you can repeat the same movement at a higher level of fitness you were two days ago. And you could repeat this for several months before the stress starts to become too great to be able to apply that frequently. Right. And so beginners can really take advantage of this early on. Take advantage, the neuromuscular adaptation and the frequency of these movements. Once you get to intermediate and advanced stages, you're going to have way more stress on the body because you're simply at much higher loads. So even though you've adapted to it, they still place a great stress on your body and it takes longer to recover and to adapt. But if you wait too long, like if you wait three or four weeks, let's say between movements, the adaptation adaptation will regress back to the previous level. And so you can either have find the sweet spot in frequency, or use techniques to maintain strength between the higher stress, bouts, you know, between your heavy lifting sessions. So that's where programming gets a little more complicated. The key takeaway to all of this remains that progressive overload through managing training, stress and recovery, right sleep, rest. Food is the driving principle behind improved performance over time, you need enough stress in your workouts to cause the adaptation, you need enough recovery but not too much. And then rinse and repeat this for massive increases in strength and muscle early on. And smaller but ongoing relative muscle and strength increases as you get more advanced. Okay, so that's the principle of progressive overload probably could have been its own episode. But the next topic we need to understand is the relationship between strength and hypertrophy, especially when discussing training outcomes. So we're gonna start with strength. Strength is largely a product of neurological adaptations. That's one muscle cross sectional area. That's too and the specific skill of the movements being for for performance, also called specificity. That's three. Alright, so neurological muscle size, specificity, When someone starts training effectively for the first time, rapid strength gains occur without substantial increases in muscle size yet, but they'll happen, they'll happen pretty quickly afterwards, you know, within weeks, they'll start to occur. And this is due to improvements in the efficiency of the nervous system, right? Think of it as as your brain, your mind, your mind body connection. finally waking up and realizing that you want to put this demand on it for this movement pattern, and you need to become more efficient at it. And your your latent or inherent capability is there, you have the muscle for it, you just have never recruited it before. So now your brain starts to better recruit your motor units, it increases the firing rate of those movements, it improves the coordination of your muscle groups like the whole system just starts to come together in this beautiful ballet of movement that makes you an efficient machine for that training for that pattern before you actually need to build more muscle tissue. So that strength hypertrophy, on the other hand refers to the increase in muscle size. So while larger muscles have a greater potential for strength, muscle size alone does not directly translate to maximal force production. I've mentioned it before hypertrophy is driven more by metabolic stress, it's the mechanical tension and then a little bit of the muscle damage. But I always like to say that strength leads muscle, focus on the strength, build the patterns, and then you'll start to build the muscle. And then that increase in size and the ability to move more weight will allow the hypertrophy piece to become much, much more efficient and effective down the road. So for beginners, the initial phase of strength training is dominated by neurological adaptation. And that's why you can get significantly stronger, right, you can double or triple your squat, your deadlift, your pressing your bench within months, without necessarily seeing a huge change in muscle size at first, and then over time as your body becomes more efficient. And then you lift the heavier weights, you've caught up to your latent ability. And now the stimulus for muscle growth becomes more pronounced. And then hypertrophy starts to contribute even more to strength gains, and they're kind of working together at that point. So the relationship between strength and hypertrophy gets more complex as you advance in training age. And then things like genetics, your training style, your specific programming, how consistent you are, have a much greater influence on whether you gain more strength or size. So again, beginners, if you're listening, or if you've not ever done this effectively, before you're a beginner, you can focus on a general strength training program. And I highly recommend one that uses barbells, with the big compound lifts in the four to six rep range, very simple, very effective, very time efficient, this will lead to low strength gains, and then over time I purchase a fee. And then as you advance, you may need more specialized programs to target either of these depending on your goals, right, you might be doing some power building or upper lower splits, or, you know, conjugate type program, you might do bodybuilding program, the sky's the limit in the future, but start with general strength. Either way you go like whatever your programming looks like the volume and the nutrition have to be sufficient for you to keep growing. Now, I want to give you the big picture of how do we implement this. And then I'm gonna dive into specifics on different methods. Like I said, this is going to be, this is an epic episode, you're gonna have everything in here. So let's start let's talk beginners first, okay, for beginners who are new to strength training, and that includes all of you listening, who the light bulb has gone on. And you realize you have not been trained the right way all these years. And that's a lot of people, I'm sure listening to this podcast, that was me about four years ago, when the light bulb went off. If you were in that category, progressive overload follows a linear, straightforward progression, we actually call it a novice linear progression for that reason. And the most basic approach is simply add weight to the bar, or dumbbells or whatever you're using, add weight each session, same number of sets, same number of reps, just add weight. That's all you need to do as a beginner. So if you, if you squat at 95 pounds on Monday, you'll squat 100 pounds on Wednesday, then you'll squat 105 pounds on Friday, right? Or maybe you'll go up by 10 pounds initially, and then it'll lessen to five pound jumps, and then maybe you'll do two and a half pound jumps. The point is to go up in weight, right, and I know I get that that's not exactly linear, but linear, meaning all you're doing is changing one training variable. Now there are some other movements for beginners that you might incorporate, like chin ups, right after a few weeks or so you might incorporate chin ups where the overload, you can't just add weight to chin ups, right. You're either going to gain weight in your body and that's going to make the chin ups harder. But you should still be able to get the same number of reps as you increase in weight. Thus, you are progressively overloading or you can add more reps like you're getting stronger so you're able Get more reps. Or you can even add weight using something like a dip belt. So I'm going off on a little tangent, but beginners often ask this because early on, you might end up doing something like chin ups. And it's kind of an oddball movement compared to the other loaded movements. As a beginner, you're gonna prioritize form and technique above all else. But don't let it be an excuse, not to progress. Get it Get this all the time, hey, I haven't been progressing in three months, why not? Well, I've been focusing on my form, you don't need three months to focus on your form, you just need a few sessions, get some feedback early and often use form videos, get a coach posted in the Wits, & Weights Facebook group, you know, reach out to me, don't use that as an excuse, even though it is important. So it's a fine balance. Another thing for beginners that's really important, I think, is to train through the full range of motion. This is not the time to be doing partials or, you know, you know, rack poles instead of deadlifts or spot presses instead of full bench presses. This is the general strength adaptation phase, you want to be doing full range of motion, that means below parallel on the squat, that means the full shrug at the top on your overhead press. That means touching your chest on the bench and then blocking it out at the top. Right. And you know, if you're not doing these things, right, you know who you are, it means you're not training training through the full range of motion, right? Partial range of motion, yeah, you can lift more weights, but you're not overloading the full, you're not loading the full movement. And when we talk strain, and we talk specificity of movement patterns, neuromuscular adaptation, you have to train through the full length of the muscle to get the benefit. So just FYI, on that. Last thing for beginners, I want you to log everything, like log them in a notebook, or an app doesn't, it doesn't matter, well, whatever works for you, whatever works for you. loads, log, your exercises, your movements, your loads, you set your reps, add any notes about how it felt, right? Just see, or what are you going to do next time? What did you learn about it anything special about the conditions of your training, start logging everything, get into a habit of doing that? So that's it for beginners, right? And again, we're gonna get into specifics, much more specifics on various methods in the next section, but hold on for that. I want to mention intermediate trainees for a brief while here, because a lot of beginners wonder, what do I do after I've run out for like, 346 months, I've started to plateau on my big lifts. I'm increasing the weight every session, but I'm starting to plateau. Right? Initially, I'm gonna say, Well, can you get creative? Can you instead of doing three sets of five, can you do five sets of three? Can you do a top set, and then a back offset like things like that, which kind of still let you increase by weight and not really change much else. But eventually, you're going to truly plateau. And that's because you're at the point where the stress is so high that you can't recover quickly enough to adapt and increase it in the next session. And so now it stretches out, now you might only be able to go up each week, right? Or even longer than that. And at this stage techniques, like heavy versus light days, where the light days don't place too much stress, but maintain your strength, or top set back offset, or rep ranges, and other advanced methods. Those are what are going to allow you to continue with that progressive overload. And we're gonna get into all those in a bit. So stay tuned for that. This is just a high level kind of public service announcement for intermediate lifters.

Philip Pape 23:31

I want to take a quick detour on the programming and then we'll get into the methods. So when your lifts start to plateau on a three day per week program, I think you have two really good options. The first is heavy light medium. And the second is a four day split. So heavy light medium is if you want to continue working out three days a week. And what you're going to do is fluctuate the intensity, that's the weight on the bar, and the volume of your sessions throughout the week. And so instead of like squatting heavy three days a week, you're going to do for example, a heavy day, where the volume is low, you might have three sets in 85 or 95% of your max of your one RM we call it a load, right, and lower reps, like three to five reps. So this might be your three by five day, for example, then Wednesday might be a light day, this is where you're going to have maybe an extra set or two but at a moderate volume, it still might be three sets but it's going to be lighter weights, it's gonna be like 60 to 75% of your one RM little bit higher reps, let's say eight to 12 reps. And then you're going to have a medium day on Friday, which is kind of splitting the difference this is maybe maybe four sets and like 780 5% of your one hour for like six to eight reps right and and you can look this up you can google HLM heavy like medium. There's a million ways to do this. It was described really well in practical programming, which is like the sequel to starting strength. Look up any of Andy Baker's articles on the subject. The point is that By rotating these parameters, these training variables, it allows you to continue pushing on a weekly basis, but then maintain your strength on a session by session basis. And then it allows for more recovery. That's the point. So that's option one. The second option when you have to, when you've plateaued, is a four day split. And this is probably the most common thing that people do, it spreads out the fatigue a little more, it basically splits your body in half, usually like upper lower upper lower, so you do upper body on Monday, lower body on Tuesday, upper body on Thursday, lower body on Friday, that's the most typical, there's a lot of different ways to do it. But this now hits the muscle groups multiple times, but it's not like you're squatting every session. So you can technically add more volume to certain movements, because you're spreading it out. And the frequency ends up being two times per week for each muscle group. So an example of that would be on the upper days you would do maybe one that's focused on, well, here's the approach I like take the four big lifts, and just split them up across the four days as your main lifts. So bench on Monday, squat on Tuesday, press on Thursday, deadlift on Friday, that's just one example. You can arrange them however you want. But but make sure to have like, upper lower upper lower, lower, lower upper lower upper. And then you would have accessory lifts and direct or isolation work after those main lifts. So on bench day, you might then do an incline dumbbell bench after the flat barbell bench, and then have a couple other movements for your shoulders. And then maybe biceps, right. So I'm not going to get into more detail than that. The point is that now you can progress, continue to progress all your lifts while managing fatigue compared to the full body. And because you are for example, benching on Monday, even though you don't bench again to the next Monday, you are pressing on Thursday, and you're probably also doing some chest related work on both days anyway. So you're kind of maintaining your strength between the weeks right between the sessions. Okay, that's, that's more than I even wanted to get into on programming. Because even though programming is important, I think the principle of progressive overload, we want to focus more on the specific session based strategies, right that to provide that overload. And I'm gonna do that now. But before I do, I mentioned it earlier, friendly reminder, I created a detailed guide for you on progressive overload. To go with this podcast, just click the link in my show notes under episode resources, or go to wits. & weights.com/free. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique, and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. Here we go. So this is going to be organized by the types of ways you can progress. You can progress by increasing weight, reps, sets, intensity, or some combination of these variables. So I've got a lot in here again, this is an epic episode. So listen through all the way and you never know what you're gonna learn. How do we increase by weight? All right. The easiest way to do this with what we already talked about, just increase the amount of weight each session for your movement, add some increment, it might be two and a half 510 pounds, maybe it's 20 pounds when you're just getting started. And that's it. Simple. Okay, if you're a beginner, that's all you've got to do. You can almost not even listen to the rest of this episode, and you've got your game plan. Okay, another way to increase weight is to if you are logging your lifts, and you know what your last maximum was your last, let's say five rep max, which we would call your five rm and now you're doing another five, like three sets of five, for example. And your last three by five RM was, you know, 200 pounds now might maybe you aim for 205 pounds, even if it was several weeks or months ago, because you've been for example, rotating through different lifts and maintaining your strength on all those muscle groups. But now you want to come back to this specific lift and you Want to try to beat your, your weight from last time? All right. So that's another way to do it, that's more of an advanced strategy. But another way to increase weight is to base it off your percent of your one rep max. So if you know what your max is for the training cycle, right, let's say it's 375, on the deadlift, all right, and you want to do 80%, on RM, then you can do 80%. And then next time do 85%. And that next time 90% of the reps might change. And that's where we get into multiple training variables. But the idea here is that you can increase the weight based on a percentage, okay? That's really it for weight, it's kind of a simple variable, if you're gonna leave it at that now I'm gonna get into reps, this is where we start to make it more flexible. Yeah, more complicated, but more flexible. All right. Generally, when we're talking reps, we're talking about rep ranges, like if you are working in a range of eight to 12, very common rep range, all you're going to do is you're going to do, let's say,

Philip Pape 31:01

three sets of 10, this week. And then next week, if you kept the weight the same, you can hopefully do three sets of 11. That's, that's a simple way to increase reps. That's not typically the way that I do it. But that's one way to do it. The way that I do it is a rep range method, where you drop the load during your workout set to set to stay in that rep range. And then next time you work out, you increase the load, and you keep doing it until the reps fall so low that they're out of the rep range, and then you reset. So let me explain what I mean. Let's say you do three sets of eight to 12. And you 100 pounds, I don't know what a moron, I'm gonna say what movement we're doing, let's say you're lifting 100 pounds. And on the very first set, you're able to get 10 reps. And it's it's very hard to get those 10 reps, that's what we're talking about, right? It's very hard to you couldn't get an 11th REP. Or maybe you could have gotten 11. But we're talking direct isolation work here, for example, like bicep curls, you just max out and you get 10 reps. And then you take your rest period, let's say two or three minutes, on the next set, you should be able to get no more than 10. And probably you should only be able to get nine, eight or nine at that same weight. All right, so you do it, let's say you get eight. Now on the third rep, you have a choice. Since you're in the bottom of the rep range of eight to 12, you can either stay at that weight again, and you're not going to hit eight, you're going to hit like maybe six or seven. And that's okay to do if you want to do it that way. Or you drop the load by about 10%. So that you can stay within that eight to 12 rep range. And it's as simple as that then, next session, right, maybe it's a week later, the same movement, you increase the weight to let's say, 110 pounds, right 5% 10% depends on getting what movement we're talking about. So you get 110 pounds, and now you're able to get, let's say, nine reps. And then on the next one, you get seven reps, oh, now you're gonna drop the load to 100. And now maybe you get eight reps again. Alright, but you still got within that eight to 12 on the first set. So we're gonna increase the weight again next time, now we're gonna go up to 120. On the next session, you do 120. And that first set, you're only able to get seven reps. All right, you're going to drop the load to 110, try to get between eight to 12 Drop, drop it if you need it again to say it's 12. But that first set tells you it is time to reset. And so the next time you do the movement, you go back down to some weight higher than the last time you started the cycle between eight to 12. And that might be going back that might be going to 105 pounds. Remember, when we started this example, we were at 101 10 and 120. Maybe when you reset, you go to 105. Last time you got 10 reps at 100 pounds. This time, you're trying to get 10 reps again, at least, but at 105 pounds. So you see how it kind of rotates up and down and up and down. But generally trends upward over time. That is my preferred way to use rep ranges. So I wanted to spend a decent amount of time on it. Now, some other ways to use reps are for example, you can do your normal workout. And then on the last on the last set, you just go all out and do as many reps as possible to failure even if you weren't necessarily targeting failure on the first few sets, right? Another way to do it is to do ramp up sets actually increase the reps, when I already said that you're dropping the load and you're increasing the reps. So increase the relative intensity of the sets. So scratch what I just said. Okay, what I wanted to say here, let me be specific is you can keep the sets the same, but reduce the rest periods. That's what I wanted to go with this. So let's say three sets of, of 10. Right? But you reduce the rest periods between them from two to three minutes down to maybe 30 seconds. And we're going to talk about some of these intensity things later on. But when you do that, what's going to happen? Well, the reps are going to drop. So you can Drop the load to keep the reps the same. And you might have to drop it more than you would otherwise, knowing that you have less rest, go to them saying. So, intensity techniques we're going to talk about in a second. But I wanted to talk about reps. And I mentioned that rep range method I prefer, okay, hopefully I didn't lose everybody there. Let's talk about increasing now, by sets. Okay, sets is an interesting one, because you can't keep increasing sets forever, right? For for practical reasons, mainly, but also volume and fatigue, meaning if I'm doing three sets this week, then four sets, and five and six, I mean, if you get to 10 sets of an exercise, you're gonna be in the gym for three hours. And that just might be completely exhausting, right, but let alone the stress that you're trying to add. So however, I have run programs, where I will cycle for like four weeks, on an increasing set basis, and leave everything else the same. And then I will reset back to the original number of sets, but at a higher weight. So you might do three sets at whatever weight and reps, next week, same weight and reps, but just add a set the following week, add a set the following week and a set, and then you reset back to three sets but at a higher weight. So that's one way to do it.

Philip Pape 36:16

Another way to do it is to add extra sets at the end of whatever sets you have as like a top off at a higher weight. Now this is kind of the opposite of top set back off, which I'm going to talk about in a minute, this is actually doing like two or three sets, and then increasing the weight. And doing one more set really heavy. This came up in my research on this topic, this is a way to program it, it's not something that I personally like to use, I actually prefer the opposite. And that is the first set being heavier, and then a back off set being lighter. So let me explain how that works. And I really love this with bodybuilding programs, because it's very time efficient. And if you are training to failure effectively, like if you're really getting all those effective reps in, you may not need a third set. That's that's the goal here. So the idea is to follow your heavy top set with a lighter back offset. And the way this looks like is you would perform a, let's say you're doing barbell rows, right, you would do your work set at like three to five reps, at whatever weight it is to get three to five reps. So it's gonna be pretty heavy. And this targets strength in neuromuscular recruitment, all the stuff we talked about, then you take your rest period, maybe it's three minutes, maybe it's five minutes, and you reduce the weight by say 10 to 20%. And do it for like six to eight or eight to 10 reps, whatever makes sense for the load. And you might just have to do one back offset, maybe you do too, right. So maybe it's not just top set back off, it might be top set, multiple back offsets. I also like this approach, when there's a lot of fatigue from the movement. Like for example, if you've got a history of low back fatigue from your deadlifts, or your squats, but you want to keep pushing the top weight on the first set, you can do that and then use back offsets to manage the fatigue that way, you're you're hitting the stimulus, you're hitting the strength, but then you're still getting in some volume. So the intensity of the top set, combined with the kind of the metabolic stress of the back offsets gives you a nice stimulus, right. And this can be done for main lifts, or big compound lifts, for example. The only other way I can think of in terms of adding sets and progressing with sets is if you add like a a supplemental isolation movement, right after a compound lift, to just throw in some extra volume, but I mean, then you're just talking about you're doing another workout, you're just doing another exercise, but you're kind of building that, that muscle group, so to speak, in a way that where it's already warmed up. And now you're just kind of throwing in an extra set. Okay, so that brings me to intensity techniques, okay, and there are a lot of these, there are a lot of intensity techniques. And by intensity, I'm using it in a little more loose sense, not just weight on the bar, but actually overall stress. So one easy way to do this is to reduce your rest periods. And there are definitely advocates have who point to the science and I've seen kind of a mixed bag here, of why don't we just reduce all our rest periods go toward failure. And on the second and third set, we're gonna get way less reps, but we're getting effective reps, if you subscribe to the effective reps theory. Now others will say well, that's not the that's not the whole picture. There's something to be said by those earlier reps that contributes to hypertrophy. And so we should take full rest periods. My take on it is do a little both. Just have fun with both and add some variety. It's fun. If time is a big concern, then yeah, you can reduce your rest periods knowing that it's going to eat into the amount of reps you can get in the subsequent sets. Okay, so anyway, this is a variable that you can change. Most people I'm in my pay And don't rest long enough when they're when they're beginners and they're doing compound lifts, they're just not resting long enough. But later on, when you get into advanced techniques, this is a way to toggle the intensity. Another one is drop sets. Alright, so drop sets are simply doing a set, and then decreasing the weight, and then immediately doing another set without any rest, and then decreasing the weight and keep doing that. And you get like a huge pump that way, it's another way to kind of increase the intensity. Another one that I kind of alluded to already is called rest pause sets. And all this is is you do a set, you pause for no more than 15 to 20 seconds, and then you do your next set. And the idea is you shouldn't be able to do more than like half the reps of the last set when you do this. And the principle is, you've already exhausted the muscle or pre exhausted it, and now you're hitting just the effective reps. This comes from the dog crap. Yep, you heard that right, do G GCRA PP training method by Dante Trudel. And my coach, Andy Baker likes to use these and I find them a lot of fun, and they actually save time. So in some of your direct isolation work, it could be a good technique. Now there's a similar technique called Myo reps that you may or may have heard of, and seen on social media and bodybuilders and everything. It's a bit more complicated, you basically, you do an activation set, they call it and you go, just shy of failure, not quite failure, but then you rest for five seconds, but you rest for five seconds per rep that you were able to do. So let's say you did 10 reps. And it's like, you could have done 12. So you're just shy of failure, you would rest for 50 seconds. And then you would do many sets of like two to five reps with very short rest periods. And you just keep going until the performance just drops off a cliff and you're done. That's my rep said, that's the best way I could describe it. Again, I don't think it's too complicated. I just like rest, pause sets, just do a set, wait a short amount of time, do another way short amount of time do another easy. Okay, another way to increase intensity is very, it's controversial, I think because some people love it. Some people hate it, some people are like whatever. And that is an RPE, or an IR, our IR based approach. All right, RPE is rate of perceived exertion. And so it's on a scale of one to 10, a 10. RPE means you have no reps left in the tank, that's the most exertion exerting the set could be. The inverse of this is our IR rate reps in reserve, it's simply the opposite of RPE. So like, if RPE is one to 10, ar AR is 10 to one. So a 10 RPE is a zero, AR AR, you've got zero reps left in reserve in the tank, an eight RPE is going to be a two AR AR, you've got two reps. So you get what I'm saying. If you are very attuned to your body and your exertion level, and your ability to hit these numbers based on RPE, I guess you can use it like some of the some very skilled, effective, you know, bodybuilders and power lifters use this and some big names and people that I follow, including, like Dr. Eric Helms and others, have used these, you know, talk about these approaches and recommend them. So who am I to say, like, it's not going to work for you, I would say the big challenge here is that it's subjective. And I prefer things that are objective and repeatable. And so, you know, if, if the idea with RPE, and AR AR is to make sure you don't leave gains on the table, I like it for that, right. Like, if it pushes you, I kind of like it for that. But I think for a lot of people who use it prematurely, it does the opposite. It makes you think like, oh, okay, I'm gonna eight RPM done. And if if your coach or an experienced person saw you on video doing that, they say, Huh, that's like a six RPE, you probably had like two or three more reps to go. So I'm just putting it out there. If you're following that such a program, just make sure it's appropriate for you, and you're using it for the benefits that it provides. Okay. Another way to increase intensity is focusing on bar speed, right on velocity on power. This is focusing on faster contractions. So that's like on a bench press the contractions when you push the bar up. So for a benchpress continue with this example, you might lower the bar to normal one or two seconds rate, pause at the bottom for a second and then explode up. I actually use this approach on my what's called dynamic effort days for the Westside style conjugate program that I'm following, where we use a lot more sets, like eight or 10 sets of just a few reps, let's say two, three or four reps at a lighter weight, what you focus on pushing the bar really quickly in the contraction phase. So yeah, that's all I have to say about that. Again, there's there's controversy about how effective this is. If you're not very strong, how effective is it? Should you be measuring the volume with like apps and sensors and all that, if you want to get into all that go for it? I think it's very limited application to people who know how to use it, and I will do Then at that, okay, then we have tempo work, right? This is where, okay, so I'm not necessarily a fan of like going super slowly, in the full range, like, for example with a squat, going down slowly. And then I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not a big fan of slow, concentric. That's what I meant to say.

Philip Pape 45:22

The and I think I said contraction. In my last example, I meant to say concentric, but you know what I mean? I'm a fan of a slow eccentric with a pause, and then a fast concentric, if you're going to do tempo work, the pause, especially I think, is where the magic is because you stop the stretch reflex. So for example, pause squats with a squat safety bar or front squat, really good for a quad dominant pump, right? Like, if you want to really hit the quads hard from a hypertrophy perspective, you do a safety bar, squat down slowly, you pause for good, like second are to where all the momentum is taken out. And then you push up as fast as you can, as you know, and that's where you're kind of combining bar speed and power with tempo work to get a little bit of extra intensity. This, this could also work if you have dumbbells, and you just don't have heavier dumbbells, you could slow it down, right? Put a pause in there, slow down the E centric and then explode up. Okay, continuing on mind muscle connection. The mind muscle connection is one of these bro science things that I think has a lot of validity. The idea being that if you just turn off the music, turn off the podcast, sit with your thoughts and listen to your body and look at them muscle and really think through the full range of motion of the eccentric, and the concentric of the movement and contract throughout the movement, tighten your muscle, I think of bicep curls, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, right talks about that all the time, like looking at your muscle and imagining that it's growing right before your eyes. And I've seen plenty of guys, women too, who they'll do a bicep curl. And it's like, they don't even go all the way down. And it kind of just flinging it up and down. What I want you to do next time you do a bicep curl or anything like it is slowly go down to the full almost where you're locked out, but not quite that full lengthened movement in the bicep, look at the bicep, and the whole time, I want you to be contracting the bicep on the way down and on the way up, not just on the way up. In other words, don't become soft on the way down, contract all the way down, hauled in nice and bring it up. Okay, that mind muscle connection approach you might find greatly increases the intensity of how you were doing it before. And now you get more out of the movement for the same load. So that's my muscle connection as a whole. That's a whole topic in and of itself. Alright, then we have pre exhaustion techniques. And this is where I'm not talking about warm ups here. Like if you do a lift and you warm up the lift to the point where you're ready to go. I don't think of that as pre exhaustion, I think of that as like getting getting ready to where you can get the most out of it. Pre exhaustion is where you do something like an isolation exercise, right, like let's say a tricep exercise, before you do a compound lift, like bench press. So now you've exhausted you've pre exhausted the triceps, which is a key muscle involved in the bench press. And now the bench press is more challenging. And the the stress moves to a different part of the benchpress. Right, because now for example, your triceps become the bottleneck. And so and maybe it's not the triceps that you want to do it maybe you want to pre exhaust the your pecs with like flies or something. There's a lot of different ways to do it. But it could make the compound lift more challenging and in a different way, so you get something different out of it. Okay, the next one is called post activation potentiation. Okay, now this one's a little bit weird, but not weird, but I mean, it sounds technical. All it is, is performing a heavy strength movements, before you do a similar explosive movement. I mean, honestly, the easiest way to think of this is like overload. So do heavy strength movement, that's maybe two or three rm and then go much lighter, like a top set back off. But another way to think of it as doing a for example, rack pole, which is a partial range of motion deadlift, very heavy, but then do a lighter deadlift or power clean, and see if it enhances the performance of the ladder because of the increased activation of the former, just one of those things that are out there. Okay, just a couple more in this in this group, I told you this would be a lot accommodating resistance. This is where you add bands or chains. And what this does is it changes the resistance curve, it makes the lift more challenging at the points where the muscle is typically stronger. So for example, if you put bands on a barbell and connected to the bottom pegs of a power rack into a squat, it's going to be the the band is going to stretch and be really tight at the top of the squat. And that's where you're usually stronger as well, right? The sticking point is down at the bottom. So now you're adding challenge we're going Normally, it would be less challenging. That's the idea with bands or chains. There are arguments as to whether this is even effective for people who are not that strong. So this comes from the west side, you know, conjugate method, look into it, if it's something you want to try, there's, there's all sorts of ways to do that, with your deadlifts, with your bench with your squat. And then the last one under intensity techniques is intentionally overreaching. If you're feeling it, and overreaching, I'm using that term carefully, as opposed to overtraining overreaching is, if you know your body really well, if you're an advanced trainee, and you've been doing these lifts for a while, and now all of a sudden, you just feel extremely ahead of it ahead of it this week, like, I don't know you've over adapted, you just feel stronger, intentionally doing a little bit more, right? Maybe more on the weight depends on if you're like, in a program where you test your one RM that day. Because if you're not, I would just stick with whatever was programmed, but you know, getting an extra rep, even adding an extra set, these are options are always on the table. Like if I feel if I'm doing three sets of whatever, and I do the third set, I'm like, You know what, I'm gonna throw in another set in there, I feel that that's gonna be really helpful to me today. And I'm feeling fresh and ready to go, I'm gonna do it. So that's all, that's all that is. Alright, so some of these training variables can be combined in different ways as well, that I wanted to mention. So we're going to do that now. And then we're going to conclude with talking about fat loss. So stay tuned for that. So one, one method is called double progression. And I already alluded to this, basically, where if you're doing a rep range, you can, you can either increase the reps, or increase the weight, and lower the reps. And so you've got two variables going on. Honestly, there's so many different configurations where you can do that. And each coach will tell you something different. The way that I described earlier is the way I like to do it. But again, you can progress however you want. The second thing is called pyramid sets, or ascending sets. And this is actually increasing the increasing the weight each set, while the reps come down. Now, as I mentioned before, I like to reduce the weight and keep the reps in the range. But there is a technique where you increase the weight and the reps come way down. For straps, let's talk about this. These are cheater reps, okay, there's, this is a controversial area as well, in something like bicep curls, where you can just go to failure and then do one more rep with a little bit of momentum. I mean, is it going to hurt you probably not, isn't going to be effective, and maybe not. But maybe. And so there's, there's mixed evidence on whether like, it's even worth doing the cheater reps given the chance of, of injury. And, you know, like the cost benefit isn't really there. So they're, they're even forced reps in the context of having a spotter or an assistance, where, like on benchpress, you know, you do your last rep, and then you're on your last rep to failure, and you can't get it up and your spotter kind of helps you get it up. Again, I'm not sure there's much of a benefit to that. But I wanted to mention it because it is out there as an option. We talked about drop sets, so I'm not going to repeat that. And then there's something called stripping sets where you reduce the weight, you reduce the weight between sets. So it's kind of like drop sets, but you keep the reps constant. I mean, it's basically drop sets, trying to keep the weight constant. So you'd have to drop the right amount so that the reps stay the same. That's hard to do. So I would just go with normal drop sets. Okay. That's it for all the methods I hope that wasn't like ridiculously long or detailed. But what I want to do now, the last topic I want to address is, how do you train during a fat loss phase, aka, I'm gonna cut bro. Training for progressive overload during a calorie deficit is achievable. And I would say it's essential, like the principle of it is essential if you want to maintain your muscle mass. Now, if you're a rank beginner, you might be able to gain strength and muscle during a cut. Right? It's not optimal, you're better off being at maintenance or in a surplus. For most people, we're just trying to hold on to what we've got. And so the strategies might differ a little bit from those used during maintenance or bulking phase because of the reduced energy. But they're not that much different. But I am going to talk about the differences right now. Regardless, you are still training as if you are able to build muscles. So the the mental state is still geared toward progressive overload, alright. The primary goal during a cut is to maintain strength, and this preserves muscle mass. And strength tends to be the first thing to go followed by muscle mass. So even if you're not increasing your lifts, if you can keep them where they are, if you can keep them consistent, that is a form of overload relative to your bodyweight because you're losing weight. So don't forget that some people forget that like, Oh, my goodness, my list have stalled. But I lost five pounds or I lost 10 pounds actually, in that case, they in relative terms, they really haven't stalled you've actually gotten you've actually maintained or maybe gotten a little stronger relative to your weight. The second intensity, this is a big misunderstood area of cutting of training during a cut. And that is we want to focus on maintaining intensity, the weight on the bar. Rather than trying to increase volume during a cut. In fact, you may end up having to reduce volume, maybe not. But recovery is impaired because you don't have the calories coming in. So intensity is the most important rather than volume. Okay, the next thing during the cut is something called autoregulation. And we've already talked about different methods of autoregulation. But this is you being able to adjust your training intensity and volume within the session based on how you're doing that day. So that you don't overreach or overtraining, right. So like rep ranges are already a way to auto regulate in a way, because it's not, you're not just going for fixed sets and reps at a particular weight, you got some flexibility there, you can change the load between sets, right, that's one way to do it. Another way to do it is to find your max for that session on a lift, and then base, the remaining sets on that Max and the max might be lower than it was last time, but relative intensity is still there. Another thing I want you to focus on during the cut, because you don't have enough recovery capacity is efficiency in your workouts, quality over quantity. This is where you can experiment with some of what we talked about, like the mind muscle connection, or shorter, more intense sessions, or just having two compound lifts. And one accessory instead of you know, two compound lifts and accessory and two or three direct movements, right just kind of shortening the number of exercises, but really focusing on quality. We talked about progressive overload as being not just about the stimulus or the stress, but also about the recovery. So you get the adaptation. And during a cut recovery becomes a harder resource to come by. And so it's even more important that you get enough sleep, that you manage your stress that you're hydrated enough, right? To maximize that recovery, you should be doing those things always. But it becomes that much more crucial during a fat loss phase. And then the last thing is even small progressions, like adding a rep, or slightly increasing weight can be significant when you're in a deficit for some of the reasons we already talked about. So when you're cutting, it's important to have realistic expectations, right? The rate of progress is not going to be the same as it is during maintenance or a surplus. So the focus is more on intensity, quality, and maintaining as much lean mass as possible. And of course recovery. It's like finding that sweet spot where you're providing enough stimulus to maintain muscle without over taxing the system. Okay, I think we're on coming up on an hour. Now, we covered a lot of detail today. But I think it was necessary to thoroughly explain the what, why and how of progressive overload. And here's the thing, if you're a beginner, don't be overwhelmed, you have the easiest job in the world. And that is just push the weight up session after session in a linear fashion to get much stronger in a matter of months, and pack on your first five to 15 pounds of muscle. And then when your list start to plateau, you'll be able to expand your programming, do more techniques as an intermediate lifter to keep the gains coming. And here's the thing, you've got this beautiful epic episode that you can always refer back to, for the many ways to do that. Or you can always reach out to me, you can schedule a free 30 minute results breakthrough session using the link in my show notes. This is a 30 Minute totally free call no selling or pitching you on my coaching whatsoever. We're just going to map out your specific strategy for nutrition or training whatever you need the most help with. And I can point you in the right direction when it comes to training effectively using progressive overload so that you can make progress. And again the link to schedule a free call is in my show notes. I always have a few slots each week. All right in our next episode 125 peptides, hormone therapy, medical esthetics and personalized wellness with Kristin Jim. We discuss peptides, hormone therapy, medical weight loss, and other ways to complement lifestyle interventions to optimize your health. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast.

Philip Pape 59:23

Philip Pape 11/17/23 Philip Pape 11/17/23

Ep 123: Why You're Not Achieving Your Fitness Goals with Mike Millner

What's REALLY holding you back from achieving your fitness goals? Is a short-term focus on "weight loss" setting you up for long-term failure?

Today, I'm extremely excited to welcome to the show Mike Millner, a high-level nutrition coach and a business coach who has a gift for understanding the personality-based needs of his clients and where people are in their journey.

In this episode, Mike and I unpack the DNA of success to understand why so many of us fail at hitting our health and fitness goals. Transformation goes beyond calories in and calories out, all the way to the hidden barriers that hold us back. We're talking about the mental game. This is a 'how-to-crush-your-goals-and-redesign-your-identity’ conversation.

Coach Mike has experienced the highs and lows of dieting and fitness and has learned how to overcome the psychological barriers and challenges that prevent most people from achieving their goals. He is the founder of Peak Optimization Performance or POP and the voice behind the top-rated Mind Over Macros podcast, where he shares his insights and expertise on nutrition, training, and, most importantly, mindset. He aims to help as many people as possible navigate life as healthy individuals in a sustainable and enjoyable way.

Episode summary:

When it comes to physical transformation, most people focus on diet and exercise. But, as our guest, Mike Millner, a seasoned coach talks about how mental evolution plays a critical role in achieving and maintaining physical change.

Mike brings to the table his wealth of experience in fitness and dieting, along with a deep understanding of the psychological aspects involved in the process of transformation. He delves into the often overlooked aspect of mental evolution that accompanies physical change. Understanding and addressing the mental aspect can make the difference between a temporary transformation and a permanent one.

He also shares his personal experiences with the diet industry's messaging around weight loss. Often, these messages focus on quick fixes and extreme methods, which, while they may bring short-term results, do not lead to sustainable weight loss. Mike stresses the importance of looking at the big picture, such as understanding energy balance and having a long-term plan for success.

Sustainable weight loss is a challenge that many people face. Mike addresses this by explaining the importance of viewing weight loss as an infinite game. There are no set rules or end score. Instead, it's about creating lifelong habits that are sustainable and enjoyable. He also discusses the importance of resource allocation and how unnecessary spending of finite resources, like willpower and time, can hinder our progress.

Another key topic that Mike delves into is the importance of recovery for mental health. Stress is an inevitable part of life, and without proper recovery, it can take a toll on our mental health. Mike shares his insights on recognizing when our bodies need more rest and how different modalities can aid in recovery and relaxation.

The psychology of goal achievement is another area that Millner explores. The fear of success can often hold us back from achieving our goals. Mike shares his thoughts on this fear and how to overcome it through mental reframing. He discusses the importance of having a support system in place, expressing gratitude, and making decisions that align with our desired outcomes.

Mike’s insights into the mental aspect of physical transformation are invaluable for anyone looking to make lasting changes. His focus on creating sustainable health habits, understanding the role of mental evolution, and exploring the psychology of goal achievement provides a comprehensive approach to mastering physical transformation through mental evolution.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:01] The moment his mindset shifted to confidence
[5:25] Mental vs. physical transformation
[8:17] Energy balance and CICO in long-term goals
[13:18] "Grit" vs. willpower in goal setting
[16:01] Top psychological barriers to fat loss
[18:21] Use of SMART goals and other theories
[23:23] Mental cycles, like training cycles
[26:35] How "mental diet" affects physical health
[30:01] Fear of success in fitness
[34:59] Power of language and self-talk
[39:16] Gratitude and positive psychology
[42:30] Short-term wins vs. life-long habits
[45:35] Mindset in muscle building
[48:21] What would Mike be doing if he didn't become a fitness coach
[50:33] Where to learn more about Mike and his work
[51:21] Outro

Episode resources:

Mike's podcast – Mind Over Macros
IG - @coach_mike_millner

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

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Transcript

Mike Millner 00:00

You're not measuring success against, did I hit my macros perfectly? Did I work out seven days this week? Did I follow this, you know, supplement routine, like it's not 10 different things. It's just very basic three things. And now you give yourself credit. When you complete those three things you follow through on your commitment card. And what that does is it solidifies the behavior because you get a dopamine response when you complete the task, and it builds self trust and every time you follow through on those commitments that you make to yourself, you're just making little deposits into that self trust bank account.

Philip Pape 00:34

Mike Millner 02:35

Thanks so much. That was definitely the best intro I've ever received on a show. So

Philip Pape 02:41

that's the goal here, man, and it's well deserved. And you've talked about that journey a lot on your podcast, you know, not just being overweight, but also feeling ashamed dealing with orthorexia trying and failing over and over again, and then eventually finding, you know, balance some sense of balance, right, and empowerment over your health to the point where you can help others. So what was the pivotal moment that to use your words shifted your beliefs, from uncertainty, from insecurity to confidence in achieving your goals? Yeah, really,

Mike Millner 03:11

if I had to distill it down to one moment, it would be actually asking for help and getting the support that I needed. I tried, you know, I think I was very driven by my own ability to figure things out, almost to the point of stubbornness. And maybe you could call it just, you know, ego, because I felt like, you know, I, I grew up an athlete, I was very competitive, you know, I like to win. And so it was like that mindset, like, well, if I fail a diet, it's my fault, because I just need to try harder, I just need to be more disciplined, I just need to have more willpower. And I know that I can do this, I know that I can, can quote unquote, win. And it just kept me in this perpetual cycle of failing and blaming myself and being like, why can't you do this? Why can't you be successful? So it really was a moment of just, why do I feel the need to just continue to struggle and put myself in a position where my life was literally crumbling around me, where I was impacting relationships that were important to me, where I was losing people that I loved, because of my obsession with trying to lose weight. And I had a horrible relationship with my body had a horrible relationship with food, horrible relationship with exercise. And I was, quite frankly, just alone. And it was just me and my chicken and broccoli, and I was watching everything else fall apart. And yeah, it was it was really that kind of rock bottom moment where I was like, I got I need, I need some help. So the pivotal moment for me was really asking for support and finding a coach and mentor that actually poured into, to me to give me the belief and the permission to to fail and to try again and and to recognize that, you know, even though you know, maybe it wasn't my fault that a lot of those diets were unsuccessful. It was it was my responsibility to do things differently if I wanted a different outcome and it was really that shift of, you know, belief and support and accountability and permission to be myself and to do things my own way. That was was the catalyst for the change that I needed to make. Yeah,

Philip Pape 05:12

so what I'm hearing from you it's not about the process necessarily the How're the nuts and bolts, the nitty gritty it was the accountability and the support. Like you said, ego and stubbornness. I talk all the time in this podcast about how just just seeing a coach for one session can can blow your mind in terms of what not only what you learned, but the different perspective and how somebody can help move you forward. Would you say that your How did your mental evolution mirror your physical changes? Did they go hand in hand really was did one come first in this mental shift? Did this accountability and finding help really drive the physical changes eventually?

Mike Millner 05:48

Yeah, it's a good question. I think when you know, the the first time I had a two hour Skype session with Kristian Thibodeau. So he was my first mentor, that really, really opened my eyes. And he did not charge me anything for it. He, you know, I followed him and read his articles on tea nation, and a lot of like, the psychology based work that he was doing just resonated with me, because that's, that's the way that my brain works. I love to know the why and the how behind things, why are humans the way that we are? Why do we do the things that we do? And he explains a lot of that in his writing. So I reached out to him on a whim, thinking there's no way that this guy's you know, big shot T nation writer has lied to me, not only did he reply right away, but he's like, Hey, here's my Skype, you know, message me, or let's set up a Skype call and sat on the call with me for two hours. And the first question, as I'm going over my journey, the first question was, have you ever considered that all the things that you've been trying, like, weren't actually built for you? And I was like, No, I actually have not considered seems so obvious when you say like, yeah, of course. But I was like, the classic, like, just tell me the rules, and I'm gonna follow the rules. But he's like, Have you ever considered that those rules, like weren't actually meant for you? And I was like, No, truthfully, I haven't. So is, it was that just a little shift in perspective to be like, Oh, my God, there's this whole other possibility out there that I didn't even consider that maybe I've been barking up the wrong tree, that I need to actually understand what my body responds to what fits my disposition and my personality and my unique characteristics and values and traits, and, you know, everything from from the physical to the mental. And so it was really that belief shift that opened my eyes. So I think that, if I didn't have the belief, I don't think the physical acts would have followed. But it was just that little bit of hope that there was a light at the end of the tunnel led me on the path to changing some of the things that I was doing physically and, and looking at it through the lens of sustainability and permanent results in a lifestyle shift and identity shifts. So I would have to say that the the mental frame had to come first before the physical frame could follow.

Philip Pape 07:51

And that makes a lot of sense, because you've talked about how you went through physical transformations in the past, they just didn't stick. Right. As we all have, we might know exactly what we think we need to do, and even take the action to do it. And still, somehow, it doesn't stick. So I'm just gonna repeat what you just said, quote, have you considered all the things you've been trying were not meant for you? Right? I think that's really important. So let's talk about kind of distinction between what people think works fit in the physical realm, versus what what the big picture really says, let's talk about energy balance, right? We know that calories in calories out is the physics behind weight loss behind fat loss. But we also know from coaching real human beings. And like you just said that that's just a tiny piece of the picture when it comes to getting your goals. And a lot of this stuff is unhelpful, without context. Where does it fit in here? What's the bigger picture when it comes to actually achieving your goals for the long term?

Mike Millner 08:48

Yeah, I think the problem with energy balance in that conversation is it really does present things through a short term lens. And I don't think that there's ever the context of like, what's what's the Forever plan? I think we're so I think the biggest shift that needs to be made as a whole for somebody to really be successful. And when I say success, I mean, you reach your goals, and you stay there. Because we typically don't have weight loss issues. We have weight maintenance issues. And I think a lot of the things that are perpetuated in social media on the Internet, wherever you're getting your information is it's a very short term lens. It's a very, you know, it's six week challenges. It's 30 day detoxes, even the calorie balance equation, you know, factually speaking, yes, we have to be in a in an energy deficit in order to lose weight, but it just don't. It's not it's not the type of thing where you eat less, and then you just ride it out forever. And that's, that's the Forever plan. So nobody ever talks about that, like, this is a very short term intervention. And I find that message to be more damaging than helpful. Because what most people do when they hear that message is they start trying to eat less, and then they try to eat less and less and less and they try to extend the timeline of eating less and Annette and a inevitably they break and they reach that tipping point because they don't understand, like your body is trying to survive, your body's trying to adapt to the signals that you're sending it. So when you start moving less, because you have less energy, when you have more cravings when your hunger is through the roof, when you're fatigued, when you have hormonal imbalances, when you lose your sex drive, when you're getting sick more frequently, all of those can be a product of putting too much stress on your system. And eating less is a stress on the system. And I just don't think that we paint enough context where we deliver that message to say, what's the long term plan, if somebody, I think it should be a requirement that if somebody is going to put out the message of calories in calories out, it has to be followed up with the caveat of this is a very short term intervention. And if you don't know how to transition out of that, into maintenance, to restore homeostasis, to give your body what it needs to thrive long term, then we're really doing everyone a disservice.

Philip Pape 10:52

Yeah, and I think if you put it before that, you know, a fat loss phase is not fun, you know, it's not meant to be this enjoyable thing that you stick with forever. But I do what I want to peel back the onion a little bit on the weight loss messaging overall, like on this show, I've tend to use the term fat loss more than weight loss these days. But I know it's prevalent in the industry. And I know it helps with marketing and things like that. What are your thoughts on the phrase in general, and the fact that people put so much importance into weight loss? Yeah, I

Mike Millner 11:20

think, you know, again, it's the diet industry is very smart. Like you have people who are marketing geniuses, really. And that's why the industry is up to I think 80 billion annually. So they're doing something, quote unquote, right, depending on your definition of right, if you measure it by financial success, then sure, but if you measure it on permanent results, then I would say that it's pretty harmful. But as long as people keep feeding into that message, meaning when we talk about weight loss, we make promises about how much weight you can lose in the shortest amount of time, I was the most susceptible person to that marketing, when I was in the depths of my dieting phases and years, it was the, the quicker the results, the more bold the results, because again, like it fed my ego of oh, I can do that, like I can win in the next six weeks and lose, you know, 3040 pounds, I'm gonna get after it and be perfect. And you know, it does, it creates a disordered mindset, it really does. And it and it's almost a guarantee that if you take that, that approach, you're going to gain the weight back, and you're going to feel worse, and you're going to set yourself up for a more difficult road ahead. Because the more that we lose weight and gain it back, the more that we restrict and deprive ourselves, it does make it harder in the future to improve your body composition. So I think that, you know, the difference between weight loss and fat loss, obviously, there's a major difference. Even the fat loss messaging, I think, really what we should be talking about is permanent results, sustainable results, enjoyable results, lifelong results, however you want to frame it, whether we're talking weight loss, or they're talking fat loss, we're talking about getting leaner, more tone, looking more athletic, like whatever phrase resonates with you. And you're like, Yes, that's what I want. Let's make sure that we package it in a permanent sustainable way.

Philip Pape 13:09

Yeah, no, I love that. And like, the phrase I use is looking like you lift right. And it's okay for it to be about physique. But like you said, it's got to be something that's sustainable. Some people hear that and then they think, Okay, does that mean, I have to have willpower discipline in those things forever, right. And I know, you're probably familiar with Angela Duckworth and her work on grit, that grit and perseverance stick with it. And this is important for achieving a goal. What are your thoughts on that? And maybe it's distinct from willpower and discipline. But just just tell us about your thoughts there?

Mike Millner 13:43

Yeah, I think a lot of times, there's characteristics that get thrown around that we do need. But I think that sometimes we unnecessarily tax those systems. And like, any resource is a finite resource. And so whether we're talking about energy, attention, time, money, you know, there's always a trade off. And there's always a limited amount of that given resource. So where I'm putting energy to where I'm putting attention to, it's taking away from something else. So it better be something that's important and meaningful. And the reason why I say that is because, you know, I have this concept of resource allocation. And I think a lot of times we don't even look at, where are we spending unnecessary resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. So if you're, if you're, you know, signing up for a program, and it requires 24/7 willpower, that's a horrible use of the resources willpower, if it requires you to, you know, you know, kind of grit your teeth and white knuckle, your way through it, eventually, you're gonna run out of that resource. So if we look at everything through that lens, it's like, you know, going in with a full tank of gas, like if I can get to my destination, using less gas, why wouldn't Why wouldn't I choose that path? So that's the way that I perceive discipline willpower. Do we need them absolutely But we all have them and we can all build them. And we can find ways to not rely on them. So one of the most effective strategies for willpower is to not need it as frequently. And if you don't need it as frequently, you have it in the moment you have a full tank of willpower guess when you really need it, in those friction point moments that oftentimes we struggle with, we struggle in those stressful, hectic, quote unquote, life got in the way situations, oftentimes, because we unnecessarily drained that willpower battery, and we had nothing left when when that friction point hit.

Philip Pape 15:33

Yeah, finite resources. And that's interesting, because a friend of mine texted me the other day. And, you know, I challenged the notion that we needed we needed to do everything really hard and grind all the time. He's like, Well, isn't that what it takes to succeed? I'm like, You're gonna, you're gonna hit a wall, right? If you have to do that constantly. I think if you if you're right at the edge, if you expand your comfort zone, you can find that sweet spot to doing that. So I love that message. And when you think about people who are successful, what would you say is the most common barrier here psychologically, to whether X, you know, trying to lose fat, keep it off, whatever it is this sustainable long term results? Yeah, it's

Mike Millner 16:14

the biggest barrier is viewing it as an infinite game. It's viewing it taking away the finish line, taking away the, you know, oh, this is a means to an end. If I just do this for x amount of time, then I'm gonna live happily ever after. It's, you have to truly view this as like winning the game is just by continuing to play the game. There's no set rules, there's no, there's no end score, you know, there's no finish line. And I think that's the biggest mental roadblock, I think so frequently, we're like, alright, well, I'm going to do this thing for a short amount of time for a short term result, because I'm, I'm really frustrated with how I look. And I don't like the way how, you know, my clothes don't fit well. So I'm gonna rip the band aid off for six weeks, I'm gonna get this fat off. And then I'm gonna go back to doing me, and unfortunately, going back to doing it is what got you in a position where you're uncomfortable. So unless we change the lifelong habits, and it was funny, because I was interviewed on a podcast yesterday, and the interviewer was asking about my own routine, and how how I incorporate balance and flexibility. And I totally like, it didn't even cross my mind about all the foundational habits that are just second nature, because there's such like, it's such routine for me to get 10,000 steps a day, it's such a routine for me to drink water. It's such a routine, eat quality food, and I don't even think about it. So like my mind didn't even go there until I was like, wait a minute, I feel like I missed all of this context, that's really important. So that long term, like I have to become the person who values intentional movement, I have to become the person who prioritizes quality food, I have to become the person who cares about sleep and stress management. And it's that long term lens, that is the biggest roadblock for most people.

Philip Pape 17:57

Yeah, and it sounds like the balance is not necessarily that you've learned to balance everything per se, it's just that you've built up each habit, piece over piece over time to where it's just your routine. In fact, it's within your comfort zone, it sounds like at this point, whereas for others, it's you know, if they're starting here, they hear that you do these 20 things every day that they don't do, you don't just jump there, right? He takes small, small steps. So just in concrete terms, what are some strategies or methods people can use to put in place these habits, right, and I know there are a lot of leading theories that you hear about all the time, there's SMART goals, their self determination theory, tiny habits, nudging you name it, and it can be overwhelming. What's helpful for folks,

Mike Millner 18:41

so my, my philosophy is, every process of change has to start with awareness, awareness precedes change. And if you're not aware of the gap that exists, then it's going to be really difficult and you're going to find yourself making those mistakes, like you mentioned, trying to do everything at once, which is another one of the biggest mistakes that people make. It's the classic New Year's mindset, like well, I you know, I didn't eat well over the holidays, I gained 10 pounds, new year new me, I'm gonna change everything all at once, because we vision, this perfect version of ourselves. And that creates a dopamine response in the brain, it's really exciting to think about how fit and happy we're going to be and how lean we're going to look. And you know, the summer is going to roll around, I'm going to rock my favorite bathing suit. All these things play out in our brains and just the thought, and the visualization gives you that dopamine hit that our brains crave. And so it's really exciting to be like, alright, well here we go, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to cut my calories, going to eat more protein, I'm going to go for walks, I'm going to lift weights, I'm going to be in the gym every day, I'm going to take my supplements, drink my water, get my sleep like all at once, but that is impossible to sustain. And so the first part of that is creating awareness around the gap that exists between where you are and where you want to be. And an easy way to do that is just think about the person that you want to become like we have that vision of the person that We want to become and that's all the The nice part about it is it's through your own personal lens. It's a vision based off your own value and you know, value system, your value hierarchy. So when you think about that person that you want to become like, what does that person do? What are their habits? How would they handle stressful situations? What is their nutrition look like? What physical appearance like? What are all these things and characteristics that exist within the person that you want to become? And now that we have that list, now we can look at what are you doing now. And now we have a clear gap between the person you want to become the person you are now, the key here is that you have to be the one to decide what's the most doable, because that's going to be different, I could take the same exact list for 10 different people and say, Hey, of this list, like what's the easiest thing for you to improve upon what's the easiest habit for you to instill. And I might get 10 different answers. For some people, it might be really overwhelming to think about getting to the gym four days a week for other people, that might be easy. For some people, it might be really difficult to think about, you know, daily walk, because they have a really sedentary job, or whatever the case may be. But for other people that might be like, hey, you know what I can, I can set an alarm and walk for 10 minutes every day, no problem. So the key is, you're the one that's choosing, which you know, maybe one two, at most three action items you want to start to instill. And then actually put it down, like, create a little commitment card for yourself, put it down on paper, grab a sticky note, put it on your computer, something that you can remind yourself of like, this is this is what a successful day looks like. For me, it's two to three things, you know, maybe it's one nutrition thing, one mindset thing and one training thing or movement thing, it's like, I'm gonna eat protein with breakfast, I'm gonna get a 10 minute walk in, and I'm going to, you know, have a moment of gratitude every single day. And those are my three things. And that's what success looks like. And that way, you're not measuring success against, did I hit my macros perfectly? Did I work out seven days this week, did I follow this, you know, supplement routine, like it's not 10 different things. It's just very basic, three things. And now you give yourself credit. When you complete those three things you follow through on your commitment card. And what that does is it solidifies the behavior because you get a dopamine response when you complete the task. And that's how we solidify new habits. And it builds self trust. And every time you follow through on those commitments that you make to yourself, you're just making little deposits into that self trust bank account. Because we're all too comfortable with breaking promises that we make to ourselves. And the more that we do it, the easier that it gets. And the less that you believe yourself when you say you're going to do something. So we've got to reverse that we have to continue to build self trust through following through on those commitments that we make deposits

Philip Pape 22:48

in yourself Trust Bank account. I love that because you're right, a lot of times we're maybe trying to please someone else, or maybe trying to meet some standard that isn't right for us at the time. And you said that it starts with awareness, awareness precedes change. Where do you want to be? You know, Adam Borenstein, he came up with a book recently where he talks about the comfort zone and the expanded comfort zone and then the extreme comfort zone and it's like, you know, you're trying to jump over here instead of here. So a guy somebody comes in, and they they're eating 50 grams of protein, they want to eat 150 And they want to do it every day. You can't just jump to that. And you got to take the tiny step. So I think that's great, Mike, I like analogy. So you know, how we use new, we use nutritional periodization. Right? And, and that's part of a way to take stress off the body to recover to focus on extremes for a short time, like you said, with fat loss and then take a break. Is there something like that for the mind, right, like, psychological periodization model, right, where you go all out developing and growing your mental skills, then you take time to recover, take some stress off. Just curious if you've thought of it that way?

Mike Millner 23:50

Well, any any, anything that we want to improve upon it actually, the process of improvement happens through the rest and recovery period, you can't just kind of like push the gas pedal and you know, reach the finish line or acquire a new skill. So like, when you try to learn an instrument, it's very mentally tasking, taxing, you know, you're, you don't know your brain and your muscles aren't quite firing or like, this is a whole new thing. You're trying to learn how to read music, you're, there's a lot of mental energy that's being expended in that process of learning. You don't learn it, when you're sitting there playing, you actually learn it when you're sleeping, when you're recovering. When you give your brain the time to assimilate all that information that was just overloaded. And it's like, Okay, let me file this stuff away. And then we can retrieve it easier the next time. But that process takes time. So like everything, everything that we do, there needs to be a heavy dose of recovery. And it's, you know, sometimes it's a little bit intangible, because certain things can be a stressor on one individual and distressing for another individual. So, an example is if I am taking a walk, and I'm in nature I'm admiring. Oh my God, look at how beautiful the trees are. Look at the sky, this is wonderful. That's going to be very calming and soothing. It's going to put me into that rest and digest state. Another individual is walking, and they're thinking, Oh my God, I don't know if I paid this bill, oh my god, I have this deadline that's due, I have so much work on my play. Oh, what am I kids up to, I got to check in I got to do it like, that's going to be very stressful, same exact activity, just different thought process, one's going to be a stressor, one's going to be stress relief. So it's sometimes a little bit intangible but but an easy thing to consider is that any period of stress should be followed up by an equal dose, or an extra dose of recovery. And if we can at least try to process things that process things through that lens, it becomes a little bit more actionable. Because you might recognize that you need, maybe you need to journal a little bit more, do some breathing exercises, just, you know, listen to music, and unwind and do things that are good for your mental state. And again, this this applies mental physical, it doesn't matter, any skill, anything that you you know, self development, you're trying to improve physically, you're trying to improve mentally, the same principles apply across the board, you still, it's 100% imperative to have that that dose of recovery with every dose of stress, I

Philip Pape 26:17

can really relate to this, and I know you can do is a really busy guy. And there's a lot of busy people listening here who maybe have multiple businesses, multiple things that they're doing. I don't know about you, I could just get into a zone for hours and hours and days and days, you know, trying to get stuff done. And before long, you know, the stress is gone, maybe past that point. How does somebody recognize that? And then how can they find something that works for them? If it isn't the walking like an example, you said, where they can just recognize it, and maybe block it in plan for it? How does that look?

Mike Millner 26:47

Yeah, so it's reading the symptoms and listening to you know, the inputs and outputs. And sometimes that's, that's hard if you have been accustomed to just, you know, being on overdrive all the time, which I can certainly relate to, but you start to learn through experience, you start to learn little subtleties. I know that for me, typically, to two cups of coffee in the morning. And that's my routine. I know, when I'm overly stressed, and I'm not getting enough sleep, I'm not getting enough recovery. It's just this like instinctual pull, that's like, go get a third cup, go get a third cup, and like that usually never happens. Normally, I have my two cups, I'm perfectly content, and I'm done. But for me, I know, when when that little subconscious pull is telling me like go get another cup, I know that I've been on overdrive, and there's little, you know, you'll start to notice maybe some brain fog fatigue, you might notice an impact in like sex driver, or you might be getting a little bit sick more frequently. So there's, there's always little subtleties that your body will communicate when it needs more recovery than anything else. And, you know, sometimes it can be performance in the gym strength, you notice that you just don't have it like you normally do. So all of those can be signs that something's off in terms of the recovery, you know, kind of modality that works well for you. Trial and error is the best way. So you know, come up with some different things that you think would be interesting, like, what are some activities that you love, things that are just for pure enjoyment hobbies that you might have, you know, for me, it's walking, you know, journaling, doing some, like getting in the sauna. If I'm really struggling, like I'll book a massage, you know, doing things like that, listening to music, unwinding, listening to a podcast, you know, whatever it is for you. Just play around with some different strategies and and see which one feels the best and then start to implement that more frequently. And that's, that's really trial and error is the best way. Yeah, it's

Philip Pape 28:45

good advice.

28:47

The most value that I got from this was the fact that I had someone that I could talk to about anything, and that there was going to be no judgment, it was just Well, here are your goals, here's the best way that you're going to achieve it. And then let's work together to help you feel inspired and motivated to do that. And a lot of people out there trying to be coaches, and not all of them have done the work and also just be a genuine person that is positive and coming from the heart in terms of wanting to help and Philip really embodied all of those qualities, I would recommend him to just about anyone that's looking to achieve goals in that realm of their nutrition and building new habits.

Philip Pape 29:32

I know you've probably seen clients and I do as well, who having third party perspective with somebody who knows you or maybe somebody in your family or who loves you or whatever to help you there because I do get the sense some people get caught up in their stressful routine, where it seems like the normal and all of a sudden you have a third party who might be able to look in and say, Well, based on your biofeedback or based on your experience this week, something might be happening and we want to address that. Going back to the very original answer about having In support. So another thing that comes up and we talk about psychology of goal achievement is not only the fear of of not hitting your goals and your failure, but what about the fear of success. This comes up a lot when I talk to people who are very successful in their lives in multiple areas, maybe not in fitness, but in lots of other areas. And they're maybe afraid of what life will be like once they achieved their goal, right, like their relationships might change their self image might change, the pressure to maintain the new weight, the fear that after they lose the weight, they're still not happy. So how, how often you encounter this and what can be done about it

Mike Millner 30:32

the same route, it's, it's, we don't know what what's going to happen, we start to play out these narratives and the stories that feel very real. So anytime we have like anxiety, fear, it's all future based thinking. So we think about, you know, and a lot of times, it's subconscious, if you have somebody who's been, you know, kind of, they didn't get a lot of attention, that kind of stayed under the radar. Never, ever were the center of attention or didn't get noticed that often. And then all of a sudden, they start to improve their body start to work on themselves. And then they start to get some compliments somebody else, somebody at the gym, mentioned that I'm doing a good job, somebody at the gym said, you know, oh, have you have you lost weight, like, that's weird. And it just starts to plant this little seed that then creates a story of, you know, this, this is this is scary, because we've never been here before, we don't know what's going to happen, like, we've never been that person to get noticed, we've never been that person to get attention. So it's the fear of the unknown what's going to happen, if this continues, if I start getting more attention if I start, right, and it's just your, your brain is really smart, and really only cares about survival. And so things that were unknown and unpredictable from from an evolutionary standpoint, were a threat to our survival. Like if you know, when we were hunter gatherers, if I if I knew, you know, there was a saber toothed tiger that always hung out at this particular watering hole, like I could stay away from that place and increase my odds of survival. So predictability is a strong desire for your brain. So anything that's uncertain, anything that's new, that's why it's often met with this first initial dose of fear and anxiety. And sometimes we sabotage and pull ourselves back into a known predictable situation. One of my favorite quotes is from Virginia Satir. And she says, most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. And, you know, it's the reason why some people will stay in a toxic relationship, because I would rather the known comfortable, certain misery than, than to leave and go into this place of unpredictability. So it's the devil, you know. And that's really where it comes from fear of success. It's a similar kind of mental trick that your brain plays on you. Now, fortunately, we've evolved and we've expanded, you know, we have this thing called the prefrontal cortex, which allows us to think long term, think about delayed gratification, think about what we truly want, and, and our desires and our dreams, and we get to think about the future. And we're no longer just this like, kind of primitive, you know, lizard brain creature, we actually have the ability to pause and plan and make long term decisions, although there's kind of this battle going on, because we still have that DNA, that hardwiring, that tells us to survive in the moment. But we also have this brain that has evolved to think long term. So sometimes those can be competing. So it's like, Who do I listen to? I listen to the survival based brain or the long term, you know, the the long term delayed gratification brain. And that's where being able to sit with those those feelings and those fears and emotions, and really ask yourself difficult and uncomfortable questions like, what does happen if I continue to get more compliments? What does happen if I continue to get noticed? What what does happen if I become this new person who does stand out in a crowd? Because they have more muscle or they're leaner or whatever? What does that mean? What is the story that I'm telling myself around this? And what is it that I truly want? What is it that what are my highest priorities? What do I value? What do I really want out of this journey, and then hopefully, we can make a decision that's more in alignment with that outcome that we desire versus just a reactive self sabotaging pattern, because we let that survival based brain win and tell us that, you know, it's, it's scary, it's unpredictable, it's uncertain. So it's, it all dials back, or it all circles back to kind of that same root cause of fear of the unknown.

Philip Pape 34:22

It's an interesting concept, because change is always going to be there. Like we're always going to be improving, always growing and always changing. And I know for my clients, we get to the point where they've embodied that identity of an athlete, because that's the language that I like to use, like, we're trying to be an athlete, and they still want to accept it sometimes. Hey, you are and that's why people are complimenting you, and you've done the hard work. And, yeah, it's easy to eat food now because you're not, you know, caught up in in the short term. So it is it is important, and I like that you brought it back to psychology and the brain and like we have control over this stuff. We just have to sit with them and think about them. So Another aspect of psychology that comes up a lot is framing, right language and framing, like the the, the phrase falling off the wagon, right getting off track, you know, the all or nothing. Or even what I hear all the time, especially with with earlier client, newer clients is like I can't do this or I had to do this like these out of control, framing versus something that you chose to do. And then self labeling, which we've already covered a little bit. So what are your principles on language, internal dialogue, framing that can help people? Yeah,

Mike Millner 35:31

it's always again, going back to awareness. Mental reframing is probably the most powerful might be the single most powerful tool that we have in the toolbox that everybody has the ability to use at any moment. And it can literally change your whole life in a very short period of time. And what reframing is, is just changing the lens through which you view the situation or changing the narrative that you have around the situation, I think, so often, we get caught up in believing every thought that we have, as fact, we have 10s of 1000s of thoughts every single day. So it's unreasonable to think that they're all based in truth, and in fact, most of them are not. And the other problem that we often run into is that we, we use emotions as reasons to react or act immediately, instead of sitting with those uncomfortable emotions. And I say uncomfortable, in particular can be any emotion, but a lot of times we look at emotions as Okay, I have to immediately respond to this because I feel something so let me do something about it. Instead of sitting, and just processing and, and like kind of being the detective. What is this trying to tell me? And what's the story that I really want to create. So the the mental reframe is where you don't believe all of your thoughts is fact. So when you do have a thought, and you do catch yourself saying, you know, I, I can't be consistent, or I'm a people pleaser, or labeling or however you're trying to frame a specific situation. It's first awareness and being able to shine a flashlight on that. Now, again, coming back to kind of a recurring theme here, it really helps to have somebody who's an objective kind of perspective on the way that you're communicating with yourself. Because if you're not aware of it, we need to go from that unconscious belief to bringing that to the forefront and showing you like, Hey, this is what you said about yourself now like, let's, let's digest it real quick and break this down. So having somebody to help you through that process. But once you're aware, and you start to catch yourself in those moments of labeling and saying I am a people pleaser, I can't do XYZ, it's catching, having that red flag, like anytime I hear the word can't, it's going to trigger it's going to be a trigger word for me. And I'm going to explore it like why did I just say I can't do let me let me reframe it in a way that's more productive. So the reframe is, let me just shift the lens through which I see this situation. I'm not a people pleaser, I have the tendency to people please. And I'm actively working on it like what a better frame. So more more productive, more effective. And then. So those are the things like you can you can change the frame on any situation. I've I've listened to therapists, some of them who I've, who I know personally, some of them who have just listened through courses, and through lectures and podcast, talk about helping people overcome serious trauma addiction, you know, toxic relationships, things that you would think typically would take years and years and years of work. And I've listened to them talk about a mental reframe that completely pulled them out of that situation, and in as little as minutes. And I know that can seem extreme. But that's the power of being able to reframe certain situations and perspectives to better suit the narrative that you that best serves you. Yeah,

Philip Pape 38:46

I think it is a powerful tool. You're right. And having I think part of the way I use it with clients, I learned from you having listened to your your podcasts as well that you hear it all the time, when there's any sort of quote unquote, failure, right? When you fail to miss some target or do something that you intended to do. And all of a sudden, I couldn't do that, or I'm not able to do this or I am this and reframing it, like you said, I have a tendency to, or simply saying that I choose to do this because right I choose to do this, because can be very powerful. What's it going to say about that? Oh, and the other thing that comes to mind is relationships, right? Like, if, if I told my wife some of the things I tell myself in my brain, I wouldn't I wouldn't actually want to say and I wonder, you know, we were toughest on ourselves. Sometimes we show ourselves the least love sometimes. And kind of thinking of that context of would you tell your spouse or someone that they are this or do this all the time? And how would that make them feel kind of putting it back on you? It just a thought that came to mind? Another aspect of that is gratitude. Mike like is that part of this where expressing gratitude either to yourself or others can come into play here? Yeah,

Mike Millner 39:54

I think of course, you know, we want to be kind to ourselves and there's a lot The things to be grateful for. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that. It's again, it's a, it's a reframe, you know, I think a lot of times we look at it again, this is this is another kind of cognitive distortion that we all have, that we're all born with, that we can't get rid of negative thoughts are more powerful than positive thoughts. And again, this is a survival based mechanism. So instead of being like, Oh, my brains broke, my brain is broken, I always focus on the negative is to keep you alive. And so we remember negative things more because of survival. So, and I've heard statistics that it can be up to seven times more powerful. So if you hear, you know, six positive things, and one negative thing like that kind of balances out, you might focus more on that one single negative thing than the six positive things that happen. But you know, it's one of those things you have to actively work on. Understanding that it is a cognitive bias, it is a cognitive distortion. And I can actively work on focusing on things that I'm grateful for. So even in the moments where it feels like how you know what like this this day is just like, it's not going my way. There's probably things in that moment that you can can reframe. Now, with a caveat of trying to immediately like change a negative situation into a positive can actually be a negative, instead of just letting yourself feel that, like, you know, what, yeah, this day does suck. And that's okay. Like, I'm allowed to feel, I'm allowed to feel sad, I'm allowed to feel down about this day, I'm allowed to feel frustrated, and giving yourself permission, I think sometimes, we immediately tried to, like, get out of it, we're like, oh, no, I don't want to, I don't want to feel sad, let me like fix it arbitrarily. And like your brain is like, we're not going there. And then you have this kind of internal battle, instead of just letting yourself feel the feelings and letting it pass, like, treating the, like, your feelings are all transient, they're gonna pass, they're gonna go away, they're gonna, you know, it's like the clouds, let's just, let's just watch them float on by. And that's like one of the most effective things you can do. And then when you are feeling a little bit better, maybe then is a good time to bring yourself to a place of gratitude.

Philip Pape 42:06

And your emotions are like clouds floating by a river flowing by I've heard that analogy. And it's true, because it's okay to feel disappointment, right? You want to be disappointed in the moment, that's okay. And let it and let it sit. Because that also might drive you later on. I know, for many, many times personal experience, I can look back and say, I don't really want to feel that way in the future when that happens. So now I'm going to choose to do something different. And that's an important way to let that fuel you. So earlier, you talked about short term versus long term, right? Short term being something like a specific phase, let's say a fat loss phase. How do we balance celebrating, like the mission accomplished and the when, you know, even if it took us three months, and now we have that win from the lifelong endeavor, the principles and practices behind it being sustainable, like how do you balance those two things?

Mike Millner 42:51

Yeah. So ideally, we would be more focused on the process based wins and not the outcome based wins. Because the outcome based wins are largely out of your control. When it happens. Sure, celebrate, by all means, like, if we if we reward ourselves and we, and we celebrate, you know, I follow through on these three commitments today. And then, you know, I was at the gym, and I hit a PR amazing, like, let's, let's celebrate the process based goals along the way, but then you're gonna wake up and you're gonna be like, Oh, my God, I don't even notice I'm actually down 10 pounds, I hit my 10 pound, like, Great, let's celebrate that. But let's not make that the target of like, hey, when we get to this 10 pound, like, let's, let's run to this checkpoint, so that we can celebrate, what we really should be focusing on short term is process based goals. And if we can do that, the outcome will happen as a byproduct. But you can't like when the outcome happens, how long it takes to get there, the exact number like a lot of that's largely out of our control. So let's let's focus on the things that we can control. And, you know, i Another concept that I talked about frequently is, you know, celebrating like neutral days, like we always celebrate the big milestones, but we, we celebrate when somebody loses 100 pounds, it's just amazing, like, what an achievement, but we don't ever celebrate the person that didn't gain 100 pounds to begin with, that they had to lose. And it was like, when neutral things happen. And it was just, you know, I just maintained and I just, there's nothing sexy about that. There's nothing flashy about that. But like, why don't we celebrate that? Why don't we celebrate the neutral days where, hey, we didn't I didn't blow myself up today. I didn't, you know, go off the rails today. That's a win. And even no matter what that looks like, even it was just like, you know, I did the bare minimum. I just had protein with breakfast, and then I didn't really eat much protein after that. And I I got a five minute walk in, but I couldn't get to the gym today. All right, that's a win, you know, horrible. It's not a 00 something. But so I find that celebrating neutral days and celebrating when bad things don't happen is really important and like focusing on the process more than the outcome. Yeah, that's

Philip Pape 44:54

really important. I mean, you think of clients who check in and everything was fine. and nothing has to change. Like, how do I? How do I keep motivating this client and part of is just celebrate the fact that all the things you worked at this point have continued? You know, that's a good thing. And then as far as the process based wins, you know, I've heard this a lot. And people people ask, well, how exactly do I do that? One thing you've already mentioned today is if, if you if you only focus on two or three things, or even one thing that you're trying to improve, the win from that is, is the process, right? It is ingraining in yourself this routine and discipline from that process for the process based win. So just throwing that out there. Curious, very specific thing here. I know you work with a lot of clients who want to lose fat. And I don't know how many people you work with, who are built on the other side who are regaining and building muscle in a calorie surplus. But they also face certain psychological limitations that are not symmetric. Let's say there's like different things that they have to focus on. What what are you what's your experience on that side of the journey?

Mike Millner 45:58

Probably the hardest year of my life was where I decided to actively build muscle for a year, I was like 12 months, I'm going to have, I'm going to follow up, my coach says, and I'm going to because my my pattern up until that point was like, You know what, I really want to build some muscle. So I would start to increase my calories, I would start to see the scale go up. And I'd be like, Oh, that that's uncomfortable. Let me just cut my calories again. And a lot of people fall into that pattern. Yeah, because you know, you don't, it's scary, you're like, Oh, am I going to gain a bunch of fat, like, I really want to build muscle, I don't want to get heavier, I don't want to go back. Like we all have that. That panic number that we see on the scale. And so I think that mentally, it can be more challenging to really commit to a building phase where you're, you're, you're feeling a little bit fluffy, you're seeing the scale go up, it's you know, you're eating more food than you thought you had to it's, it's not easy, it was the most difficult and probably the most rewarding here, because it helped me in so many ways with more flexibility, because I had more muscle, I could eat more freely because I had more muscle, I looked better at a higher weight, like there are so many things that were just really rewarding. But the process of building muscle is slower than the process of losing fat. And fat loss can be a slow process, depending on you know what type of approach you're taking. Building muscle is even slower. So you're looking for like really small, incremental improvements. And it's almost one of those things where again, we kind of have to do like a little sleight of hand trick like, Hey, look over here at how much strength you're building in the gym. This workout instead of like, really dialing in on on metrics and body composition. Because that process, we really have to look at that over months, and then be like, Hey, look at this difference in muscle definition and look at how much you know more filled out your chest, your arms, whatever it may be. So yeah, it can be it can be mentally, very difficult. And I think that again, have a support system have a coach to take some of that burden off of you. Yeah,

Philip Pape 48:02

yeah, totally agree. And you may not even notice some of the muscle definition for a while as the fat is building. And that adds to the challenge. But you're right, focusing on other things, sleight of hand sort of. There are many, many metrics. It's kind of like the non-skilled metrics during fat loss. And there's also non, you know, let's say body comp or physique metrics while you're gaining this weight. All right, I'm curious about this. If you had never become a nutrition coach and got into this space, what would you be doing instead?

Mike Millner 48:29

That's a great question. Well, considering I tried a number of different things, and none of it stuck, like I never imagined that I would be a nutrition coach, I never imagined that I'd be doing what I do. So I bounced around from like, I did, I bartended. For like, 10 years, I tried HR, I was in sales for a little bit. And then I started a company that was kind of like a, an internet company that was based around the same concept of like Groupon. But I did like a local version of that, like, I tried everything. And it was not until I found my passion that I you know, was like, kind of just by dumb luck that I that I landed in a role as a personal trainer, and then found my passion and nutrition and then did that. So if I had to like start all over again, I think what I would do is I would probably get a law degree, which my grandfather, who I named my company after, begged me to get a law degree and I was just done with school. At that point. I did not want to do any more after college after I graduated. I was like, I've done enough schooling. So I'm out on that. But I probably have gotten my law degree and maybe go into something in like the, I don't know, I love sports. So I like what want to connect the dots there maybe go into like, you know, I don't know, an agent or something for something that I could use my legal background in the sports world and marry those two and do something along those lines by for sure.

Philip Pape 49:58

And a lot of these sites The logical skills you've learned seemed like they would fit right in there. That's pretty cool. So I like to ask this question of all guests, Mike. And that is, is there a question you wish I had asked? And what is your answer? Oh, I

Mike Millner 50:13

think you covered it all. There's nothing that that stands out to me about any kind of missing question. Normally, if there's something I'm like, Oh, we could have gone in this direction then I'd I'd bring it up. But I feel like you kind of nailed everything that was on my mind today.

Philip Pape 50:29

Cool. So it was a solid interview with with with an amazing guests. I want listeners to know where they can learn more about you and your work.

Mike Millner 50:37

Yeah. So best place to listen to me is on the mind over macros podcast. So anywhere that you listen, you can just search mind over macros. You can find me there. If you ever have questions or need anything I do personally respond to all of my Instagram DMS. And it's not where I say that I respond, and then it's somebody else. It's actually me. So if you message me on Instagram, it's at coach underscore Mike underscore Milner. Nothing is off limits. I'll send voice memos. Sometimes people ask me, like, you know, hey, if you were my coach, what would you do? And I'm like, Well, you could either hire me or you could take this feedback and run with it. And so I answer everything. And I try to provide as much context as possible for any questions. So those are the best two places.

Philip Pape 51:20

Cool. So I'll add your IG to the show notes. Mike is a super accessible responsive guy, like he said, very friendly guy. And his podcast mind over macros actually has two types of episodes. Now one focus on kind of the nutrition coaching, training and all of that, and then the other more for coaches in the space, but whoever you are, they're both fascinating, and you're gonna learn a ton, so definitely follow mine over macros. Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Philip Pape 11/14/23 Philip Pape 11/14/23

Ep 122: Cholesterol for Building Muscle (Eggs and Gains)

What is the link between cholesterol and muscle growth? Today, we will explore whether increasing dietary cholesterol can promote muscle growth and strength gains. In several studies, higher cholesterol intake has been linked to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. We know that dietary cholesterol does not negatively impact blood cholesterol or heart disease risk, though stay tuned for one thing in your diet that might. Today is all about the muscle-building side of cholesterol.

What is the link between cholesterol and muscle growth?

Today, we will explore whether increasing dietary cholesterol can promote muscle growth and strength gains. In several studies, higher cholesterol intake has been linked to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. We know that dietary cholesterol does not negatively impact blood cholesterol or heart disease risk, though stay tuned for one thing in your diet that might. Today is all about the muscle-building side of cholesterol.

Episode summary:

The world of nutrition is often shrouded in myths and misconceptions. One such misunderstood nutrient is dietary cholesterol. For years, it has been villainized due to its alleged link to heart disease. However, recent studies suggest a different narrative, especially in relation to muscle growth and strength gains.

In this episode, we sought to demystify the complex connection between dietary cholesterol and its real impact on your health and fitness journey. Sweeping aside common misconceptions and outdated beliefs, we dove deep into studies to bring you the truth about dietary cholesterol's role in muscle cell integrity and repair.

Our exploration began with the often misunderstood link between dietary cholesterol and muscle growth. We delved into the scientific research on the topic, including the impact of dietary cholesterol on blood cholesterol levels. The myth that dietary cholesterol increases blood cholesterol levels was effectively debunked. Furthermore, we explored the lack of a proven link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease in epidemiological data.

One of the fascinating revelations was the potential for dietary cholesterol to promote muscle growth and strength gains. Several studies have linked higher cholesterol intake to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. Notably, we discussed three key studies that demonstrated a link between dietary cholesterol and muscle growth.

A significant part of our discussion centered around the advantages of dietary cholesterol, particularly egg yolks, on muscle growth and strength. We examined the concept of the food matrix and why a varied diet may offer concealed advantages. In particular, egg yolks emerged as a beneficial source of dietary cholesterol due to their impact on muscle protein synthesis.

The discussion also touched upon the use of statins, medications commonly used to lower cholesterol levels, and their potential negative impact on muscle function and repair. Interestingly, this led to the hypothesis that dietary cholesterol could, in fact, enhance muscle function and repair.

In conclusion, this episode successfully shattered the misconceptions around dietary cholesterol. By focusing on scientific evidence, we were able to present a fresh perspective on this often misunderstood nutrient. The takeaway message? Don't fear cholesterol. Instead, understand its role in muscle growth and strength gains, and use this knowledge to optimize your diet for your fitness journey.

The world of dietary cholesterol is much more nuanced than it appears. As we continue to learn more, it's clear that dietary cholesterol plays an essential role in muscle growth and strength gains. Therefore, it's time we redefine dietary cholesterol and understand its undervalued role in our fitness journey.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:37] Myth on the effects of dietary cholesterol
[5:12] Dietary cholesterol and muscle gain
[13:40] The effect of higher cholesterol intake
[15:01] The effects of statins
[16:01] Lower cholesterol intake of vegetarians
[17:45] Sources of cholesterol
[23:30] Outro

Episode resources:

Join the Wits & Weights email list
Meno Henselman's article “Is cholesterol the forgotten anabolic?”
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Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

In several studies, higher cholesterol intake has been linked to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip Pape. In this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights

Philip Pape 00:40

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 121 excellence consistency and getting ripped through nutrition and training with Eric Helms. I talked with Dr. Holmes about his recent exploits in the bodybuilding world, fresh off his WWF procard. And then we dived into some of the nuances of nutrition and training. From levels of tracking and flexible dieting, to the value of very high protein to mini cuts. We discussed training, volume autoregulation, and many other topics. Today for episode 122 cholesterol for building muscle eggs and gains. We're going to explore whether increasing dietary cholesterol that is eating more eggs, especially holy eggs can promote muscle growth and strength gains. In several studies, higher cholesterol intake has been linked to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. Now we know that dietary cholesterol does not negatively impact blood cholesterol or heart disease risk. And we'll get into that. Stay tuned for one thing in your diet that might but today is really all about the muscle building side of cholesterol. Before we get into the episode, did you know that I have an email list where I share tons of free content related to nutrition and training, Fat Loss and Muscle Building physique enhancement and mindset. If you want to get those hot off the press plus early access to master classes podcast episodes, promotions and other free goodies. Just go to wits & weights.com/email to join the list that's wits & weights.com/email or click the link in my show notes. So let's get to today's episode cholesterol for building muscle, eggs, and games. Now before we get into the muscle side of things, I want to dispel the myth that dietary cholesterol impacts serum or blood cholesterol your lipids your HDL LDL cholesterol numbers that you get through blood work, which are correlated with heart disease risk with cardiovascular disease. The body is really good at regulating blood cholesterol levels, regardless of dietary intake. It uses absorption and synthesis to do this. In something like 20% of people are what we call hyper responders who absorb or produce excess cholesterol in response to high dietary intake. And in the hyper responders, HDL and LDL usually increase proportionally. So the ratio stays the same. That's the quote unquote good to bad cholesterol. Now, epidemiological data does not support a link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease. There have been studies and in fact, there are even recommendations that say you can consume multiple eggs a day as part of a healthy diet without any increase in your heart disease risk. Even if you have diabetes, even if you have such current conditions. There is one thing though, that I work with my clients on that does have a correlation and an influence on serum cholesterol levels, and that is saturated fat. And the general guidance there is to limit your saturated fat to about 10% of your calories, or about 1/3 of your overall fat intake. And with some small, simple, flexible adjustments to your diet. That's pretty easy to do. Today's episode isn't really about that. But I did want to make that clarification that saturated fat can influence your cholesterol. And with my clients who have a history of high cholesterol, we look at that and we bring it down and it generally causes a reduction in their blood work. I've seen this with my own experience as well when I reduce my saturated fat intake because I used to love those bulletproof coffees I used to use I used to not use filters my coffee, for example. And a lot of saturated fat was getting in my diet when I reduced it. Lo and behold my cholesterol numbers went down now whether you want to argue how impactful that is when you're already living in otherwise healthy life, that's a whole different topic for the majority of the population. However, dietary cholesterol the cholesterol you consume does not negatively affect blood lipid profile. or CBD cardiovascular disease risk based on the current evidence. So any concerns are overblown. And you can go ahead and eat your cholesterol rich foods. So what I want to talk about now is the research on dietary cholesterol and muscle gains. Now, a lot of these were covered, these have been covered on other episodes. And there's a particular article that I referenced by mineral hunt gentleman's that I will include in the show notes, in fact, I'll give you the title now it's called is cholesterol, the forgotten, anabolic, and I think I heard him talking about it on a podcast. I also heard back in 2020, Greg knuckles talking about this on a segment of stronger by science. And some of what I'm going to say either repeats that, or, you know, shares the same kind of, it's not really skepticism, it's more of, hey, this might be a relationship you want to look at. And go ahead and try it for yourself. Like that is my position on most things. If there isn't a super clear link, but there might be a link. Try it for yourself. If there's no downside, try it for yourself. But we are going to look at three studies. Now, just real briefly, if you wanted to look them up that have shown some sort of lick. Now, Greg made the point on his podcast that oftentimes with science, if a study comes out if the first study in an area comes out, and has an extremely clear relationship, even if it's later found to be overblown, it often then leads to more studies in that area. And there's this bias towards studies that show a positive result versus ones that reject the null hypothesis and just don't show the link at all. And so always take this with a grain of salt. But here we go three studies. The first one is in chronological order. The first one was 2007, showing a linear dose response relationship. This study was led by reichmann at all, and it showed that when you increased dietary cholesterol, there was an increase in lean body mass. This was done among 49 elderly individuals using a 12 week strength training program. So that's one study the second one and again, I'm not diving into these in great detail. I think again, the stronger by science episode did that back in 2020, if you want to check it out, the second one was on the myofibrillar protein synthesis rate. So this is muscle protein synthesis. Lee at all in 2011, compared high and low cholesterol diets in young, healthy adults. And they found a nearly three times higher myofibrillar protein synthesis rate in the high cholesterol group 22 hours post intense resistance exercise. And then the third study is whole versus a whole eggs versus egg whites. VanVleet at all. 2017. So this is six years ago, I discovered that whole eggs stimulated more myofibrillar protein synthesis, compared to the same amount of protein from egg whites, hinting at the muscle building benefits of the cholesterol present in a yolks and we know that egg yolks are one of the best ways to get a lot of a lot more cholesterol pretty easily. And I'm going to share later in the episode, how different foods compare in terms of their cholesterol levels. Some of the comments I've heard and others analyzing these studies are that either the protein was not equated like the egg whites versus holy eggs. I'm not sure which one to be honest. But protein wasn't equated meaning once they added in the cholesterol, they also increase the protein. So now you got two variables going on. Right? That was one or there were questions on methodology and things like that. But there's some link. And it's not to be discounted, right, there's a possibility. There's also plenty of anecdotes over the years of people who eat more eggs, and they just feel better in the gym, they feel like they can perform better. In fact, Craig said that himself, I feel like I perform better when I have eggs, I'm actually in the middle of experimenting with it right now. Increasing, I'm trying to eat like four or five eggs every day, we have chickens, so we have like an unlimited supply anyway. And my concern in the past was trying to balance the calories because there's a lot of fat in a in eggs. So I just make sure that the the fat in the eggs is a decent portion of my fat for the day. So I just kind of moderate my fat in other areas, and it all works out nicely. And then I have plenty of protein from other sources because you can't just rely on whole eggs for protein, you might have to add egg whites or you have to have other sources of protein to get enough without the fat going through the roof. And I'm by no means recommending that you down a dozen raw eggs, or even a dozen egg omelet every day. Okay, I'm talking three or four eggs. That's what we're gonna get to by the end of this discussion. Now, why this potentially could work from the cholesterol, even if it's a small impact. There seem to be two mechanisms, two potential mechanisms. And then there's another mechanism that is probably not responsible. Okay, that one just to get it out of the way is anabolic hormone production testosterone because cholesterol is a precursor for anabolic hormones. And but the problem is that The increased dietary cholesterol doesn't directly lead to that elevated testosterone, or more lean body mass in and of itself, right? This probably goes back to the same reason why dietary cholesterol doesn't increase blood serum cholesterol rate the body auto auto regulate. So let's take that one off the table. The other two mechanisms are interesting, and they're a little bit technical sciency. So I'm gonna just, I tried to summarize them as best I can. So if you are a biologist out there, who actually understands this stuff, I apologize if I get it wrong. It doesn't matter so much at the end of the day, because my recommendation for this whole podcast episode is try it for yourself, just try it for yourself. Okay, this is where science and practice meets in the middle. So the two mechanisms The first is muscle cell integrity. And we know that this happens that cholesterol, increases membrane viscosity. So the viscosity around the cell membrane viscosity, if you think of it like water is not very viscous. Oil is a little more viscous molasses is even more viscous, right? So the more viscous you get, the more thick and kind of resilient it is. And if you subscribe to the theory of muscle damage from exercise, the subsequent inflammatory response and then the repair being a key mechanism in muscle growth and hypertrophy, then you could argue that, that more viscous resilient cell membranes would then lead to, you know, more efficient repair and thus faster muscle growth. Okay, so that's one. The second one is called lipid raft formation. And this is where cholesterol facilitates the assembly of signaling pathways that are crucial in muscle hypertrophy. Like and you've heard of these, the growth factors IGF, IGF one or IGF if given how you say it, and mTOR. And the activation of mTOR aligns with the observed increase in protein synthesis. And I know that the jury's out on a lot of this stuff, right? The evidence is kind of mixed how valuable mTOR really is, and all of this, it's kind of like P E ratios used to be a big thing, and now they're not so much anymore. So again, the mechanisms do you really have to understand them? No, we just want to see if there might be a link and then try it out. Okay. So I want to summarize what this message is about cholesterol. The research suggests there may be a link between dietary cholesterol and increased muscle growth and strength gains by those two mechanisms, cell integrity, and boosting muscle repair pathways.

Philip Pape 12:37

Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits, & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now factor the show. higher cholesterol intake has been linked to greater gains in lean body mass and strength in some studies. It's also been linked to higher testosterone but may not have a direct impact on that. So that may be confounded there. egg yolks, in particular seem beneficial when compared to egg whites. Now, you could just chalk that up to the fact that egg yolks have cholesterol. But others might argue that egg yolks are extremely nutritious in multiple ways. And this takes me back to the theory of the food matrix. Not the theory. But the idea that we we think we can understand food based on its constituent parts, its macros and its nutrients. But there are other things in food we just either don't understand, don't see don't know or don't measure that can be beneficial. And this is why a diverse diet is often the most logical approach for a lot of people because you get the benefits, the hidden benefits and all these things right and some people like to call eggs a superfood. I think all foods are superfood, and the most the biggest superfood is a balanced diverse diet as a whole the entire thing. So egg yolks may be helpful for other reasons and I'm going to recommend egg yolks as the source of cholesterol if you're going to increase your cholesterol just because it's the most efficient way to get there. And it may have other benefits. Okay, Continuing. So, you've heard of statin, statins are used just probably abused even in the medical industry. At this point, everybody with the tiniest hint of high cholesterol is given a statin, I was offered a statin in my as early as my 20s When, when my total cholesterol would spike just over 200, right. And I routinely routinely get my blood work. When I've gone through a cut, or when I'm in a lower weight, my total cholesterol is like 150. When I'm a little bit heavier, it's like 220, and it always vacillates between there. I'm perfectly healthy, right? That's my range. So these absolute numbers and these population ranges are just just be skeptical. Anyway, my point is, statins, lower cholesterol, we know that they do. And they also cause muscle side effects like weakness and inflammation, we know that as well, which could hint in the reverse, you know, by reverse engineering it that cholesterol, AIDS and muscle function in some way. That's all. Take that for what you will. Now vegetarians, let's talk about them for a second. vegetarians tend to on average gain less muscle than omnivores. And some people think this could be because of the lower cholesterol intake from plant based diets because now we're talking about cholesterol from all sources. Not just eggs, but butter, cheese, dairy products, red meat, poultry, Oregon's fish, all of that is where we get cholesterol. So if you're on a plant based diet, you're pretty much not getting any. Now, you could argue that vegetarians also may not get enough protein if they're not really careful about it. And so again, we have to avoid confounding the two variables of protein versus cholesterol and I'm not sure I'm not aware of a study maybe Hey, Coach Lambie, Dustin Lambert, if he's listening can point me to a lot all this in fact, you can correct everything I'm saying this episode if you'd like and, and doing your own of your own on the working weights podcast, which would be awesome. So vegetarians, there you go. Okay. Cholesterol does help produce steroid hormones like testosterone. It also assists muscle repair and growth signaling pathways. But again, how much of this is impacted by the dose response versus like having a minimum having having a normal minimum amount in your diet? In other words, if you eat a couple 100 milligrams of cholesterol, is there much of a difference between 208 100 versus the difference between zero and 200? Right? It's always good to keep those in mind. Like sometimes you just your body just needs a certain amount of something and you're deficient. Once you address the deficiency, you're good. Beyond that there's not much of a benefit could be the case of cholesterol. Again, try it for yourself. We talked about how dietary cholesterol does not has little to no impact on blood cholesterol for most people. Again, unless you're a super responder doesn't raise your heart disease risk, and the foods that you get cholesterol from I want to list them right now just so you have a good idea of why eggs are so huge. egg yolks, one egg yolk 18 grams, the egg yolk itself has 195 grams of cholesterol, the whole egg so the egg yolk plus the egg Why is 222. So 195 Out of the 222 milligrams are from the yolk. So right there, you can see that if you just eat three eggs a day, you're over 600 milligrams of cholesterol. So that's why I say three to four eggs is like a good sweet spot. If you're trying to make sure you get a minimum amount of around seven or 800 a day because you'll probably get cholesterol from some other sources as well. Butter has 30 milligrams and a tablespoon. Cheese has about a one to one milligrams to grams. So like 100 grams of cheese has 114 milligrams of cholesterol. A whole milk has a little bit of cholesterol so like 10% by volume, so 100 mil 100 milliliters of milk will have 10 milligrams of cholesterol. Yogurt has a little bit red meat has a decent amount. Poultry has a decent amount, but the leaner it is the less you're going to have. So you want to eat the fattier cuts to get more cholesterol. Oregon meat has a lot so that's the other one besides egg yolks actually organ meat like kidney and liver has a ton of cholesterol. How many of you listen to this podcast, we're gonna go and start eating liver every day. I thought so. Back to eggs, okay, and then fish. So the more fatty the better. But fish also has a little bit less than poultry. My red meat has the most of all of these besides organ meats so but egg yolk is the clear winner. So if you're trying to build muscle, if you're in a gaining phase, if you've got the calories to work with including the fat and you want to try this out and you currently eat maybe a couple eggs a day or maybe you eat a couple eggs every now and then a protocol would be don't change anything else and just make sure you get four eggs a day for a few weeks and measure your lifting progress, how you feel in the gym, how you're performing, how you recover your energy, all of that, okay. Try to equate the macro Use otherwise, what I mean by that is if you're going to go from 0x to 4x a day, that's a decent amount of fat, or offset it with other fat, so that the overall macros are still around the targets you would normally have anyway. And if you're tracking, you would do that, because you're gonna have to meal plan it in. But just to keep the different variables from changing so much, that's what I would suggest. include other foods like you normally would. So if you normally eat dairy, meat, fish, they all have clusters anyway, that kind of get to that baseline. If you're using macro factor, go back right now and look at the history, you can actually look at the nutrients. And you can look at it for different time periods. So it's really cool. This update came out in the last few months, you can go into your day, how do you do it? Yeah, you go into your day in review. So go to the top macros, tap it, look at your day, and go down to nutrition. And then at the top, I think you can change it to like a week, a month, a year, something like that and see the average intake of something and cholesterol is on that list. So if your average intake has been, say 300 You know, you can have a new target that's decently higher than that like 900, let's say or if your average is 100, you can go up to 700 I would go buy like, you know, 600 milligrams, something like that, to have a meaningful difference and then compare it to, to your biofeedback. Vegans, if if you're vegan, you're going to want to increase your saturated fat intake to support cholesterol production. And this is totally off tangent, but I had it in my notes. So we're talking coconut oil, nuts, avocado case, you are wondering.

Philip Pape 21:34

The big message here is don't fear cholesterol, that's definitely not a concern. It's not going to impact your blood levels negatively or your heart health. Talk to your doctor. If you're using a statin and you get muscle weakness or pain as a side effect rates just good to know that get your bloodwork done before and after if you'd like or if you want to know if you're a hyper responder, and enjoy your eggs like enjoy eating more eggs I CERAM eggs are delicious. If you have your own chickens, they're especially so but honestly any you can get that are to have nice, rich orange yolks that tastes good and you can tolerate and enjoy. Go for it. I like them scrambled just quick and easy to make. I also do some hard boiled. Some of you fancy types out there my like and poached. There's of course over easy sunny side up. Medium easy. A Million Ways to have eggs. It's great. Okay, that's it for today's episode on cholesterol and gains. When in doubt, try it out. Then reach out to me to let me know whether more eggs means more gains for you. I would really love to know. And remember to join my email list at wits & weights.com/email for more content like this straight to your inbox, that's wits & weights.com/email or click the link in my show notes. In fact, you know what else you could just go to my website wits & weights.com and click Email in our next episode 123 So 123 why you're not achieving your fitness goals with Mike Milner. we unpack the DNA of success. To understand why so many of us failed hitting our health and fitness goals. We get deep into the mental game. Mike is a fellow coach with tons of experience in the psychology of goal achievement. So make sure to subscribe to Wits & Weights right now in your podcast app go ahead click follow click Subscribe so you get that episode. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong

Philip Pape 11/10/23 Philip Pape 11/10/23

Ep 121: Eric Helms on Excellence, Consistency, and Getting Ripped Through Nutrition and Training

Do you know how to adjust your diet and training based on your needs and biofeedback? Do you know the role of protein in body composition?

Learn more about this and more from today’s guest, Dr. Eric Helms! Fresh off of earning his WNBF Pro Card, he joins me for the second time despite his busy contest schedule. The last time Eric was on the show, we discussed balancing strength and physique goals, programming for lifters at different experience levels, self-determination theory and motivation, and optimal protein sources.

Do you know how to adjust your diet and training based on your needs and biofeedback? Do you know the role of protein in body composition?

Learn more about this and more from today’s guest, Dr. Eric Helms! Fresh off of earning his WNBF Pro Card, he joins me for the second time despite his busy contest schedule. The last time Eric was on the show, we discussed balancing strength and physique goals, programming for lifters at different experience levels, self-determination theory and motivation, and optimal protein sources.

Eric Helms is a titan in the bodybuilding and nutrition world. He is a researcher, author, and coach specializing in physique and strength sports. Eric has a PhD in strength and conditioning and is a competitive natural bodybuilder and powerlifter. He co-founded MASS Research Review and is the Chief Science Officer of 3D Muscle Journey.

Today, we’re going to get caught up on his recent exploits in the bodybuilding world and then dive into some of the nuances of nutrition and training, from levels of tracking and flexible dieting to macro splits to mini-cuts. We’ll also get into training volume, autoregulation, and whatever else we have time for.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:09] Update on contest season
[16:08] Levels of diet tracking from beginner to advanced
[26:33] Tracked approach towards a fat loss journey
[32:36] Diet tracking from intermediate to athlete or competitor level
[38:20] Very high protein and low carb strategy
[45:52] Two-year nutrition cycle structure for moderate experience
[52:30] Ratios for cutting or maintenance
[55:56] Evaluating training to optimize for muscle gain
[58:21] Finding the individualized training volume
[1:02:47] Where to find Eric
[1:04:01] Outro

Episode resources:

Ep 72: Balancing Strength, Physique, Recovery plus Animal vs. Plant Protein with Eric Helms
3DMJ Vault –Bodybuilding Program Design to learn how to build your own customized training split
IG – @helms3dmj

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Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

Transcript

Dr. Eric Helms 00:00

If your overall goal is this progress and growth, you do want to assess your training logs in over a reasonable timeframe. You should be seeing performance trending up in the stuff you're focusing on. And let's say you really missed a general intermediate you're not specializing any muscle group yet you're still running let's say an upper lower split. And you want generally everything to grow.

Philip Pape 00:21

Dr. Eric Helms 01:55

Oh, man, what an intro. Thank you so much, brother. It's it's an honor to be back.

Philip Pape 01:59

I don't know if you remember how long the lesson was. But like I said, people can check that out if they want to hear it. First of all, I want to congratulate you, man, you've been, you've been up to a lot lately. A lot of achievements in the title WNBA if New Zealand think it was right second at Battle debate. And then most recently, earning your pro card at WMF. Australia. Tell us some of the highlights. You know, not just the placings, but your experiences with the other competitors, how you've handled the demands of the schedule, that kind of thing.

Dr. Eric Helms 02:31

You know, to be honest, some of the highlights were some of the personal connections that I made to people backstage. You know, I appreciate you highlighting the show, I won the show, replace second, skip in the one right place third, and then and then and then my. But the Washington State was a really, really cool experience. That was a four person, middle weight class. But it was really, really, really stacked. The winner of that ace filming Shawn, he came from Hong Kong to compete, which is really cool. And he just him and his coach, they just expressed so much respect and honor for me as a competitor. And just as a practitioner that I was, I was just it was so cool. And then I also got to meet Josh D. Bradley from he's actually doing, finished his bachelor's degree and he's going to go into his PhD. He works with Chris Bearcat. And he is this is a really stacked line that would mean to say like placing third in that class is something that I'm equally as proud of as everything else I've done. If you looked at all four of those guys, Ryan, who plays second actually is already a men's physique Pro. And he was jumped. He competed in the pro show earlier in the day and then jumped in because he wanted to get his bodily procart as one and he has some of the most ridiculous quads, top about Australia glutes I've seen insanely he didn't even go to winter. They overall it was just a really, really stacked competition. And then myself and third. And then Josh was mentioning at fourth and one of the personal connections we had was he shared with me and it blew me away. Because he's a relatively young man compared myself I turned 40 This year, how his track coach in high school, put him on to the muscle and strength pyramids is his first kind of entrance into training for bodybuilding. And it like made my brain skip like that. That could be the first entrance and I was both honored, humbled, and so jealous. Because I was like well you're so you first started training and like 17 you had the collective wisdom I had and research like stuff that I've had that I worked on for over nearly two decades you know, and I was like, Man and then I thought oh shit like that's there's there are people out there who their first entrance into this is that and it it was a mixture of like fear imposter syndrome. And like, that's really cool. And I guess I'm a leader like odds too. I'm too big. Like I shouldn't be a leader. And then yeah, you can imagine that all that on top of show day. So I had that kind of experience at the Washington which is really cool. That was one awesome moment. The Washington itself is also really cool because that's where Jeff won his pro card. So being in the audience and getting to see him compete as a pro at 52. And just knowing him personally, like we both there's a lot of insecurity that goes on with bodybuilding when you're exposing yourself to that degree, and you have these high level goals. And you know, Jeff and I have different ones, he's a lot more naturally talented, I'll say, for the sport, that he might go Pekinese taking it further and probably will be able to take it further than I have in my career. But he's also just turned 52. And he's not sure if he's still at his peak. And this show when he looked at pictures, and he started to see because you don't know until you're sure to be in shape. He was like, I'm just as good if not better than I ever have better. This is a warm up show for me, you know, like I'm not in good shape. And he took second place in a very stack, you know, pro show. And I think it might have been you know, I'm probably it's probably the best he's looked at this level of leanness at the very least, I think you can say that. And to get to see him do that the same show or 14 years ago, he got his pro card. And I competed in the overall against him. I want the light heavyweights and we took a two day trip driving up from his house in Stockton, stopping in Grants Pass all the way to Washington. That's six hour drive than the seven hour drive. And just getting all that time to connect, it was a really good way for us to connect with our roots, because 3d muscle journey was formed in those backstage conversations. So those are those are some moments around other of that show that were really really awesome. But each each show had connections like that. And the one that I just didn't Australia, it was just incredible. I mean, I've been working to get my web of pro card for a bit of wanting it since I went to my first bodybuilding show, which happened to be at aNbf show in Augusta, Georgia. And it's iron Eagle classic that many time heavyweight, mid 2000s Of late 90s Pro natural bodybuilder Rodney Hilaire puts on I got the opportunity to guest judge and view that and just be like, oh shit like this, this is Natural Bodybuilding. And then I did my first show in oh nine so this is something I've been pushing towards for my almost my entire lifting career sometime in 2006. I was like, Oh, this is this is a goal but it's taken me 17 years to achieve it. So yeah, to get it is not so good fully.

Philip Pape 07:18

Yet only the muscle and strength pyramids existed in 2006. But I could

Dr. Eric Helms 07:23

go back and tell myself the key because I'm

Philip Pape 07:27

older than you and I wish I could do the same you know, but we are where we are and it's fun to hear behind the scenes, right because I mean, on the surface you know, we see the accolades but as you know the process behind that is where where the magic happens and to hear you talk about the psychology of it predominantly right and the imposter syndrome and kind of the I know that comparisons are inevitable and you know one year you might go up against a certain group of individuals and and you're the best and the other in the next time you you yourself feel at your top and yet the competitors are stacked you know it's sounds like a big mind game

Dr. Eric Helms 08:04

and that's exactly what happened you know, I I basically just dropped the placing each show I did you know, so I went from winning the the overall New Zealand title to then placing second and placing third but objectively not subjectively, objectively the feedback I got everything I saw all the indicators were that I improved from show to show to show but I also went from order show like I went from our second inaugural the New York New Zealand show where we do have high quality competitors but it's a small number. It's part of the reason why I went in the overall the panel decided you know, you're not quite ready for a pro card at the show. And I wasn't at my peak, which is also part of that decision. And then the next weekend you know, I I was at a very tight battle for for the number one spot. There was, I don't know if it's a split decision. I didn't get full judges feedback, but everyone was like that could have gone either way. It was really cool to watch Lorenzo elder get his WTF pro card. He's one of our 3d MJ athletes and he very, very, very good competitor already he's made noise as an NBA Pro. So I play second there. And I was like, Okay, it's still right there, still right there and then to ship third. It took a little bit of like, alright, recalibrating Mrs. Bodybuilding, so I'm getting better. I placings are getting worse, and a little delayed satisfaction you wait a couple of weeks and then boom, you know, you you win the pro card. So it's if you don't have a firm sense of why and also being able to be objective about yourself and primarily prioritize and value self improvement and the other lessons you get from it. It can be an emotional roller coaster because it is subjective and it's very dependent upon who shows up on the day. And one of the choices I made this season was listen, one of my one of my goals is and I'm gonna put it out there and I'm gonna value it and be honest with myself at all. This what the world about it is I want to get my card, and I'm coming to compete that when you do that you give up a little power over your own little state. And I think that's a reality. But what people don't realize is that once you have a goal that is not only dependent upon your will and efforts, you know, beat your former version yourself and prove, you give up a little power. You put yourself out in the world, and you say, well, there's other people who want to win first, and there's judges who, you know, probably are less biased than I am looking at my own physique, and they're gonna rate it a different way. So you also are giving up your ability to fully celebrate and enjoy a day even if you did your best. So I'm relatively proud of myself that I meant, like, I did have my moments like when I placed third or when I was inches away for like, the 10th time in my career for getting a pro card and I play second vote Renzo and my class. But, um, but I also knew that's what I signed up for it. I'm big enough boy, I can I can handle it. And, and that if I just kept pushing into what happened, and here we are,

Philip Pape 10:57

yeah. And then you have the worlds coming up, too. And I think originally that was your, that was the place you were expecting to go for the pro card. Right? I don't know if the Australia was a surprise. I mean, obviously, like you said, you hope and, and plan to do your best at all of these. But was that was it a little bit of a surprise, or you are just having an aggressive goal and got there early.

Dr. Eric Helms 11:16

So I thought my best shot would be at the New Zealand show. And because of the size of it, and then from there, I would just do the Washington, I mean, I didn't expect to get a pro card at the New Zealand show. But I just knew based on the side of it, size of it, you know, you tend to get a crop of competitors compete one year, and then the next year, you get a different crop. And I just didn't know of any New Zealand, male bodybuilders who were competing that year? Who would be like, Yeah, who else is going to come out? And who's who's just going to have a high caliber physique? That's going to be the battle for the pro card. And then, of course, people who showed up who I didn't know, and, you know, like, it was, it was, it was still good. Like, I mean, I wasn't like, I just walked away with it. But yeah, I also knew that there'd be a potential with the panel, the number of people that I would get. So that's a question mark here. But good, this is my best shot at winning the show. And that is what happened, and that I knew that both the battle Bay, and the Washington would be very hard fought. So we'll see what happens, I go to the States, you know, these are basically this business on a circuit that I've done before, did it compete in the US in 2009 2019, like the Bay Area, and like the West Coast shows are just very, very competitive, as are the East Coast shows not to take anything away from the new US. So I knew that if I didn't get it, and New Zealand, I need to do like a proof, get tighter, and then just keep chipping away. At that I knew that the Australia show was going to be very big. And that would be hard as well. And I thought I knew that, okay, there's a very real possibility that I'm going to have to just keep going all the way to worlds. And then that's gonna be the hardest one, actually. So I, but I'll be at my best. So it was this interesting scaling component where the shows got harder as I was getting better. So I kind of thought like I had a relatively flat chance throughout, and it could happen at any of them. And, and I actually think world's probably the hardest to get your pokedex at amateur worlds is. It's no joke bad people who win their class, and especially if they win the overall in the amateur WTF worlds are typically immediately competitive as a pro, like when they do their first pro debut there. They're winning money. So so

Philip Pape 13:24

I don't know entirely how it works. But do you now compete on the 19th? In the in the pro? Wrecked Okay, yeah. All right. So does that change the game for you or your prep?

Dr. Eric Helms 13:33

It's led in some ways, no, because I was gonna bring my best and do what I had to do. For worlds. So the timing, what it does change is it's it makes the day a little less complicated. Like if I had turned pro on at Worlds, that's a trade route to compete the next morning is after being in overall in the evening that I prior. So that's a bit of a challenge to peak for across two days. You know, a lot of people struggle is to peak in the morning in the evening in the same day, if they do a crossover, or if it's a two full two day format show. So that would have been it would have been cool. And let's be honest, like, it's taken me this long to be pro caliber to be pro competitive at the world level, is going to take something monumental, which I'm really, really excited to chip away at. It's awesome. But I'm mainly I'm going to worlds to take picture, take pictures of LeBron as he dunks on maybe like garlic, you know, so, and there is a rule. I don't know if it'll change in the future. I do hope that it does. But there's a rule where you have to compete within the same. It's an one year of getting your pro card to kind of like activate and keep it and then there's a two year unless there's life extenuating circumstances where you have to compete. I think there are some issues with what that forces competitors to do, especially in the bodybuilding divisions, we have to be so lean. And the timing of shows can put you at a really rough spot where you don't get to fully recover or you have to just keep dieting. So I'm actually very fortunate But there's a purpose. There's a reason why I decided I want to go to Worlds. So I basically back loaded everything. You know, if you look at all the shows that I've done, I will have done five by November 19. But the first one was September 30. So we're talking like, five shows, and in eight weeks, you know, okay,

Philip Pape 15:17

so you're saying bye, bye beat compete pro right away, it gives you this longer clock to the next one. Correct?

Dr. Eric Helms 15:23

Exactly. So I'll be able to take all of 2024 as an offseason and then, you know, looking at potentially competing end of 2025, or maybe early 2026, depending upon just dates, things like that. So technically, I'd have to be on stage by world's 2025. Again,

Philip Pape 15:40

it's exciting, man. I mean, I mean, it's, you know, I'm not in that world. And I know a lot of people listening are but we find it fascinating. And what it takes to get to where you are, the principles are still something we all aspire to both the psychology of it, but even the practical matters of, you know, leaning out and building and all of that, because you are at the limits, learning about this. So why don't we jump into some of that right? segue here, nutrition topics first, and maybe some training. I've heard you talk about how you're not tracking this time around, right, you're not tracking or logging food, you're taking a more intuitive approach, based on years of having done that before and develop that skill. What I'm curious about is, if someone listening wants to understand the different levels of tracking, right, from a rank beginner to very advanced athlete who has ambitious physique goals, how would you map that out? For them? What are the three are different ways we can track when we're using flexible dieting, do you think are appropriate?

Dr. Eric Helms 16:36

Great question. So the way I would frame the way I used to frame this, so this is some some hot hot off the presses changes to the next edition of my books, Philip was that there was good better and best. So to give more flexibility to people good is just hit it with a calorie range. And typically like something like plus or minus 100. And there's a lot more to us to that, that we'll get into before someone just starts doing that. And then better is a protein intake, and then calories. And that best is macronutrient to get us to that range. Because now you're you're making it more dialed in for the individual. And you're assuming that you've you've gotten the the macros down customized to the individual. And, you know, I presented this in my, in my books as all positive framing, because it's all well and good. And even saying that, hey, in the offseason, it may not even be best to do macros, you might just always do calories and protein or even a habit based tracking system. That was the evolution from the first edition, the second edition. The evolution of the third edition of my books that I'm that I'm working on, is basically coming from the repeated data and coaching experience and personal experience I've had where I really struggled to justify having relatively tight macro rages. And that being that different for people, like if we were to shift your fat up or down 20 grams, and trade that for 45 grams of carbohydrates, except when you're like, down and like the very, very lowest intake and brushing keto ketosis or brushing a very low fat diet, you know, like, Oh, I'm currently on 40 grams of fat. And I want to do that or like any, you know, maybe that that, or a lot of 100 grams of carbs, and I want to increase my fat. So okay, so we are going keto, we didn't think about this, and we'll modify some of the things right? Outside of those circumstances. I just couldn't really justify why am I telling people it's, it's better or best to only be within let's say, a plus or minus 10, or 15 gram range on these macro targets. And it's same thing for protein, kind of having more of a minimal threshold intake that's appropriate. And knowing that if you go over it, it's fine. But it's not going to necessarily help you. Except on individual cases where he noticed more satiety or what have you. It's basically an unnecessary level of rigidity. So moving forward, I think the way or the eventual endpoint that I want people to get to once they build some skills, which I'll talk about a second is that we have a calorie range that's appropriate. And then we simply have a minimum intake for fat carbs and protein. So what that might look like, would be hate, you know, in a hard, hard, hard dieting phase with minimal intake. And this is temporary, because it's only while you're really trying to get lean in for extreme goals, and 20 to 30 grams of fat to get our minimum fat intake, right? That most of the time, we're gonna bump that up to something higher, at least like the equivalent of 20% of calories, but I'd probably expressed an absolute about to make sure we're covering our hormonal bases, you know, transport of fat soluble vitamins, making sure everything's functioning well. And maybe that's like 1460 grams. So that's kind of our minimum intakes and different scenarios. And then for carbohydrate. Okay, what type of training do you do? Are you bodybuilding or powerlifting powerlifting. You know, like we have some data suggesting that ketogenic diets and certain styles of products and trade without a whole ton of volume You probably find you're not making it may not be ideal for strength gain. But it's it's, it's those allow allows it. So maybe we have a minimum intake of one gram per kilogram, if you have like strict like low volume parallel singles. And then as we move up to kind of the volume ladder, you're a bodybuilder you're doing a lot more, maybe we'll put that around like two to three grams per kg, right. And for the Americans, we're talking about a gram to a gram and a half for Babish. Right. And then for protein, you know, when you're in the offseason, when you're not being stressed by a killer caloric deficit, there's no theoretical reason to pitch to be higher 1.6 grams per kg point seven gram per pound, or right around there were higher. And then if we're dieting, and we bumped that up to point 8.91 gram per pound, perhaps. And then after that, distribute your calories as you want. And now all of a sudden, many of the questions that people have, and the flexibility issues and logistical challenges, and the issues with holidays, traveling etc, get taken care of, you know, I just thought, oh, man, like I don't, I don't have to be set into these things. And I find also as a coach that it makes people in different regions, different environments and different social structures, especially when you look at American Coach the first time they get like an Australian client, like, I don't know how to get that, like, what is that? Well, the first time they have a client for the UK, or someone from a very, very non westernized country to speak, speak English, that's also very, very challenging, you know?

Philip Pape 21:27

So they don't know how to get the food to meet macro, what are you saying they don't have to get what?

Dr. Eric Helms 21:32

So what would inevitably will happen at early stages, if someone learned to track macros is they'll ask for some food advice, like, okay, yeah. How would I keep my fat low, putting my carbs high. And that looks very different at Singapore than it does in Australia than it does in Jersey, right. And that's something that I learned from moving overseas having to do that myself and also, to some degree working with athletes overseas. And being able to just automatically allow someone to fit into that. And with that structure, I think is a much improved step. And it's just hard to justify anything else in my mind these days. So that's one big structural change to where we want to get to. But I think getting to there is important because you were talking about different levels of skill and different types of tracking. There's a big difference between the how the average bodybuilder or person in the fitness body composition world thinks of tracking when you say the word versus, say a dietitian, or just a general person, kind of a broader health and fitness space. If you say, someone in our community, like, Hey, I'm doing some macro tracking, they think you have three targets, and you're trying to hit them on a daily basis. But he talks with other people, it could simply mean, I'm eating what I want based upon habits and kind of healthy things. And I'm just writing it down, but I don't have a target. Sure. And there's and so the conversations about the issue, the potential problems with these are the pitfalls, the side effects, I'll make you an erotic all those things start to fall away, when all you're doing is eating as you normally would, but tracking as kind of a mindfulness practice or an educational tool, which I really like for newbies, so people who are wanting to get more nutritional literacy, understand their diet, look for areas where they can improve or that we can kind of incrementally make more qualitative changes to their diet. Rather than giving them prescriptive three numbers. I think the best thing they can do is start reading food labels you know writing things down taking pictures of food of their phone but not not eating out not making sure everything gets weighed to the gram you know, eyeballing things learning about some of the portion sizes like weighing when you're at home after you've gauged Okay, I think that's a cup, then see is it a cup, they Oh, shit was the cup is a cup and a half, like, Oh, I think that's about 100 grams of banana was 150 grams, you know, those are really important lessons. Looking at the back of your, your food label for the almonds, so they already have a protein, they grabbed some almonds, you'd look at nearly? Well, I'll be damned almonds are mostly set, you know, like things like that are then auditing what you've tracked for the whole week. And you know, some things but we haven't actively tried to change it. And you know, you want to have a moderate fat, moderate protein, sorry, moderate carbohydrate, high protein intake, and you look and you've actually got like, moderate, moderate, moderate, and you're like what I need to do here? Well, I can switch this to low fat dairy, I can go from chicken thigh to chicken breast or to Turkey. All of those swapping and decision making games are or rather, this plug and play. Opportunities are great to learn. And then you really start to understand how to turn food into into numbers and vice versa and how to make useful swaps. And that process can last a couple of weeks before you even decide to try to hit certain targets. And you may not even decide to do that. You might just make these qualitative changes. You might just develop habits you might create some meal structure and make sure I have a veg F route, it'll lean protein three times per, per day. And then, you know, I have some reasonable eating out options on top of that, and a protein shake after I workout. And I know that I'm going to eat to a three out of five satiety level at most at any meal, and do a few other things and get x number of steps. And it's all habit based, right? So that I think, is a really, really critical phase that someone goes through before they even start entering the world of lemme have target macronutrients, start weighing myself, look at my two week average. And you know, wherever they are, on the scale, eat out minimally and improve my accuracy and all those things. So I can go a macro based food blast, a weight loss plan.

Philip Pape 25:39

Yeah. And I'm laughing inside because I must listen to you just too much. Because this sounds this sounds exactly like the journey when I have a new client, if I ask them to just track their food, and I forget to say, but ignore the targets. You know, then on day two, it's like, how do I get this? How do I hit? Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you just ignore the targets and track and learn. And then you'll see, the other thing you mentioned was, you know, different countries. I don't know about what you think about this strategy. But I found what successful is just looking at a past day that just happened to get close to the target you intended even if you didn't, what did you do then? Right, just kind of replicate that day. So you're talking about the learning, the awareness, the qualitative changes, satiety. I love that approach as well, satiety. So this would be somebody just getting started, either using a food log or food journal, but not caring about targets. Okay, so now we're there were just a few weeks in, you also have a better understanding of metabolism and expenditure from doing that if you want. What's next. Right.

Dr. Eric Helms 26:40

So let's let's make the assumption this person wants to take a track approach towards a fat loss journey, right? Then from there, once they got comfortable with that can audit that we sit down and go over their meal plan together, we would actually go Alright, so let's set up let's set up some, some targets. And they would be a calorie range and a minimum for all three macros, like I discussed earlier. So okay, then we go, all right, based upon your energy intake, and your change in body weight over the last two weeks, here's a guesstimate at what we think maintenance is. And therefore, we're going to drop X amount of calories and appropriate size deficit for you. And now we have a calorie intake goal and minimum intakes for fat carbs and protein. The next thing I'd have them do, and this is a really useful tool, I want you to write your own meal plan or three, for what that would look like. And think of plug and play options. And each one of those meals slots. Right, so beautiful. Now we're creating what I call a default diet for you. So this is kind of like, I know what I'm doing on a day to day basis. If you're someone who really likes to play and prepare, you can do Sunday cooking and make versions of this, where you can just do that when you're at home, you can have a version when I'm at work, and I need to go to lunch. And I'm gonna have something on the go and only have one meal at home, or you get a version when you're at home, eating three meals. And you can have a weekend version, where you're doing this socially out one meal, and then we make eating two or three meals at home, right. And you have a workout data non workout day version, but I help the person actually write their own meal plans, because then they take the skills they develop just tracking with that targets. And they put them to work immediately. And it's Deb writing the meal plan and with me kind of guiding over their shoulder. So they're getting even more experiential skills learned. And that can pick up things you actually know that you got to count that coffee or whatever, you know, the creamer. It's something you know, and then we start running them. And they go through that process we're checking in, and then you're gonna build even more skills there. And we can also start observing, how do they do with the level of precision, rigidity? What's the important amount? Does it create stress? Is this a good fit? And, you know, we adjust from there Was it too aggressive, you know, maybe you're, what will sometimes happen is they're actually eating more than they think they are during that self track period. They're eating more accurately next. So we end up having this larger deficit that attended, and you lose a lot of weight immediately, which is not a bad thing. People are motivated and have higher body fat. But then we go, hey, guess what, let's let's bump in calories a little bit. Right? So it's a very rewarding process. And that's kind of like your novice to intermediate stage. And then the main thing is to really work on the transitions and assess with them. How sustainable is this feel all the time? And can we eventually we want to get to having this as the way we eat without necessarily having to write it down or log it if we develop these habits, right. So I think sometimes people get too caught up on the fact that they logged it, rather than the fact that they did it. And it's not like you're not going to be at a deficit or not having good macros or not hitting, you know, target calories if you don't write it down. You know, right, exactly. And one of the one of the rubrics that I have for people, it's an easy way to do this. That's one of the skill that teach in this early stage is you know what you've got to do basically follow this more or less habitual play on this kind of default diet, and you have just your last meal left, which is often going to be like a protein based meal at eight or something like that, if they're kind of bodybuilding centric, you know, maybe it's a Greek yogurt or something equivalent of a nice dessert. But it's also protein dominant, not high carbs and fat, hopefully will help in some way lighter. If they don't, I don't force them on people. But that's a nice way to fit some more protein in as we go. Okay, let's do an audit. Now, like you, you don't need to track throughout the day, you can take pictures, you can write it down, or whatever. And I've encouraged you to not have to constantly be tracking because it's a distraction from your life. And you look at okay, what's left, right? And that's kind of the thing, you check your balance budget, like, Oh, I got 20 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fat and 40 grams of protein. Okay, cool. So I can actually put a little bit of peanut butter and some, some blueberries and with my non fat, low carb, sweetened Greek yogurt, right? Do you need to track that? Do you need to write it down? You know, because you know exactly what you have left? It's 1020 like, 40, right. And when people feel like that, it's, it's wrong. If they don't write it out, if they don't track it, that is an indicator to me that they kind of have a little little bit of OCD going on. They're like, No, I gotta write it down. Like, well, well, I mean, you know, you hit it. And you did you checked, you know? So that's one of those opportunities, right? Just

Philip Pape 31:18

so you know, The Completionist in the world, exactly. 100%. Right.

Dr. Eric Helms 31:21

That's right. Well, items really 98% and I got all else. So yeah, exactly. So I mean, I'm okay with people who get a lot of satisfaction from doing that. But I also want them just to be aware of, of where it is, is the tail wagging the dog, you know, and, and make sure that it's not causing stress as well. And making sure that I at least give them the skills if they choose to, to do a non tracked version of this or a non logged version. Before

31:51

my coaching session with Philip, I was really struggling with staying consistent with my nutrition, Phillip really showed me the importance of being consistent day to day, he also helped me see that it's not a bad thing to take a rest day, he really helped me get in that more positive headspace Have a rest day being something really good for me. I've been doing this for a month now. And I'm finally starting to see some progress and my numbers. And I'm really excited about that. And I just appreciate so much the help that Philip has given me. He's always willing to answer questions to offer resources that are totally free, and very, very helpful. So I just want to say how much I appreciate that. Thanks for

Dr. Eric Helms 32:36

now, whatever that inevitably happens, if we probably can preempt your question of how do you get from intermediate to kind of where I am isn't where you want to go, Phil? Sure. Go ahead. Okay, cool. Is okay. Well, Eric, well, you're not tracking at all how does that work? And in reality, I am tracking because I cannot track to some degree, within two seconds at any time of the day, I can be within 90% accuracy of what my nutritionist because I tracked religiously for seven years straight. So that's something that is just an experiential skill that I've developed all the time. That's not the case is what I have mixed meals that are abnormal for me. Or if I go out to eat, and like I don't know, that pesto, fettuccine with with with federal, like, like today and I'm like, okay, like I don't I wish they put it here, I'd have to guess right now a placeholder and is what it is, you look online for a bit, you overestimate the fat, maybe, in my case, whatever. But most of the time, I just know. And I also have a much greater connection of biofeedback than most other people. So I'm aware of what's an appropriate level of hunger at different body fat levels, at different phases, based on different goals, in season, offseason, everything in between all the way down from my current stage weight, where I'm walking around, you know, looking siliques light years or sticking out of hats and not even tried to flex it. It looks like I'm flexing and like you know, me, like shredded conditioning can't sleep all the way up to Oh, you're looking, we'll talk either Eric like it's deep off, he's broke. So I know what all that feels like when I'm forcing food in because I'm adult, my body's gonna get I don't get any more weight to Oh, man, I'm really interested in the flavor of my bread, you know, kind of spectrum, right? I think without that it's very difficult to modulate, like, I know a certain level of suckiness that I should feel at this at this level on on like, say my fourth low day in a row. What I waking up in the morning, and I'm 78.5 kilos shredded, and I've been dieting since February. And that's very different from when you're four months into a contest prep diet and you're still 10 pounds over stage weight, right? You shouldn't feel that shitty, you know, you're or you're you're probably going to burn the candle at both ends and that was just a little stint or a little flicker and then see if they hold me to the offseason. So that is what I said at a certain point. Once you have all those biofeedback knowledge sets And then self awareness, you can actually perform better by giving yourself a more of an auto regulated rage. So, for example, I have that kind of default diet structure. And on my low days, I typically am falling between 1400 to 1700 calories based upon energy levels, performance in the gym, my sleep quality, I can't sleep through the night, I know I probably do that a few days, or I'm for everything falls off. So I need to eat towards closer to 1700, I typically see blood better, what might step count end up being for the day. And that disrupts my general most emotive state or irritable Am I clear headed. And you know, so you strike when you feel like you're fine. And you pull back a little bit when you feel like you're giving too much based upon what giving too much means in the context of that face the giant. And that's something that is, to some degree, you can teach that. But you kind of have to take your late stage intermediate competitor, or athlete or whatever, it isn't that to be a competitor. And then tell them that's the outcome, you want to get to tell them the skills you use. And the guard, you need to try this. You know, like you give a broader range and you tell them, if you feel like crap, like don't just, you know, put on your hashtag grind face, we shouldn't be feeling that crap. But you need to assess. So the coaching process moves from being less prescriptive to what you're actually doing on a day to day basis, to more auto regulated, and that encouraging them. Use your intuition and your knowledge and experience to get to the best outcome. And that's what Berto is doing for me. So I'm working with Alberto Nunez collaboration. He's like my coach and has been he's my colleague. And a lot of the guidance he gives me is outcome based. And it does change at the end, this is an inevitable part, like where your carb loading, and you're trying to get a little leaner that should already shredded. So like right now, this morning, he said, Hey, this weekend, I want to repeat the carb load we did. Because four days later, you looked ridiculous. And you got a little tighter if we can keep using that strategy. So today, higher risk higher reefy than you expected tomorrow a little bit lower. And then we'll go for three or four load. Tight type tapering up. So yeah, that feels like oh, all the way back to 2009. No, you're just three weeks out from worlds. So yeah, it's

Philip Pape 37:15

awesome stuff. Yeah, what I'm even begin with all this the idea of using biofeedback. To learn about yourself, I see that a lot with individuals who aren't as advanced but are at maintenance right at maintenance is a good time to play around with this because they're not trying to induce a change in one direction or the other. You're not experiencing massive changes in your biofeedback, I see it a lot with lifters, who, you know, they'll say, Well, I'm, I'm gaining, and I'm going at a certain rate at a certain rate of gain, but my lift just didn't move this week, or even even regressed a bit. And it's like, stop looking at the macros just like over consumed to give you that energy, because that's what worked in the past, you know, oh, shit, you know, all of a sudden the carbs will do for me. So I think it's important people listening that they do build up to this right track all of these things, because you're tracking without tracking as the way you put it, you're still aware of hunger, stress, satiety all that? Pretty cool. Okay, thanks. Thanks for explaining all that. No worries. And that'll inform my coaching as well going forward. Because there's some nuggets in there, can we see the new muscle strength pyramids, and they come out? So I wanted to ask for a specific scenario regarding the carb protein split, because you talked about minimums, which makes a lot of sense. But I often get the question like, Well, what about the really high protein approach, you know, two and a half, three grams per pound, and we're talking in a gaining phase maintenance or gaining phase, right, where you have the calories, and then it bumps the carbs down to what you suggested is basically approaching keto sub 100. How important are carbs to keep that minimum? You know, in that scenario, I.

Dr. Eric Helms 38:51

So the strategy of largely come from some of the Jose Antonio studies where it looks like metabolic magic is happening. But I think it's important for you to understand that these are small sample size studies that people say, hey, go do this. And they go out, and then they just do that on my fitness pal come back. And then we look at the outcomes. Anytime this has been more rigorously and empirically tested like metabolic Ward, although it didn't have lifting. If you look at some of braised research in 2012, or other studies where we, you know, have higher protein intakes and in gaining phases, we just don't see this effect. So I really think what's actually happening in these maintenance phases as people are struggling to consume those loads of protein, actually not getting there. And their reported calorie intake is lower than it actually is. And they're doing some recopying. That's accelerated by the fact that they're coming in and out of slight deficits, but the net effect is some some gains there. I think that's a more likely outcome, then tried to explain the energy and take differences in it. Something magical happens when you go from 2.2 grams per kg of protein to 3.5 That is unexplainable by physics, but will magically make you recover. I just don't think that is the case. And I think for you know, there's there's a saying, For Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And the Jose Antonio studies, I love them, I'm glad they exist. They are small sample size, more observational style, outpatient, not well controlled, cool studies on protein, but they're there. They're not robust investigations that are designed to answer that question definitively as to what's the mechanism by what we're seeing here. All we know is that, hey, if you tell people to eat, you know, close to two grams per pound of protein, sometimes they're they're not going to gain weight, and there was little bit of fat, and they'll improve lean mass, or they'll gain lean mass and very little body fat. Okay, cool. But that's what that's like black, but it's a black box there, right? We just know that. We told him to do that. And that's what happened. Okay. So if someone wants to do that, I'm more than happy to facilitate them trying. Nothing wrong with experimenting, right? So yeah, yeah. So go for it. And in my experiences, those are typically short lived. And people don't often get what they hope out of it. It but it does work. I will say the instances where you have athletes who struggle to not be in a state of a larger surplus than intended in the offseason, they want to lean gain. But definitely they start gaining a pound a week, this can be very useful. And I think it has more to do with being inconvenient. You know, like, it is very difficult to eat that amount of protein, make meals, but it does drive your food choices away from things that are hyper palatable. And it makes it hard to go

Philip Pape 41:43

out to eat it as well, doesn't it? I mean, it just makes you feel stuffed. Yes. And

Dr. Eric Helms 41:48

I think the data on really, really, really high protein intakes is not super clear for the long run on the satiety effect that seems to increase satiety, and that starts to level off. That's more similar to a moderate intake around like a gram per pound. But I don't think the inconvenience factor goes away. Like if you have to eat 350 grams of protein, and 150 grams of carbs and 70 grams of fat per day. What does that diet look like? It doesn't include eating out? Does it include things that are really really tasty, you know, there's a reason why carnivore is a rage. Because when you actually cut out 90% of the foods you eat, yeah, you're probably not going to have a whole lot of GI issues in the short term. And you're going to be in a deficit, you're going to lose weight, and you're going to be covering your bases protein wise. So if it's a protein modified fast, you know, it's a better approach than just do it like the grapefruit diet, right? So anyway, I find that those those those approaches typically are short lived. But some version of it can be useful just because it changes your your food of options, if you're someone who slides towards bulking too hardcore. And if you need some rules, like some macros, basically, which are end up being rules, de facto, they don't feel like rules. But you'd like to hit your target numbers. And that keeps you in check. You go to the restaurant, you're like, Okay, well, like Yeah, okay, the stakes are too high of fat. Alright, okay, well, the car? Oh, no, no, that the chicken is not enough protein, but like, you have to really think about, you know,

Philip Pape 43:14

a big plate of white fish, that's all you're gonna have. Exactly. Right.

Dr. Eric Helms 43:18

You know, so it, um, it makes things more challenging to keep making that same error. And that's a, if that works, go for it. But generally, in that situation, I would encourage the person towards something maybe a little more moderate. And just make sure that they weren't under any illusions of like the magic of protein, probably have a similar conversation that we just had from asking more questions like, you know, this isn't a consultation. But yeah, what

Philip Pape 43:48

about the illusions of the, the anti magic of carbs, so to speak, or the anti catabolic effects of carbs? Like are isn't someone missing out significantly when they're when they could be eating three or 400? And they're eating 80? Or 100?

Dr. Eric Helms 44:00

You know, to be honest, I'll tell you what, this is basically a scenario when you're eating, let's say 350 grams of protein, and 150 grams of carbs, instead of swapping it. It's, it's basically saying, Hey, I like to get in my in my car door by rolling down the window and the jump through, right? Because you're, you're asking, Hey, liver, how much can you have regulate? You know, gluconeogenesis? Like, how much how much can you convert to protein, and it's pretty good. Like, like, you can actually get to the point where, you know, like, 40% of your, your carbohydrate is getting produced from protein conversion. There's some paper, theoretical bills, burrowing man, which always stands out in my mind, because it kind of has these questions about like the upper end thresholds of theoretical protein intake and humans. So you know, I generally present protein as something that's not a metabolic substrate, primarily, it's for structural repair. But if you give your body twice what it needs in protein, it's going to make a lot of that into into carbohydrate and, and like ketone bodies like you know amino acids or their ketogenic or their glucogenic. So it's gonna start making other substrates from sure from that cleaving off those, Amiens recycling those things. And it will, that's why protein has a higher thermic effect of the other macronutrients to ETFs a little higher. That's why high protein diets brought a few more calories, and you would be maxing that out a little bit. You might be gaining the systems or you noticed, hey, I can actually eat 100 more calories when I do it like that. And I'm actually, you know, eating more than twice when old protein intake, that might be worth it to you, but it gets stuck calories are really going to enjoy it's another, you know, ounce of whitefish on your plate, right?

Philip Pape 45:43

Yeah, when you're probably already having a challenge eating enough anyway. It's like gaining face. All right, so straddling nutrition and training here. How do I want to ask this question? So imagine you have a kind of an intermediate athlete, which probably a lot of people listening to, they've gone through their newbie gains, maybe they're a year or two into effective training, they understand the basics of nutrition, like you've said it, and they just want to have the most efficient next two years in terms of physique, so let's say physique specifically, is their goal, not their one, our you know, for sure sports production or something? What would that look like from a periodization strategy? And I know it's like a general universal thing. We're talking here and everyone's different. But people always ask, you know, how long should I be cutting? bulking? You know, what, what does that look like? Do I use mini cuts that whole thing, I don't know, if we can generalize it,

Dr. Eric Helms 46:33

I think we can give some constraints to help people. So we recently just published a paper on different rates of weight gain, and changes in body composition. It just came out sports medicine open, we had a preprint up before that, open access, feel free to read it. And we had three different groups, one group was eating at maintenance, or attempting to one group was an attempted 5% surplus, and one group that attempted 15% surplus, and they were adjusted by a dietitian in real time and do video consults with them based upon how their weight was progressing. And then we looked at biceps and triceps, muscle thickness and quadricep muscle thickness changes, while they're doing a three times per week full body program aimed at generating hypertrophy for eight weeks. And there are some really interesting findings. For one, we regressed all of them, which just means that we plotted all of them together as one big group, plotting a change in body mass versus change in skinfold thicknesses. So the sum of all their skinfold thicknesses not a derived body fat percentage, but a very accurate measure of subcutaneous fat added together. And also, all of this different muscle thickness values and also their water strength gates, and just focusing on the gains they made. The strongest predictor of gaining more body weight, was getting more skinful thicknesses. And that was explained about 50% of the Marriott's in that. So if you want to know, am I going to put on body fat that's primarily influenced, but all the things you could do 50% of is influenced by how large is your surplus, not the content of the surplus necessarily. And I would guess the rest of it would be related to your trading and trading age and gaining capacity, right, those intangibles. But we know for sure that if you put put yourself in a big surplus, you're more likely to gain body fat. Another thing we found was that there was a very, very, very weak relationship with putting on slightly more bicep muscle thickness, but not quads, and also not triceps. And it's not because the biceps are magic. It's just when you look at the training program, I wrote that the biceps out of all the muscle groups that we measured, got the most trading volume, and it was going to fail your most of the time. So if you are pushing pretty hard to grow a certain muscle group, it's gonna have a little more gating potential. If you will, then you could, you know, but not that much. I mean, we're talking. There's 10 times the strength of evidence we used to Bayesian, the Bayes factor, it was like 14 point something versus 1.4, which is just kind of like an odds ratio, meaning that, hey, if you're in a larger surplus, you're 1.4 times more likely than someone at a smaller surplus in the study to put on more biceps thickness, but you're 14 times more likely to put on more skinful thickness. Yeah. Yeah. So. So it's certainly a lot of variance between individuals. But yeah, so training hard is important in dropping it too large of a surplus is important for not accumulating unnecessary fat gain, right? Now, it'd be easy to go okay, well, then, therefore, you should be closer to that 5% surplus. And, you know, maybe you could just try made gaining made to gain TT, whatever you want to call it. But the problem with that is that that's hard advice to follow. And this came, we looked at our nutritional data, so we had a 5% surplus group 15% surplus group, and we regress them as one big group, which was useful. And the reason we had to do that is because the 5% and the 15% group had the same mean body weight change, meaning that it's really hard for people to follow up Very, very specific surplus. Yeah. So yeah, so on average, not everyone, but on average, a 5% surplus turned into a 50% surplus, right. And the 50% surplus had some people who are in a 15, we're at a 5% surplus. So the precision there is in the CELT, like we didn't have a familiarization phase, it wasn't like they didn't have you know, a dietician guiding them. They had the equivalent of like one on one coaching like you and I would provide online. And some of the some of the people in the study were pretty advanced. So it wasn't for it just being a bunch of random soccer moms doing something they had never done before. Right. And sorry, pickup soccer mom felt that like, oh, man, there's a bunch of tracking, I don't know why it has to be, you know, soccer balls, please. Just got these internal biases against the soccer mom. So I apologize. But um, so anyway, the I think the lesson here is that you do need to figure out what's feasible first. And that's going to dictate your approach. Because if you're working with a bodybuilder, sure, you can say, hey, I want a 5% surplus. And I want you to only get a pound a month. But if you're working with your general fitness enthusiast, that might turn into two pounds a month anyway, and then they just feel like they're failing. So then you go, Okay, well, what's the slowest rate we can gain reasonably, if it's appropriate for the person's goal. So like, if they're an intermediate, you probably want a little bit slower, just because it'll put on body fat. But it's also going to create a good environment for gains. And then from there, that'll dictate your cutting schedule, because like How high should I get it? So it might be something like four months of being in like a gaining phase, and then a one month mini cut? That's probably the the highest ratio of cutting to getting I would have to see have more time to do it. And ideally, I'd like to be less frequently that that

Philip Pape 51:48

less regularly meeting me want to stretch everything out six months and building to like a six week mini cut or something.

Dr. Eric Helms 51:54

Yeah, or even just a month, because that means they gave us that period, right? And also, there's other factors is going to impact this. So it's basically how close do we think you already are genetic ceiling? And then what's your current body fat level? And how comfortable are you with it? Because if someone's relatively high in body fat, the answer may just be we do a conservative cut. And we know that they're going to have a good chance of actually putting on muscle mass, they'll probably recap quite well. And if they're a newbie, they're probably going to read and let's say they they're higher body fat than they otherwise like to be. We could also just kind of eat a maintenance and let body recomposition do its thing until it seems like it's stopping. And I think you can run across

Philip Pape 52:33

someone who's What about someone who's gone through this. And they're like, kind of at that steady state? I don't know for myself 15%, body fat, something like that. And they just want it like what's the, you know, put it on autopilot for the next five years? What would the cycles generally look like? For most? Do you line it up with the seasons and life? Is that a kind of a good approach? Or do you have you seen a certain ratio and length of time be more optimal?

Dr. Eric Helms 52:55

I prefer like a minimum four to one or six or eight to one ratio, the slowest they can gain while still being able to check that they're gaining and focusing more on progress in the gym. So this looks more like hey, having a four to eight month period of only getting like a pound a month. And then we look up really okay, we've gained, you know, five to 10 pounds, how are we look at? And you know, a good answer for someone in that scenario would be like, yeah, it was probably about two thirds body fat, you know. And, I mean, that's incredible, right, that means you put on three to four pounds of muscle, you know, in the better part of a year, I doing that. But I think if someone can do that in a relatively late stage, that's fantastic. And then you clean up and you're rinse and repeat. And it is certain points, you do get to get to a place where that is becoming less and less and less, less possible, and you're getting better and better and better and better at tracking. And it starts to look a little more individualized, and you might stay lighter. And it's more just about creating a good trading environment and in traditional environment and kind of clustering into a surplus, and just figuring out what timeframe that looks like. And then what level of precision and control and structure do you need to not let less than ideal habits kind of take hold where you're like whatever I'm not trying to gain weight says really matter like meal frequency slips and protein intake drops, like that's what you want to actually avoid at the advanced level. Yeah,

Philip Pape 54:22

and the idea of just keeping the training you know, hard and sufficient the whole time can can end up being the holdup for a lot of folks once even when say down the nutrition thing because because of life and the programming and

Dr. Eric Helms 54:34

died at a time. Yeah, it is what it is for advanced lifters. It's not nutrition right and less there because you typically don't get to be an advanced lifter when you chronically under eat. Right? You know, that actually ends up holding you back. So most advanced lifters that I've found. They are either too big if they get too heavy, or they're able to maintain but they're not seem to make any progress. And the guys who get too heavy like sometimes they cut down If they see that nothing changed, and then there is a nutritional modification, just they're happy in or in general, but for the, the objective goal have to be put on lean mass is the same for both of those two people, the person who's better at not getting too heavy, and kind of hangs around 15%, or the person who's floating up to 25% of for using this kind of male archetype, you can add a percent to those numbers for women. And in the case where the person is not struggling to get too heavy, I would even say 10 out of 10 times unless it's like a sleep issue or something else, if, in the cases where it could be nutrition or training, it's always training, because, or they're just done, which, which does mean that we don't want to ever accept that to be the case, but but they could just be like, you know, now it's I'm actually, you know, I've been training for 30 years. And we're just gonna focus on other aspects of the process and focus on living in this awesome body of built for as long as possible, right, yeah. But most of the time, what you're doing is you're going the training is obviously not stimulating muscle growth, because nutrition is permissive. Right, okay, we have an environment that would support growth, if growth, there was a growth stimulus, but there's not. So let's talk about specialization cycles. Let's, let's take a look at how much volume you're doing per muscle group, let's, let's really audit your proximity to failure, let's audit your recovery. Are we doing too much or too little? Do we need to focus on these groups of muscles, not that etc. And that becomes everything. So focusing on training is, is it because you could take early stage intermediate, or late stage novice and anything reasonable will get them good gains that you probably are splitting hairs, we try to make them optimal. But when you get to an advanced level, like for me, the difference between 2019 why I was close to a pro Corbin didn't get it in this year. And excited there were physique changes beyond just getting leaner, which I'm only happening now I don't think I think onstage last Saturday, I was as late as I was at the May of 2019. I play second at that show. And it was arguably a similar competitive level of show. But this one, I was second overall and got a pro card. So what happened. And the difference was, is that I probably put maybe 100 grams of tissue on certain key spots, you know, so I have more medial delts, I had more back, I had more more back with. So the back with the shoulder with it really from my narrow structure, it makes such a huge difference. It's a disproportionate influence on some poses, and my my bodybuilding outcomes. So how do you track that, you know, 100 reps over like, you know, so. So that's the type of thing where it was all down to specialization cycles, training, implementation, my calves also improved a little bit, I was still like an orthotic stretching device, you know. So there's a lot more that goes into that side of it. When you're at an advanced level.

Philip Pape 57:47

Yeah. So do you have time for like a couple of questions. One or two more? I know, we're at the bottom of the hour here.

Dr. Eric Helms 57:53

Yeah, got like five minutes that we're okay.

Philip Pape 57:55

Yeah, it works. I'll take all my training questions and kind of swish it into one because you touched on, on the key variables, right? It all comes down to individualization for you, right? The volume, and your programming and recovery and all of that. Yeah. So my question is for like a late intermediate, or even an intermediate? Because again, I think that's if you think of the bell curve, right, a lot of the population here. Yep. How do they find that sweet spot without looking back and thinking they wasted the last two years of their lifting? How do they find that individualized volume, sweet spot? They're not a programming guru, per se, they might have a coach, but you know, like, what, where is it? Is it? Is it effective reps? Is it you know, how you feel with your biofeedback? Is it just trial and error? You know, what is it? Eric,

Dr. Eric Helms 58:39

I think for one, philosophically, you're now at a point where you're entering a phase where you have to be willing to invest in a strategy, that's going to take a while that assessment pays off, and know that there's no other way around it. And the only other way to do to go is to always be looking at the graphing grader and program hopping, and then wasting more time than you otherwise would have versus committing to something for, say, four months, six months, seeing if it worked, and being open to the idea that maybe it didn't. But that's a valuable lesson. So that's the philosophical shift, one. The second one, though, is that you are going to have indicators of whether or not it's working along the way. And, like, it's a little different if you're just purely a competitive bodybuilder at the advanced level. But if your overall goal is this progress and growth, you do want to assess your trading box. And over a reasonable timeframe, you should be seeing performance trending up in the stuff you're focusing on. And let's say you really missed a general intermediate, you're not specializing any muscle group yet, you're still running, let's say an upper lower split, and you want generally everything to grow, you should generally be seeing that over the course of say a mesocycle of training, say six to 12 weeks of training, that you're getting a fewer reps or the same load to slightly lower RPE and that you know your eight to 15 RMS or clustering upward where you can sustain that same those reps across multiple sets. And there should be indicators that you are with the same technique, able to lift heavier, or for more reps, or that it's getting better cleaned up, like oh, like I'm going increased range of motion and better depth. And I'm not using as much momentum, even though it's the same RP and reps. And if that's not happening, then I would be comfortable saying, you know, what you put in a solid, you know, two mesocycles of needed to four week blocks of this training, that should be resulting in at least a slight majority of your lifts going up. And if they didn't go up at all, I think then you can go back to the drawing board. So that lag time does start to extend out. But I think, because you see larger changes in performance than you do in your physique, but they are indicating one another indirectly, at least, that you can not let the the amount of time passed for too long before you make some type of change to your progress that is informed by that, you know, so let's say you commit you guys, I'm going to try a lower volume closer to failure program. Awesome. Okay. At the eight week mark, is it working? And you're assessing your progress? If not, then you go, okay, maybe that wasn't it for me. But now I've at least explored going close to failure. So I'm going to try to see, okay, can I keep the same proximity to failure, how's my recovery, I'm going to go up 20% in volume, right, and then see what happens. And if the only thing you notice is that your recovery takes a hit. And now it's really hard because you have to do another set on everything going to failure still, but you don't actually make objective improvements, then you redial it again, okay, well, I'm gonna pull the volume back even further. And I'm, or rather my proximity to failure back even further, I'm gonna try to 123 or IR most the time. But now I'm going to make another 20 or 30%, increase in volume, and see how it goes. And you start to dial it onto what works well for you. And then you can apply that same kind of mindset to exercise selection, which I think actually gives you faster biofeedback and my feeling and my target muscle. Is that what I introduce these new exercises, do I get Dom's in the place? I'm supposed to get it. So there's a different set of rubrics but similar process. And that also, hey, let me take the same amount of volume, same exercise, etc, and manipulate the frequency and distribution throughout the week, to start to see if I can get the most out of my recovery and get the least bleed over into subsequent sessions. I

Philip Pape 1:02:25

think that last point is really important because people are hearing volume and they think it's up or down. And what you're saying is it could be the distribution of the volume. Yes. And I found that myself, especially in a cut, going from like, three days to six days actually works for me, because I guess spread it out even though I am working out six days a week. You know, it sounds counterintuitive, but definitely one experiment. So, man, this has been great. Eric, as always, last question, where do you want folks to find you?

Dr. Eric Helms 1:02:48

Yo, I think just based upon that last question you gave me what I really recommend people do is they go to the 3d MJ vault. This is our online learning platform for it, people are interested in either competitive or non competitive bodybuilding, we have a really cool course called bodybuilding program design, which is exactly what we just talked about. It is you starting with an inside out approach to programming How do I set up my own individual volume targets needs, etc. For me apply It's my life. And then how do I experiment with it? And it's a three coach collaboration myself a Brendon Yes, Brad Loomis teaching you basically how to individualize your training for people at that stage where they know like, like I said, I was 10 out of 10 times, that's the reason you're not progressing in the lab enables you to instead of just starting with a split, they kind of shoehorned you into I have to do for upper lower days or push pull legs or something like that. You start with no not I'm gonna start with a split, what are my individual needs? And then the training program where the split becomes an emergent property of that. So it's inherently much more customized. And then how do you honor that change over time?

Philip Pape 1:03:53

Awesome, couldn't have planned it any better go to the 3d MJ vault. It's called the bodybuilding program design. I'll put that in the show notes. I really appreciate you taking the time again to come on for a second time on Wits. & Weights, Eric, best of luck with the rest of the contest season and everything else and we'll definitely be in touch. Thanks for coming on.

Dr. Eric Helms 1:04:10

It's been a true pleasure. Thank you so much.

Philip Pape 1:04:14

Philip Pape 11/7/23 Philip Pape 11/7/23

Ep 120: The Mental Health Benefits of Strength, Resistance Training, and Walking

Have you ever considered running as more than just a form of exercise but as a philosophy for life?

Join me today as I chat with the inspiring Barry Karch, a runner and podcaster who defies age and gravity. Creator of the ‘Running For Your Life’ podcast, Barry motivates people to embrace running at any age. We’ll delve into his perspective on running, a topic we seldom explore, and his insights on strength training and nutrition.

In this episode, we delve into Barry’s transformative journey from running burnout to rejuvenation. In his 40s, Barry was an avid runner, participating in numerous races, including the Boston Marathon. However, after five years of intense training, he experienced burnout and took a 20-year break from racing.

Did you know lifting weights and taking regular walks lower stress and build confidence?

Today, we are exploring the science-backed mental health benefits of our two favorite ways to move: strength training and walking. If you’ve ever felt anxious, depressed, or just mentally foggy, you’ll want to listen all the way through because even I uncovered some surprisingly powerful links here.

There’s incredible research that shows just how much activities like lifting weights and taking regular walks can transform your mood and mental well-being. From lowering stress to building confidence, we’ll examine how strength training and walking can naturally improve mental health. It's not just about getting stronger physically; it's about strengthening your mental fortitude, too.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:38] Five-star reviews of the show
[3:50] The link between exercise and mental health
[5:04] Weightlifting vs. mindfulness
[8:25] Grit and resilience
[11:05] The benefits of lifting weights on mental health
[18:53] The benefits of walking on mental health
[25:37] Takeaways
[29:00] Outro

Episode resources:

Join the Wits & Weights email list
Inspired by Impact podcast (hosted by Carl J. Berryman) – Apple or Spotify

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

Speaking of mental resilience when you push through those tough sets, right when you really want to quit that's the Mental Toughness I'm talking about that forges resilience. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip Pape. In this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits &

Philip Pape 00:40

Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode reclaiming the joy of running after 60 with Barry coach, we talked about the power of running, Barry shared how reclaiming his love for running in his 60s helped him defy age. And he shared many principles for anyone looking to seize control of their health at any stage of life. Today for Episode 120, the mental health benefits of strength, resistance training and walking, we are exploring the science backed mental health benefits of our two favorite ways to move strength training and walking. If you've ever felt anxious, depressed, or just have some mental fog, you'll want to listen all the way through because even I uncovered some surprisingly powerful links here. There's incredible research that shows just how much activities like lifting weights, and taking regular walks can transform your mood, and mental well being from lowering stress to building confidence, we're going to examine all the ways that strength training and walking can naturally improve your mental health. And one of the reasons I wanted to do this was inspired by Carl Berryman, the host of inspired by impact podcast and Carl, you're always giving me a shout on your show. So I thought I would do the same. Carl is setting up a whole series of podcasts on his show this month in November for men's mental health. And I wanted to link the overall idea of physical health and mental health. We talked about it a lot. But I wanted to dig into some of the science today and show you how incredibly connected the two are even beyond what what you might think. So that's what we're getting into today. I'm very excited for that. Also follow Carl's podcasts inspired by impact. I will be on at least one of the episodes this month in a group format in a multiple guest format. It's gonna be a lot of fun talking about mental health and physical health there as well. So before we get into today's topic, I always like to share one or two five star reviews from this week. And the first is from pistol packin. Mama, great show. I love the episode about getting out of your comfort zone and making small changes that become life changing habits. Excellent information. Thank you, pistol packin Mala. The second is from moleben malevolence, main, some alliteration there, great information. There's a lot of really well thought out and detailed advice each episode very realistic and doable approach to lifting and wellness. I love that he answers listeners questions and give strategies that can be implemented right away. Great job. Okay, thank you again for that as well. I always appreciate reviews, because it lets me know what's resonating. What's not is there anything we can change anything we can improve. So please keep them coming. As always, thank you everyone for listening and supporting the show in any way. You can. Even just sharing the show with others by sending them a link. Just send them a link to the show, it can go a long way to helping us reach more listeners. Alright, let's get into today's episode, the mental health benefits of strength, resistance training and walking. First, of course, if we're going to talk about science back, we want to look at some of the key studies on exercise and mental health. Now a lot of these studies look at different forms of exercise. I wanted to pick the ones that specifically talk about lifting weights and movement or walking particularly. The first study is from 2018, from the University of Vermont, and it found that just 20 minutes of exercise stimulates anti anxiety effects in the brain comparable to medication. Participants had lower anxiety sensitivity scores after short bouts of cardio or weightlifting. And this shows how quickly physical activity can improve mood. So I think that's so powerful every time we find that something natural, can equate or even be superior to medication. That's something we want to pay attention to. It's kind of like walking after a meal and how how it compares to Metformin, the leading type two diabetes medication for controlling blood sugar, it's the same idea. We always want to look for those because these are easy things to implement in our life and they're things that we can do for the rest of our life without having to be on medication. Okay, researchers at Penn State in 2020 He studied adults diagnosed with anxiety and depression. They compare the effects of weightlifting, walking, and mindfulness meditation. Okay, now here we go. Here's here's one of the surprising results. While mindfulness helped in the short term, only weightlifting, reduced depressive symptoms over three months. And again, this highlights strength trainings ability to improve mental health over time. And I suspect I didn't, I didn't really get into a lot of the details on the study. But I suspect it has to do with the lingering positive effects of strength training, physiologically, mentally, the muscle mass you're developing, just the way that your body is now using nutrients, and changing your hormones and all these things in the direction of what you're telling is important, which has been strong and functional. And lo and behold, that also improves your mental state. Awesome. So beyond conditions like anxiety, and depression, there are numerous studies that connect exercise to higher self esteem, higher confidence. And this makes a lot of sense, right? When we accomplish something physical. Like when we master a new lift, when we when we get that heavy back squat, when we hit a PR, we feel more self assured, we've just done something that we've never done before in our entire lives, where we've moved the needle in a positive direction. And we can do it again. And again. And again. That's that's what I love about physical health. It's so visceral, we have control over it, we know that we can control the outcome. And many of you listening may think, oh, no, I can't write like I've tried for years and a habit, chances are just there's a different approach that you might want to take, right that there's a different that what you assumed would cause a certain effect isn't, isn't actually backed by science. So for example, doing lots of cardio to burn fat, we know that that is actually not an effective way to burn fat, but if you assume it is, and then you do it, and then it doesn't happen, that can be deflating. So reach out to me if any of this resonates, but you feel like no, that's not me, right? Because we want we want to nip that in the bud as quickly as possible. Because I think the idea of confidence and self esteem and self assurance from this is one of the most important things that we can get. This also applies to walking. So there's a 2020 study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science and sports. And it found that higher step counts were associated with less anxiety and greater confidence. So let's let's dig in one more level deep. Again, this is more focusing on the overall research and then I'll get into these even deeper than this. Let's talk about strength training, right lifting weights, lifting weights and provides incredible benefits for Mental Health First, just the act of training itself releases endorphins. Really this goes for any form of exercise, you've probably heard this you've probably experienced it with running for example. And these endorphins provide instant and instant mood boost, right it's like a natural drug. Endorphins interact with receptors in the brain, they lift your spirits they also dull pain, right? So that's a natural high that we want to go for. Building muscle and strength through progressive overload right progressive lifting gives you a profound sense of accomplishment. I alluded to this already the idea that you can add five pounds and add five pounds again and lift more weight than you ever lived in your entire life. Right seeing your abilities improve naturally builds confidence. And then compound lifts, the big lifts, squats, deadlifts, bench press, they require a level of full body engagement, power, mental focus stability, that is like nothing else. And this forges grit. It forges resilience. And that goes way beyond the gym. And this is why I really love big compound lifts in the four to six rep range. For newer lifters, yes, you can get stronger and bigger on higher rep range. But there's a level of mental fortitude and resilience that you will miss out on. If you don't go for those lower reps. Now, that's not to say long term, you're always gonna be going one to three reps, absolutely not. There's a fine balance between all of this, right, and I don't intend to get into all programming, lifting programming on today's podcast, but it's an important link with mental health. And then we have walking right now walking is a lot simpler than lifting weights, but it still has proven mental payoffs. For example, walking outside, you get exposed to sunlight. Sunlight regulates your serotonin levels. If you're in where I am in the northern hemisphere, during winter, or let's say the southern hemisphere during summer, it can help fight seasonal affective disorder, right where you might get depressive symptoms because of the lack of sunlight. And so getting outside for whatever you can will help sunlight also boosts vitamin D right and vitamin D itself is associated with improved mental health if especially if you're deficient. Stanford researchers found that 90 minute outdoor walks decreased Negative thoughts and anxious feelings compared to shorter urban walks. Now, this is no criticism against anyone who lives in the city. And even if you live in city, many cities have awesome trails nearby or parks or ways to get exposed to nature, even within the city, nature walks, quite literally help clear your head according to the science. Now, I can vouch for that one of the reasons I love living here in the rural part of Northern Connecticut, so we have all these trees and mountains and animals. Yes, we even had bears that come in eat, or jack o lanterns, we have, you know, we have the birds and other critters, and it's just beautiful, right. So if you can find that that can that can be helpful for your mental health. Another study showed that older adults who walked for at least an hour a week had better cognitive function. So regular walking keeps your mind sharp into old age, you kind of get the picture, it's all starting to come together, right. So after reviewing that research, I want to get into some of the top benefits of strength training, and then the top benefits of walking, just in case we didn't already touch on them so far. So we're going to start with strength training, and talk about self confidence. I can't hammer this point home enough lifting, especially challenging weights, weights that push you weights that challenge the weights that take you you know, close to failure, high mechanical tension, high effective reps, heavy loads, whatever definition or training variable you want to use, they require self efficacy and belief in your abilities. And one of the best ways to challenge these beliefs is when you feel like you're not going to be able to get the next rep. And you do it anyway. And I do it anyway. I mean, you try, you may fail the rep. But you can't know that. It's like Schrodinger, his cat, you heard of that quantum theory, like, is the cat dead or alive? Well, you can't know it until you open the box. Similarly, you can't know if you're able to get that next rep until you try. And I'll tell you what, more often than not, when I don't feel like I can get it, I actually still can get it. And so I can't really trust my feeling in that moment. Now I want to I want to distinguish those feelings from like, pain and injury. And those, you know, these are different things, I'm talking about a mental feeling that you can't do it or you feel tired that you can't do it. But then you can't anyway, you're not going to know unless you try it. And then you'll learn more about yourself and your limits. exercising control over your body. This way, builds real confidence, real confidence. And this transfers outside the gym. It really does. People have asked me how do I increase my confidence I say lift weights and join Toastmasters. And that second one is about public speaking. That's, that's more on the business side and presenting and whatnot. But lifting weights, one of the best things you can do for your confidence. When you see those strength, strength gains that come physically once you do that, and they're going to show up physically pretty quickly in the mirror in your physique. They are whether even if you have a lot of weight to lose, they're going to start showing up. It provides a sense of achievement as well, you are self assured that you've accomplished something that takes serious discipline. And I'm happy using that word discipline in the form of mental resilience and developing a practice and having grit and pushing through. Not not going to the extreme all the time, but pushing yourself just to that limit so that you progressively overload physically and mentally. So speaking of mental resilience, when you push through those tough sets, right when you really want to quit, that's the Mental Toughness I'm talking about that forges resilience. And once you do it, you also start to become more consistent with your with your lifting, because you realize that you can do it, you realize that it produces results, you realize that it produces better results and you could have ever had from you know, an endurance based high rep or you know, boot camp style program. And it gives you the ability to stick to a strength program even on days when you don't feel like it because you know how worth it it really is.

Carl Berryman 14:06

Hey there Philip, my brother, thank you so much for the shreds over challenge, I had no idea how much it was going to change my relationship with food, my relationship with food tracking, which had anybody that me any amount of money, I would have told them there's no way I'm ever tracking. And I have to track now I have to because I realize just how critical it is. But most importantly, what the challenge did for my mental health, being able to really focus on what's most important, which isn't the number on the scale, but how I feel about the food that I'm eating and the exercise that I'm doing so fill up the challenge could not have gone any better. And I'm incredibly grateful that was a part of it.

Philip Pape 14:50

And then the last part of strength training is the stress and anxiety the real benefits to to lowering your stress and anxiety. high exertion exercises heavy strength training Write, they actually physically burn through your cortisol, that's your stress hormone, they burn through it. It's kind of like reducing your cortisol through that lifting session, which gives you this soothing anti anxiety effect after training. I don't know if a lot of people you knew that I was reminded of it, I was thinking, Oh, that that's really interesting. It may explain some of the differences with people who work out during the morning versus at night, I don't think it makes a big difference, whatever you're adapted to. But it it helps regulate your cortisol, building strength, may also rewire the anxiety circuits in your brain literally neurologically changes you. Now we know that there's something called neurological adaptation, the physical mind body connection, when you start to learn new lifts, like for example, deadlifts, you've never done it before, you're gonna be clumsy, you're not gonna be very strong. And in those first, let's say, three weeks, four weeks of deadlifting, multiple times a week, your brain starts to rewire itself. To understand that this is a movement pattern that you want to use more often you become more efficient, you're able to move more weight, you might actually not even have more muscle mass, yet, you're simply forming that mind body connection, that that means deadlifting. And picking something heavy is important to you. And this makes your body more capable and functional for it. Well guess what? That ability to rewire your brain has also been shown to rewire the parts of your brain that affect anxiety, literally, and you tend to feel more capable and empowered when you're physically stronger. I was talking to somebody the other day about the definition of anxiety, one of the definitions that I learned from positive psychology is from the concept of flow flow, when you get into a flow state is the idea that you are working on something challenging enough to push you and get you absorbed into it. But not so challenging, that it makes you feel anxious, because you can't quite accomplish it. Right. And sometimes it's a fine line. But I think I think many of us know where that is. And building strength, helps you feel more capable empowered. And I think honestly, I suspect why that is, is it expands your comfort zone, it pushes that limit further out. And when that limits further out, it's harder to get to that anxiety zone. It's amazing. It's incredible. Okay, and then consistent training creates confidence and resilience that helps manage anxiety long term. And guess what happens there? Well, when you're keeping anxiety low over the long term, you become less fazed by the stresses of life, you become that your things bounce off of you, you become more cool headed. Now, I talked to people about this, that I feel like I've always been naturally cool headed, like, high pressure situations, don't bother me that much. And sometimes it annoys people. They're like, why aren't you more upset by this word, you're more emotional. And I don't know if it's just my personality, or some sort of resilience I built up earlier my years or maybe because I have great parents a great household growing up. And I recognize and I'm grateful for that not everyone has that. Where I could fail, fail, fail, and it's okay, my parents were there to pick me back up that could create a sense of that could have kept my anxiety down in my ability to handle stress high. But I think that ability to handle stress, not eliminate stress, because that's not possible. Life is full of stressors, acute stressors, chronic stressors. And we don't always have control over the things that are thrust upon us. But when they are, do you have that larger comfort zone? Do you have that confidence that okay, cool, no big deal. These are solvable problems. These aren't deal breakers. All of this that I'm telling you, is an amazing result of just lifting weights. So So what are you waiting for? Go start lifting weights seriously, start doing that. All right. Now I want to transition over to walking. And the reason I wanted to cover training and walking, those are the two big modes of activity I think everyone can and should do. Right? If you do other things, like if you do running or sports are great, those things also have mental benefits. I'm not getting into those today. And feel free to look up the research on those. But I just want to talk about walking because anybody can walk at any age, you can walk any amount. And I think it's walking is incredible for multiple reasons. But we're going to talk about a few key areas. The first one is depression. Walking, like training, like running like other things does release endorphins. Now, of course, it's going to depend on how how intensely you walk, how briskly how long you walk, it's going to scale to that. But any amount of endorphins are going to boost your mood. And I know this from personal experience on multiple occasions, where especially recently, a couple of weeks ago when I was in a fat loss phase, my energy was low. I had a little bit of apathy in the morning, right? Dare I call it depression? I don't feel I've ever had the symptoms of what someone might call depression, but who knows? I just didn't feel like it. You know, getting into anything, I just kind of wanted to laze around. But I knew I had a lot of work to do that I wanted to do some good things to produce, maybe I had a podcast to make I had meetings, I'd calls all these things. What did I do, I said, let me just go for a walk, I almost had to force myself to walk. But I knew that the walking would help. And immediately it did. As soon as I got outside and got exposed to the sunlight, the fresh air, right the the trees and the movement and moving my hips and getting the blood flowing. Right, I have a hip that probably has a torn labrum for the last few years. And it can bother me sometimes when I walk, it loosens it up, it loosens it up, squatting does as well, by the way, but so that improve my mood for the rest of the day. The other thing is when you combine walks with social interaction, it can magnify that effect. Now we don't all want to walk with other people all the time. Some of us want the solitary experience of walking. But walking with somebody or holding their hand or talking to your spouse, your kids, your friends on a walk can magnify the effect of the field goodness, the endorphins. sunlight exposure I mentioned before, because it raises vitamin D, increased vitamin D levels are linked to lower rates of depression, there is something to be said about that. It probably explains the seasonal affective disorder as well. So keep that in mind. And there was a study that found that unmedicated people with depression, saw mood boosts, after 30 minute outdoor walks four times a week. Now, if we're gonna get somewhere around seven or 8000 steps a day, which is reasonable for a lot of people, and a good place to aim for, at a minimum 30 minute, 30 minute walk every day, we'll get you probably two or 3000 of those steps. And so I would definitely encourage you to take at least one if not two walks every single day. And if you have a history of depression, see if this helps. The next thing with walking is the the way that it clears your mind and boosts your creativity. There's a rhythmic nature of walking. That's like nothing else. Now you can say that running is rhythmic as well. The thing with running is it's so intense, it tends to occupy some of your attention on the running itself. Walking we could do almost automatically well thinking and the rhythmic nature nature of it encourages new ideas and insights, insights start to bubble up effortlessly. Have you ever done that just go for a walk and all of a sudden you start to think about new ideas. Right? I do like to listen to a podcast when I walk. But sometimes I just stop the podcast, I just listened to the breeze, the trees, maybe nothing, maybe Nothing's making a sound. And all of a sudden I'm starting to commune with my thoughts. Many of the great thinkers of the past were known to take long walks to spark creativity and it's something that we've maybe lost in our modern society. The other thing is being immersed in nature away from the electronics allows your mind to truly recharge to engage with nature, you will feel renewed mental clarity. This is a very important aspect of mental health. A study Stanford study found that walking increased creative output by 60% on average.

Philip Pape 23:19

And it's suspected that part of it is simply the blood flow to the brain. Like just just kind of waking up the brain giving it what it needs, right doing something that's a natural human movement. So do not underestimate the power of walking for clear in your mind for boosting creativity. And then the other aspect of walking is related to gratitude. And the again, the I wanted this episode to cover on things that you might not think about and things that even might have surprised me a little bit of the links between these things. So gratitude and walking. Okay, what is he talking about? Well, let's say you go for a walk again in nature. And you notice the beautiful scenery, and the wonders of nature. It might be an animal crossing the street, I saw a bobcat the other day, I see deer white tailed deer. Occasionally we'll see a bear hopefully not too close. I'll see all sorts of birds, squirrels, chipmunks, opossums, or you name it. And it gives you this sense of gratitude. Like I'm almost tearing up here, it gives you a sense of gratitude and wonder about the world. It's a beautiful world out there. How often are you going out and embracing it? Right? And being grateful that you're alive, being grateful, okay, live on this planet. The other thing we can be grateful for is our ability to move. I mean, that is powerful our ability to move, which, in one sense, might make you less likely to criticize yourself. criticize your appearance, criticize your body image because you are a functional, capable human being and time spent walking outdoors may give you some perspective, that life's problems, life's small problems aren't so bad. You gain gratitude from simple joys just from your walk, I mean, give it a shot. That's all I can say. Next time you walk, think about what you're grateful for that is just around you. Okay, so that's that's kind of what I wanted to cover today. I think it's just scratching the surface. I think if you go and you look up research on mental health, and movement, lifting weights, all of this you'll find study after study after study of it just it never ends. It's wonderful. I think we really just scratched the surface of the benefits provided by training provided by walking, but the takeaway is clear. Prioritizing these forms of activity, are going to elevate nearly every aspect of your mental and emotional well being. So in addition to all the other benefits of them that we talked about, right, the physique, and the body fat, body composition, bone density, hormones, etc. You might even argue that the mental and emotional aspect of it is paramount, reduced anxiety, increasing your confidence, reducing depression, increasing your gratitude, they deliver those results for you are getting outside, reducing stress, improving your mood, improving clarity and creativity. So I encourage you to add that to your list of reasons why you choose to lift weights, you choose to walk, you choose to make movement, a cornerstone of your mental health regimen, we're not talking about a huge investment here of your time, to three days a week, to get started of strength training, going for one or two walks a day, these are going to be massive in giving you the mood boosting the stress reduction, reducing effects of those modes of activity. And then your mind and body will thank you. And if you found this incredible information on the link between mental and physical health valuable, share it with a friend. That's all I'm asking. If you know someone struggling with anxiety, depression, or they're just stuck in a rut, send this along to them, it may help it may be exactly what they need to hear in that moment from another friend. And if you personally are not sure where to begin, please reach out to me, you could use the link in my show notes reach me on IG at Wits & Weights, or you can go to wits & weights.com/email, get on my list, you're gonna get a ton of great information like this during the week, and then you can reply to that email any of those emails you get, and you'll have a direct conversation with me, I always reply. I'm a human being that loves to have conversations with folks and just get to know people. So again, if you're not sure where to begin, go to wits & weights.com/email to get on my email list, and then we can have that conversation. In our next episode 121 excellence consistency and getting ripped through nutrition and training with Eric Helms. We are going to get caught up on Dr. Helms his recent exploits in the bodybuilding world. By the way, this is the second time Dr. Holmes is coming on the show. And he is fresh off his WNBA F procard is going to be competing in WNBA of worlds pretty soon, we're going to dive into some of the nuances of nutrition and training from levels of tracking and flexible dieting, to the value of very high protein versus lower and higher carbs to mini cuts. We'll get into training volume autoregulation, whatever else, he has time for that I'm going to pick his brain on, you're going to learn a ton, so make sure to subscribe to the podcast right now in your app. Pause this episode, click follow or subscribe whatever the button says, so that you get notified of all the episodes. You'll also get the bonus episodes that get released throughout the week like quick wits. These are short three to five minute episodes with actionable strategies that may be just what you need to get moving forward that day. So please subscribe to the podcast. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Philip Pape 11/3/23 Philip Pape 11/3/23

Ep 119: Reclaiming the Joy of Running After 60 with Barry Karch

Have you ever considered running as more than just a form of exercise but as a philosophy for life?

Have you ever considered running as more than just a form of exercise but as a philosophy for life?

Join me today as I chat with the inspiring Barry Karch, a runner and podcaster who defies age and gravity. Creator of the ‘Running For Your Life’ podcast, Barry motivates people to embrace running at any age. We’ll delve into his perspective on running, a topic we seldom explore, and his insights on strength training and nutrition.

In this episode, we delve into Barry’s transformative journey from running burnout to rejuvenation. In his 40s, Barry was an avid runner, participating in numerous races, including the Boston Marathon. However, after five years of intense training, he experienced burnout and took a 20-year break from racing.

In his 60s, Barry decided to shed the extra weight for a healthier life. Changing his diet, he lost 35 pounds and rediscovered his love for running. This newfound joy led him back to racing, feeling revitalized and whole again. He created his podcast to inspire others of any age to seize control of their health and join him in the race against time.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:25] What running means to Barry
[4:05] Message to people who don't have the same passion for running
[5:00] Burnout in the 40s and losing passion for running
[7:34] Attempts at other forms of exercise during the 20-year hiatus
[9:37] Diet changes and reigniting his love for running
[13:18] Training for running after the hiatus
[15:45] Mindset of excellence and resilience in running and podcasting
[17:14] The benefits of running on cardiac and bone health
[19:37] Secret to maintaining running motivation
[23:53] Importance of scheduling one exciting and scary event each year
[29:37] Impact of running on other life aspects
[31:58] Perception of outrunning Father Time
[32:58] Resources for running
[34:37] The question Barry wished that Philip had asked
[37:15] Where listeners can learn more about Barry and his work
[37:48] Outro

Episode resources:

Barry's podcast: Running For Your Life podcast
IG - @barry_s_karch

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Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

Transcript

Barry Karch 00:00

I've had a talk with myself. And I'm like, if you want to live a long and healthy life, it's time to make a change. I can't keep going in this direction. And I always intended to make a change at some point in my life, but I kept waiting for myself to have the strength to do it. I never did. But finally, I guess just the big H come in. And like I need to do something now or screen now or never.

Philip Pape 00:25

Barry Karch 03:03

Thanks, Phillip. That's quite an introduction. You blow away my podcasts you do much better than I do on the introductions.

Philip Pape 03:11

No, no, we're not. We're not we're not comparing we all have our different styles. This is this is my thing. It's all good. No, I appreciate because I want people to understand who you are, where you come from, and kind of get that background settled. And now what we can do is dive a little bit deeper. What I really want to know right off the bat is what is running mean to you.

Barry Karch 03:31

To me running is youth running as life running is energy as being alive. It's just, it's feeling happy. I love feeling my heartbeat. Hearing my breathing when I'm going out running, I never feel more alive than when I'm running.

Philip Pape 03:49

Alright, so being alive having energy, youth, vitality, all of that, which is interesting, because I also think like, like many forms of training and exercise, whether it's lifting weights, or a sport, we have to enjoy it right? Otherwise, we're not going to stick with it. What would you say to people who don't have the same passion for running yet? When you say look, it's energy, it's life. And they say, it sounds exhausting. What do you tell them? Tell them?

Barry Karch 04:17

Well, you have to start like anything else. You start gradually. You don't need to start running one mile three miles, five miles your first run, you can start very easily comfortable pace even run a minute or two and then walk a minute or two and then run again another minute or two and see how you feel. See if you don't find that you do look forward to going outside. I like running in the morning. Early everyone has different times they like but I love seeing the sunrise. I like seeing the day start. I like hearing the birds chirp and seeing the trees that just there's nothing like it so I would suggest just starting very slow and easy if you've never run before and and do a run walk mixture

Philip Pape 04:59

that's That's good advice. So you've kind of been in love with running, then you lost it, you lost the passion. And then you came came back to you, right? So you had achieved all these feats impressive feats like the Boston Marathon in your 40s. And then you got burned out. So tell us about that.

Barry Karch 05:16

Yeah, entirely different areas of my life. When I didn't run, until, as you mentioned, my later 30s, and I hooked up with a group of friends. And we all train together. And which was good, good and bad. I guess at the same time, it was good, because it's a lot easier to run with other people than being by yourself all the time. So that was good about it, we had great camaraderie. The bad was, we always pushed ourselves so hard in that we never had an easy day or easy run. Every run, we're pushing ourselves to the limits of our abilities, which I learned later on in life is really not the best way to train. A more appropriate way is you should have one or two hard days a week. But the other day should be very easy. effort level about three out of 10. So you're just going very easy, slow jog and enjoying yourself. We never did that. We killed ourselves every day. And so there got to be a point where I just felt like, I couldn't put myself through this anymore. Mentally, physically, it was just getting to be too much and not enjoyable. And I just I was trying to think of a way to tell my friend that I wanted to stop training with him, because we'd done it for five years, and we were pretty good friends. Well, he beat me to the punch kind of one more. And one morning, I showed up for a run. And he told me he said, Barry, I got news for you. I'm moving out of town. So I never told him to tell him I didn't want to do it anymore. So yeah. Oh,

Philip Pape 07:02

yeah, that's such a common theme. I mean, even today, you know, I hear people who get get burned out for one reason or another usually gets to the point where it becomes a chore and it becomes stressful in their body. And they're not recovering whatever it is, whatever form of exercise, maybe you do the spinning all the time, or maybe, maybe lift but you do it seven days a week, and maybe should be doing it three days a week. It's a really important message for people to consider, because we want to separate the running itself from the mode with which you incorporated it. So over the 20 years that you were not running, did you try any other forms of exercise or training and what were they?

Barry Karch 07:41

Yes, after my friend moved out of town, that's when the next phase began the 20 years. I did continue to run. But I always ran. But there was a huge, huge difference. I slowed it down to a jog. I just did very slow, easy jogs. I didn't compete, I did not race for 20 years. I lost all that type of fitness. And I never could really run more than three miles. There's nothing wrong with three miles, except for where I was before, where I was doing the 26.2 marathons. I couldn't I never went more than about three miles anymore. And one time during that period, I decided, You know what, I want to try to run a marathon again. And I enlisted in a training group, I never could get the eight miles and I was totally burned out and could not do it. So I did, I guess you would call it run was more like a slow jog. So the style change the duration of it changed down to three miles. Other things I did I do lift weights too. I continued to lift weights throughout the whole 20 year period. And I still do now not to the extent you do, but I do that. Did I do any other sports really, I did a little bit of swimming. I'm terrible at swimming. But I did a little bit of that just to take away the pounding on the body, the legs. So I would I would do a little cross training there. I did a little bit on the elliptical machine again when I didn't want the pounding on the legs relax, couldn't handle it. That was about it though. That's about what I did.

Philip Pape 09:21

Yeah, you were trying to so it sounds like you're trying to maintain your conditioning, your cardiovascular health things like that with those other modalities as opposed to being competitive anymore at the time.

Barry Karch 09:30

I tried to maintain my health but it did go way down from where I was I wasn't in that peak running condition anymore.

Philip Pape 09:37

Well so then that leads me to what helped you fall in love with running again. I think it was changing your diet correct me if I'm wrong. What was that what it was?

Barry Karch 09:46

Yeah, this was all an accident. I never anticipated running again. I never anticipated having a running podcast. I never anticipated being here on your show. So this is like all like wow, I can't believe I'm doing all this now. I just decided But as you mentioned, I kept putting on more and more and more weight. Every time I went to the doctor, I weighed more and more and more and more, until I was 35 pounds beyond my racing weight, which is quite a bit. And I was always trying to kid myself that yeah, I still look good. I was looking in the mirror, I guess I hold my stomach in and like, I don't look too bad. But I was kind of kidding myself about that. I kept having to buy bigger and bigger and bigger waist sizes on the pants. I went up six sizes on the waist. So I guess I put on quite a bit of weight there. And I have this horrible, sweet tooth. I just love sweets, which shouldn't make things easier for me. I love chocolate. I love ice cream,

Philip Pape 10:43

chocolate and ice cream. Right? They're my two favorites, too. I wonder how many how many people can say that.

Barry Karch 10:48

I know. I'm kind of jealous of people. Every once a while I run into someone that doesn't like chocolate and like I'm kind of jealous of them. Yeah, it's kind of a good thing. But I enjoy eating that stuff more than I cared about the weight. I guess I was just happy the way I was like it putting on weight putting on weight. And I finally when I hit my 60s, I had a talk with myself. And like, if you want to live a long and healthy life, it's time to make a change. I can't keep going in this direction. And I always intended to make a change. At some point in my life, I kept waiting for myself to have the strength to do it. I never did. But finally, I guess just the big age come in. And like I need to do something now or it's me now or never. So I did change my diet. And I went to kind of a strange diet for a runner. But I went to a low carb diet, because runners tend to love the carbs. But I went to a low carb diet because I had done that briefly years ago. And I knew it worked. So I did it. And I stayed on the low carb diet for about a year. It was hard very hard for me. But I took off all the way. So it did. It did work. And you asked how I got back into running. I wasn't intending to get back into racing whatsoever. But then once I took all the weight off, just one day, my wife casually asked me, she says, are you planning to do any races anymore? And I honestly never thought about it. And like I guess I could I guess I could see you know what I could do now because I've been 20 years. And so I signed up for 5k race, which for the listeners who aren't runners as 3.1 miles. And I ran it considerably slower than I ran 20 years ago. But I read the thing, and I guess there's a few benefits on getting old. There's less competition. And so a different class like a different class. And I ended up first place in my age group. So that was really encouraging for me like, wow, I got first in my age group, and I didn't really have the train for it. So I started thinking what can I do next now. And so I decided to do a half marathon, which is 13.1 miles. I did that this past December. And that's my first half marathon in 20 years. And this one I get trained for.

Philip Pape 13:13

So you had hit a wall years ago with like the eight miles because you were so burned out? Yeah. Is it? Was there some sense of recovery overall at time of not running? And now are you doing in a different way that's more sustainable and quote unquote, healthy?

Barry Karch 13:27

entirely different? Yeah, yeah. I used to not be able to run more than three days a week. And that's because I come to find out now I've become friends with a running coach. And I had no coach back, then I come to find out I was running wrong. Back in those days, as I mentioned, I was doing every run was a hard run, which is the mistake. So now, I'm able to run five days a week, which I never did before. Three, my days are very easy. And I try to keep them as I mentioned, around a three out of 10 effort level. And then I have two hard days. One day is what we call a speed run day where I run shorter intervals. But at high intensity and a much higher speed. The purpose of that is to get used to running fast. So when you run a race, like a half marathon or 5k, your race pace is slower than the speed run intervals. So the race pace feels easier. That's the purpose of it to make your race pace feel easy. Makes sense. So I have one day a week as a speed run. And we call it interval runs. And then one day we kind of weekend, I do the long run to gear up for the endurance needed for a half marathon or a marathon. So yeah, that's what I'm doing entirely differently now than I used to do.

Philip Pape 14:54

Yeah, I like that approach because it sounds I mean, from what I understand about running, you know, there's the skill component there's the power Hour and there's a strength, it's kind of like all these different things. And what it sounds like you're doing is managing your fatigue and managing your stress and recovery so that you can continue. It reminds you of like, again, in lifting, you don't want to always test your max constantly test your max, you're gonna get burned out, or eating, you don't want to constantly dieting, you know, you're gonna get burned out. So it's a good principle. And so for people who are interested in running right off the bat listening to this show, don't go don't go crazy, even if you're 25. You know, they'll do a very did when he was back in his 20s 30s or whatever, take take this kind of more measured approach, because the what is what's the phrase like? Not taking shortcuts is actually the faster path, you know, taking the long game is actually the fastest path to success. What did you have to change in your mind to to, I guess, not only lose weight and get back to like your previous health, but get back to the sport? Was it just signing up for the 5k? And you were you were sold? or was there some more reflection that you had to go through?

Barry Karch 16:00

Well, I guess doing the 5k in and ended up coming in first place was like, the big wake up, wow, yes, very motivated, like, wow, I can still do this. And I hadn't really like I said to him really trained for it. So it got me really psyched up. And I felt like, as you mentioned, the intro, I found a long lost part of myself because I, I'm kind of a competitive person, and I enjoy the racing and that environment. And so I just really enjoyed it and decided, You know what I want to see what else I'm capable of. And I don't have I think maybe now at this stage in my life, I'm just thrilled with whatever I can do. Being in my 60s and running, I'm just happy to be able to do it. Because a lot of people can't anymore due to health issues, whatever problems with their back problems with their knees, hip replacements, all kinds of things. So I'm just thankful I can do this. And so I'm just absolutely thrilled with whatever I can do rather than being so dead set on. Time. What What was my pace is I wasn't my early days.

Philip Pape 17:13

Right? So speaking of that, the physical challenges as you age, if somebody were not if somebody had a sedentary lifestyle to this point, and now they're in their 50s, or 60s, would you recommend running as an activity? Or? Or maybe, you know, do something else for a while before you would consider running? What What's your advice there?

Barry Karch 17:33

Well, I would highly recommend running. Again, someone who hasn't run before can start out with a run walk mix. But I highly recommend running for a couple of reasons. I think your most important muscle in your body is probably your heart. So cardio health is super important. I think I like exercising the heart and being very healthy that way. Plus, I believe that running also strengthens the bones. It strengthens the bones a lot from the running. So it does a lot of good for you in your in your health. And now I'm able to get around and do things that the majority people my age and even younger aren't able to do. And it's all thanks to running. So I think it's an important piece. It's not the only piece. The weightlifting as you do is also very important to build muscle mass because you lose out over time also, as you get older. So I think they're both important pieces of the puzzle. But they both have a place.

Philip Pape 18:38

Yeah, no, I would agree that the combination of those two things right resistance training for muscle and then some form of cardio, for cardio health and like you said bone density or bone health and everything.

18:50

Hi, my name is Lisa and I'd like to give big shout out to my nutrition coach Philip pape, with his coaching, I have lost 17 pounds, he helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight, and it's very simple longevity. I want to be healthy, active and independent until the day I die. He introduced me to this wonderful little app called macro factor I got that part of my nutrition figured out along with that is the movement part of nutrition. There's a plan to it and really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in so the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is and the easier it is to lose weight when it's presented to you like he presents it it makes even more sense. And the other thing that he had was a hunger guide and that really helped me so thank you, but

Philip Pape 19:35

how does someone stay motivated because running is one of those things at least in my mind. It can get repetitive, right? It just like almost any form of cardio you can see it as this like putting in the time or there's there's maybe a different way to frame it and a different way to do it that's more enjoyable. So how would you suggest people get motivated and stay motivated to run?

Barry Karch 19:56

Okay, let me I got two questions here. I want To answer, how do you get motivated? And can it not be repetitive? And stay exciting? So, sure, let me start with how do you get motivated? You have to have your big why, why do I want to do this? Why do I want to run? And I'm sure you need the same Phillips for your exercising, because it's very easy just to lay in bed when and say I forget, I'll feel like it today. I'm not going to do it. Or I'm tired. I'm going to take the day off. What difference does it make? You need that big? Why? Why do you want to run? Why do you want to lift weights? For me, I want to live a long and healthy life, I really want to live a long and healthy life. And unlike everybody else, there's some days when I get up in the morning, that I'm less than motivated. I don't particularly feel like running. I'd like to lay in bed longer. But I think about it for just a second. Living a long healthy life is way more important to me the laying in bed for another 30 or 60 minutes. So I'm out of there in a sec. So that's my big why for someone else it could be they want to take some pounds off. They they want to train for a race or they some some other health issue going on that Ronny is going to solve. It could be self confidence could be anything. But whatever it is, you need your big why? Why do you want to do this? And it's going to have to be strong to get you going on the days you don't feel like it. Now, once you do run, how do you stay with it? Is it boring? Is it repetitive? My answer is no. Because it would be if everyone was the same. If I ran the same route every day, the same pace every day. That's boring. Yeah, I agree. But I'm doing different kinds of runs. I'm doing those slow, easy runs, we call them recovery runs, where you can just enjoy yourself and not have to worry about anything, just take it easy. I'm doing some speed work another day to test myself to see how fast I can go what I'm capable of. And then I'm doing a long run to see how far I can go, how strong I can feel for how long plus the runs are all different. I do some of them outside alone. Some of them I do. I use a Nike Run Club training app. And I have a Nike coach in my ear talking to me during the run. Sometimes I'll listen to music. So as I listen to podcasts like yours. Other times I'll be on a treadmill running in a gym. And on the weekends on my long runs, I'm typically running with a local running group. So I'm running with other people. So everyone is different. I enjoy them all.

Philip Pape 22:54

Oh, yeah. And you just gave us the entire list of things that contribute to motivation for different people. I love that. I mean, the first of all, the the Y is definitely important. And I think of it as like, seasons or periodization. Right? Sometimes our y changes, or on any given day, you know, we may have three or four things really driving us but one is the most, you know, the big driver of that of that day. Because when people tell me they want to live a long, healthy life like you did. Sometimes that's not enough in the moment, right? It's not a short enough time kind of inspirational, but when they're like yeah, and I looked at myself in the mirror too. Okay, now I've got a couple different things. But you said you know, having a coach, habit stacking, you know, making it fun with using different variety, both with how you train where you train, what you train with equipment wise, running with a group, big fan of community, so like any of those people listening can can take one or two of those and figure out okay, here's how I can get a little creative and make my workouts more interesting. So thanks. Thanks, Mary. I love that you met you did mention one of the things that can drive people's competition. And I think you said that it helps to schedule at least one of those a year some some event each year that excites you and maybe scares you right maybe it's gonna push you a bit which which also ties in the idea of seasonality and goals and all that why do you recommend having a competition each year? You know what I

Barry Karch 24:17

ran into this concept of a Muskogee from person by the name of Jesse Itzler. He didn't invent this concept, but he's the person who I learned it from. And what it is, is doing one big scary year defining event every year and that makes every year memorable too. So you can say all 2023 was a year I did this 2022 was the year I did that is something that excites you and scares you and challenges you and pushes you outside your comfort zone perhaps. And it doesn't have to be physical by the way. It can be going into business for yourself. It could be starting your own podcast. It could be getting married, it could be any number of things, taking learning to play guitar. It could be anything that's something different for you. But a challenge, something he wants to do and really gets you focus and makes life exciting. So that's the concept that came across from Jesse. And I never heard of it before. And it really intrigued me. Because I've never done that I never thought of it. And this year, I heard of an event, which coincidentally, Jesse is a co founder of, but it's called to nine, zero to nine is completely out of my comfort zone. It's a mountain hiking event. I've never hiked a mountain in my life. I've never hiked a mountain. I felt like I would have a good background for it with the cardio fitness from running and leg strength. But still, I'd never hiked. And so what it is the 29029 where the number comes from is that is the height of Mount Everest 29,029 feet. The goal in this event is to hike up, equip the equivalent of Mount Everest within 36 hours. And it's held in five different locations around the country. I went to Snowbasin Utah for the time I did I did it two months ago now. And on the every mountain is different where they hold it the mountain I was at required 13 a sense. You climb the mountain, you don't have to go down, you take the gondola down, it's all about the ascent, hike up gondola down, hike up gondola down, you got to do it 13 times within 36 hours to achieve a 29,029 foot vertical ascent. So that was my Masotti. For this year, I trained for super hard, they provide you with a 20 week training program. And they provide you with coaching calls. And I found that I really really love structured training. I love having this plan taught me what to do every day. And I found it to a tee. And even so it was still hard. It was still very, very hard.

Philip Pape 27:12

emulsified. Great, though to finish it.

Barry Karch 27:13

It was an awesome feeling to finish it. I was not going to come out of there. All that work. They give you a Red Hat If you complete it. A Red Hat signifies it ever said, but I was not going to come out of there without that Red Hat and I did manage to get it that was your goal right

Philip Pape 27:28

to get it done.

Barry Karch 27:29

I was gonna get that Red Hat No matter what. Yes, absolutely. Miss. Okay. Okay, I

Philip Pape 27:33

love how you expanded this is broader. A Broader View on this than I even expected because I was thinking specifically, like an endurance event each year. And what you're saying is just pick one huge driving challenging goal each year, in any part of your life, which is it's great. I love that. Because now you now you got me thinking, you know, the end of 2023 is rolling around 2024. And it's not necessarily new year's resolution, although I guess you could make it that but it's like, yeah, what do you want to do in that year, that's just different than something you've done before that really pushes you. Now I'm gonna have to come up with something very thank you for the challenge.

Barry Karch 28:09

Absolutely. Yeah. That's gonna be the year of

Philip Pape 28:13

you know. And another thought that comes to mind there is even as you grow each year, right? You you challenge yourself. And there may be, there may be ways that you push yourself within what you're already doing. Like for me lifting, there's always seasons of building muscle, losing fat, whatever. But it almost gets too comfortable even when you're pushing yourself because you're used to how to do it right. Like you'd become good at it to where not not that it's complacent. But it's not what you're saying something that gets you to totally think differently. Reach out to new people get a different training program. Like just That sounds exciting. So I just My passion is coming through because people listening, I think this is a great thing to try. Yeah.

Barry Karch 28:53

And Philip, I heard of an event years ago. I don't know the name of it. But it's a combination of weightlifting and running. And I can't remember what it is when they get something for you to look into to add something new to your knee to your repertoire that you haven't done yet.

Philip Pape 29:08

True. True. True. You know, I do like sprinting I like when you talk about the speed work. I said I would love that day when you talked about tomorrow doing your 60 mile run. I don't know about that. But I had done it before years ago I was training for a half marathon didn't quite get there due to an injury. But yeah, I remember what you're saying I would run in different locations. I'd run along a canal I'd run on a like a flat trail I'd run on the road and it was nice to pair it up. Anyway. One of the other things I'm always curious about people who are passionate about a type of training is how it has helped other things in your life. Like well, how is it running and especially the way you do it now or even the journey you went through from doing it the wrong way in the past to doing it better now helped you others real life?

Barry Karch 29:53

Yeah, good question, Philip. You know, it, it permeates the whole rest of your life. It turns out out, running isn't just about running, I've learned so many life lessons from it, I could go on and on. But basically, to summarize it all, it just provides so much self confidence, it makes me feel good about myself and what I'm able to do and accomplish. And it just gives me confidence in the other aspects of my life. And from work, to just something as simple as feeling like I look better now that I've dropped four to six sizes in the pants again, from what I went up to. But yeah, it's just overall self confidence, sense of accomplishment. That's helped so much and everything.

Philip Pape 30:45

It is amazing how physical feats often have that translation, right? Because there's nothing more, I guess, visceral than doing something with your body and seeing it improve, especially now that you're 20 years older than you are at a different point and healthier. You know, I can I feel the same about, I don't know, squats or you know, something that you're doing. That's hard. You've done it, you've grown now. And now you look in the mirror and say, well, that's not as hard as it used to be there. That's progress. Right? And like you said, it makes you confident in other areas.

Barry Karch 31:15

Exactly, exactly. And you know, in running, there always comes a point where it's gonna get really, really tough, and you're running hard, and you feel like quitting. But I push, I'm able to push through it and complete the run. And that also permeates into the rest of life. Because in work or everyday life, things don't always go easy, right? You run into difficulties, obstacles, sometimes you might want to just give up, but I'm like, No, I'm not a quitter, I'm gonna keep going and push through this and, and get through it. So that's just another thing you learn from from doing. Yes,

Philip Pape 31:49

it's true. And I honestly think very, very few people. A sad, small percentage of people will do that. And the positive side of that is if you're listening to this, if you listen to bear, and you are the type that want to explore and become that that, you know, larger version of yourself, it'll put you in like the 2% of people, you know, that actually do that. So do you feel that you've outgrown Father Time for a while at this point?

Barry Karch 32:16

I do. I would like to think so. I feel like I'm very healthy. I don't have any health elements. I feel like I'm running really good. I'm able to keep up with people younger than me, which always makes me feel really good about it. And most people that I run into actually think they think I'm younger than I actually am. Which also makes me feel good. Yeah. So I think I'm doing okay, for my age.

Philip Pape 32:47

Yeah, I would agree when I first met you, I definitely looked younger than than your age for sure. Which comes with the vitality of staying healthy. What if somebody listening wants to get started running? What are some good resources for them?

Barry Karch 33:03

Well, let's see. I get several. I love the Nike Run app. It's free, you can download it. And there's a bunch of guided runs on there. They're all distances, they have runs for beginners, they have like a five minute run a 10 minute run, they have a one mile run on there. But what's good about it is you have a coach in your ear talking to you while you're running the whole time, it kind of takes your mind off of it. And it gives you a motivation, inspiration. I really liked that. And some of their, some of their guided runs. They also utilize the GPS in your watch so that it knows how far you've gone. And it will, they'll talk to you at the half mile mark, the mile mark and so forth. They know when you reach those points to give you motivation and encouragement. So I've really, really enjoyed using that app. So that would be one I would recommend. Secondly, there's a lot of great running podcasts out there that you can listen to. And those are also good for putting on while you're running because they keep you motivated and determined to listen to other runners talk about things that you're going through yourself. So those are two really good resources, I think to get you going,

Philip Pape 34:26

including of course running for your life. Barry's very own podcast so if you're listening and have any interest at all in running, definitely go follow that subscribe to it right now. And I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you one more question very that I ask all guests, and that is what one question Did you wish I had asked and what is your answer?

Barry Karch 34:45

That's a hard one. I'm going to I'm going to give you the question would be What is your mindset? How do you keep going when your body is telling you to quit, stop. And that's something that I encounter on certainly all my long runs, and probably a lot of my speed runs to. It's like, I can't do this anymore. I don't know if I can, I gotta stop it. But so what do you do when you come to a situation, and for you fill up, I'm sure you're in that same situation, too. I'm not as familiar with weights as you are. But maybe you're there's a certain amount of weight you want to lift or certain numbers that you want to do, and you feel like I can't do anymore. I'm tired. You know, that's it for me. So I have a couple of things go through my mind at those times. Number one is I heard someone say, Remember tomorrow. And what that means is, how are you going to think about yourself tomorrow, if you quit now, I know for me, I am going to feel terrible, I'm going to be really upset at myself. If I stop, I'm going to be very disappointed in my effort. If I don't finish this run, and do what I intended to do. So I think how I'm gonna think about tomorrow, you're gonna have to go through a little short term pain to finish it. But the pain is going to end. And it won't be that long. And you're going to have all that long term satisfaction that you get out of it. Thinking that I did it, I can do this. Yeah, I'm not a quitter. So those are things that go through my mind when the going gets tough.

Philip Pape 36:35

Love it. Remember tomorrow. And what you just said is you learn something about yourself by making that extra push to get through it, right? You mentioned the lifting weights, the equivalent would be the heaviest weight you've ever lifted. Let's say you're going for five reps, and you know, the third set and you've done three and it's just feels impossible. You're not going to know if you can get the next one unless you try it. You've got to push and it's mental, it's physical. It's everything. But remember the person tomorrow looking back and saying, and why didn't you do it? Right? Come on, all you have to do is try you were right there you had the equipment, you are on the road, whatever it is like it just took a few extra seconds of effort. So I love that message. All right, man. Where can listeners learn more about you and your work?

Barry Karch 37:18

Well, of course the running for your life podcast, which is available pretty much anywhere people listen to podcasts, and also on Instagram at Barry. Barry underscore s underscore coach.

Philip Pape 37:34

Barry underscore s underscore coach. Yep. Okay, we're gonna put that in the show notes. Absolutely. It's been a pleasure. This is a lot of the most we've talked about running on the show ever so you've got that place of honor. And I really appreciate you coming on and you know, let's stay in touch Barry. Thanks so much. It was fun. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up there Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Philip Pape 10/31/23 Philip Pape 10/31/23

Ep 118: Q&A – Macro Splits, Lean Bulking, Hunger, Muscle Over 40, Aggressive Fat Loss Strategies

What is the most effective macro split for building muscle? Is it necessary to drink electrolyte mix, or is water enough?

I will tackle your burning questions on the most effective macro splits for muscle building, especially for women in their 40s, and debunk some myths along the way. I discuss the importance of electrolytes versus plain water during workouts and how to navigate hunger when transitioning from maintenance to a bulk. Plus, I get into the specifics of lean bulking and how to set your macros for optimal results.

Then, I am doing a rapid-fire Q&A based on questions from our recent rapid fat loss challenge, covering everything from the impact of high-intensity cardio on muscle growth to the most satiating foods when calories are tight.

What is the most effective macro split for building muscle? Is it necessary to drink electrolyte mix, or is water enough?

Find out the answers to these questions and more from the free Wits & Weights Facebook community and emails and messages from listeners.

I will tackle your burning questions on the most effective macro splits for muscle building, especially for women in their 40s, and debunk some myths along the way. I discuss the importance of electrolytes versus plain water during workouts and how to navigate hunger when transitioning from maintenance to a bulk. Plus, I get into the specifics of lean bulking and how to set your macros for optimal results.

Then, I am doing a rapid-fire Q&A based on questions from our recent rapid fat loss challenge, covering everything from the impact of high-intensity cardio on muscle growth to the most satiating foods when calories are tight.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:09] Two five-star reviews for the show
[3:33] What is the most effective macro split for building muscle?
[6:20] Is it necessary to drink electrolyte mix vs. water?
[8:03] What are your thoughts on hunger when transitioning from maintenance into a bulk, when you have reached your calories?
[11:31] Managing hunger and increasing calories for maintenance
[14:03] To transition to lean bulking, do I continue my current maintenance or find my new maintenance and set to gain? What are the macro recommendations?
[16:46] Rapid fire Q&A on the rapid fat loss challenge
[25:54] Outro

Episode resources:

The Hunger Hacks Guide and Hunger Scale Guide & Diary:
https://witsandweights.com/free
Join the Wits & Weights Facebook community
MacroFactor app – use code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend your free trial to two weeks

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Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

Generally most people will perform in progress better with higher carbs. And I would say, especially women over 40 Because of the energy, the reduction in stress relative to your hormone health, and I realized that there is this mythology out there somehow that you know, women in perimenopause or post menopause need to be on a low carb diet, but I don't buy it and nor does the evidence support it. And at the end of the day, see for yourself. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 117 Starting strength the novice effect and barbell lifts with Cody anino Cody and I talked about the transformative power of barbell training, we covered the principles and benefits of starting strength, some common misconceptions about strength training and the crucial novice effect. We compare different training methods, how barbell training impacts mental health, and how to get your form checked online. Today for episode one, eight tene we're doing a q&a to answer questions from the free Wits & Weights Facebook community and emails and messages from listeners. I will tackle your burning questions on the most effective macro splits for muscle building, especially for women in their 40s and debunk some myths along the way. I discussed the importance of electrolytes versus plain water during workouts and how to navigate hunger when transitioning from maintenance to a bulk. Plus I get into the specifics of lean bulking and how to set your macros for optimal results. Then I'm doing a rapid fire q&a based on questions from our recent Rapid Fat Loss Challenge, covering everything from the impact of high intensity cardio and muscle growth to the most satiating foods when calories are tight. Now each episode I do like to highlight the latest reviews on the show. So here are two short five star reviews from this week. The first one is from the fallible man. Real talk good advice. I appreciate Philips show, it sounds like the same thing I would tell my clients as a certified personal trainer, there's so much trash out there, it's awesome to find the show is such great advice, Phillip shares real, measurable, achievable goals for real people who are looking to change their lives. As always, thank you I appreciate when other coaches and trainers listen to the show and gain value out of it. Because that really means a lot to me. And it helps us all lift up the industry as a whole. The second reviews from three buoys helpful episodes, I enjoy learning about ways to feel better in my body, and appreciate the episode on weight training after 40. Thanks. Again, thank you as well short but sweet. And it means a lot to me. As always, I am grateful and listeners take the time to write a review for the show. I'm always happy to feature them here as well. So if you write a review, please screenshot it and tag me on social media. So I can reshare it for you and give you a shout out on social media but also on the show if you'd like. With that. Let's jump into today's q&a. All right, so first, we have three questions from n z. And again, if you want to send me multiple questions all at once, I'm happy to answer them. So you don't take advantage of that. The first one is, what is the most effective macro split for building muscle. I eat high protein but wondering if the balanced or low carb approach is better for a female in her 40s to build muscle. I'm strength training four days per week. And I walk Thank you love the podcast. All right. So and is obviously doing a lot of things right. She is training. She's moving. And she's concerned, you know, she's eating high protein, and she's concerned about her fat carb split. And this is where I would say, why don't you experiment for yourself, use some biofeedback and other data and see what the right level of carbs is. For you. I could say that for most people, a higher or balanced or a higher level of carbs is going to give you more performance, it's going to help you recover better. It's going to help with your hormones, all the things whether you're male, female, under or over 40 It's generally a more effective approach when you're trying to build muscle for most people. But again, it's going to depend. So assuming you're already getting around a gram per pound of protein. I would start with this balanced approach. Some people will call it high carb, but for me and my clients is just the norm where fats are around 25% of calories and then carbs make up the rest and so when you're at maintenance or when you're bulking that'll be a decent amount of carbs for many people that'll be anywhere from like 200 to 500 grams of carbs somewhere in They're depending on your expenditure, how big you are, and so on. And then what you want to do is assess how those carbs affect your outcomes. Are your lifts going up? How strong do you feel in your sessions? How drained or not? Are you afterward? How sore or not? Are you? How are you sleeping,

Philip Pape 05:18

how's your stress? If you feel great, like if all of these things are going up, and all these things feel wonderful, then you're obviously okay with that level of carbs. And it's probably for you. If something feels off, like your digestion, or you know, your performance, your energy, Something's just not quite right. After you've given a good four to six weeks, then try the higher fat lower carb option, right. So again, if you're using macro factor, you can set that up, when you set up the macro plan, you can tell it to do a low carb or even a Keto level type diet. Now, again, generally most people will perform and progress better with higher carbs. And I would say, especially women over 40, because of the energy, the reduction in stress, relative to your hormone health, and I realized that there is this mythology out there somehow that you know, women in perimenopause or post menopause need to be on a low carb diet. But I don't buy it. And nor does the evidence support it. And at the end of the day, see for yourself what we say what we call n equals one experiment for yourself. So that would be my advice there. And okay, so then her second question, totally different question. Is it necessary to drink electrolyte mix versus water, I generally drink straight up water. But I also don't sweat a ton during strength workouts. So here's my take on this, is it necessary, maybe not like hydrate adequate hydration is going to get you most of the way there. And if you're eating plenty of whole foods, especially fruits, and other fruit foods that are high in electrolytes, then you get you get quite a few from your diet, like this is why I love bananas, especially pre workout, I'd recommend even having said that, if you want to try it out and see if you feel any better or more hydrated. having either a mix powder, or as simple as a fresh, fresh squeezed lemon plus salt in your water, what some people call homemade Gatorade. And do that once a day, before or during or after your workout. You could always do more if you're very active if you're sweating a lot if you're feeling dehydrated, but just make sure you're at least getting the water at least right and that that's not the issue. And also food sources like bananas and other fruit. And once you do, then adding some of these other mixes could be helpful. You know, a subset of electrolytes includes magnesium and I would spike that out separately and say that most people should be supplementing magnesium, which is one of the electrolytes but then in general for electrolytes, you can get powder like Dr. Berg's element, which is the letters element T, or even first form, brand electrolytes. Now I'm an affiliate of first form. So if you want to support me go to first form.com/wits & weights or click the link in my show notes. They also sell electrolytes. Okay? And then her third question is, what are your thoughts on hunger, even when you've reached your calories when transitioning from maintenance into a bulk? Okay, so this is an interesting one, this is hunger, not in a fat loss phase. But hunger while you're in maintenance, and you're getting ready to go into bulk. I had a few times where I've been hungry and know my metabolism is likely continuing to adjust as I gain muscle, should I eat something since I'm not cutting during these times when I'm hungry, if I'm eating at maintenance, but still have hunger in the evening, and even overnight, does that mean that I need to increase calories? Well, it's going to depend on if you just came out of a fat loss phase and then switched to maintenance, there could be some emotional or psychological hunger that's being triggered, because you're eating more calories and probably more frequently. And so just be aware of that. But when you're bulking and I know you're not bulking yet you're maintenance. But when you are bulking you should have much less hunger, and your metabolism will slowly adapt upward. And you can eat more and more. And eventually, most people don't have any issues with hunger, and eventually get kind of sick of eating food when they're on a longer book. But I would still use the fundamental principles of meal planning, prioritizing protein and fiber, being aware of physical versus psychological hunger and so on. No matter what phase you're in, it's always a helpful skill. Now, hunger itself is a pretty complex thing. And before I just assume you need to increase calories, because you're going into a bulk in other words, what you're asking me and should I just start upping my calories now? Well, I mean, if you're not trying to be in a bulking you want to be a maintenance, we'll we'll know you don't want to increase your calories. But it's also good to listen to your body and energy availability, or lack thereof can be a very legitimate reason that your body is saying you're hungry. And so this is why I recommend being on what I call the top side of maintenance, which means aim for maybe 50 calories over your calorie target each day even when you're that maintenance, okay, 50 calories isn't that much, it's almost in the noise. But it gets you to ensure that your body is avoiding being in an accidental deficit. So if you just try to stay at maintenance, but then your body, let's say dips in terms of its, or increases as expenditure, and all of a sudden, you're kind of in a slight surplus, you're not getting all the energy you need, that could cause you to be hungry. But if you overshoot your calories just a little bit while you're maintenance, even though it might result in the tiniest of gains over time or a long time, you'll ensure full energy availability, and that could also mitigate hunger. Also, of course, always be sure that you're covering the basics. Are you eating mostly nutrient dense whole foods like 80% and 80 to 90% of your food choices? Are you targeting at least point eight grams per pound for your protein? If you're around there, you might want to get point nine or 1.0 grams or maybe 1.1 or 1.2 and get some extra satiety that way, without having to increase your calorie you just shift the macro balance a bit. Are you eating enough carbs? Right? Because this could be another indication of sufficient energy and keeping calorie density, lower, just getting enough carbs as opposed to too much fat, right? Because we have too much fat and calorie density could mean that you're not getting as much volume and you're not feeling as full? And then are you staying hydrated and using electrolytes? Just to answer your last question we talked about. And finally you're getting plenty of sleep. So it's all the things right to make sure that you've addressed those before saying that it's a hunger issue. So assuming these are covered, then here's some more advanced things you can look at number one is meal timing, you might want to shift calories more toward your workouts, shift carbs towards your workouts, or add or shift calories toward the low energy times of day, when you would otherwise be tempted to reach for a snack. Maybe this is later in the evening, right before bed, something like that. What do you say, it's really more physiological hunger, because of your habits. And now you're just going to shift calories and kind of satiate that need satisfy that need, and still hit your calories. And then of course, if you want to evaluate whether it's emotional versus physical hunger, I do have a hunger scale guide and diary that you can find at wits & weights.com/free. I also have a hunger hacks Guide, which is a long list of things that you can do to mitigate hunger, whatever phase you're in. And one of those might stick out with you as Oh, you know, I'm not really doing that. But if I did, maybe that would solve the problem. So it's kind of a complex topic, but it doesn't have to be if you're putting all these things in place. And if you're at maintenance ready to transition to a bulk, I would take care of all these other things first, to see that it's, you've mitigated the hunger as much as you can, before considering actually just increasing the calories. But if you're gonna go no surplus anyway, there's no need to wait. Really, so you could do that. So again, if you want to get the hunger hacks guide, or the hunger scale guide and diary, just go to wits & weights.com/free. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits, & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience, and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape 13:59

Okay, now we have a question from Lin M. Lin says I'm wanting to start lean bulking. So here's another one where someone's transitioning into potential surplus. Okay, a lean bulk is just a very, very slight surplus over time. Do I start at my prior maintenance, or find my new maintenance for a week and then start gaining and she uses macro factor at my recommendation, and so she would set it to gain weight without putting on fat does 25% protein 35% and the resting carbs sound? Right? Okay, so again, do I start at my prior maintenance or find my new maintenance for a week then set to gain? Okay, so the more that I've done this with clients, the more that I lean toward end with myself, the more that I lean toward going to maintenance for a few weeks first, so two to three weeks for it. So you recover straight to your current dynamic maintenance. Whatever your current expenditure is, you recover right to that as soon as you can. knowing that that maintenance was is actually going to go up a bit as you recover, because it's been lowered to metabolic adaptation during your fat loss phase, right. So I would go to maintenance for a few weeks, maybe two to three. And that way, it's not such a huge shock to your system to try to go all the way into a bulk from from a deep fat loss phase, for example, which might have you jumping, you know, 700 900 1200 calories, whatever deficit you were in, and now you're going to a surplus, it would avoid that shock. But it also lets you get through that initial scale weight bump that you're going to get from the extra carbs and the fluid and glycogen that come in, you're gonna get that you kind of get through that allow your body to normalize, get to a true new maintenance allowed to recover. And what I just said didn't answer to your last question or into Ann's question, stay on the top side of maintenance. And that we're not really in a bulky yet, but you're kind of getting there. So to do that, in macro factory, instead of setting it to maintenance, I would set it to gain weight. Okay, two options, either set it to maintenance, like three pounds higher about higher than where you ended the cut, so that it's pushing your calories up toward that instead of holding you back, or I would set it to gain but set the rate of gain to very, very, very, very low, like barely above zero. So again, still you are trying to be at the top side of maintenance. Okay, as for the macros, I don't like percentages of protein, I prefer basing protein on your target weight, like we've talked about point eight to one gram per pound, then about 25 to 30% from fat, I wouldn't necessarily go as high as 35% Unless just That's a fat preference of yours. Because then the rest go to carbs. And I'd like to have a nice solid amount of carbs when going back to maintenance or when going into a book. Okay, now, I'm going to answer 12 questions from the recent shred Tober Fat Loss Challenge. This is a Rapid Fat Loss Challenge I talked about in episode 116. So if you missed it, go check that out. And today I'm going to answer these questions rapid fire style. So really quick answers to really quick questions. Here we go. Does high intensity cardio negatively impact muscle growth during a calorie deficit like the one used in the challenge? All right, there is evidence that doing too much cardio, in addition to training during an aggressive calorie deficit deficit can impair muscle growth and strength, because of all the extra stress the extra demands on your body. So I like to limit cardio. Thank you, Mike Matthews, to no more than half the time spent training. That's a general guideline. Next question, what is the evidence on optimal protein intake for maximizing muscle retention and satiety during aggressive fat loss phases? Very simply, I would aim for one gram per pound, the research shows us that that's a good upper limit. If you really want to play it safe, set it to 1.2 to 1.5. And really push yourself to get a lot of protein and see how it does with your retention of muscle in a deficit. It also enhances your satiety. So two birds with one stone, how accurately can wearables and fitness trackers estimate calorie expenditure? And what are better methods? All right, pretty terribly accurate. So terribly inaccurate, I should say studies show most wearables are inaccurate for estimating calories burned by up to 40 to 80%. So they're useless. A better method is going to be tracking your food intake and your weight changes over time, which you can do very precisely if you use macro factor. Download it use my code Wits & Weights, get an extra free week on your free trial, and you'll never turn back. Let me know how that goes. Let me know if I can help. You're gonna love it. What foods have been shown to be most satiating per calorie. Okay, so this is a good one foods higher and protein, fiber, and water. That's where you're going to look for if they're high in protein, fiber and or water, they're probably going to be the most filling per calorie. So this is lean meats, legumes, vegetables, fruits, potatoes, oats, there's really a lot that fit into those categories, you can still have a sustainable, balanced, delicious diet, focusing on those and that's great during fat loss. How does the order of macronutrients consumed affect blood sugar regulation? Is this important for non diabetics? The order of what you consume really doesn't significantly affect blood sugar and non diabetics. It's really the total meal composition, and your strength training and activity. So if you're, if you're lifting weights, and you're walking, those are the most important things you could do for your blood sugar. And then the meal composition is, is also somewhat important, but not it doesn't matter as much, because again, if you're maintaining some good muscle mass and you're moving, that's all going to use that glycogen in the way the body intended and you're not going to worry about it. What are effective strategies for dining out and eating at social occasions while adhering to a structured diet plan, while planning ahead, being selective with your menu choices, you know, having having a plan in your head for what you're going to do using it apps like macro factor to estimate things or look at databases or restaurant menus. You know, having doing leftovers, I love leftovers, you don't have to eat everything you could take, take some leftover and then heat it up later for lunch, and focusing more on things like the social experience rather than the food itself. All of these are good strategies for dining out and eating social occasions. What is the impact of refeed days during fat loss in terms of physiological and psychological benefits. So just real quick, a refeed days when you jack up the calories by increasing carbs, and you get back up to your maintenance calories for one, you know, one day or two days during fat loss? Well, refeeds have been shown to help restore leptin, glycogen, restore your metabolism a little bit, restore your hormones, just temporarily, though, they're gonna get back to where they were before. But temporarily, they do that. And so as a result, you get a psychological boost. And this is the real important part. They give you this mental break, they replenish your motivation, and they might actually get you some physiological performance boost in the gym the next day. What is the evidence that tracking and logging food intake consistently improves fat loss and body composition? outcomes? This is unequivocal numerous studies show that tracking is linked to greater weight loss and more successful maintained weight loss compared to not tracking it improves awareness and compliance period. There is no issue if you don't have a history of some sort of disordered obsession with tracking. And it's more of a problem that requires medical help. Tracking can only help because of the awareness than not tracking period. How long does it take the body to normalize water weight and glycogen levels after refeed days, this is important because during the challenge, we had two refeed days and each time that happened, the participants would say oh, no, look at this big bump in my weight the next day. Yes, that's to be expected. And then what do you find out two or three days later, for most people, it came right back down to where it was and continued. In reality, it could take anywhere from two to five days for the body to normalize water and glycogen levels after a large increase in carb intake. Again, most people I see a drop back after about two days. But it could take a little bit longer. What are effective strategies for transitioning from an aggressive fat loss phase back to a sustainable nutrition plan? And I do want to take a little exception to that question the way it's worded because an aggressive fat loss phase can still be based on sustainable nutrition principles. But it's a short term extreme of pushing the limits based on those principles that you would not do for very long. So in that sense, it's not something you would sustain forever, but it can be based on sustainable nutrition principles. All right. So that's the question, what are the strategies? Okay, gradually increasing your calories. So not, not reverse dieting, but like going to maintenance and then going to a bulk might be a good strategy, or increasing them in a way that feels good for you and your digestion, maintaining that higher protein intake,

Philip Pape 22:58

that just like you had in fat loss, continuing to keep that continuing to track macros, and then reversing anything that you kind of put on hold during fat loss because calories were tight. And you might have had fewer indulgences and things like that. It's it's okay to reintroduce some of those extra little treats and indulgences, just because it scales with your higher level of calories you've got to work with now, what training adjustments should be made during extreme calorie deficits to maximize muscle retention. All right, the big thing here is to reduce volume while maintaining intensity and frequency. We want to keep the load on the bar high we want to keep the frequency the main thing is we want to get those high number of you know some people call them effective reps. Whether you agree with that model or not. It's it's training hard, you know, within a few reps shy of failure. Similar intensity Do you would when you are not in a fat loss phase, but the volume might come down. So you're going to focus on compound lifts, and you're gonna reduce isolation exercises, you're gonna reduce cardio, to balance everything, give yourself sufficient recovery. And then the last question How can bloodwork biomarkers be used to monitor health during and after aggressive dieting? Alright, so if you're really big into this and you want to get some bloodwork, I would look at typical panel with lipids, blood glucose. And once the other thing I'm thinking of just just the typical planet panel you'd get with your GP, but I might also get testosterone and other hormones leptin, CRP vitamins, even like if you want to look at vitamin deficiency and malnutrition versus not malnutrition, but, you know, insufficiency in aggressive dieting versus when you're back recovered. I think they all can be helpful. So it depends on what your goals are, but those are what I would recommend. Okay, those are all the questions for today. And if you want your question answered in an upcoming q&a episode, the best way to do that is just send me a message on IG at Wits. & Weights or Facebook. You can DM me or you can go to the free Wits & Weights Facebook community and reach me there. Those links are always in the show notes. In our next episode 119 reclaiming the joy of running after 60. With Barry coach, we dive into Barry's transformative journey from burnout to vitality through the power of running. Yes, you heard that right. I know I hardly ever talk about running on the show. Sometimes I give running a bad name. And this guy is going to inspire you if you're interested or do enjoy running. I always say run if you enjoy it, right. It's all about your values and your goals. So he's going to talk all about running, he's going to share how reclaiming his love for running in his 60s became more than a strategy for weight loss it morphed into a philosophy for life. Whether discussing the secret to lasting motivation, or how to defy the limitations of age. Barry's insights offer sound principles for anyone looking to seize control their health at any stage of life. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Philip Pape 10/27/23 Philip Pape 10/27/23

Ep 117: Starting Strength, the Novice Effect, and Barbell Lifts with Cody Annino

Do you want to become stronger, healthier, and more resilient?

Do you want to learn how to use the most effective tool for building strength and improving your quality of life?

Today, I am joined by Cody Annino, a Starting Strength Coach based out of Moodus, CT. I invited him on to talk about the transformative power of barbell training. You'll learn the principles and benefits of Starting Strength, some common misconceptions about strength training, and the novice effect. We'll compare different training methods, look at how barbell training impacts mental health, and touch on the future of online versus in-person coaching in the fitness world.

Do you want to become stronger, healthier, and more resilient?

Do you want to learn how to use the most effective tool for building strength and improving your quality of life?

Today, I am joined by Cody Annino, a Starting Strength Coach based out of Moodus, CT. I reached out to him a few years back when I first learned about Starting Strength for some coaching on my basic lifts. He is why I started squatting and pressing the right way after months of frustration. Everyone can benefit from a technique coach, even for a few sessions.

I invited him on to talk about the transformative power of barbell training. You'll learn the principles and benefits of Starting Strength, some common misconceptions about strength training, and the novice effect. We'll compare different training methods, look at how barbell training impacts mental health, and touch on the future of online versus in-person coaching in the fitness world. Cody is a big believer in the power of strength for lifelong health and resilience, as am I.

Cody owns and operates Annino Strength & Conditioning, a small family-owned black iron gym in central Connecticut. Cody is a Central Connecticut State University graduate who has been working full-time as a professional coach since 2016. He has experience helping people of all ages and ability levels become stronger and healthier through barbell training.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:17] Journey to becoming a strength coach
[3:21] Barbell training's life-changing impact
[7:42] Introduction to Starting Strength
[9:54] Stress recovery adaptions
[13:21] Criticisms on Starting Strength
[16:40] Commitment to long-term training
[23:36] Addressing strength training misconceptions
[24:57] The "Novice Effect" explained
[29:04] Mental health and barbell training
[31:14] Coaching techniques and program customization
[35:22] Future of online and in-person coaching
[38:47] Where to learn more about Cody and Starting Strength

Episode resources:

Annino Strength & Conditioning – Cody's gym, in-person and online coaching services.
IG - @codyannino
Starting Strength

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Transcript

Cody Annino 00:00

What we find is that by taking advantage of that novice effect, we can give somebody the most rapid progress that they're going to see in their entire trading career. And anything short of taking full advantage of that is essentially wasting the person's time. You only have so much time to do this stuff. And if we can make an increase, we can make a strength increase, then we should

Philip Pape 00:27

welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I'm joined by Cody anino, a starting strength coach based out of MODIS, Connecticut, about an hour south of me, which is why I reached out to him a few years back when I was first learning about starting strength, and I needed some coaching on my basic lifts. He's the reason I started squatting and pressing the right way after months of frustration, and why I'm always saying on the show that everyone would benefit from a technique coach even for a few sessions. I invited him on to talk about the transformative power of barbell training, you'll learn the principles and benefits of starting strength, some common misconceptions about strength training and the crucial novice effect. We'll compare different training methods look at how barbell training impacts mental health, and touch on the future of online versus in person coaching in the fitness world. Cody is a big believer in the power of strength for lifelong health and resilience as am I which is an important message everyone needs to hear. Cody is the owner and operator of a Nino strength and conditioning. A small family owned Black Iron Gym in Central Connecticut. Cody is a Central Connecticut State University graduate and has been working full time as a professional coach since 2016. He has experienced helping people of all ages and ability levels become stronger and healthier through barbell training. Cody man, I really appreciate it. Welcome to the show.

Cody Annino 02:15

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Philip Pape 02:17

So let's get to know you first. Right, you've been a professional coach for since 2016. You run your own gym. We mentioned your starting strength coach, you're also USA Powerlifting. Coach. Yeah, how did strength and lifting become part of your life?

Cody Annino 02:32

Um, you know, so I, I've always been into, you know, training and exercise, like my whole life. You know, probably starting in high school, I ran track cross country, out of high school, you know, I, I was kind of looking for a way to pay for college. So I started working as a personal trainer, and worked at a commercial gym and did that for a long time. I liked that. I started to get into CrossFit had a few issues with that. But yeah, one thing led to another and I just got more and more into the barbell and strength training. And, yeah, it's kind of it was a long process. But that's that's kind of how I got here.

Philip Pape 03:11

Yeah, I get it, man. And it's funny, we it seems like we all find CrossFit at some point in that journey. Before we get away from it. It's funny. Now you're now you're focused on barbell training, I know your powerlifting coaching as well, when did you discover with all the different things you had tried to learn from track to cross country to CrossFit, everything that it was more than it was more than just another way of working out. But it was this new transformational thing, this this thing that could transform your, your health, your strength in your life, when did you make that connection,

Cody Annino 03:38

it developed kind of over time, as I found starting strength and really the way I found starting strength was again, going back to CrossFit. You know, because CrossFit, the one of the things that was lacking in my education up to that point, as a personal trainer, as crossfit coach was my ability to teach people how to do the lifts, and I found starting strength and I used that early on, I found it so that I could teach people how to do lifts like the SNATCH and the power clean. And it was so simple. It was it was you know, very easy to it was very approachable for a lot of people who have never touched a barbell before and just got more and more, you know, excited about it and I'm like wanting to learn more and more about this method. And you know, so then you know, learn about Mark Rippetoe read the book. And yeah, and then as I started using this method with people you start to see the effect that it has on people of all different levels. You know, you got young guys come into the gym, kids they get strong you know, they can they can get a college, you know by by strength training and get better at their sport. And then you can also take older people who we've had people come to the gym, you know with a walker and they're struggling to and they regret they regained their their physical independence through There's strength training. So it's there's a huge benefit to this stuff for a lot of people.

Philip Pape 05:05

Yeah, I mean, one thing you mentioned is very important is that it was simple. And I think that's important to mention. Because if you buy starting strength and you read it, it's very detailed, it can be dry at times, I like it. I like the science and the biomechanics behind it, all the diagrams, but like, the chapter on the squat is, I don't know, 40 pages long. And I actually tell people that as a positive about it, because you actually learn the proper way to squat and why it works. But some people are intimidated, right? barbells seem like this, maybe inaccessible thing, or there's safety, and they're worried that you know, people are gonna be judging them, or they don't have a spotter, all these other reasons people throw out. But you said, it's simple. So emphasize that point for us. Like, why is it simple.

Cody Annino 05:49

So it's simple in the sense that there's only a handful of exercises, training with barbells is simple, it's, it's a basic tool, when someone's trying to start a program, any program, really, I mean, the hardest part is just getting them to come into the gym, you know, and when people walk into like a commercial gym, they can be overwhelmed by how much stuff is in there, there's machines, there's cardio, equipment, there's bands, there's millions of people in there, there's all kinds of that and they don't know where to start. And you know, the barbell is a great place to start. Because strength is kind of the foundation of everything in your day to day, life in the in the barbell is the best tool to develop strength. So it's so the program is very simple that we do, we teach five basic exercises, and we have a method for teaching people to do the exercises. And what we find through experience that they're doing this with lots and lots of people is there's a starting point for everybody. No matter where you are, we can find something that you can do, we can start to somewhere with a barbell. And that might mean using a really light bar though we got you know, 10 pound bars, you might only use your, you might want to use the empty bar, something like that. But there's always a starting point. And that's one of the benefits to kind of work with a coach, we could start you on this journey. And and yeah, and go and go from there.

Philip Pape 07:12

Alright, cool. That broke it down really well, I liked that you said the barbell is, is the best tool for the job. Because I know some people will equivocate on like, well, you can do you know, you could do bodyweight, you could do bands, you could build up and then eventually do dumbbells and barbells. I don't know about you, like, I'm lazy, and I want to be efficient and go right for whatever saves me the most time it gets me the most strength. And that's kind of the principle I use when I explain it to people. And unless they just absolutely have no access whatsoever for some legitimate reason, why not try the barbell. So help us understand you said five movements, break down the key principles, the benefits of starting strength, just kind of like what would be your, you know, sales pitch for why this is an effective program.

Cody Annino 07:55

So I mean, so starting strength, the benefit to it is that it's a systemic approach to barbell training, you know, that we we base on a series of concepts like, you know, we can, I don't know how deep you want to go into, like stress recovery, adaptation, and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, so like the the base exercises would be like the squat, the benchpress, the deadlift, the power clean, and the press. Some people don't do the power to them, depending on their age, or injury history, but there are large compound exercises that are basic human movement patterns, and we're basically just adding load to them. And through those five exercises, you're able to strengthen the entire body. And like you said, it's, it's, it's, it's time efficient, because if you're not someone that has all day to spend in the gym, you can get started with these basic exercises, get a whole lot done, build a lot of muscle, build a lot of strength, and a very short period of time and get on with your with your day and on with your life.

Philip Pape 08:58

Yeah, so this you just listed off Route, some really good principles being it's systemic, right, we actually have something that builds over time, that makes sense. It's logical. It's basic compound lifts, we talked about a lot of this on the show, full human movement patterns, full range of motion, and you're just adding load, which is important because some people, you know, they will make people will make excuses about certain movements, for whatever reason in their history. And when you say, Well, can you can you squat to a box or can you squat down without a bar? If you can, you probably can squat with load. And like you said, it's just adding the load over time, stress recovery adaptation, we can get into that a little bit. I think it's very fundamental to this. I always return to the starting strength ideas at least even if it's not the exact program. I always return to it when things change in my life and I d train or I take an unintentional D load or and recently, I had left rotator cuff surgery so I had to take a break and now I'm getting back to it. Those principles, I come back to them and they always apply. So tell us about stress recovery adaptation.

Cody Annino 10:00

So, you know, stress recovery adaptation is one of those first principles like I talked about before that the method is kind of based on. So it's a base, it's a biological principle. Han Selia is the person I believe, who first kind of discovered this in the 30s. It was, I think it was called, like general adaptation syndrome or something like something to that effect. Basically, the idea is that if you stress an organism, it will adapt to that stress, it will adapt specifically to that stress, assuming it's not too much stress all at once. The one of the common, most basic ways that we explain to people is the idea of of a suntan, right? So if you go out in the sun, you know, you decide that you don't want to be really pale and white, like me, you go out in the sun, I don't know, maybe the first day you do 20 minutes or so out there, then you might get a little bit pink, a little bit red, but then, you know, a day or two later, there'll be slightly more tan. Your body is adapting to the stress of you being out in the sun. And let's say you do that every day, for the week, you go out there for 20 minutes, and then at the end of the week, you're going to be tanner than you were at the start of the week. And this like trick question, we tell people at the seminars like So what happens if you tell yourself okay, if one week I was able to do that with only 20 minutes a day? What if I do that every day for the whole summer? I go out for 20 minutes. And that's it. 20 minutes come back in, I'm gonna be super camp by the end of the summer, right? And the answer, the question is actually, no, you're only going to be tan enough to tolerate 20 minutes of sun exposure. So in order to get more tan, you have to actually spend more time in the sun and build it up progressively over time, right. So that's really basic way of explaining this stress recovery adaptation process in a way that everybody can understand. Likewise, you can overdo it too, right? So if I go out the first day, and I sit out in the sun for three hours, I'm not going to really adapt to that stress, I'm going to get burned. And it's going to be horrible, right? So. So we take that concept, and we apply it to strength training, when you first come into the gym, we find a spot, we find something that you can do something that's tolerable at a weight, that is something that you could learn how to do the technique correctly, but it's not so heavy that it's going to destroy you, it's not going to make you terribly, terribly sore, it's not going to hurt you. And that's different for everybody, you know, you get a 65 year old woman that comes in step might be her bodyweight, it might be a 10 pound 15 pound bar, if you got a young high school kid, he might do 135 155, the first day that he comes in, and that will gradually build that up over time. So we're exposing the body to a little bit more stress, each workout and then you gave yourself enough time to recover between bouts of stress, and we adapt accordingly.

Philip Pape 12:48

That's a beautiful concept. I love the suntan principle. And when you talk about the weight that you start with, like if you're a newbie listening to this, you've never done it before. This is why working with a coach can be really helpful. When I went to see Cody, you know, I'm a man I was in my 30s have a little bit of an ego. And he saw me kind of trying to maybe push a little too much. And he's like, Here, let's dial it back. It's all good. Let's go with the weight that makes sense for you. So that the form is solid, and you can handle it. And then from there, okay, you've got it dialed in. Now you start increasing the load and you know, sky's the limit. So really nice concepts. What what are what are some of the criticisms you hear? Because I know there are a lot and about starting strength that you really want to address.

Cody Annino 13:32

I mean, probably the most pervasive one is that we want everybody to be either there's probably two one is that we're we want everybody to be overweight and drink like a gallon of milk a day. That's a pretty common one. Or another one that people say is, you know, not everybody wants to be a powerlifter or something like that. And we're not powerlifting we're strength training, we're doing exercises that power lifters do. But that doesn't mean that we're training for the sport of powerlifting. powerlifting is a specific sport that we wouldn't you know that some people decide that that's the avenue they want to go but we choose we do these exercises. And yes, there's some overlap to the powerlifting exercise. But we do these exercises, because again, they're basic human movement patterns. The barbell is an extremely ergonomical tool, meaning it's easy to hold on to, it's easy to, you know, put on someone's back. It's incrementally loadable more so than any other tool in the gym. You can I literally have quarter pound plates at the gym, you can go up it really small increments. So, you know that's that whole idea of we want to repower the powerlifters is ridiculous. We just want people to be stronger than they are. Because we know that when people get stronger, they're also healthier. And then like the other one is the we want to reach a gallon of milk a day we want everybody to, you know, the fat. That's a common misconception about starting strength, and it's just not true. If someone is underweight, we're going to tell them that you likely need to eat more calories and put yourself in some sort of surplus so that you can build muscle and continue to add weight to the bar. But you know, the opposite happens for people who maybe come to the gym, and maybe they got a little bit of weight to lose, they start doing the program and they get stronger, they start increasing the, you know, they start eating up more more protein in their diet, they start naturally eating a little bit less sugar, and things like that. And in the process of them doing the program without even thinking about it, they start getting leaner, and that sort of thing.

Philip Pape 15:31

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's really true. And I think a lot of those criticisms are either a misunderstanding of the program, or people who didn't follow it, who are like, Hey, this is not working like I thought. Yeah, so it's funny, you mentioned the go mad thing, because back in 2020, when I met you, I was actually running starting strength for the first time and took that a little bit to heart, not the whole gallon, but maybe like a quarter to half gallon of milk a day. And I gained a ton of weight in probably 40 pounds in like four or five months. For me, it was a lot. But it helped me push the numbers up. I mean, it really did. And later I learned, you know, nutrition and protein and like,

Cody Annino 16:11

the gallon of milk works, it works. Just not for everybody.

Philip Pape 16:14

No, and he really even talks about it not being for you know, older people, generally. So all right, so how do you here's another concept about this, I just talked to my client and lifting buddy Tony Perry, he was on the last episode of the show. And one thing he talked about was how you have to, to embrace the grind and, and enjoy the kind of the gritty process of strength training, right, there's a commitment involved. Even though I at the same time, I do see the results speak for themselves and tend to motivate people, how do you get people to commit to that long term process?

Cody Annino 16:50

It can be hard to do that. Because you know, this this, this thing, like we said, it's very simple, but simple is not easy. And it can be hard for a lot of people. And so what tends to happen a lot is people get really excited about the program, because again, it's it's a very simple, very approachable program, we have a really good system to get people doing the lifts correctly, and in a fairly short period of time. And they realize those those really quick adaptations, we call it the novice effect. In the very beginning, they come in in there and they're excited, you know, they did 45 pounds on the first day than they did 50 than they did 55 and 60, and so on. And then all of a sudden, there comes a time where you go to unrack that bar, and then you're like, oh my god, this is this is real, real heavy, I don't know if I can do this. You know, and, and again, that's, that's where some of these, these other benefits of strength training come into effect where it's like, you know, where there's, there's a lot of mental toughness that goes into making yourself do something that you're not sure, if you can actually do it, you're gonna go down into the bottom that squat, and it's scary, you don't know if you're gonna come back up. And some people do really well with that, you know, like, they push themselves and, and then other people. You know, as soon as they get into that, where it's really hard, and you gotta grind, you gotta push through it. Some people just can't do it, you know, and that's where, you know, sometimes people don't want to continue training, that's where they start looking to do other things. And so like, you know, it can be hard as, as a coach to kind of push them through through that. And a lot of times, it's just, it's explaining to them that, you know, one, nothing bad's gonna happen to you, most likely, you're gonna be fine. If you go down to the bottom of squat, and if you don't come back up, so what you're going to learn something about yourself either way, you know, so So yeah, telling people that can be a good strategy, but some people it's just really hard to get them to get them to do it. You know, we, we do have some, some churn in the program when it comes to when people start to reach that point where things get really hard.

Philip Pape 19:01

Yeah, I could see that because they definitely starts to not so much plateau, it's just the increment, incremental increases start to drop a bit even though you can still be making progress. It's interesting. You mentioned getting down into the into the squat. Worst case, you're gonna learn about yourself. Yeah, what what do you what is your answer to someone who's just getting started? And they say, but Coach, what, what do I do if I fail the reps? And it's kind of a trick question. I want to see how you answer but what what do I do when I failed the reps when I don't get all the reps? What What's your answer that question?

Cody Annino 19:35

So well, there's, there's there's different ways to approach that right. So the first is, if you're working with a coach, this should already be taken care of for you. The first is but if you're not working directly with a coach every single day, the first is you got to figure out why you're missing. You know, it's a we use what we call the first three questions. And those first three questions are or how big of jumps are you taking? You know? Are you going up in a reasonable increments? Are you going up five pounds, two and a half pounds? Do you have the right equipment to go up in those small increments, because when you're doing presses, and bench presses, you can't go up five pounds, you might only be able to go up a pound or two. So making sure your jumps are appropriate. You know, sometimes people get stuck real quick, because they're again, they're excited about the program, they liked the rapid progress, and then 1015 20 pounds to the bar every time and then they get stuck. So that's one one issue.

Philip Pape 20:31

Cody Annino 21:35

Another issue is they might not be resting long enough, you know, between their between their sets, then, you know, because what when you're first getting started with the program, again, the weights are not super heavy. So you might be able to do two or three minutes between sets. It's not super difficult, you get back onto the bar, and you do all your sets. And it's no big deal. When things start getting heavier, you're going to have to push those rest periods out, right. And then the last one is make sure that you're getting recovered between your sessions are you know, are you eating appropriately? Are you sleeping appropriately, do a lot of light stress, work stress going out, all of those things can interrupt the recovery portion of the stress recovery adaptation cycle. So we want to make sure that those things are in check first right to avoid missing. Then the other things, you know, if you are in a situation where you're going to miss the weight, you again, it comes down to making sure you have proper equipment. So you can use safety pins, most quality, squat stance or squat racks are going to have pins or bars that stick out that you know, if you get into trouble in the bottom, you could set the bar down. That that would be your your option. But again, the best option is to avoid putting yourself in that situation in the first place. Where like what do I do if I miss it's like if the coach is doing his job and you're doing your job of getting recovered between sessions you want keep you out of that position as much as possible.

Philip Pape 22:55

Yeah. And that's where I knew you would go there as a good starting strength coach at the end as it's like, don't miss the reps, I would like set yourself up for success, rather than assuming failure before you even get there. Which I love that because having that mentality and I've kind of carried that with me as well, to this day, when something feels really hard, and you just don't feel great that day. But you've done everything you can just try it like you just don't know, you might see what you're made of when you do that. Yeah, you don't know until you try it. Yeah, it's so true. And sometimes you feel like you've done three, three reps. And the fourth one is impossible. And you get the fourth and the fifth one seems impossible. And you do it. Yeah, it's crazy. Happens all the time, all the time. So when someone comes in to your gym, or what are one of the most common assumptions or misconceptions they might have, are people that are seeking you out already familiar with starting straight, there's a kind of a mix of, of individuals, most of the time No, they're

Cody Annino 23:49

not familiar with, with what starting strength is. And you got all those standard industry fears, you know, that people have when they first come in, especially since majority of our clientele tends to be female, and tends to be a little bit older, in their 40s 50s 60s and, you know, all that usual stuff where they're, they're intimidated of lifting heavy weights, they're afraid they're gonna get too bulky, that sort of thing. So, you know, again, it's all about again, creating a creating an environment where they feel comfortable, they feel like this is safe, and having the right type of equipment to accommodate and meet that person where they are at their current ability level, you know, for sure having light enough weights and that sort of thing.

Philip Pape 24:39

Yeah, for sure. And again, folks listening at least when I went to see Cody, you know, he he made sure we were using the right plates and the right equipment and everything was set up right he asked about my shoes asked about a whole bunch of things just to make sure even my shirt you know you weren't a cotton shirt or is it more slippery shirt like all the all the advice? So somebody coming in that's new, they're gonna Be a novice, they're a newbie. And so they're gonna experience something called the novice effect, which I've talked about enough times on the show, probably. But it's a central concept to starting strength. And you mentioned the stress recovery adaptation model. Why is it so important, especially for those new or de trained to lifting in the house, someone, how can someone make the most out of it.

Cody Annino 25:19

So the novice effect is, it's again, it's that getting back to that stress recovery adaptation cycle, it's a phenomenon where, when you're truly unadapted, to something, you experience rapid progress early on, you know, in the, in the progression of you trying to do this new thing. And then there's a law of diminishing returns, right, we're over time that progress starts to slow down. But the novice effect is that when someone comes into the gym for the first time, we can apply a small dose of stress to them with the barbell, teach them how to do the movements correctly and safely. And then within 48, to 72 hours later, they can come back into the gym, and we can add a little bit more weight to the, to the bar a little bit more weight to whatever it was that they did on that first day. And amazingly enough, they can do it. And then another 48 to 72 hours will elapse. And we can add a little bit more weight to it. And they can do that again. And what we find is that by taking advantage of that novice effect, we can give somebody the most rapid progress that they're going to see in their entire trading career. And anything short of taking full advantage of that is essentially wasting the person's time. You only have so much time to do this stuff. And if we can make an increase, we can make a strength increase, then we should,

Philip Pape 26:49

yeah, what's something you shouldn't be doing? If you're trying to get the most out of it? One that comes to mind as a nutrition coach is you shouldn't be dieting, personally, if you're trying to do that, what what are some of those in your arsenal.

Cody Annino 27:00

So again, so to take true full advantage of it, we recommend that you just do the program, the way it's written in that you're going to squat, bench deadlift press, and do power cleans, and you're going to do those on alternating days, you're gonna do them three days a week, and you're not really going to add a whole bunch of other stuff to it, you're not gonna try to reinvent the wheel, you're not going to do CrossFit, you're not going to try to do Oh, can I do my BJJ? In between? Or can I What should I do on my resume? Should I run all that stuff? Can I do yoga, if you want to get everything you can out of it, you shouldn't do those things. But sometimes people do those things.

Philip Pape 27:41

Something like 3% of people actually follow the program when they looked at the data. But I get it because I have clients all the time. They're like, well, I want to keep running. And I want to keep doing this. And like you can I mean, it's trade offs. It's all trade offs.

Cody Annino 27:53

Exactly. It's all it's all trade offs, you know, some, some people find that, you know, I found too, that if I tell people, If I don't be super restrictive with it and tell them, You can't do this, you can't do that you can't do any of this stuff, you got to just come in here and do this, that sometimes they don't really like that. And that kind of turns them off, and they're less likely to come back to training. So if I tell them, Okay, keep doing that stuff, that's fine. Because in the beginning, the novice effect works. So well, the program works so well, that even if you kind of do it wrong, it still works. So it works so well that they continue to make progress. And then eventually they hit a point where it's like, they're not really getting recovered. And then I can kind of re approach the conversation with again and be like, well, you know, you are running three days a week, or you are doing BJJ, two days a week, maybe cut back on that a little bit. And then we can continue to push these weights up a little bit higher. And then some people like they have the right mentality where you know, they want to keep chasing those numbers. So then they you know, they start to be a little more strict at the program.

Philip Pape 28:46

Yeah. Do you have the data and feedback there to say, look, you're hitting a plateau. Let's, let's remove this, see what happens. All of a sudden, they improve, then they get that intrinsic motivation of okay, maybe I don't want to be running. Right. Right progress. So another topic related to training, especially since we're coming up to men's mental health month, November is not just for men, but how does barbell training improve your mental health?

Cody Annino 29:09

I've seen with several clients over the years that I don't know if I if I know exactly like the scientific explanation for how it improves people's mental health, but you just see it when someone starts getting stronger, they get more confident, a lot about their demeanor and a lot about their personality changes. And again, a lot of it gets back to like, like we talked about with the doing that heavy set of five and you're not sure if you can do that fifth rep but there's something that happens to somebody when they consistently make that decision that I'm going to go down into the bottom of the squat and, and I'm just going to see what happens. You know what I mean? I'm going to try real hard, and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna give it everything I got. And I'm scared but I'm going to do it anyway. And and there's a again, there's there's a confidence can pull Whether it comes from that, and it's hard to describe it to someone who hasn't done it before, but once you've gone through the process, once you've seen other people go through the process, you can see it's it's clear as day that the effect that this has on people, people's mental health and in a positive way.

Philip Pape 30:17

I yeah, I think it's important to right, you kind of know it when you see it. And in my personal experience that happens at different levels, like it can happen right away in the first few weeks. For somebody who's never trained before, and it just seems like they're gaining massive strength. And then it happens later, when you hit these sticking points. Right? It'd be cool if they can, like, do a brain scan on people like before and after. See, what if that hardship that you know, unlock something like, you know, the grip, brain chemistry or something. But, yeah, I always like to ask that because people underestimate all the benefits of strength training, we focus so much on the strength in the muscle and things like that. And yet this I'm coming in my older years to realize is one of the top reasons people might want to consider this because for whatever reason, their anxiety is rampant depression is rapid, like across the population. And it could just be stress, it could be because you get older, you get obligations and all that. And I just wanted to pick your brain on that. So yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Okay, so what about when you teach somebody to lift because this was an important aspect of my experience with you, I came in having been squatting for like, I don't know, three, four months on starting strength, I read the book, I'm the type of person I read it like three times I had highlighter, I had I had notes, I would practice in my living room, I, my wife would be like, What are you doing down there, and I would watch the videos, and not just starting strength, but barbell logic and some of the others and and did everything I possibly could. And I still didn't really have great for because when I met you, you'd like over 20 Things that you had to fix. It really is a very tactile, technical thing. How do you teach it to your clients? What are the kind of the common cues you use? And is it? How can people at home even if they don't have a coach, and I know that's that you want them to have a coach? You know, figure it out? How can they figure it out?

Cody Annino 32:06

So you know, this might not be the most satisfying answer, but everybody's different, right? So. And what we find, though, sometimes is that the people who have been trying to do this thing, or maybe they did, like, you know, high school, football might be the worst thing ever. But you know, they've lifted weights, so you get guys to come to the gym, they've been lifting, you know, they've done something. And they have the most bad habits. So they're the ones that are often the hardest ones to coach to correct those things, because they've been doing things I don't want to say wrong, but they've been doing them sub optimally for a long time. Whereas you get someone that comes in the door that's maybe even a little skinny little scared of, of lifting weights never done this before, I have no idea what they're doing there, they tend to be pretty easy to coach because they're gonna do whatever you tell them. They don't have all their trust is in you. Yeah, yeah. But so so we have, in starting strength, we have a series of teaching models for all of the lifts, we've distilled down over many years of trial and error working with lots of people, we've kind of distilled down the best way to break these exercises down and explain them to people. And you know, so we have a teaching phase for all of the lifts, where we teach them how to do the exercises. And then the queues, the queues are specific to the teaching model. So queues are reminders for somebody how to do the lifts. Right. So we've already taught them in the teaching model, how to perform the exercise, and then when we're cueing them, the teaching method is what gives them the context for the cues to make sense. So when I say shove your knees out on a squat, I've already taught them in the teaching progression of the squat, why it's important for them to have their knees pushed out why want them to be that way. So when I when they're when they're squatting, and I say knees out, now they have context, they understand what that means. And they can make that adjustment. I see a lot of beginner coaches, or people that are maybe starting strength enthusiast and, and they watch the videos and they want to teach somebody how to squat. And then they'll just be yelling queues at people. They'll be coming up out of the bottom like hips, hips, hips, hips, hips, hips, and like, the person who their teacher doesn't know what that means, you know. So, for people that don't know that the hips cue is to cue what we call hip drive, it's the way you get up out of the bottom squat. But you need that teaching method to explain to somebody, this is how you come out of the bottom of squat. This is called hip drive. And this is the strongest way for you to get yourself up at the bottom of the squat. So when I you know so that later on when they're squatting and I say hips, use your hips, something like that. They know what that means. They can they can kind of go from there. But yeah, that's that's essentially how we teach that to people is we have a teaching method that we use to get them up to speed quit in through experience, you kind of develop cues and to kind of remind them how I have to do the list correctly.

Philip Pape 35:02

That's enlightening to me, I wasn't totally clear on how that works, because I've never worked with the starting train coach, like from the beginning multiple sessions, you know. But the idea that you have, again, you said it's systematic before it is systematic a teaching phase progression, you understand why you're using a certain foot stands, putting your legs this way, whatever. And then the cues are just reminders of that. Okay, so now what if someone I know there are coaches that do online programming? I think you do as well, I do online? Do you? How do you coach someone who's fully remote who's just not in the area, and getting started for the first time remotely?

Cody Annino 35:36

So it's harder, you know, it definitely is. And we tell people upfront, I mean, if you're going to be honest with somebody, you know, you have to tell them that like, look, you know, this online coaching thing, it can work, it can be beneficial, it's definitely better than nothing, but it's not as good as in person coaching. And it just can't be because of the delay. The fact that I can't be there in person and give me real time, feedback, you know, as you're screwing something up, I can fix it in person. So in person is always going to be better. The biggest drawback that I tell people to online coaching, and get back gets back to that learning, the last thing is that it's going to take more time, it's going to take longer because of the inherent delay. So I'll give you an example. Like when I first started coaching people online, you know, somebody would post a post a video, for me, I use an app called True coach. So they'll upload a video to true coach, and there'll be their squat, then I'll take a look at it. And you know, their stance is a little too wide, or it's a little messed up. So then I'll write back to them. Like, hey, you know, good job, but your stance is a little bit too wide, I need you to narrow it up a little bit next time on your next set of squats. So then 4872 hours goes by, they do their next workout, and I check their video, and now they're squatting with like their heels almost touching. You know, my, okay, that's way too narrow. And then I tell them all right, now I need you to widen your stance out again, because it's not quite right. So then, again, a third video comes for them two hours later. And now their stance is too wide, so that we've already wasted about a week's worth of training just together stance, right. But we do get it right, we do fix it. online coaching is great, because we will get your form where it needs to be. But you just got to understand that the limitations are, those are the limitations, it's going to take more time to get it right. As a coach, like, like, you were asking before, you know, you can do this stuff, it's just gonna take a lot longer. There's a lot of trial and error to learn how to do stuff correctly, I tried to I, for the most part, tried to teach myself how to do it correctly in the beginning. And it's just hard. You know, it takes a lot takes a long time, part of what you're paying for with a coach is just, you know, that times daily aspect expertise

Philip Pape 37:45

in that, yeah. So a couple of things you mentioned first, I imagine it's a good learning experience for you as a coach, that whole trial and error back and forth to be like, you know, maybe next time I can give them very precise, like 10 inches, you know, to ruler measure to kind of how you communicate is an interesting thing. The other is that, you know, you reminded me and just for the listener, I've never not had some form of coach along the way like to this day, I'm in a barbell Club, where I can post my video and get form feedback from a very good coach and he Baker who's from the world of starting strength. And I think anybody should do that. Even if it's if it's a budget thing, and you have to do it online, it's a little bit less whatever. It's totally worth it. Or at least getting a refresh. So all right, I know we're running low on time, and we had some technical glitches early. But couple questions left. This is the question I asked every guest. Is there something you wish I had asked you? And what is your answer?

Cody Annino 38:38

I think you covered most of your bases in terms of like, we want to talk about like what what starting strength is and that sort of thing.

Philip Pape 38:45

It's cool. Yeah. And I think you've covered most of it for folks listening who are interested, where can they learn about you, your specific Jim you and your work and anything you want them to kind of look up related to starting strength.

Cody Annino 38:58

So so for me personally, you know, I'm on all the all the social medias, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or x. And our website is Nino strong.com and anything related to starting strength? You can you can also find me on the starting strength website. But yeah, anything related to starting strength, go to starting strength calm. There's forums 1000s of articles, tons of information, tons of videos.

Philip Pape 39:24

Cool. Did you do have any articles up there by any chance? I don't have any articles. No. Yeah. No, I was just curious. Alright, so we'll put your we'll put all your handles up there. But definitely your website and needle strong.com If you guys go there, you can find out about both local if you're in Buddhist Connecticut area, which is kind of what would you say it's kind of southern not far from i 91. A little

Cody Annino 39:47

to the east. It's it's southeastern Connecticut. Yeah,

Philip Pape 39:51

southeastern Connecticut. And if you're not you can get remote coaching from Cody and man, thank you so much for coming on. It was a blast. Yeah,

Cody Annino 39:57

no problem. Sorry about the technical issues. It's all good. Hey, thanks. Thanks for having me.

Philip Pape 40:03

Philip Pape 10/24/23 Philip Pape 10/24/23

Ep 116: 7 Lessons from My Rapid Fat Loss Micro-Cut (Aggressive Dieting is Not for Everyone!)

Then, I’ll talk about some of the limitations and findings of aggressive dieting, and the seven lessons I learned that will help anyone following such a protocol to get through it successfully, mitigate hunger, and hold onto as much muscle as possible.

Today, I will be going over my recent micro-cut, which was a 14-day rapid fat loss phase, how to set it up, and all of my results, including how well I was able to adhere to the protocol and how I handled nutrition, how all my measurements changed including the fat loss itself, changes in biofeedback, my training, and the results of the group challenge we ran concurrently with my self-experiment, where 7 participants of the Wits & Weights Facebook community did their own fat loss phases along with me following the same protocol.

Then, I’ll talk about some of the limitations and findings of aggressive dieting, and the seven lessons I learned that will help anyone following such a protocol to get through it successfully, mitigate hunger, and hold onto as much muscle as possible.

If you want the exact protocol I followed, click HERE.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:48] Shoutout to Weight What? Podcast
[4:26] Recent five-star reviews
[6:59] Background and purpose of the micro-cut experiment
[9:32] Preparing for the micro-cut
[15:15] Training during fat loss, and intake targets
[18:37] Initial observations on the serious deficit of the micro-cut
[22:07] Results with flexible refeed days
[25:06] The before and after measurements
[34:17] Decline in biofeedback during the fat loss phase
[37:52] Personal experience and training routine
[39:31] Shredtober 14-day fat loss challenge results
[42:57] Adherence to calorie and protein intake during the challenge
[45:40] Future goals and recommendations for participants
[50:10] Warnings about aggressive dieting
[52:43] The seven lessons and recommendations for the rapid fat loss micro-cut
[56:18] Outro

Episode resources:

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

What did participants love the most two things, community and simplicity. They loved the group setting, the accountability, the motivation, it kept everyone going and engaged. And we talked every day. And when people were down on themselves a little bit, we lifted them up. It's awesome. The second thing was simplicity. Several people found that this challenge was easier to adhere to than expected. And that was a huge one because I didn't, you know, I didn't know what was going to happen. But within about four or five days, people were saying, You know what, this isn't so bad.

Philip Pape 00:33

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 115 how Tony lost 15 pounds 8% body fat and built lifelong strength with barbell training, I sat down with my friend, fellow lifter and client Tony to talk about his transformative journey, the intricacies of nutrition and barbell training and the mental hurdles along the way. Tony's insights could radically change your perspective and approach to fitness, nutrition and health. So definitely check that out. Today for episode 116. seven lessons from my Rapid Fat Loss micro cut, it's finally here, I will be going over my recent micro cut, which was a 14 day rapid fat loss phase, how to set it up. And all of my results, including how well I was able to adhere to the protocol, how I handled nutrition how all my measurements changed, including, of course, the fat loss itself, changes in biofeedback, my training and the results of the group challenge that we ran concurrently with myself experiments were seven participants of the Wits & Weights, Facebook community did their own fat loss phases, along with me following the same protocol, and then they shared their results with us. Then I'll talk about some of the limitations and findings of aggressive dieting. And finally, the seven lessons I learned that will help anyone following such a protocol, get through it successfully mitigate hunger and things like that. And of course, hold on to as much muscle as possible. If you want the exact protocol I followed, just click the link in my show notes, or go to wits & weights.com/free, to download it along with lots of other free guides, but look for the free Rapid Fat Loss guide specifically for this episode. Okay, you all know that in addition to producing a podcast, I love listening to them. So going forward, every now and then I'm going to give a shout out to other shows that are aligned with my principles and values. So you can check them out for yourself. So today's shout out is to Leah and KAMNA of the weight what podcast. So that's weight W E IG HT just like Wits & Weights? And then what wha tea with a question mark? Wait, what? I really liked their show because they give weight loss, a nuanced complex treatment just like we do on this show. And I asked them to send me a summary that I can share with my audience. So here we go. Weight Loss sucks. As anyone who's tried to lose weight knows, you think you have it figured out and then suddenly things change and you're back to square one. This process can be so frustrating, and it doesn't take much to fall off the path, the podcast Wait, what does a deep dive about so many things that can impact our weight, and the hosts experiment to find possible solutions and let you know the results of their experiments. Take a listen to WaitWhat today to know that you aren't alone in the struggles and there are solutions that may also work for you. All right, and I'm gonna include a link to that podcast in my show notes as well so you can check them out. What I really love is the idea of trying to understand all the things that impact your weight, and performing self experimentation, which is actually highly relevant to today's topic. So give some love to Leah and camera and subscribe to the wait, what podcast. Okay, before I get into all the fun details about the microcut I wanted to share a couple recent five star reviews which I haven't done in a while so and we're up to I think at now it was last time I did this we were probably around 50 Something so they're really coming in fast and furious. And if you're listening and love the show, one of the best things you can do to support it is to go to apple and leave a five star rating and review because the more reviews we have, the more people will know that it's a good fit for them something that they call social proof. It actually doesn't affect the algorithm or the rankings in full disclosure from what I understand. But it does help people's The Hey others like this show, and here's why. And that's what I'm looking for. So the first review is from cool kid Wyatt. And I think I know exactly who this person is. And if he's listening, he knows I've figured it out. eye opening nutrition advice, I spent 10 years getting nutrition advice from fitness books, read it, and fitness influencers on YouTube, it was fine. But everyone had something different to say. And I felt stuck, not really knowing who to believe or what was right for me. Philips show gives advice that is freeing and empowering, I started feeling a lot more confident about my nutrition and habits after listening to this show, hearing his guests seeing how he can connect all the dots in a simple and logical way. I have more confidence and pride in eating habits now than I have in the past decade. Awesome. I love that review, because it just talks about all the buttons that we that we push here in terms of the confidence and the habits and you know, simple logical, doing things sustainably, right, all of this stuff. So I love that review. The second review is from Rachel Kay Hancock, and the title is balance. This podcast helps you develop healthy habits without demanding you give up your favorite foods and activities. It's more about mindfulness and setting up successful behavioral change toward a better life. I appreciate the host knowledge and expertise. Well thank you so much for that one as well. Because again, hit hit the nail on the head with the sustainability and flexibility, enjoying your favorite foods, mindfulness, behavioral change, that's really what it's all about. Okay, so I could definitely spend a half hour going over reviews, but I'm not going to do that, it is time to dive into seven lessons from my Rapid Fat Loss microcode. Okay, and now I'm actually pulling these from a white paper that I put together, that I actually shared with Dr. Bill Campbell recently, he's gonna give me some feedback. And I'll probably make it available publicly. But if you're interested in you can always reach out. And I'm gonna go over the whole process, how you can set this up the results, all of that. So in October of 2023, I decided to run an aggressive fat loss phase, and I called it a micro cut, as opposed to a mini cut, which tends to be anywhere from like four to 10 weeks long, or standard cut, which is even longer than that. So this was for 14 days. And I wanted to figure out if a very large calorie deficit could be used effectively to induce mostly fat loss. And by mostly fat loss, I mean, avoiding muscle loss as much as possible, and the majority of the weight loss being fat. So as a nutrition coach, I'm also curious whether this approach is feasible for my clients. So what did I do, I recruited 12 volunteers from the Wits & Weights Facebook community to participate and follow along in a challenge format. And the goal wasn't to lose X number of pounds, the goal is to learn about themselves, and also to share their, what they learned as part of, you know, to help with the research to help with this podcast to help you as the listener, learn about their experiences. Now, of the 12 volunteers. And by the way, we had like something like 30 or 40, who actually registered and followed along in some way. But 12 actually signed up to do the challenge directly, and have the 12 seven completed it and then share their final data with their consent with me. So I'm going to go over the exact protocol, my experience, the results of the challenge, and so on, so that you know exactly what you're getting into if you want to try this yourself, and you can replicate it yourself. And as I mentioned earlier, you can get the exact protocol, go to wits & weights.com/free, or click the link in the show notes if you want to do it yourself. Now, the one caveat I do want to mention is that I had left rotator cuff surgery about 12 weeks before starting the protocol. And that affected my training, I had gotten back to normal lifting a few weeks after my surgery, except for my injured arm or my recovering arm. And then I started to build from there with mostly a linear progression. So I'm still kind of doing that. But I am using all my limbs. Now my arm is good. It's about 80 90% range of motion now. But what this means is I was training sub maximally versus my recent one rep max loads, but I'm still applying the principles of progressive overload, mechanical tension and all that to ensure sufficient training stimulus. So if I did this again, in the future, when I'm 100% healthy, the results may have been different. Just a little caveat there. Alright, so first, I want to talk about the setup. All right. I, before you do anything like this, it's good to think about what do you want to track? What kind of data do you want to collect, so you know that it actually worked, and you can learn what you might change in the future. Because later on in the show, I'm going to share the things that I think could be changed or experimented with to maybe make it more effective. So here's what I decided to collect, of course, weight loss data. So scale weight and trendweight trendweight is calculated in macro factor. Macro factor is the app that I use and all my clients and all my challenge participants used to track their food and their weight and their trendweight because it also calculates your expenditure. If you haven't heard macro factor before, I've talked about it a lot on the show, but you can download the app use my code Wits & Weights, all one word Wits & Weights, get an extra free weekend, your free trial, give it a shot, let me know what you think. Anyway, weight loss, scale weight and trendweight. I also have my training logs. So am I maintaining performance with my strength with my progression? I also tracked biofeedback, but I really only did it at the beginning in the end, because I'm pretty much in tune with that on a regular basis anyway. And it's only two weeks long. So the biofeedback would include things like hunger, digestion, sleep, stress, energy, mood, and recovery. And these are good indicators. Because if any of those go, decline, more than you would expect or decline a lot during this challenge, or during this, um, I'm sorry, during this fat loss protocol, it's a potential variable to tweak later on, like if you want to improve and prevent it from declining as much. Another thing I measured was changing body circumference measurements. So for me, that was my neck, waist, chest, biceps and thighs, as another way to tell Okay, how much fat did I lose, and also did I lose any muscle. And then finally, I tracked my change in body composition, based on two things, the US Navy formula, so that's for me, based on my neck and waist, for the ladies, that's neck, waist, and hips. And then I also took some in body scans. Now you say, oh, in body, I thought you didn't agree with body fat measurement devices, I don't I don't like these, I don't think they're very precise. However, the trend can be a lot more reliable, then the value. So I took it anyway. And I use the data, and I kind of averaged it out with the Navy formula to give you a conservative view on my results. And all that's available, if anybody wants to see it. Okay. Demographics, I'm a male, I'm 42 years old, I'm five, nine. Good to know, my starting weight was 180 4.9. And my expenditure when I started, this was 2800 calories. Here's another important point, if you are smaller, if you're a female, you tend to have a lower expenditure, let's say, less than 2000 calories, this is going to be very hard compared to other types of fat loss phases, because you're still going to have to go into a deep deficit. And that deep deficit puts you into a level of calories that makes it so critical that you do meal planning and prioritize things like protein, fiber, etc. And it's just a very fine dance you have to play. And so it's not recommended for everyone. As I said, in the title, it's not for everyone, your expenditure is an important consideration here. So mine's 2800, which is reasonable to drop, even if I drop, you know, 1200 calories, I'm still in the mid 1500s, which is where I'm going to end up for this and as we'll see in a moment, but if you start at like 1500 calories, well, now you're dropping to like 800, which is you're getting into the range where it's a little bit dangerous and unsustainable. Granted, it's only for two weeks. So just keep all that in mind. Okay, so what is the protocol look like? It's based on 14 days on the calendar 12 days of those are in a significant deficit of 45%. And two of those are refeed days, where you come back up to your maintenance calories with mostly carbs. So it's the first four days you're in a deficit of 45%, then day five is a refeed. At maintenance, then the next four days 45%, then day 10 is a refeed of maintenance. And then the final four days you finish out the dieting phase. So that's it. Now, key to this are the macros, we want to keep the protein high. Now for this protocol, the target was one gram per pound. For me, that meant I started at 185, I expected to end at 180. So I just went with the 180 grams, you can do it at your current weight, your target, whatever, it's not going to be much difference because it's a short protocol anyway. And as you'll learn later, it may be more valuable to go with a higher target for protein, but at least that one gram per pound fats, somewhere between 20 and 30% of calories. So for me is was around 23%. And then carbohydrates are your remaining calories. So for me when you take it all together 2800 calorie expenditure 45% deficit I was eating, I was targeting 1500 40 calories on the deficit days, which is pretty low for me, and then back up to 2800 calories on the two refeed days. So if you want to set this up yourself, you're going to start with your current expenditure, your maintenance calories. And you're going to multiply by point five, five to get your calorie intake. Point five, five because you're going to be in a 45% deficit. So what's the opposite of 45% 55%? So multiply by point five, five. That's how much you're going to eat. On the deficit days, all right, then you're gonna set your protein, one gram per pound, based on your body weight, then you're gonna set your fat to 20 to 30% of the calories. And then your carbohydrates are the remaining calories. All this is spelled out in the guide, if you want that

Philip Pape 15:16

your training during fat loss is, in my opinion, continue doing what you're doing, assuming you're already following a program that is sufficiently stressful has progressive overload, and the appropriate load to cause you to get a muscle building signal. Okay, that's the principle of it. For me, personally, what did I do? Well, I was doing a three day per week full body program with three to four compound lifts, and one to two accessory movements. And a lot of the compound lifts were on a linear progression, because as I said, before I was recovering from surgery. So you're talking in one session, I might do safety bar squats, deadlifts, barbell rows, and then maybe some back work and some, you know, accessory like artwork, bicep, tricep work. So five or six movements, usually about 90 minute long sessions, but three days a week. Interestingly, now that I'm back to a slight surplus, I'm I'm now in a four day split. But I didn't want to change anything going to the fat loss phase, I wanted to balance recovery with intensity. Because the key here is to keep the training stimulus high. All right, my step count target was 12,000 steps per day. As you'll see, I came pretty close to that. And then, as I mentioned, what are the things we're going to measure? Right? When do we measure those things, we'll on the first day of the morning of the first day, and then the morning of the day, after the thing is done. You want to take your biofeedback. So that's your hunger, sleep, stress all of that, your body circumference measurements, and then calculate your body fat. So that's the beginning and the end. Every day during the challenge, you're also going to measure your scale weight, you're going to log your food, and then on training days, you're gonna log in training. So that's pretty much it. Okay, so I ran this from October 2 to Sunday. So that's a Monday through Sunday, October 15. And we're going to start with the food side of things here. So I mentioned what my intake targets were. And I'm going to tell you what my actual was, right. So I tracked everything. And I looked at my deficit days, my refeed days and my total average. So on deficit to sell deficit days, I was going for 1540 calories, I ended up at 1548. These are averages for the whole time. So that was pretty close, I was about 1% over, which is more, which is fine, I'm looking for within 5% and you good protein, I aimed for 180 grams, and I actually came in at around 170. So I was a little bit under at 94% of what I intended. So that right there stuck out to me as an opportunity in the future, if I were to do this, again to bump up the protein. All right, my refeed days kind of similar, I aimed for 2800 came in at 2802 On average, so I was pretty locked in on that. And then the protein was actually more than enough on those days at 193. So when you average it all out for the 14 days, here's what you get. My average target was 1720 calories. My actual was 1727 calories. So I was pretty much it rounds out to about 100% adherence, my protein target was 180 grams, my average was 172. So that was 96% of the target. fats and carbs are variable, they don't matter so much. What I did find is that on refeed days, I couldn't quite bump the carbs all the way up to my target, because some fat increased as well. But I think that's okay, as long as you have a nice bump in that those carbs for the refeed. Alright, so I want to dive in a little bit on the nutrition observations that I had from this microcut.

Philip Pape 18:43

Immediately on day one, I noticed that this was a serious deficit. If you go on one of these things, and you jump right away, you might notice that hunger, it's going to be different, you're going to have to plan your meals differently, you might end up cutting out a snack or meal. It's a big change. Right? I was I had been in a slight surplus above 2200 calories, and now I'm eating only 1540. So this required careful meal planning. That's one of my takeaways. It's not one of the seven lessons that I titled the show with that comes at the end. But there are actually a lot of lessons in here. So I could have called it like 27 lessons. Let's see. So even with meal planning, what does meal planning look like? For me? Well, I did a whole episode called the perfect meal plan where it's really very personalized to you and your goals. But for me, this is just what is a Monday through Friday look like? What am I going to eat? What am I going to eat? How many how am I getting my protein? It just kind of think about it and make sure I have the food and in the kitchen in the pantry in the fridge in the pantry. Okay. Now even when I did this, I had a few pre planned events. I had a couple nights out and visiting family that were already planned ahead. Right? If this was a perfect situation, you would have just total routine for two weeks and I think we had one or two challenge members that were in that situation. But life is life right and hey If you can handle this kind of phase, when life has been thrown at you like this, then you can handle anything. And my wife loves to cook for us. And so I never know quite what she's gonna make or in what quantities. But she always has some sort of meat, some sort of starch or green and then some sort of vegetable so and she's, she's cool that I don't like finish my plate, right? I kind of she serves to me, and then I kind of eat what makes sense for what I'm trying to hit for the day. And this is a flexible, sustainable approach. But it did result in a little bit of variance from my overall adherence day to day. But as I said earlier, at the end, at the end of it, I still was pretty close to 100% adherence. And we don't even need to be that precise, just kind of in the ballpark. Right. So I ended up getting the deficit I wanted with proper meal planning protein. Now, protein is the driving macro for muscle preservation, especially when you're in such a large deficit. So I aimed for that one gram per pound, I averaged point nine six gram per pound. And when I was in the deficit protein represented almost 50% of my calories. Whereas on refeed days, it's only like a quarter of your calories. So if I ran this protocol, again, I'd probably set my target to like 1.1 or 1.2 grams per pound, or even higher as a stretch goal or a real goal even to drive more precise meal planning and timing distribution and hit that target and really hold on to all that muscle. Okay, fats. So we all have fats. I mean, I'm a big meat eater. I like dairy. I prefer fattier cuts of meat fish. And I did make some changes, like I had some white fish instead of salmon, I bought some low fat dairy, like cottage cheese instead of full fat. The few incidences of dining out and meals that were not fully in my control, like, again, that lovely wife of mine who cooks resulted in a bit higher fat intake than planned. And I don't think this is a quote unquote, bad thing. It's just one of those preferences of mine that I can better account for. With future protocols like this, like maybe I will deliberately set my fat a little bit higher, knowing that the carbs come down a bit. On refeed days, I deliberately brought the fats up along with the carbs just because of the types of composition of foods I was eating. And I sort of violated the mostly carbs approach, but but not necessarily violating the spirit of a refeed, which is just getting all this extra energy in restoring your, your leptin and restoring your glycogen and all that. Okay. So if it sounds like I'm rationalizing, I'm really not, I'm just suggesting that you don't even have to be perfect, and you can still get great results. Carbs. So carbs were the sacrificial lamb on deficit days. So I went from a building phase where I was eating like 400 grams of carbs a day to now barely over 100 grams. So for me, that was like going to Quito, not quite, but still is a big adjustment. So what I did is I reduced to replace most starches and grains, not all right, because again, sustainability, you can include things in the right amounts. I replaced most of those with fruits or vegetables, mostly green vegetables. And fiber, which is a carb was essential for satiety, right for feeling full. So I added more vegetables to my lunch, my dinner to compensate for the fewer starches and grains with volume. So without increasing calories, and that is key here, right? On the refeed days, I just scaled up my routine carbs, like my morning oatmeal, I added grains and starches back into my Perry workout nutrition, my lunch, my dinner. So it's kind of fun actually, to see the extremes and kind of live those extremes within the two week period and, and play play around with it right and learn how to meal plan a little bit more effectively. Even after all this time that I've been doing it, there's always room for improvement. And going through this process continues to help me empathize with you as the listener who's trying to do this as well as my clients. So overall, for the nutrition, I was able to add here to the plan deficit and the refeed days within about 1% of the target. So energy wise, this was a success, I would say. Now, if I drilled it down into the macros, I was a little bit under on the protein, but still within 5% of the target. If I use the rough rule of thumb of 3500 calories to represent one pound of body mass change, if it crunch all the numbers, I would have expected 4.3 pounds of body mass weight loss. So 4.3 pounds of weight loss based on my intake. All right, and as we're going to talk about in a second, the actual weight loss was around four and a half to five pounds, which is actually really close to that expected value. And I found that all the other challenge participants to admit to a person had a similar result that whatever deficit they were in induced the expected loss, meaning this stuff is scientific. Now granted, that's a small sample size and this is a anecdotal. This is Not even a research study, right? But it's something that I would expect, it's not a surprise. All right, so moving on to the before and after measurements. As I mentioned before, you know, scale away expenditure circumference all these things, I'm just going to highlight a few key ones, I have a lot more detail behind this, but I don't want to bore you to death. If you're listening to this, and I'm losing you, hopefully not, this is interesting stuff. Let's start with weight. Okay, I measure myself on the home scale, and I measure myself with the InBody scale, the InBody scale was a tiny bit more, I was wearing clothes. And it was like point three pounds more. So it could have just been the clothes to be honest, where tolerance and the scales. So I'm gonna go with the home scale weight. When I started, I was 180 4.9 after the microcut 170 9.8. So that's a loss of 5.1 pounds on the scale. Now, since I was using macro factor, I also had my moving average weight called the trend Wait, I started at 180 3.9 ended at 180 1.1, which is a loss of 2.8 pounds. Now in reality, it's somewhere in between, because the full 5.1 pounds probably includes some water loss, and then the 2.8 pounds, because it's a moving average over three weeks, it was too short of duration for that to really update enough. So that's where I said, I think the true weight loss is around four and a half pounds, somewhere around that for four and a half, five pounds, you know, we're never going to be super precise, but that's in the ballpark. Now, interestingly, my expenditure dropped, okay, from 2800 calories to about 2600 calories. So about 200 Calorie drop, I would expect some metabolic adaptation. But I also know that this could this number could be driven by the large fluctuations going on. And I don't know how much to you know, trust it like did it really drop 200 calories, but everyone in the challenge, their expenditure dropped except one person. And so that's kind of to be expected circumference measurements, my waist dropped by 1.4 inches, my neck went down a little by a quarter inch, my chest went down by an inch, and then biceps went down barely like my point two inches and thighs went down by six, so all of them came down. If you lose fat, I would expect waist size to come down. So for me going from almost 34 inch waist to like 32 and a half inch waist in just two weeks. That's pretty cool, right? And a lot of people are looking for a quick fat loss get in get out, no big deal, I can handle the deficit for a short duration. That's really the point of all this is to see if this is effective. So waist measurement is a good indication of that. The fact of my biceps went down a tiny bit and my thighs went down a bit. Maybe that's an indication of fat loss or muscle loss. It's really hard to tell, you know, in the short duration

27:33

Hello, my name is Isaiah Silverado. And I just wanted to say a big, big thank you to Philip pape, for Wits & Weights for creating this challenge and given us the opportunity to expand our comfort zone. And for all the support that he gave us throughout the challenge. He was also there doing it with us and always sharing amazing information support, and given us the courage to do something that probably wouldn't have done by ourselves, and the inspiration to try something different to test our limit. And definitely to improve not only our bodies, but also our mindset when it comes to healthy lifestyles, and what can we do to make ourselves better. So thank you.

Philip Pape 28:31

So body composition I mentioned earlier, I used both the Navy formula and the in body scan. So according to the Navy formula, my body fat decreased by 2.13%. And my lean body mass went up by point six pounds, which I wouldn't quite believe I would expect a drop in lean body mass. So again, that could be this could have to do with fluid changes and the fact that I'm using a tape measure in precision, but there were some at least decrease in body fat, which is important. And we know this because my waist came down the InBody scan said my body fat percentage went down by 1%. And I lost a pound of skeletal muscle mass. I don't think I lost a full pound of muscle mass. And there's also body water loss in there of point two pounds, right. So what I did is I averaged the two together just to be conservative here. If you average them, my body fat came down by 1.6%. That's 3.6 pounds of body fat. And my lean mass came down by point three pounds. So if we're going to do ranges here, we would say okay, I probably lost three or four pounds of fat. And I lost maybe a half a pound to a pound of muscle. And that's anywhere from a three to one to four or five to one ratio. Is that good or bad? I don't know. I think it's not bad. I think it's pretty good. I think on a traditional fat loss phase, you would expect something like two to one, maybe three to one if you're lucky. So on a bridged fat loss phase like this, to get a Three to one or even four to one, I think is a sign of success, I would have loved to lose zero lean mass. And maybe I did, maybe it didn't, it's very hard to tell, I do know that my training started to plateau at the end there. And I lost a rep or two, whether that's us due to body mass or skeletal muscle loss, or a significant drop in energy, because I was just not eating very many calories. Again, it's very hard to tell all of this stuff, which is why we take it all with a grain of salt. And we, you know, we don't assume the extremes, we assume it's somewhere in the middle. And if you're happy with that, kind of in the middle result, then it was successful that that's sort of my take on that. Okay, so I kind of touched on these, but just to review some of the details underneath, you know, body weight, body weight fluctuates dramatically from day to day, I mentioned earlier, the weight, what podcast, the reason I wanted to mention is they talk about that all the time, they're Lea and KAMNA, they talk about how weight changes for lots of different reasons, right, not just from fat accumulation, or loss, changes in fluid, changes in glycogen, inflammation, fat, mass, all these things affect your body mass. And that's why I like to take measurements every day. If you take it every day, you can a observe the large variations that are not due to fat mass changes, right? Because it's impossible to you know, gain or lose a pound every day constantly, unless you're over consuming by 1000s and 1000s of calories every day, or vice versa. So that's the first one and then B, you're able to calculate a moving average based on daily data points, and get this more conservative realistic view of true changes in fat mass. Alright, so I mentioned my weight decreased about four to 5%, four to five pounds. So it may have been anywhere from three to five pounds. We talked about the expenditure, the decrease of 200 calories, you know, indicates rapid metabolic adaptation in some way, whether it's really 200 or 200, or 300, it's still a lot, it's a lot faster than I would get on a normal fat loss phase. So that's something to be aware of. And that's with increasing my step count going into the fat loss phase as well. Okay, we talked about body fat, I think body fat is kind of a controversial thing to measure. In general, I don't always recommend even even caring about it, so to speak, I'd rather you go by how you feel in your clothes, and how you look and how you're performing and all those things, you know, how your clothes fit, and so on. But we all like these numbers. So there's a million ways to measure body fat calipers. bioimpedance scales, DEXA, Bod Pod dunk tank, all of this. And they all are prone to some level of error in terms of the absolute value. However, they tend to be a bit more reliable at indicating the trend when the same machine is used by the same person under similar conditions from one observation to the next. Now personally, I do prefer to use the Navy formula, because it's convenient. It's simple, it's just simple math based on tape measurements. And I've compared its results to other methods in the past even bod pod. And I found that the change is pretty much in parallel with those changes, meaning it's super reliable. So even though I did take the embody scan for this at the request of Dr. Campbell, and I get why he wanted me to do it, because of the ability to measure water change. My inner skepticism led me to also do the tape measurements and use the Navy formula, right just to compare them. And that's why I average the two to be conservative. So I already talked about how maybe I lost some muscle, maybe I didn't and how much I lost is up for debate, but also the last punch of fat, which was the point. So the two things that affect that, for this type of microcut are going to be the protein and your training. So if I eat more protein, or if I had had a closer to maximal intensity in my training, maybe I would have had less muscle loss, right. And that's always something to try out in the future if I ever run something like this again. So overall, I do count this fat loss phase as mostly successful because it did induce a rapid loss in fat that was in line with the expected from the deficit while minimizing muscle loss, right. But if I increase the protein increase the training, maybe more muscle could be preserved. So then this takes us to biofeedback. When you're in a fat loss phase, whether it's a normal one a mini cut or micro cut, it is typical to expect some sort of decline in various measures of biofeedback because your energy availability is declining. And the body is trying to compensate, it starts to become more efficient, it shuts things down, it down regulates your hormones, all of that stuff, you know, you don't have enough glycogen in your system. So now you're gonna get more drained when you go train. And it's good to track this stuff. I track this stuff with my clients weekly, so that we can use that as a data point of how what they're doing and what they're eating affects their body. So I like to measure seven indicators and For this challenge, or for this microcut, I did before the challenge, and I did it after the challenge. So I measured hunger, sleep, stress, energy, mood, digestive recovery. And I'm not going to go through all of them here. But the biggest declines were hunger, energy, and recovery. So with the hunger, I definitely felt it on day one, but it was manageable. And then, as early as day three, I really got more frequent hunger, it was both the physical hunger because you don't have calories coming in. But also, I'll be honest, emotional or psychological hunger, because of number one, I was reducing how often I was eating. So now my body was thinking habitually, like, where's the snack that I'm expecting at 3pm, for example, and that's kind of more of a emotional hunger really, because of the habit. Also, I reduced the amount of indulgences I had. And so some of my cravings weren't being satisfied as much as before. Not completely, though. I didn't eliminate them completely. Because that's, that's always the wrong approach to say, like, just cut everything out. No, no, no, no, no, we don't do that. We say okay, what can we fit in? Or what is kind of similar to our other indulgences, right, like yogurt might be similar to ice cream, maybe you don't want the ice cream, but you can have the older. So hunger went down from a self rated 10 out of 10. Like I had zero hunger before this, because I was in a surplus, I was doing great. And afterward, I would say it was a four, like it really, the hunger really ramped up, especially the final like two or three days, again, physically and psychologically, because I'm anticipating the end of the cut. So that's hunger, energy, and recovery also dropped. So energy went from a nine to a five, and recovery went from an eight to a six. The energy early on, it wasn't affected, right, I think for the first week, plus, everything felt great energy felt good. My training felt fine, didn't feel affected by the last four day deficit block to things I was feeling more apathetic in the morning, like, just not as motivated. And that was unusual for me. I mean, if you listen to this podcast, and you see what kind of, you know, high energy guy I am, I tend to be like that, right? From the time I get up until almost the time I go to bed. I mean, I do get I do drag a little at night, like most of us do. But in this case, I felt apathetic in the morning, which was unusual. And and then I would really dragging in the evening, I mean, really just feeling exhausted.

Philip Pape 37:25

Of course, from the lack of energy, obviously. And what I did, though, is when I felt that way, I would go for a walk. It sounds counterintuitive, right? Because you don't have the energy. So how do you have energy for a walk, but no, walking doesn't take a lot of energy. I went for a walk. And guess what, it improved my mood dramatically. It really did. So walking, I think as an added to antidote to lots of things related to mood anxiety, depressive symptoms of depression, and so on, give it a shot when other things don't seem to be working. And then my recovery also took a hit. As my performance dropped as my glycogen was depleted. And it started to feel like the next training session was I was kind of like, falling behind. If that makes sense. Like, I would start the training session already feeling like I had been training, as opposed to feeling super fresh. So all of these are symptoms to be expected. You know, hunger, especially is an indication something's happening. But we want to find ways to mitigate it as much as possible and deal with it in constructive positive ways so that we can execute our plan as we intent. Having said that, would I do a two week fat loss phase? Again, I'm not sure. I'm really not sure. Some people in the challenge said this was awesome. Like, I didn't feel much hunger, it was fast, it was over with quickly. And they will do it again. Now, I probably if I ate more protein, like a lot more protein, and I was training normally and all that, maybe next time I do it, I wouldn't feel it as much, for example, because we know protein is a really good way to make you full to increase your satiety. And so that one variable right there could make a lot of difference. Okay, so about my training, I mentioned before, I have this consistent three day full body routine. I already told you about the lifts and what's in there, so I'm not gonna repeat that. But I kept that I did those Monday, Wednesday, Friday, both weeks are good. And then I maintained an average step count of 12,637. So my target was 12, I hit 12.6. My range was the low day was 9.6, the high day was 15.4. Again, you don't have to get exactly 12 Every day, just you know, some variation is perfectly fine as long as you average out to what you're intending. Okay, so that was my personal experience. And now I want to talk about the experience from the challenge to see how other people did because it was actually quite similar to my results, which gives you a little bit of comfort in knowing that this is a fairly predictable thing like if you follow the protocol, you're probably gonna get probably going to get similar results knowing that everybody is different. And as I mentioned before, seven participants went all the way through completed it provided their data, which is actually more than I expected. I expected maybe a couple People because it's it's a lot like I asked for a lot of data. And they were committed, they made it happen. We had a, we had a group chat going on where you could ask questions, I could do some coaching, we could send videos, it was a lot of fun, we'll probably do it again. If you like stuff like that, join the Wits, & Weights, community Wits, & Weights on Facebook, we're gonna do stuff like that for sure. Also, my coaching program, I may, I may introduce like a semi private version of coaching that has that similar feel, if you're interested in that reach out to me, because I'm only going to do it if I have enough people interested for right now my focus is mostly one on one. But in a semi private program, I would still probably have a one on one piece to it, or an option for it like different tiers of coaching. So anyway, I'm getting off track, seven participants completed what I call the shred Tober, 14 Day Fat Loss annihilation challenge, you know, nice clickbaity name. All the participants consented to share their data in aggregated anonymized form. And that's what I'm going to use right now. So first, looking at the weight and measurement and expenditure changes, all right, it's not going to be nearly as much details as for my own, we're going to keep a high level here. So for body weight scale weight, the minimum loss was 1.8, the maximum weight loss was 7.2 pounds, the average was 4.2 pounds. More importantly, is the percent, the average percent weight loss was 2.8. So that's pretty good. 2.8% weight loss in just two weeks. Now, if you just do simple math, that means 1.4% a week. If you've listened to me before, you know that we never want to go more than 1% a week of weight loss when we're in a normal fat loss phase. But I've also explained that for this microcut, you're going to end up around 1.2 to 1.4. And guess what the average was 1.4. In reality, awesome. Like the stuff works. Okay, so 2.8% weight loss on average circumference measurements, average waist size drop of 1.4 inches, or about 4% average hips drop decreased. This is women only of about an inch or 2.2%. The expenditure was kind of weird, because the the minimum loss was actually a gain. So one person actually their expenditure went up 76 calories, the biggest loss one person dropped 500 calories. Now, the caveat here is if you hadn't been using macro factor for very long before starting, it may not have calculated your true expenditure yet. And so whatever number it had in there could have been artificially high or low, and therefore the delta at the end was artificially off. So I'm not going to read too much into it. But if you take the average drop in expenditure was 176 calories, or 7%. Mine was 200. So it's kind of in that ballpark, maybe you could expect the same. And if that happens, just know what that means in terms of your your calories. Now, we did not adjust our calories during this fat loss phase, we kept it exactly the same. So it didn't really matter whether it went up or down for your expenditure, like it normally would, over a longer phase where you're adjusting it weekly, or at least with me, you're adjusting it weekly. So that's pretty cool. All right, then, as far as the intake, so I actually split this into two groups, out of the seven people, a few didn't adhere fully like they were actually over on their calories. And and the rest did. So if I were to take just the full adherents group, their average adherence was one to 1.8%. So it was pretty close, right? Their average protein adherence was 98.7%. If I took all the participants average, the adherence was a little high, it was 110 7.7. But the protein was and the protein was a little low 96.1. Interestingly, if you dig into the data, though, even the few people that didn't fully adhere, they still got great results. Which the takeaway again, is you don't have to be perfect, because this is so so large of a deficit, even if you don't quite hit it, you're probably way beyond what you normally would be and you're still gonna get great results. But the main thing is to keep the protein on. Okay. So the last thing about the challenge is, I actually asked some more self reflective questions in the final survey, and then I summarize these and to get you what the themes were of the challenge. So there were four themes that emerged. The first one is that most participants saw noticeable fat loss, especially around the midsection. Great, that's what we're going for. Many participants learned the value of high protein diets and had an increase in their nutritional education in terms of making a calorie deficit more manageable. Awesome. That's what I'm all about. Let's learn. The third theme is improved self confidence. Some people found that discipline from the challenge had a ripple effect on their mental well been, um, I even got a personal video from someone in the challenge thanking me specifically for that, that they did not expect to learn so much about their, their mental state and actually improve them for the better because they found what they were made of, they found what how they can push the limits with support, and what they what they like and what they don't what they can and can't do, and, and actually improve their mental state, which I love. And then the last thing was making progress, most participants said they had met their goals, which weren't always the fat loss it might have been, but it could have also been body recomp staying on target with their macros, you know, getting a Kickstart to further fat loss, whatever. Most people said, yeah, they met what their goal was for the challenge. Now, I also ask them about their next goal. And it's interesting, because it's, it was either up to lean bulk or body recomposition. I do feel like somebody said they wanted to continue fat loss. But I sort of cautioned against it. Because once you've gone through such an aggressive to weak phase, my suggestion is to recover out of it first before you then resume into like a normal fat loss phase. If you want to do a go fast, then go slow approach, I wouldn't go this aggressively or this fast to start because I think you get too much adaptation too quickly, too much of a draining energy, and then you don't give yourself a chance to recover. So that's just my two cents. So some participants wanted to go to a lean bulk, right, they wanted to go back to a slight South calorie surplus. And some people wanted to do some body recomp go back to maintenance. Also, a lot of people wanted to just find a more sustainable rhythm, since they had now learned some really good tools for choosing foods in the extremes. And then carrying those principles into a much less extreme environment that actually makes it really easy.

Philip Pape 46:43

I also asked about their training just to make sure everybody's training the way they want it to. And there are a whole mix of programs. But the recurring theme was progressive overload. And training four to six days was very common. So which makes a lot of sense, because a lot of my community members and clients are already say, late novice or intermediate trainees who are up to like 40 splits or five day power building programs or 60, bodybuilding programs, things like that. And so that's pretty common. I didn't want any newbies who'd never trained doing this challenge. daily steps, the average step count ranged from four to 14 and a half and the group average was 10.1k. So 10,107 steps, and then everyone seemed to be committed to maintaining some level of daily activity, regardless of the step count. What did participants love the most two things, community and simplicity. They loved the group setting, the accountability, the motivation, it kept everyone going and engaged. And we talked every day. And when people were down on themselves a little bit, we lifted them up, it's awesome. The second thing was simplicity, several people found that this challenge was easier to adhere to than expected. And that was a huge one because I didn't, you know, I didn't know it was gonna happen. But within about four or five days, people are saying, You know what, this isn't so bad. Like it's a big deficit. But we've got the support or eat a lot of protein, we're learning to choose foods for satiety, and volume and so on. We're training, wow, this is like the right way to do it, even though it's very fast, abridged way to do it. Okay. So that's the challenge results. I hope that was enlightening in some way to give you some relief to know that this is doable, and it doesn't have to feel extreme. And so, you know, based on my personal anecdotal experience, in myself experiment, based on the experience of the challenge, and all these wonderful people in our community, I think that a rapid fat loss phase can be an effective way to lose fat quickly while preserving muscle mass. Now, now, there are some limitations of this. So before we get to the findings, and my recommendations, the short duration means that large scales, large swings and scale weight for reasons other than body fat can actually have a larger impact on the measurements in that short period than if you were in a longer fat loss phase, right? Like your weight is more sensitive to those. So that's one thing to watch out for. The second thing is body fat measurement is just not precise. I'm not going to beat a dead horse already talked about that. The third is I didn't fully adhere to the protein intake, I was like 4% under. So I might have been had better results. If I had like with my lean mass retention. The next one is that expenditure data may not be quite reflective of reality, because of how rapidly everything was changing. And this the main thing is that this could affect how you calculate your calories and macros coming out of the diet post diet recovery. In that case, I would recommend just going back to what your maintenance was two weeks before initially and then letting it kind of catch up to where your to maintenance is. The other thing is and this is really important. So let's listen to me carefully here. If you're thinking oh, I really want to do this. This protocol can be challenging for people who are not physiologically or mentally prepared to execute it. properly. So before everyone throws their hands up and says, Oh man, this is like rapid dieting. This is Quick Fix crash dieting. Hopefully I've indicated through all this episode that that's not the case. But I do want you to be prepared. These are some things that could happen if you don't execute it properly. Okay? The first is you're gonna get much greater muscle loss. If you don't have enough protein intake, you're going to lose a bunch of muscle when you go this quickly. It's why most fat loss faces are not anywhere near this, you might get micronutrient deficiencies, if you don't choose nutrient dense foods, you're gonna get an energy deficiency. And if you don't do it, right, it could affect your training. It could recap, refractory recovery, and biofeedback more than it would otherwise, you're going to get faster metabolic adaptation, right than typical fat loss phases. So don't look at this as jumpstart, look at this as one and done, get back and recover. You could be prone to binge eating, if the hunger becomes overwhelming. Now, you shouldn't have this if you're training and eating the protein and walking and all that and choosing foods the right way. But if anything is not done correctly, you get the same result that you do in a crash diet where you just get so ravenous that you overeat. Right, and we don't want to do that. Another thing is the temptation to continue past the 14 days, right? Oh, I'm on day 14, it hasn't been so bad. And look at all this weight loss. Let me go another week. And then another week after that, no, don't do that. That's, that's not sustainable at the end of the day. Um, I'm not I mean, I'm not going to discourage personal self experimentation, whatever you want to do. It's your choice. But for this protocol, I would not recommend continuing period. And then the last thing is that the refeed days may not be sufficient. If you don't foetal it fully take advantage of them. So let's say you don't quite eat up to the calories, or you don't really increase the carbs that much. Well, you're not getting the benefit of the refeed day. All right, so not doom and gloom. Here are my recommendations. Well, here are a couple findings. And then my seven lessons that you've all been waiting for, okay? The the very short duration, the 14 days might be an acceptable trade off with the significant calorie deficit. Because the symptoms of biofeedback, right hunger, poor sleep, poor energy, mood recovery, the loss of strength, are either going to be very short lived, like you might not even notice them until toward the end of the two weeks, or minimized altogether, you may not have them at all, like some people didn't experience hunger, right. So that's kind of where this trade off comes in. This phase is not, you know, quote unquote, sustainable in the sense that you could continue it beyond this period without significant muscle loss, but the principles can still be applied. And by pushing the limits like we do here, you can still learn a ton about yourself, which is where I think the value is. Okay, so here are my seven lessons or recommendations for anyone who's following this protocol, you ready? Number one, I would increase protein even further than the one gram per pound, I would aim for 1.2 to 1.5. Just aim for it. If you fall short, you'll fall about where you need to be. And if you hit it, you might find even better results in terms of lean mass retention. So it doesn't hurt to try that number to

Philip Pape 53:08

select all of your foods based on satiety and nutrient density. So when you're doing your meal plan, every time you make a choice, think about its ability to keep you full. So things like protein, things like white potatoes, right? And nutrient density doesn't have a lot of nutrients it fruits, vegetables and so on. The third lesson is to just it's kind of related to what I just said. But it's a very specific recommendation for everybody. Increase your consumption of fibrous vegetables in high volume foods period. Okay, and whether or not that like ties into satiety index or nutrient density, it will, but I want you to just think of every opportunity throughout the day snacks, lunch, dinner to throw in greens, greens, greens, veggies, all the veggies that you love, raw cooked whatever, you know, keep them steamed or roasted with minimal oils, and high volume foods, things with water soups, just like throw those all into your meal plan right from day one, it's going to help a lot. Number four, try shifting the refeed days around your hardest training days. Now in this protocol, the refeed days were fixed to days five and 10. But why not experiment? Maybe you shifted up one day or back one day and see if it aligns better with your training because in my case, it didn't always line up. And I probably could have gotten more use out of a refeed day if it was shifted by one day. So that that's a more advanced thing to try that that's what I would do next time. Number five, get enough sleep please. This is always important. But really look at your calendar and plan out this fat loss phase on it's in a time where you can definitely get the full seven, eight hours of sleep or even more every single day because it's gonna go a long way in terms of your expenditure, your recovery, your energy, how you feel everything and your mental state. Number six, maintain a high training stimulus. Okay, that's That's by default as part of this challenge, but balanced the volume for recovery. So just be aware that if you are training six days a week, or five days a week right now, and you continue that into the fat loss phase, you may have a lot of volume. You may I don't know, I don't know what your program looks like. I mean, if they're 30 minute sessions, you may not but if they're like typical power building sessions, you'd have to cut something out and plan to do that. But still keep the compound lifts and the low rep high intensity stuff in there. Okay. And then number seven, maintain a high step count, no matter what, and I would aim for at least 12,000. If you can get something like 15,000 On average, to increase your energy flux, your metabolic rate and avoid all of the other cardio, it may help even more. Right. So those are my seven lessons. There are probably a lot more with everything else I said today. And again, if you want the Rapid Fat Loss guide, you go to wits & weights.com/free. Okay, so there you have it, everything you could possibly know about doing a rapid fat loss phase or a micro cut, so you can make your own informed decision about whether it's right for you. And again, if you want the exact protocol, just click the link in my show notes will go to wits & weights.com/free, and look for the free Rapid Fat Loss guide. In our next episode 117 Starting strength the novice effect and barbell lifts with Cody anino Cody and I talk about the transformative power of barbell training, you'll learn the principles and benefits of the starting strength program. Very popular one that I followed that I recommend to so many people because it's so effective. You'll learn some common misconceptions about strength training, and the critical, crucial novice effect. We'll compare different training methods look at how barbell training impacts mental health and touch on the future of online versus in person coaching in the fitness world. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Philip Pape 10/20/23 Philip Pape 10/20/23

Ep 115: How Tony Lost 15 Lbs, 8% Body Fat, and Built Lifelong Strength with Barbell Training

Today, I’m sitting down with my friend, fellow lifter, and client, Tony Perri. We first met in Andy Baker’s Barbell Club, where we soon realized our unique personalities complemented and pushed each other to new heights of strength, health, and physique. In this episode, we’ll discuss his transformative journey, the intricacies of nutrition and barbell training, and the mental hurdles. Tony’s insights, which at this point are at the core of his being, could radically change your perspective and approach to fitness, nutrition, and health.

Tony played various sports throughout his life. In his 30s, he competed in obstacle course races after doing calisthenics for a few years. He realized that functional bodyweight training and occasional competitions provided diminishing returns and little carryover to regular life. Barbell training became his central training mode due to its incredible carryover and longevity benefits. It boosts his confidence, making him a better spouse, father, and business operator.
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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:55] Evolution of fitness interests over a decade
[6:14] Decision to embrace barbell training
[8:03] The guiding role of curiosity in life
[10:44] How discipline in the gym translates to life
[16:28] What was and wasn’t learned from a nutritionist
[19:06] Reasoning for not seeking a coach in Starting Strength
[24:07] The balance between making progress and hitting PRs, and being your own worst critic
[31:11] Combining intuitive eating and tracking for nutrition
[38:14] The role of nutrition and sleep in recovery
[42:36] Overcoming mental hurdles during a cut
[45:54] Top three educational takeaways from body composition improvement
[54:28] Mental challenges and breakthroughs in barbell training
[57:22] Unexpected benefits of switching to barbell training
[1:06:50] What question did Tony wish Philip had asked
[1:11:02] How to connect with Tony
[1:12:36] Outro

Episode resources:

Wits & Weights Facebook community – say hi to Tony
Baker Barbell Club – Andy Baker’s community that Tony and I are in; recommended for ALL lifters who want effective programming

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

Transcript

Tony Perri 00:00

barbell training is not just about the muscles. I can't stand when I even hate saying that because it's about tissues. It's about the tendons, the ligaments. It's about the neurological changes the metabolic change. It's about so many more things than just muscle. And I think I think once I realized that I realized that it was a lot more than just moving load.

Philip Pape 00:24

Tony Perri 03:19

Phillip, how are we doing?

Philip Pape 03:21

How's it going? Man? You have to sit there and take it but you know that is the story.

Tony Perri 03:25

Not bad. You're weak bastard. Not bad, not bad.

Philip Pape 03:29

Get stronger every day. No,

Tony Perri 03:31

we're trying you all try you do impress me. Hey, man,

Philip Pape 03:35

we impress each other.

Tony Perri 03:35

So he should compliment you.

Philip Pape 03:37

Yeah, just rankles. You. I know.

Tony Perri 03:39

But you so you do impress me. So.

Philip Pape 03:42

So Tony and I have have a good sense of humor, which I really appreciate. Because, you know, there's a lot of just not gonna use the word but they are out in the world that just don't. Don't. And we try to keep it light. Yeah. All right. So so to start with the personal side, before we dive into the specific experience here with nutrition. You know, I mentioned in the intro, how your interests have evolved over over over about a decade plus, right, you used to do functional training the OCR hours, and you trade differently today. So tell us about that transition

Tony Perri 04:13

in a bit more detail. I did the I did the OCR hours. After I did calisthenics, because it was a lot of fun. Naturally, I'm pretty athletic. So I did very well in that form of training. But the biggest downfall with that I realized was it was external validation. I would go to the gym and I would change up the workout every single day and I would do all sorts of different stuff. And people would say, well, that's cool or this and that and I did improve at certain things. I did great at OCRs. But you mentioned my my perspective evolved and it was really based in realizing that what I was doing a was only fun in the moment and be I did it because I liked the audience. And so there was no satisfaction, the diminishing returns added up really quickly for me. So there was a whole, there was a, there was a really big fitness hole of my life and they didn't really know what that was. So

Philip Pape 05:16

then so really two good things that are right one, the idea that you can have fun, but at the end of the day, it's not really fun, because it's this instant gratification type of fun. Like, that's what it was. Yeah, kind of like, you know, I talked about people say, Well, isn't it hard to do this or that? Like, in the moment? It's hard, the long term, it's fun here, you're talking? Well, at the moment, it's fun, but long term, what are you getting out of it? Right,

Tony Perri 05:37

I trained I did a lot of running for my training. And that's one of the reasons I was so successful in my OCR is I was always top five. I trained as running mostly I would do six miles seven, eight miles, I did a 13 mile, you know, I think it was an eight minute mile, maybe 730 minute mile. But um, that was probably the hardest I worked at that time. But after I after I got to a certain point in running. Again, there was a there was a void in me, I'm like, I don't want to just run and I don't want to flip around. I don't want to work toward one headed. Yeah, pull ups. So there's just a void that was not filled.

Philip Pape 06:14

Alright, so you've got that this void this emotional void? Not necessarily enjoying your training? What was the internal switch or the revelation that led you to embrace Barbie

Tony Perri 06:24

object specific like the objectivity? Well, we all I'm gonna say a general statement. When we strength trained long term we like we do it for the durability, it makes us stronger, we feel more durable, we feel better, all that. I like, the objectivity of barbell training. Once I started to NLP, I was hooked. Because I had data on the improvement or the regression. never recorded myself every single, every set, probably to a fault, because I overthought it but I can see, again, I had that I could see what I was doing. Because in my head, I'm like, I just squatted this, right. And I think I sent you a video a while ago of my squat, like it's 2017. And I looked at the video, and it was terrible, really not depth. Oh, my foot. I wasn't over there was over my mid foot wasn't bracing, right. So from the data point of barbell training, offered me objective data for improvement. And I really latched on to that, because before that point, again, it was very immediate gratification. It was subjective, it was what I wanted to do that day and didn't work. So horrible training, really, that produced the data, no matter how I felt, when I walked into the gym, no matter. You know, when I walked in, or when I walked out, I looked at the paper, and I'm like, Okay, this is this is the progression of the regression. And that was that void that was filled. It was showing me okay, this is, this is actual data of what you're doing. Right? I don't do the workout of the day thing. I don't do the subjectivity of feel like doing this. That doesn't work for me. That was that was the switch, you asked about the switch? That was the switch? Yeah, I

Philip Pape 08:04

can relate to that. Tony is I mean, we probably had very similar experiences where you almost dread the workout of the day, but knowing that you just added five pounds and did it again. And again. Now you're like, Well, I want to go in there. So if I can keep that move it, you know, added a

Tony Perri 08:19

pound added a rep added a set, I shortened the rest times, I switched up these two exercises. And even though, you know, the first exercise was was was second last week, I maintained the load, right? There's all these different ways that you can progress. And that was really key for me, because I had evidence, it was actual objective evidence of progress.

Philip Pape 08:39

Yeah, let you know how much I love data and talk about it all the time. And I think a lot of people conflate data with obsession, whereas in reality, when they start tracking data, they realize it sort of liberates, the uncertainty liberates you from the uncertainty, the ambiguity. And you talk about objectivity. It's the microcosm of that is a single squat or single rep. And I haven't talked about that in a while. So I'm glad you brought that up. The idea that even when we do a squat, our form is done in a way to ensure objectivity from rep to rep. Right. So even consensus microcosm, which you won't get from, I don't know, box chunks, or something.

Tony Perri 09:17

No, no, I mean, even with this is, again, why I record myself to ensure that that consistency, because say you go from 100 pounds, one week to 105 to 110. But you're inching up, up, up, okay? You have evidence that you're not progressing. You're reducing the load, that's a stress stimulus is going down. So you got to maintain all the same parameters, and then progress progress, which is why I'm a big fan of recording. I mean, yeah, different angles. Look at him.

Philip Pape 09:48

Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. It's not just are you progressing but are you regressing and then you can decide what's causing that.

Tony Perri 09:54

You can tell yourself so much and you're you could you could convince yourself of so much record one set. Look at yourself, look at your hips now go from this angle. The bars traveling forward, you may not you may you may think my squat is great. And then you look at his side view the bars traveling forward and it's like, yeah,

Philip Pape 10:11

totally agree. If you're listening to this, do that, like in your next workout, literally record yourself and be your own worst critic, and then feel free to share it with others who might be able to give you exactly the

Tony Perri 10:21

point prove yourself wrong. I look for it. I love it. And it's sometimes the guts me because I'm feeling great about a lift. And I'm like, I have a little bit of doubt. And I'm like, You got to record yourself from this angle. Look for this one thing, ya know, it feels good. You feel like everything's working? Well look at it, because reality is going to tell you. Yeah, reality is going to tell you whether or not it actually you just got to listen. Yeah.

Philip Pape 10:45

Now this this newfound love for the process and objectivity and data. Did it have the reverse effect on you as well of translating into your philosophy or approach to life in general? Like, you know, we can call it discipline but whatever word you want to use? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Tony Perri 11:01

Yeah, you know, me at this point a little better than than many people but it barbell training the the not let giving yourself and out and barbell training and being very aggressive and looking for the ugly things and doing the hard work, the grind, the grind, that fit that fit me, it really fit my personality. So from there, that was the that was the athletic void that was filled. And I could be a critical bastard with myself. And I'm I mean, that's why I don't mind being a critical bastard with other people. Because guess what I am that? Yeah, like, so it's like I will, I don't shield myself from any ugly critique, I will look for it. And be you know, and look for those flaws. Because once you find those flaws, I was just explaining to my son this morning, when you're solving the problem, the hardest part is finding the problem. Once you identify the problem, and you can solve it, your most of your work is going to be doing looking and searching for what the problem is. And then you can say, Okay, this is the problem. And this is how we problem solve it. I do that with training all the time. Again, it's a mental activity, expressed physically, I'm very mental about it. It is not a it's not a physical or emotional thing. It's how can I problem solve these things? Look for the flaw. Once I find the flaw, I can fix it. We just talked about it after I was doing my cut. My squat was terrible. And then I figured out who was my leverages that were way. And I've never been in that position before. So I had to think about it. And once I figured that out, other things came together. Just fantastic. Yeah. And I'm already back to where I started.

Philip Pape 12:33

I think it's a principle based approach, because you said you got to do a brand new experience and a new problem that you've never encountered before. But rather than think, okay, there's something wrong with me, or there's something wrong with the process. It was, there's a new problem that just needs a solution. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Which applies to everything about nutrition and everything else.

Tony Perri 12:52

So absolutely. Yeah. I don't assume I know the answer. I'm like, What's the what is it? That's why I I will ask people at the gym are very respectful about it. And you know, as people, I'll seek out your advice, what's your perspective on this? What am I not seeing? Just so I can see it and then move forward? That's it. Yeah. Ego in there. There's no it's

Philip Pape 13:11

curiosity. It's pure curiosity, which is Yeah, so you go curiosity. Yeah, I feel that. Yeah, I feel that. So you mentioned it being a grind. And I know you weren't necessarily saying that in a negative, you were just more of a momentum and persistence perspective, but just explain that to people who may be hesitant about even getting into barbell training they could think is this really hard to say? It's,

Tony Perri 13:32

it's hard to get around the fact that barbell training is hard. I embrace the fact that it's hard. And I actually am one of the people who really liked that grind, though hard, hard work. I like to be in the trenches. I don't like to be, I don't like to have too much of a tailwind. I'd like to be working against something. Because, again, when you're working against something, that's what resists your will. And that's what allows your will to exert itself even harder. When things are not that hard. We're not going to work as hard to overcome them. So I always I like to have the challenge. I like to grind. Sometimes it's more fun than others. But I, it's hard to translate it because a lot of this is my own personality, my own take on it. Some of it is just the fact that barbell training is progressive barbell training is going to be hard. I realize not everybody is going to progressively overload. I see it in the gym all the time. Right. So if someone is interested, let's qualify this as someone who's interested in getting stronger fitter, more durable, resilient, you have to do progressive overload. And you have to do the grind. You have to search embrace those last two, three reps of that stuff that triple the fourth fifth restaurant, the triple you have to embrace that to get the benefit you All right, you may not like it, you may not go toward it like me. But you have to do that if you want to progress with barbell training guy just happened to be one of those psychos who embraces that you got

Philip Pape 15:11

to get the mechanical tension, right? We conversation about that this week. But let's let's just put one more lens on it because is it harder to do that? Or is it harder to not progress and go to the gym over and over and over again and not progress? Like,

Tony Perri 15:25

what do you ladder?

Philip Pape 15:26

Yeah, the last I just want to be clear for people like, it's different types of hard. There's the hard that helps you grow and feel fulfilled? And there's the harder it's just you're stuck, right? Yeah.

Tony Perri 15:36

And that's a good question you just asked, because during my cut, it was very hard for me to switch my training lens from grind to just hold on to whatever muscle you can because the priority was to maintain the deficit. The priority is not to gain mass or set prs. So I had to change my perspective to just do what you can. That's not me. Yeah, except it's not me at all. I had to just I couldn't stand it. But I'm like, this is the right thing for the long term.

Philip Pape 16:04

Yep. It is. It is frustrating. And I know you've you've experimented with it and talk to me this week about the next time you do it, maybe you will try a different mode of training that still holds muscle of maybe gives you a little more of that. That enjoyment of the of the training itself.

Tony Perri 16:18

Yeah. Just again, you doing more of the embracing more mechanical tension through the rep ranges that we talked about? Yeah.

Philip Pape 16:25

All right. So let's dive into let's dive into the nutrition. Right. So going back to your past, and then we'll get to now you had guidance from a nutritionist during your calisthenics days.

Tony Perri 16:34

I did work with a nutritionist. I was I was definitely, I think it was 181 85. But I was untrained. I was sedentary. Right? I was in terrible shape. So she, we didn't track anything. What she did was she she wrote the meals. And basically, she cut out the fat and we ate a very, a lot of Whole Foods. And it was just lean meat, a lot of grains, a lot of grains, it was boring, but the weight flew off. Once I hit 168 She's like we got to stop we got to stop with with the cutting and whatnot. I wasn't strength training, per se. At that point. When I say per se I was doing like sprints in my yard push ups on the picnic table and that kind of stuff. Right? I enjoyed the process. She did individualize it every week, she'd write the meal plan, and then still, how you doing do check ins and then we would change certain things based on the outcome. I learned how to eat cleaner. But that's pretty much it. Just eat whole foods cleaner. I mean, yeah, the grocery bill was ridiculously expensive, because we were putting all sorts of stuff in it. And then it's like, that was that was the long and short of that process. I don't think I learned a lot. Okay. So action. It was an it was a successful from the action standpoint that lost weight, ate better foods. But I didn't learn much. And this is why when, when when I talk to you initially boycott, I'm like, I'm not just interested in cutting weight. I want to actually learn stuff from us. That's why that's exactly why because I learned from that process. Like, I don't want to just succeed. I'm not ins driven. I want the means. Yeah.

Philip Pape 18:25

Yeah. And I think you did. And it's funny because I have clients who are super curious and want to learn from day one and others that they want the results, but then they're surprised that it is really that they develop skills, and they learn a lot. Because I lay us out well you to fire me after six months, you could do this on your own. And yeah, keep working together if you have new new goals and challenges, but meal plans are not the way to go. You know, cutting out foods is not the way to go. I think you are you know that by now.

Tony Perri 18:52

Yeah, you know, understanding, making the informed choice for yourself about where you're going to eat and when you're not going to eat and it's not the end of the day, if you have Oreo cookies. Yeah,

Philip Pape 19:00

ya know, for sure I love like we said already, so drop me to give them in milk. Good stuff. So, okay, so that was your past of nutrition, we're gonna eventually connect that to the present. I do want to tie in the training a little bit more, because you mentioned the starting strength NLP, which is the novice linear progression, which for the listener is a three day Full Body program to get very strong very quickly. You said you didn't seek out a coach at the time you didn't attend a seminar? What was your reasoning for going in alone? And what was that, like?

Tony Perri 19:29

My idea of training from scratch is that if you have if you have some kind of a safety net, you're gonna take it, right. So what I did was I put everything on the table and I said, I am ultimately responsible for learning this. I had the starting strength books, I had the videos, and I accepted that it was not perfect. It was not comprehensive. But I was so new to the sport that I didn't want to expose myself to so many different resources because I didn't have the tools to discriminate. Make between those resources. So I kept it simple, I kept it. I did what I could with the videos in the books, and I just trained on my own through recording myself and critiquing myself to the point where I was satisfied that I had done everything I could in my head to train and figure out and improve. And that's when I that's when I, you know, got Andy Baker, you know, that's why I signed up for this group, because I'm like, I realized that I take in my own brain as far as I could. And I took it really far. I gotta tell you, like, I I bashed myself against this my personality. But there were signs where I'd have a pen and paper and I'm trying to figure it out. Like just solving the puzzle. That's all it was to me. It my NLP took a while because I did a lot of resets, because the my videos showed that my form was terrible. So I reset the weight. Yeah. So that process, it taught me so much because it was so intense. It was just me. I had nobody, it was just me. There's no lifting buddies. Right? It was a great process. It was sloppy, it took long, but at the end of it, I had a lot of confidence, because I'm because I was the one who will, who figured it out, figured out.

Philip Pape 21:16

Yeah, I understand that that process of self experimentation, which you can take to a certain level and but sometimes, right, you want help? So you mentioned Yeah. You mentioned you didn't have the tools to discriminate between the resources. Right? Didn't that didn't? You weren't necessarily you thought it would be just spreading yourself too thin to go and go this all these different directions? Is that what you're getting at?

Tony Perri 21:40

Well, that is a good question. So I realized that the SS crew mainly would rip who's on who's on the videos knew what the heck he was talking about. It's easy to see that because he's simple. He's upfront, he's very objective. He will talk about the simplest thing for 10 minutes and lay out every single part of it. So you know, he's talking about, you know, he knows what he's talking about. So I said, I trust this source. I am not experienced enough to, to meet through all this other stuff to see who else is going to be a positive influence. So I said, for now, I'm just gonna do this one source, not forever. I'm just gonna do this one source until I have a basis. And then I will allow myself to open up doors. This is one thing I've I think people screw up about social media, they, they look up, they just confused themselves. And they distract themselves with all these different resources. And then they wind up where?

Philip Pape 22:39

Yeah, it's a shiny object syndrome.

Tony Perri 22:41

Exactly. That's a shiny object syndrome. And I resisted that. And it worked very well. So it was a great, it was a great idea I had.

Philip Pape 22:50

Yeah, no, it is funny. You say that? Do you remember you remember probably early in starting strength, when you looked at form checks, there were different places to see form checks, right? They had their own community on Facebook, but there was also the Reddit community that they made fun of because it's just every man for himself. There's no moderation whatsoever. And so even in the starting straight Reddit forum, you could get led the wrong direction with a bad form check. You know,

Tony Perri 23:13

I wanted to insulate myself from that because I recognized I didn't have the ability to not see bullshit from good stuff. So I said, I'm only gonna look at search right? Until I grow a little bit and then the door now the door is open. Now I look at all sorts of stuff. Sure. I can be like Idiot, idiot, you know, he's talking about oh, look further into that

Philip Pape 23:32

this and that got the judge rebuilt up now. Yeah. And that nice. judge, judge,

Tony Perri 23:35

judge the hell out and

Philip Pape 23:38

I think you know, you're gonna like, next week, Cody Nino is gonna be on he's, he's like the I think he's the only guy in Connecticut that's starting strength coach, I think there's only one right? And he, he actually helped me for one session, one session that fixed your squat, it's my squat and deadlift and press or know squat, squat and press. Yeah. So you know, but again, you have to know to discriminate, find those resources. Okay, so you and I, we always talk about the value of either there's the people who want to max out all the time, right, like on starting strength in your NLP, that's effectively what you're doing, you're maxing out your three by five, by five, you should set exactly. But then there's, then there's the idea of making progress, which at some point, you hit a wall, right? When you become an intermediate lifter, and you're not always hitting PRs, or you get injured or you have recovery issues, or you go on vacation vacation. So I mean, what is your perspective just for the listener on when when you focus on PRs versus when you would,

Tony Perri 24:35

when you focus? Okay, are you talking about there is are two questions in there.

Philip Pape 24:40

So, what's the value of maxi now versus making progress without necessarily always maxing out? Okay,

Tony Perri 24:46

well maxing out period, if you are, there's no point maxing out if you're if you're a novice. This is pretty common knowledge because every single session, since you can recover so quickly, every single session has a max right? Once you get to a certain point where you recovery takes a longer period of time you maxing out, it does have a certain benefit, because specifically if you're in a percentage based program, because your percentages are based off your one rep max, right? Also, rep max out like one RMS, they're gonna teach you to grind, like to do a 101 RM is completely different skill set than a three RM, you're putting everything on the line for that for that one, Max. And if you're gonna make it a regular process, you have to learn how to program well, because that one Rm is going to drain your nervous system, right? So if you're going to do this is why these random, the random maxing out is so stupid because it drains so many resources, you're not thinking oh, yeah,

Philip Pape 25:43

the Hey, I'm gonna test my deadlift. Today, I'm gonna test my dad. Yeah,

Tony Perri 25:46

if you're gonna max out well, you, you got to think about from now, if you max out your deadlift, your squat and your deadlift are going to be affected. If you're let's say, generally, if you're after 30, I'm going to say 10 to 20 days, it's going to be affected, right, if you're younger, you'll probably be able to recover a little bit faster from that, that's huge. Because if you're in a training cycle, where you're doing weekly training, and you just did one lift, that's going to affect you for 1014 days, guess what your entire your whole training has to change the next couple of weeks, that's a big, that's a big cost to pay. So if you're gonna max out, it does have benefits, it recruits a whole lot of muscle fibers, it gives you a it can give you confidence, it can be very humbling. It tests your form. But it's it's really going to test the rest of your training. So I think you really got to take it seriously. And if not, you're you're just going to be spinning your wheels, you're not going to be setting.

Philip Pape 26:44

Yeah, no, for sure. I think that's one reason we both like Andy's conjugate program, right? Because you rotate through what you're maxing out, which is an innovative concept, because you can't necessarily know intuitively that a back squat versus a front squat. Wouldn't have taxi out the same

Tony Perri 27:01

taxi the same does because yeah, it's cycles, the cycles, the stress, so a max effort front squats, not going to completely drain you for the following weeks max effort box squat, right? Yep, I don't do the conjugate, I do the 852. And I've det I talked to Andy about it because I've really morphed my my programming. I've melted basically conjugate in a five to two. So it allows me to hit higher intensity lifts. So for people that don't know what a five two is, you do an eight rep max for you're working separate first week, second week is five rep max, third week is a two rep max. What I did is I made my twos week, twos slash one week. So if my lifts are really progressing, my body feels great. I'm not just going to go for a two on that twos week, I'll go for a single, right. And it'll be draining. But guess what the following week, it's an eight or eight rep max, cool, load comes down. It's more, it's more of a work capacity thing. So that's how I program deliberately plugin, he is deliberately programming your max effort lifts. Because if you don't use your your strength train is going to be shot. That's how I program the max effort. And it's actually working out pretty well.

Philip Pape 28:11

Yeah, let me ask you that. And then we're going down a programming rabbit hole, which I didn't necessarily intend to. But I think it's awesome, because people are really fascinated about that. For when you do the twos when he on twos week, do you still hit the two at the intended load for two and then go for one,

Tony Perri 28:26

no, one kind

Philip Pape 28:28

of skipped that.

Tony Perri 28:30

Much, because the two the two was the rep max so senior year, which is basically 9592 to 95% of your one rep max, one

Philip Pape 28:40

rep max or it's it's a max for three sets of two.

Tony Perri 28:43

It's the idea as a two two rep max a single. Now, depending upon your training, you can do three sets of that I do not okay, don't respond well to set all right. Again, you have to individualize it. So to answer your first question, I will know if I'm, if I'm going to close to a one rep max attempt instead of a two if the previous week and fives I did. I hit like a seven. Right? So for example, the other week I did, I did on fives week I hit seven, right? So I know that I'm progressing, I might be able to do have the have the strength and progress to do a one RM instead of just the two. If I grinded against that fiber am I only hit four reps, or barely hit the fifth. I'm gonna know that next week. I'm probably just gonna get a two maybe I'm gonna have to drop the load a little bit. See what I'm saying?

Philip Pape 29:36

You're doing a top set on the on each of these that you find you're not doing two or three, you're just doing a top set.

Tony Perri 29:40

Not with squat and deadlift anymore. Can I do one top set and I'll do a 10% Back off 10% Back with a dressing I can do top six through the roof

Philip Pape 29:47

and on your top set sounds like you will push past the programmed reps if you can't. So that's the

Tony Perri 29:53

thing. Yeah, my program is circle load. So again, I don't know I don't have a crystal ball. I don't I didn't know the other day that I was gonna be able to hit seven Yep, I thought I was gonna go for five because the previous cycle five, I did five pounds less and you incrementally increase five pounds each cycle. So I'm like, I'm just gonna go for three, you know, 350 is what I got programs, this is what I'm going to do and that just 1234567 And I'm like, Oh, wow, that's pretty good, right? I didn't I wasn't the hero after that I dropped the load 10% But that told me that the squat is progressing were the twos week might actually become a one week.

Philip Pape 30:28

Yeah, I love it. And and for people listening, like who are confused in any way. Like it took you a long time to get to this point, right? It's yours, like the basics, and then more advanced programming that was still tempt sort of templated then getting into a barbell club where you got feedback and individualized coaching. And now you can kind of tweak yourself. Yeah,

Tony Perri 30:47

trial. It's a it's trial and error, critique yourself, but go easy on yourself. You're not going to get it in one week, or one month or six months. It's gonna take a while to figure out what like, I have my own programming now. Like, yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape 31:01

So there's some parallels to this on the nutrition side, because you and I knew each other for a while, before you reached out for help, specifically, as a client. Early on, you reached out to talk, right? We had like, one of my free calls that I do, and we chatted about your outlook and what you could do, and you're like, Yeah, I'm not ready. You know, I don't need to hire you right now. But I understand where you're going. And for a while, we went back and forth. Like you would share your data with me, I'd say you gotta eat more carbs. You'd say No way. And we go.

Tony Perri 31:30

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But

Philip Pape 31:33

your experience before I view it as and correct me if I'm wrong, like a form of intuitive eating, right. Your routine allows you to maintain your wheat for for awhile without tracking. And you're eating the whole foods and stuff. Maybe some of that you had learned from the past experience? Yeah. And then I came along, and I said, Hey, maybe maybe more tracking, you get more precision, more objectivity, right? If you're going for a change in your body, that's the key. Yes. Right, if you want to really cut and do it efficiently. So what are your thoughts on all that the intuitive eating stuff side the tracking skills, etc? Yeah,

Tony Perri 32:04

so intuitive eating I think is a skill, like anything else that unbilled I'm big on people acquiring skills, so that you can have independence. That being said, if you don't know much about nutrition, your intuitive eating is only going to be that is only going to be up to that level. Right? So when we say intuitive eating, we act like it's this universal value, like we just I'm just going to eat intuitively and everybody's going to perform the same way. We are not. So I can now since I've, you know worked with you and learn more about macros, and how to balance them. I can eat, I can eat intuitively, right? But the how I eat intuitively has changed, because I am more informed and effective at eating. Right. So in terms of bulking and cutting, I would prefer to be more precise, therefore tracking, I would lean on macro factor to track, right? I still track I'm at maintenance right now I still track but I'm more loose about it, because I have a better understanding of things. So I really think intuitive eating and tracking are they don't have to be at war. They can they can work, they can both be tools that have skills that you can use at different times. And if you have the ability to use, if you have the certain ability to use either one of them, then you're a fuller, more independent person than if you just did one. And that's what when I first started talking to you, yeah, it was I was eating intuitively, but I had a lot of holes. So what's the sense, right, yeah, I want to learn the basics, start tracking, see it, and then I can eat intuitively again, go back to tracking, learn more, and basically, Ratchet my way toward just a better way of nutritional life.

Philip Pape 33:47

Yeah, yeah. I love the way you put it, how it's acquiring skills, you gain independence, and the way you've done it has changed, right? Because people are eating, quote, unquote, intuitively, and it's terrible.

Tony Perri 34:01

Exactly. That again, I hate to compliment you, but I'm really happy with what I learned from you working with. Like, what, specifically carbohydrates, dropped, the fats don't eat too much fat, I eat plenty of protein. And another thing that you really helped me see is food is just energy. It's just energy. Right? And if you approach it from a weekly intake standpoint, rather than daily, you have more flexibility. Like for example, yesterday, I accidentally ate in a deficit, right? I think I was even 10 grams of protein short. No big deal. Yeah. Just eat a little bit more today. Right? It's not a big deal. Yeah, just make up for it. I love that. Yeah. It's not as like the end of the week. You're still eating what you need to eat. You're fine. Yeah,

Philip Pape 34:50

don't stress it. I mean, clients all the time when they check in and it's like, I'm off of my targets. It's like, okay, you know, it's okay. Obviously, if If you're you know, 1000s and 1000s of calories off, that's gonna be a different discussion. But chances are most people are if you're aiming for a target, you're gonna be in the ballpark. That's good enough.

Tony Perri 35:08

Yeah, exactly, yeah. And just nudge yourself in either direction you have you overeat one day, or for a couple couple days, just take it easy the next couple

35:20

to Philippe an awfully for a long time and know how passionate he is about healthy eating, and body strength. And that's why choosing to be my coach. I was no stranger to a dieting and body training. But I've always struggled to do it sustainably really helped me prioritize my goals with evidence based recommendations are not over stressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving. In six months, I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy. And now I have a more balanced diet. I weight train consistently. But most importantly, I do it sustainably if a scientifically sound healthy diet and a link strong body is what you're looking for. Really paid Easter guy.

Philip Pape 36:04

Tell us about your thoughts. Okay, so I was out with my family. This was like on a weekend and my wife and daughters, they were like in the bathroom or something. And you had texted me your macro factor? image this is before we were working together. And and you said what? What would the ratios Be or Not the ratio zero? Like what would the macro levels be your opinion? And I said pretty much flip the fats and carbs, right? He was like, way more carbs. And you just besides the way you respond, you're like, That's ridiculous. I don't know what that was. I mean, tell me your thoughts at that time. Why? What were you thinking of what your experience told you that this was this guy's nuts? At the moment?

Tony Perri 36:43

I didn't know how to consume that many carbohydrates without consuming Ultra processed foods. And I remember asking you what do I eat? And you gave me some suggestions. You're like, Well, why potato, sweet potato, rice? And I'm like, looking at myself. And I'm like, Well, I just asked a question. That was a stupid question. But it was good. That asked a stupid question. And I understood that most of my eating thanks to the first nutritionist was all those free foods, greens, I would eat greens and colorful things that don't have a lot of caloric value. I was eating nutritionally dense foods, specifically micronutrient dense foods. But when it came to the carbohydrate, macro, I really wasn't consuming a lot. Yeah. So that's why after you, you know, you're like, You got to flip those numbers. I'm like, How do I do that? And so now I literally just had chicken and rice. I'm getting used to it. I've gotten used to it now. And I love it. Yeah, at the beginning, it was hard. Because I mean, you're switching fats and carbs. It's like your diet is drastically changed.

Philip Pape 37:47

It's true. Because it because teens, and then fats and carbs are often together and processed foods. And it's like what

Tony Perri 37:54

what exactly do you eat? Yeah, and fats can be calorically dense. It's like it just anyway, it was very, it was jarring at first. But I realized that I needed to make a change. And I'm like, this is the guy that helped me make the changes slowly just implemented the changes to now there's less inertia to doing that, actually, there's no inertia to doing that

Philip Pape 38:14

now, to get through that comfort zone and kind of expand that comfort zone to get through exactly for people listening who are like maybe worried about increasing their carbs. And I've definitely had many, this is a very common story to be honest, in terms of going from lower lower to standard or higher carbs. You know, a lot of women that say well, I feel bloated, or I have digestive issues or whatever, there. There is an adaptation period. What was that? Like? If you went through that

Tony Perri 38:37

there was no physical okay should probably just have more energy. What i my i have the same cliche that many people have was probably just I just accepted the ignorance makes me fat. It makes me slow. It makes me gain weight in these we hold water. There you go. After, you know, I just again, they let you influence me. I said, this guy knows what he's talking about. I'm just gonna listen. Do it. Whatever psychological BS I had was just set aside and I just did it physically. It felt fine. Yeah.

Philip Pape 39:06

And it helps. It helps with your energy and recovery.

Tony Perri 39:09

Oh, goodness. Yeah. That's why I'm not rushing to a bulk right? With my diet change. Sticking Oh, seriously, I'm sticking to maintenance. My lips are doing great. My recovery is great, right? Strength is good. Once I get to a certain point of plateauing then I'll just bulk a little bit right the carbs have definitely helped with recovery with energy with pretty much with with everything I think. I think looking back on it, I really misunderstood certain biological feedback I was receiving as to not having enough protein when it was really not having enough carbohydrates. Yeah,

Philip Pape 39:41

yeah, cuz yeah, I remember you asked about like the protein sparing effects of carbs and we went down that rabbit hole of you know the body out you will use protein if it doesn't have enough carbs, and convert that to glucose. It doesn't go straight to your fat people would like to think that but it doesn't. It's going to go and use up some routine which then prevents its availability. for muscle building, so when you gain you know, we know this from keto diets that the people on keto gained like 1/5 the rate of muscle gain of people that aren't, you know,

Tony Perri 40:10

so, because of the protein sparing, yeah, that's it. Great. It's just carbohydrates are the Boogeyman. And hopefully this this BS stopped. Yeah. But like the boogey man for no good reason. Yeah. for no good reason.

Philip Pape 40:22

So speaking of recovery beyond that, right? I know you believe in the value of not only in nutrition, but also sleep and just recovery in general, especially as we get older. To the point where I feel the way you message it is like that almost should be the first thing you think about, before you start programming your lifts in your week, what are your thoughts? That's just my opinion of how it comes across?

Tony Perri 40:43

What should be the first thing? What

Philip Pape 40:45

are your thoughts on recovery in general, basically, especially for people in like the 40s and

Tony Perri 40:48

50s training is sleep and recovery is sleeping nutrition, right? Training is that because, again, you can't put garbage in your vehicle and expect the vehicle to go very far. Right? So I don't think about I don't think about recovery. Because I've mastered certain points of this. I tried to get really good sleep, continuous sleep. And it worked on eating whole foods. Now, specifically, more carbs, right. So that automatically fills in the request that maxes out my ability to recover. And then we have the other stuff like stress and whatnot, which psychological we try to balance that. But that is, that's recovery. I don't do I don't roll around on a foam roller, I don't use the massage gun. I mean, if I have a really, really sore, if I have a not a really bad knot, which doesn't happen very often, I'll take the massage gun to it. But I don't do this, like the what he calls static stretch recovery, and it's eating good foods, I gotta get good food in the body. I got to sleep, let the body rest. And I have to program smart. Meaning I don't go out to the beginning of the conversation. I don't go out max out all the time. I have to cycle the stress. This is all this all produces recovery.

Philip Pape 42:06

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great way to think about I think people you know, when you're younger, you don't think about it because you recover so easily. And you kind of learn the hard way. So if you're listening to this, learn the slightly easier way am I listening to Tony talk about how important that is?

Tony Perri 42:19

It is when you're younger, you can get away with a whole lot of stuff. And a lot of young lifters don't get away with it. They get they get hurt. Yeah. And then they look back. And when they're when they're 50. They're like, Oh, yeah, I wish I wouldn't have done that when I was 22. But you did now so we can do so.

Philip Pape 42:36

During during the cut specifically, I imagined recovery becomes even more important. Yeah,

Tony Perri 42:43

didn't recover. Yeah.

42:44

I didn't talk to him. Yeah,

Tony Perri 42:46

I didn't i Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I see it. I see guys a tangent. I see a lot of other lifters who who want to cut some fat and their progress looks great. And I'm like, You guys are awesome. Me. I was like a shriveled raisin, I was holding on for dear life. I was like, Oh, it was really hard to perform. My recovery, I had to stop. I was doing some running on a number that is outside trail. At that time, and I remember I just said I have to just walk at this point. Yeah. And so I had I had no ability to recover from anything. I was just in mentally it was taxing because I'm like, I felt like kryptonite. Yeah, I just feel so weak, right. But the deficit was just to be maintained. That was the priority. So I maintained the deficit and accepted all those costs. Until I started eating again, and then I recover fine.

Philip Pape 43:33

Yeah. I want to highlight that because you are at the viewer pegged at the upper limit of what we'd recommend for deficit, you were basically going all out at 1% a week. And sometimes it even crept past that, because you were just pretty disciplined. And like you said, you were that was your priority, and we kept the duration. And he was only six weeks, right? Whereas you could go how's that? Right, but now you're doing it for three months? And what's different trade? Right?

Tony Perri 43:58

Yeah. So my expenditure was about, I don't know, 20 903,000 on the cut in my intake was 2000. I have when I've when I dipped below 2000 is when I was like, can't do it. So I was I was sitting about 1000 calorie deficit a day for what six weeks? Yeah. It's big. It's bits. Yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot it is. And that's right around the point that 1000 calories used to be around the trigger point for a lot of people where it starts to go downhill fast, does it? It does. And,

Philip Pape 44:24

you know, we're doing this Rapid Fat Loss Challenge now for two weeks. And like, I have a similar expenditures, you 28 2900 And I mean, in around 1600 calories. So, you know, and I feel it's crazy, but you also have a couple of refeeds in there. But anyway, yeah, again, people listening, it's like, it's not about the quick fix. It's making the trade off between you know, how focused you want to be in the fat loss phase and deal with some of those recovery issues which are just going to happen it's your body saying, Hey, give me more physical I'm gonna release that to give you energy. Exactly versus you know, taking a little bit more lightly and but dragon Now for

Tony Perri 45:00

a while. And that's the thing. I didn't want to drag it out because I already feel like I've wasted enough time doing, you know, other stuff in life. I want to catch it. I want to make gains. Yeah. So I want to do exactly as short as possible. Exactly where as possible cut. Yeah, but that I mean, you made a good point that if you're going to cut, or bulk, or train or do anything, you have to be consistently put in the effort over time. Like, even though I only had a six week cut, I, every single day I took everything, every single meal was very, very serious. stuck with it got to the end goal, right? It's just like training. If you want to build up your bench, it's gonna take a long time. You can't switch goals. Yeah, you got to stick with it. Yeah, you'll get the goal, you'll get the result. What do you think so many kids take peds? Ya know, they don't want to

Philip Pape 45:44

get set up in a cut like yours is a short term, quote unquote, extreme, but a controlled extreme done the right way to get it over? No. So So speaking of your cut, because you talked about learning and education, what did what did you learn, either in general, from nutrition, and specifically from that cut, like, top two or three takeaways?

Tony Perri 46:03

Well about my body, I realized that my body down regulates hunger very quickly. After that first week, I didn't really experience much hunger, to a point where now I'm back on maintenance, I still have to, I don't have much hunger, but a little bit. So I just I learned that my body responds very well to being in deficit, in respect to the goal of cutting fat that, again, strength goes down, energy goes down, but my body says we're going to cut off a lot of fat. So that was a really big learning thing. For me. I also realized how simple it was very hard. But it was simple. Which is exactly one of the tools of understanding that I wanted to get wanted to achieve. It was very, very hard. But now I have so many more tools where I can in the future, you know, say I woke up a little bit over time to get the strength and I realized that I hate myself. I'm gonna cut again. I can just it's not as mystery on how to do it. Yeah. Very simple. It's very, it's very simple. What else did I let's see, what else did I learn? Again, I have a new appreciation for food and that it is just energy. Right? So I talked, I came down with COVID About a week ago, right? And I told you that I dipped into a deficit. And how did I keep get keep from going into the deficit? Oreo cookies? Is it ideal? No. But the point is, food is just energy, and I needed a couple 100 calories to go keep them going into deficit. So I just had some Oreos, and it's funny because people like no, you ate him because you liked him. It's like no, I didn't I did wasn't hungry. Yeah, I made an objective choice. calorie dense based on you know, being energy partiers usually easy to eat with some milk, boom, boom. So in terms of manipulating the energy that comes in, even I even talk about food as energy this point, so boring, but in terms of manipulating certain goals, just look at food as energy. Yeah, instead of food. Because then who is think of food? You can kind of get a little emotional about it? For sure.

Philip Pape 47:58

It's part of our culture. Yeah, it's part of being human.

Tony Perri 48:01

Yeah, yeah. And I still love food, like pretty much everybody. But that's one of the biggest things I learned is I just looked at look at food as energy. Yeah. And choices become a lot easier to make when I look at it just objectively like that.

Philip Pape 48:14

I think that's a healthy mindset, man. Because mindset because your brain is everything in this process. And that, yeah, you really just hit on a very key principle where the Oreos story, right? Because I will I will throw in a pop tart, if I'm like, short on my carbs, and I need the energy and I don't want to go in a deficit, and I'm not that hungry. And that's okay. You know, because it's tailored in my 10 20% and the rest of the total foods. In fact, the fact that you don't make it such an emotional thing and you're doing it for objective reasons, tells you everything else is pretty dialed in from satisfied, you're satisfied with what you're eating.

Tony Perri 48:47

I also, as I said the other day, I also don't sit down with the pack of Oreos. Of course, I say, I'm going to have two servers. I'm gonna have three servings because three servings is 2080 280 calories. My milk is going to be 70 calories, right?

Philip Pape 49:02

portion. A portion of you put it in a bowl, whatever. Yeah,

Tony Perri 49:05

exactly. It's an events I chose the event and that's over. I'm not sitting there blindly watching the film through Instagram rules as they go through like 20 Oreos because then it's like, that's not the goal either. Yeah, no, I

Philip Pape 49:17

love those little tips because we talked about flexible dieting, and intuitive eating but it's not like a free for all with everything single thing you do there. So you still want to have some guidelines and strategies like controlling your food environment, you know, using portions using plates, like all those little things not grazing, having mealtimes having times for your meal and not just like free for all and that doesn't that's not restrictive. That's just having a little bit of self discipline or restraint.

Tony Perri 49:45

Well you're having good having restraint you're making an informed choice on the preferable results. Yeah, right. I don't I don't see it as any more complicated is that you want there is a certain results and then you choose within certain framework. I think when when We lose the loss of discipline is is like the absence of discipline. It's like, well, I don't know what the result is. I just want to be in the moment where it feels good. Yeah,

Philip Pape 50:09

there you go. And many of us have been there many people listening might still be there. So there's there's all there's a better way. I want to ask about hunger, because he said he didn't have too much. Were you hungry years ago when you're working with a nutritionist and losing weight? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Tony Perri 50:25

Okay. I was hungry. She said, If you're hungry, eat, you know, there were approved foods, though. So I would only the approved foods. After a while, the hungry did downregulate I didn't really have much of it. Eating became I'm not gonna say a chore. But acumen became more more, more boring. And I knew in the back of my head, I knew that it wasn't sustainable. Yeah. I'm like, like, this is the stuff that we're making my wife and I'll be making us food. And it's like, it's good. But we're not going to be making all this food for the rest of our lives. This is

Philip Pape 51:05

ridiculous. All right. So here's why I asked this. Because if at one point in the past, you were able to get hungry in a deficit, and this time you didn't I know, you said that. You know, my body's good at this. But could it also be your food choice and selection? Could it be protein, and fiber? Which you were pretty good at getting in sufficient

Tony Perri 51:21

amount might be the biggest leading question I've ever heard in my life. You

Philip Pape 51:25

know what I want to say? Don't worry and say what ever comes to your mind?

Tony Perri 51:29

Yeah, of course. Yeah, I'm sure and I have a lot still to learn about satiety and manipulating satiety. Yeah. Whereas if I know if I want to go in a bulk, stay away from certain foods, so increase the hunger, and these are all future lessons for me to master. Yeah, right. I don't know. And I don't expect myself, I don't require myself to No, I only require myself to say, you know, there's more things here for you to learn to look at. I mean,

Philip Pape 51:56

that might be a cool thing to go back and look at the patterns in your food and and compare to the satiety, I mean, you could even use the satiety index. So for those listening like there is an index that was done in a study that's well validated that shows you ranks foods by their level of subtypes of potatoes, white potatoes are the most stations. Yeah, they're very high. Like they, they're like double the next food and has to do with resistant starch apparently, in the white potatoes. If you want I would pretty much guarantee because I saw your food logs, I didn't always see the specific foods you had it, but I would do your macros all the time. Your protein was was up there consistently. And I think you were pretty good at bringing getting fiber because you had a lot of Whole Foods. And right there, those would be the two things people would say keep you full. Even if I didn't have just make mention that for the for the audience, because we talked about objectivity and it makes sense.

Tony Perri 52:46

We want to know why ultimately, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That's that's a good point. Yeah. And speaking of satiety, I really appreciate rice now because I mean, I just had chicken and rice. I feel great. I'm not like bloated and full Yeah, feel great. If I had bunch of potatoes it would be like, I'm not going to eat for hours. Right? It's they're all serious big things when you have nutritional goals and strength training goals like Israel actually really big things. Well, you know, it makes potatoes easier to eat deep frying them and all that oh,

Philip Pape 53:21

boy girl, makes them easier to eat. And actually, that's physiologically a thing. The fact that there's fat there anything with fat so people don't realize it's like any fat at all you add to anything. Sad is a magical macro that makes you want to eat it. And there's something about that mechanism that you add fat to something you eat it I mean, package. That makes sense. It's a survival.

Tony Perri 53:41

Yeah, because survival evolutionary wise, evolutionary wise, we want to add fat to store energy. Because we may not have food in the wintertime because we're still cavemen, right? We forget that we're still we're not we forget that we're cavemen because we have trucks and houses. But evolution doesn't move so fast to say, Okay, we're not we're out of those environmental conditions anymore. We're going to down regulate this fat necessity. No, we we want that to, you know, to store energy. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's

Philip Pape 54:08

amazing. It's amazing. That's why you start with twice

Tony Perri 54:10

unnatural, unnatural for all you people who want abs. not natural.

Philip Pape 54:17

So funny. It's so funny, but it's true, right? That's why your fat ends up getting pretty low on a cut just naturally, that usually makes it easier to get through calorie wise. Alright, let's get back to training a little bit kind of going back and forth between these. You said earlier that barbell training is a mental activity expressed that physically. Yeah, and you kind of explain what that meant. But can you elaborate on the mental struggles or the barriers that you had to break through in that process?

Tony Perri 54:47

Well, I mean, when I was growing up, I that was never in. instilled full of confidence. Right? So the grind of barbell training really. It filled that void that Been there for a while. So on a personal level, it was like self therapy. But when you're dealing with barbell training is not just about the muscles. And I can't stand when I even hate saying that because it's about tissues. It's about the tendons, the ligaments, it's about the neurological changes, the metabolic change, it's about so many more things than just muscle. And I think I think once I realized that, I realized that it was a lot more than just moving load. Because you've got to, you got to figure out how the load is to be moved and when not to live, move the mode or move the load. Right. And, and the effects of and the effects of moving that load. For example, like I had a, my rotator cuff got a little sore months ago, I don't know doing what, but guess what? That's a Those are, those are tendons. I mean, yeah, you're taught, you know what I'm talking about. And they heal very slowly, the muscles are fine, but the tendon is sore, right? So we have to adjust the training. And that's a mental thing. To not go to figure out how exactly to work around this obstacle strewn in training is a bunch of obstacles, especially after I envy the NLP people that just add five pounds. I can't do that anymore. Even like the Keep it simple. I can't do that. I keep it as simple as I can. But the programming, and the training has gotten pretty complex. And the way we navigate complexity and overcome it and solve those obstacles is the mind, the brain is the only thing that's going to do that we're not going to accidentally figure out how to how to blow past the plateau on our bench or not, you're gonna get stuck. I see it all the time in the gym. People do stupid stuff, because they just left emotionally. Yeah. So when I say liftings, a mentally mental thing expressed physically, it's really, your brain has to be evolved. At first, it's not optional. It has to be fostered or else you will not progress. You're not going to progress anywhere.

Philip Pape 57:00

Yeah, that we just wanted to deep stuff there, which is, which is worth bringing it up because we do talk about here. The health benefits of lifting, right, the bone density, you mentioned tendons, ligaments, hormones are another like a huge hormone. Oh, my God. Exactly. And hormones are just still this mystery to a lot of people. And it's hard to explain it. But mental health, it's definitely we're heading into November, which is I think men's mental health month, I'm about to be collaborating with some folks on that from a strength perspective and talking on some podcasts about how lifting affects your mental health now, you said self therapy, we know there's physiological change that occurs. I don't I'm not educated in all the research yet. I want to be. But did you ever struggle mentally? And this is more of a sensitive topic, but like anxiety, depression, anything like that, that listing helps with?

Tony Perri 57:50

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, data, I think that's pretty common. And I think that's an I don't say that to justify it. I just say that it's lifting, doing hard things. Again, this is why I really like my approach. If you go 100% At hard things, and you require yourself to do the work, you're gonna learn something along the way, you're gonna get some kind of confidence. It's not, you're gonna get knocked on your ass, but you're not gonna get defeated, just because it's hard. And just because you didn't hit whatever goal doesn't mean you're defeated. It just means you hit an obstacle, bounce off it to something else, when we're doing hard things. requite they bring the best out of us. Really doing hard things, bring the best thing, bring the best out of us. And when we're overcoming. When we're experiencing anxiety, anxieties, worry, worry about the future of the unknown future. Well guess what barbell training is in the now it's in the present. And when you overcome the presence, that hypothetical future, it kind of it doesn't mean so because right now you're mastering the now right? So training helps that we have to deal with anxiety, depression is is that feeling, it's really feeling of being low not being able to do anything? Well, training is literally doing something you are you are moving something around. And this is why I encourage people to keep logbooks and your training logs and whatnot, because you'll have objective data. So no matter how you feel, if you're depressed, no matter how you feel about it, you can look at it and say, Well, my squat, okay, that I had just to add a rep from last week. I know that there's improvement there. Right? So I would say the objectivity of training and the requirement of doing something hard, hard things bring up the best, easy things, make us complacent. Just make us accept things and just go with the flow of hard things. They bring out the best of us, they transform us, and it's very transformative training. And we don't if we don't put a cap if we don't predict or try to constrain who we think we're going to be, then we can do amazing things. It's very transferred formative because it's in the moment. It's a hard thing in the moment. Yeah. And it's good for our bodies. It's not like, I always use this example gaming, when you're gaming. Yes, it's gonna be hard. But like, that's really a dopamine dump. Training is not a dopamine dump. It's probably the opposite of it. It's so hard in the moment you are requiring yourself to do something you might not be able to do. Yeah. So it's going to transform you, if you let it. It's going to take you places you may not know. You'll become someone you may not know. Some people that may find that scary. But just leave the unknown open. Just train and see what happens.

Philip Pape 1:00:40

become someone you may not know that you may self identity thing like you're trying to Yeah, identity. I love it.

Tony Perri 1:00:47

Just let it happen. Yeah. Yeah, surround yourself with other people that work hard and just see what happens. You don't have to have certainty of what will happen. And I think that this, the idea of certainty is really destructive. It's like, No, we don't need to, I have no idea what my numbers will be, or what condition I will be in in a year. All's I can control is this moment, right here. This week. This week's programming is only thing that's in my control. Yeah, I'm gonna crush

Philip Pape 1:01:14

it in a crushing COVID.

Tony Perri 1:01:17

You think I wanted to get COVID when I was rocking my program? No, but it was out of my control. Oh, yeah. I didn't want to get here. It's there you go.

Philip Pape 1:01:25

Exactly. It was gonna set you on your ass like you said, but it doesn't. It doesn't stop you from moving forward in some way. Yeah, it's funny you say that? Because? A lot. So for me, I talk about that a lot. But I also experienced it early on when I finally figured this whole thing out. But when others tell me what you just said. So for example, I actually wrote an email about this to my list this morning, a friend of mine earlier this week finally got a rack of barbell. No, he didn't even get his gaming his rack yet. Right? Yeah, just started deadlifting. And he did it in secret. And then he because he was embarrassed maybe from his wife or his wife didn't believe he would go through with it. And literally, he said from like, the first session when he realized he could just do something. And then the next one do a little more, is I just started to get confident. I just started to feel better about myself. Did you go man like it's incredible. It happens to everyone. Exactly. And you will enter you will make progress of some kind. You just will. Man once you get to this, you know, get in an accident get totally guilty. But yeah, it's incredible.

Tony Perri 1:02:26

You will get confidence doing hard things produces confidence, doing easy things. It's going to keep you just insecure and depressed. Ya know your heart, you will find your confidence skyrockets, for

Philip Pape 1:02:38

sure, for sure. And so if you could offer one piece of advice that would make the biggest difference in someone's journey toward this ideal identity of a stronger, healthier person. And maybe something has radically changed your own life that you wish you knew when you were 20. What would it be? And why?

Tony Perri 1:02:59

No, nobody cares about you, or your progress or your look nearly as much as you do. When you're 20 you believe that other people? Do you get the looks. You have the feedback people you get the likes online, we have this idea that that attention is an accurate assessment of how other people's place value on us, we think that other people are carrying us around with them all day long. That's just not true. So my advice would be just accept that, given nobody's walking around with us in their minds and in their hearts every day. And the reason I say that is so that we can look at ourselves and say, Are we acting according to internal validation? or external validation? Because, and I revisit this question frequently, because it's, it's easy to develop an ego again. And when you start to appreciate that other people don't really care, whatever you doing, you can see what I'm doing right now or what it just did. Yeah, that was that was for other people. But it lets you let it go. If you think that other people, if you convince yourself that other people think about you a lot more than they do, you will allow yourself to deceive yourself into doing things for external validation because you think it's so important. It's not Yeah. And that's one thing that my calisthenics taught even though people in the gym, they thought it was looked so cool looking. They didn't care, they just walked away. Right? So I would say internal validation versus external validation, identify the external, get rid of it. Focus on internal because that produces real satisfaction and indefinite fulfillment. It's you being fulfilled, you're not doing it for other people. You know, you want your abs. Make sure you're doing it for you, for sure. And test J Yeah. And, you know, if you want to lift your heavy weights, make sure you're doing it for you. Ask yourself the tough questions. Ask yourself where to look for that external validation in your life and get rid of it. Because then you're really going to become more confident If I agree,

Philip Pape 1:05:01

it actually gets you to take actions on things you might not have otherwise, because you otherwise you think people are judging you, or you're gonna be embarrassed? I mean, my experience with that is, with everything I do with this coaching stuff, every every single step I took was like, What? Are they going to think about me? It doesn't matter, just do it? And what is there? Is there a nuance there, when it comes to doing things to help other people? Knowing that there's also external validation? Do you know what I mean? Like, so? What am I trying to say here? So for example, I will, I will gladly share with the world what a client says about how I helped them, because I'm proud that I help them. Is that is that seeking external validation? Or is that? You know, what do you think of that?

Tony Perri 1:05:51

You're sharing it for who? And for why? That's really a question. It's hard for me to answer that right now. But it's it's it's it's, what are you looking for? What are you searching for? What is the reward you're searching for, if the reward is to, is to open up doors for other people to potentially improve their own lives? I think that's I think that's, that's pretty cool. Because it shows it's not about you. But if the reward is getting the attention upon you, and that, hey, I taught this person this thing, then that's more of your ego getting involved. And that's more external validation, you got. So you got to I think, really, we got to look at the basis of the reward we're seeing and then test ourselves like, Why do I want to reward when we want to reward perfect? And that will help us answer those kinds of questions, because it can get hard to distribute to delineate those kinds of things. Yeah,

Philip Pape 1:06:43

you're a philosophical guy I had asked. You think about this stuff. Yeah. All right. So the magic question that you know, is coming. What question did you wish I had asked, and what is your answer? Oh,

Tony Perri 1:06:55

gosh, yeah, this is hard. Even even you know, it's Kelvin. I would say, Why have I become so critical of what have become so critical of physique? I, I see that it, I think physique, there's a place for physique, I think it's very easy to get lost. Again, this goes exactly with my external validation point. That's probably why I brought it up. I think it's very easy to get lost in the physique train. And if we over subscribe to the external validation, and this is why I, I'm very critical of modern bodybuilding. In terms of the average Joe and the average chain doing bodybuilding, if you're if you're competing, if you're making money. That's one thing. But if you're the average Joe or Jane showing up a couple of times a week, and you're doing the body building, I'm critical of that. So that's probably the that's probably the question that I would that flows through external validation. That's probably the question that I would have. wished you would have asked. Okay, yeah, if you could read my mind. Yeah,

Philip Pape 1:08:00

that's what I asked. You know, that's good. I mean, we have talked about that. The physics side of things. And it's interesting for me, because when I when I talk to people who have goals, you know, true deep goals, to change their identity to be a better role model for their kids to be healthier, whatever, along with that always have some level of physique enhancement. Anyway, I wanted to look better. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's okay. The question is, why are you doing like you said, it's, is it the external validation? Or is it you're just handling to be comfortable, and I see that thing, that person in the

Tony Perri 1:08:30

mirror, you know, and that's the thing about physique too, which I realized is so much different than strength training. Strength training is objective improvement, measurable, objective proven? Well, physique training is based on looking better, which is a belief system to construct to look better. It's true, it's a debt, it's a belief system. So you can ask 10 different people. So that's why I'm critical of it. Because, because if someone says, I will look better, and I'm thinking, according to what, because if you get someone's opinion, you could get five opinions today, and someone like me will be like, I don't think that looks great. That could crush somebody. Yes, not intentionally, but because physique, it's a belief system. And I think if people are honest about that, and accept that, it's just it's a belief. It's very subjective, and it changes, I think people people could be a little bit more calm about the physique, rather than thinking that it's this objective, I'm gonna look better. And it's like, well, you know, that not everybody thinks that right? Yeah, I guess just because I'm objective based with strength training real, but

Philip Pape 1:09:30

it's a valid thing for people to think about. Because there is there's standing there are standards and women face this a lot in society with the object, the body image standards. And there's also the fact that we're focusing on focusing on performance and strength. There are lots of periods where you go through where you're not going to have what somebody would call an ideal physique because you don't want to you want to have the extra fat you want to have the leverages you want to be eating because you're building muscle and you know, you're gonna live a long time that way, and be healthy. But then it's like You know, how do you combine all these things. So kind of keeping kind of combining physique with health with strength and finding that sweet spot where it kind of all works together is a nice place to be if you can get there. You know, I get that people's, a lot of people are very overweight. Right. And we understand that for them. It's a health issue. And of course, they are going to, I think, even objectively have an improved physical appearance once they lose on the way. But again, it is a construct, so yeah, yeah.

Tony Perri 1:10:31

Yeah. All right. Yeah. A lot of people are underweight, too, I think. Oh, yeah. I think that's what that's, yeah. No, I mean, I've seen it in the gym a lot. Yeah. And it's like, I want to gain a little bit. You know,

Philip Pape 1:10:44

I hate it, but I hate it when I see it. And I see that 18 year old boys walking around. I'm like, Man, if only I had a hold of you right now, in your, you know, get your shoulder racing and start listing.

Tony Perri 1:10:55

Begin with, there's that belief system. Yeah. Oh, it looks.

Philip Pape 1:10:59

The Surfer do that. Yeah. Okay, man. Well, where do you want listeners to reach you? Or what resource Do you want them to check out?

Tony Perri 1:11:07

I'm just I'm just average Joe. I don't really. I'm not very present on social media. I mean, I'm an anti Baker's group. But I don't I don't, coach. I don't. You know, I don't think I have much on Instagram. Yeah. But um, I mean, if someone wanted to contact me, they could just contact me through my email. Right. But other than that, just average Joe. Okay. Yeah.

Philip Pape 1:11:33

How about this, we'll put a link to the Facebook group, which you're in. So if people want to come in, they can reach you there. And we'll put a link to Andy's club. I don't mind I love promoting his club. It's fantastic. Yeah, I

Tony Perri 1:11:44

love it. I mean, you're I mean, I'm in your group, too. I love I love you know, dropping into your group, you know? Yeah. And seeing what's there. It's a lot of fun stuff there. It's pretty cool. It is it's like

Philip Pape 1:11:53

it's not a massive group, but it's highly engaged in that and helpful you know, we help each other out which is I constantly say that because I'm not trying to grow into like 10s of 1000s of people I'd rather have people that really care about being there,

Tony Perri 1:12:05

but you're not trendy. Yeah, it's not it's not it's not trends. It's not do this one thing you'll do it's again, it's flexible dieting, which is which is hard to reach people on because people want a product give me products I make change is not is that that

Philip Pape 1:12:20

they've got laser fat removal for that. Alright, just just to put the extreme on it. Okay, so man, this is a lot of fun. We went down some nice rabbit holes and philosophy, metaphysics, you know, training, nutrition, the whole thing. So thanks for coming on.

Tony Perri 1:12:38

It was a lot of fun, man. Thanks, man. So all right, talk soon.

Philip Pape 1:12:44

Philip Pape 10/17/23 Philip Pape 10/17/23

Ep 114: Can Rapid Fat Loss (Aggressive Dieting) Be Sustainable?

Today, we are talking about expanding your comfort zone in an entirely achievable AND sustainable way so that what might seem extreme or out of reach today will one day be part of your everyday, ordinary routine. I’ll use my rapid fat loss phase as an example of how this process works.

We just finished a challenge where we had about 30 members of the Wits & Weights Facebook community following along or running the protocol themselves, so I will be using direct quotes from their experience to give you context as to how what seems extreme may not be depending on the foundations you’ve already developed.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:36] Expanding comfort zone for personal growth and self-improvement
[10:16] Expanding your comfort zone through behavioral change
[11:40] Avoiding the extreme zone and setting yourself up for failure
[14:47] Rapid fat loss vs. extreme crash diets
[17:15] Success in the rapid fat loss challenge
[22:05] Expanding comfort zone for sustainable self-improvement
[24:38] Outro

Episode resources:

My Rapid Fat Loss Guide
You Can’t Screw This Up by Adam Bornstein
Ep 104: Fat Loss vs. Weight Loss

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

The key here is not to exit your comfort zone. Because you're going to fail. The key is to expand it. This is a balanced approach. This is how we add new and quote unquote healthier habits without abandoning what you know and love. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights

Philip Pape 00:41

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode number 113 barbell training for physical therapy and injury prevention with John Patricio. We discussed how John marries the worlds of rehab and strength, challenging conventional wisdom while laying down a framework that could drastically change your approach to injury prevention and rehab. You'll learn why strength isn't just about lifting weights, and why barbell training could be your secret weapon against not just injury, but mediocrity. Today for episode 114. Can Rapid Fat Loss, aggressive dieting, be sustainable, we're talking about expanding your comfort zone in a way that is entirely achievable and sustainable. So that what might seem extreme or out of reach today, will one day be part of your everyday ordinary routine. I'll use my Rapid Fat Loss fees as an example of how this process works in real life. Now, we just finished a challenge where we had about 30 members of the Wits & Weights Facebook community following along or running the protocol themselves. So I'll be using direct quotes from their experience give you context as to how what seems extreme may not be depending on the foundations that you've already developed. Okay, let's dive into can Rapid Fat Loss, aggressive dieting, be sustainable. Okay, this is a topic that is often misunderstood. But I think it's crucial for personal growth, it's crucial for self improvement, the idea of expanding your comfort zone. And after having read a specific chapter within a new book called you can't screw this up by Adam Bornstein, a very well known nutrition author, he works with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a bunch of famous people, he gets around. So you probably already know the name. And if not, you'll know it soon enough. But I'll include the link to his book in my show notes. And on this one particular chapter of the book, which is about expanding your comfort zone, he used a very simple model, it's very much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs where until you have a foundation established, it's hard to move up to the next level of the pyramid, at least this was in the hierarchy of needs. In this case, we're talking about comfort. So he uses three circles. And I'm going to get into the model and have you visualize it as part of this podcast episode, because I think it's gonna be really helpful in doing what we're talking about here. But I wanted to quote from his book, and I'm gonna have a couple of quotes in here. The first one has to do with the idea of discomfort. And I think this will resonate with you because I do talk about this quite a bit, maybe with different language, but I think it should resonate, quote, research suggests that even when a challenge requires a lot of effort, mixing in enjoyment, and feeling accomplished is a big part of success. That's because accomplishment leads to more confidence. And that confidence will create consistent behaviors. Once you're consistent, you see better results and have more motivation. And that's when you can take on greater challenges and discomfort, and make even more progress. So to put that whole thing in the nutshell, the themes are if you can take some action, a little action, a micro action, a tiny habit, and get a result, the result makes you feel accomplished, the accomplishment leads to some motivation. And you can spiral that into greater and greater momentum to where the little things that you did that are slightly out of your comfort zone are no longer out of your comfort zone. And that's the premise of what we're talking about today. And so I want you to imagine and this is a diet based on a diagram he actually shows in his book so I'm just shamelessly stealing the idea but hopefully, you know, he understands imitation is a form of flattery and I'm giving him credit where credit is due and the link to his book in my show notes. So definitely go support him. So imagine three concentric circles, okay, the innermost circle represents your comfort zone. The middle one around it is your expanded comfort zone or what he calls your Improvement Zone. And the outermost is the extreme zone. Let's start with the comfort zone. Let's assume that everything you're doing today whether you whether you like it or not, whether you're happy with your habits or not. That's just By the point right now you are where you are right now, even if you know you want to be and can be that the athlete that you want to be. So that inner circle is your comfort zone. And this is where you currently are. It's not about loving or hating your habits. It's really recognizing what feels easy for you right now, what is just something that you do what you do really? Well, you know, the example he says is, if you're used to eating takeout all the time, that's part of your comfort zone. If you're used to sitting around most of the day working and get maybe 3000 steps a day, that's part of your comfort zone. If you're used to eating cereal for breakfast, that's part of your comfort zone. So embrace it, that's true. And that represents a single circle of 100%. Okay, so that's your current reality 100% of the time. Now, if you do one little thing tomorrow, that goes outside of your comfort zone, and it's a small enough thing. So for example, I mentioned eating cereal every day for breakfast. What if you incorporated protein, and fiber in your breakfast, that's it just protein and fiber in your breakfast, and this is outside your comfort zone, because you've never done it before. But it's pretty easy, you would logically start to think about your options, and you'd say, Okay, well, oatmeal is like cereal, but it has protein and fiber, great, I'm gonna have oatmeal, of course, I'm not going to have cereal, too, I'm gonna have oatmeal instead of cereal, maybe I'll have a protein shake or some eggs, but that could be pushing it. So we'll just switch the cereal out for oatmeal. Awesome. Now that oatmeal represents a 5% of your actions, just throwing a number out there. This is that second circle, right, the expanded comfort zone. Now if that expanded comfort zone is 5% of your actions, then the inner comfort zone, your original comfort zone has now shrunk just a bit, hasn't it? It's shrunk to like 95%. Okay. And every day, you have oatmeal instead of cereal, not a big deal. It's easy to do. And now all of a sudden, your comfort zone Blue has popped out a bit. And the original comfort zone plus your expanded comfort zone now becomes your new comfort zone. And that's just if you make one change one at a time, right, we can start applying this to multiple examples. For example, let's say you do sit around all day because you have a desk job, and you get maybe 3000 steps a day. What if you decide I'm going to walk after lunch every day, maybe it's a mile, a mile is reasonable, right a half mile half mile back, maybe it's less, maybe it's more, but a mile is maybe 2000 more steps. So you are saying that I'm going to instead of doing whatever I do now after lunch, maybe that scrolling on social media, I'm gonna go for a one mile walk and for lunch. That's it. That's what I'm gonna do this week, I now pushed out my comfort zone. And that's one thing. Now I'm going to right now I don't exercise. But I am going to start with some bodyweight exercises one day a week. Again, these are little things micro habits, tiny habits, whatever term you want to use that go into your expanded comfort zone. And every time you do them, you are building up this repertoire or this portfolio of habits that you never did before, that are beyond your original comfort zone that cause a little bit of discomfort but not too much. And it leads you to having a smaller and smaller living in your original comfort zone less and less. So I want to read you another quote that's related to this. Quote, if the small circle is your current reality 100% of the time, when you expand your comfort zone, you'll find yourself living in the Improvement Zone 60 to 80% of the time, and your old comfort zone 20 to 40% of the time. This is the goal to gain new healthy habits and behaviors without ever fully abandoning foods that you know and enjoy. It's about enjoying takeout. But adjusting how you order or eating dessert, but limiting how many times a week, end quote. I love that the way that this is expressed because this is exactly what we talk about with flexible dieting, with giving yourself room and space to enjoy the things you enjoyed, and never to stop enjoying those things. And the fact that restrictive diets tell you to do exactly that. They tell you to cut out something and I guarantee one of those some things is something you enjoy. And that creates cognitive dissonance or moral choice, where if you ever choose that thing, you are now denigrating yourself down to the very soul of who you are. Because there's a dissonance there. I would rather you live in a place of quote unquote, comfort. And this is where I love Adams, you know concept the way he phrases it where our comfort zone simply expands more and more over time. Or put another way our Improvement Zone is where we live more of the time and not so much in our comfort zone but it's still within the realm of possibility and I can give you more examples I could say going from soda to diet soda, going from large portions to small portions going from not tracking to tracking As much as I talk a lot on this podcast about, you know, here are the 10 things that you would do in a perfect nutrition plan and fitness plan to get to your goals, you know, track your food, track your macros, your calories, do this, this, this, I never intend for you to just do that overnight. And this idea of expanding your comfort zone is behavioral change, it is what I help clients with, it's how we do it. And here's the cool thing is before I get to the third circle, by the way, is I would actually insert a kind of I'll not, I won't call it a circle, it's like a a sleeve or a comfort jacket around the Improvement Zone, where if I'm working with a client, they now have a support structure in place where their Improvement Zone, that second circle is actually a little bit bigger, they have a buffer, past that Improvement Zone, before they get to the extreme zone, and that's their coach. And that could be your community as well, where we're giving you this, I'll say not permission, but space to kind of push the limit just a little more than that, if you want, knowing that you can fall back, and we will give you that feedback and advice and make adjustments and so on. So if you start with me as a client, you're gonna get that accelerator that multiplier, to expand your comfort zone a little more quickly, is the way I like to think of it. And also to know with confidence, how to expand that comfort zone, and when you can expand it. Okay, so just just to put that in there. So we talked about the comfort zone, we talked about the Improvement Zone. And remember, the Improvement Zone is just adding in other habits that serve you that that push your discomfort that make your comfort zone bigger zone bigger as well, but still having the comfort zone in the middle, right, and still retaining some of those. And it's okay to have both. But if if you go too far out of your comfort zone, you're gonna get into the extreme zone. And this is what leads to stress, anxiety and setting yourself up for failure. This is where you say, I'm going all in on Monday with my diet, I'm going to cut this cut that I'm going to drink more, I'm going to sleep more I'm going to exercise five days a week that you've you've been there, we've all been there, right? And some sometimes I know, from personal experience, the thinking is kind of the cold turkey, right? Like, you know what, I'm just going to do it. If I don't go all in, I'm going to fail because I don't have all the pieces where it's actually quite the opposite. If you try to go all in, you're pushing way past your comfort zone. And then you're just gonna screw it up. Let's just be honest, like we are, that's we're inevitable, it's inevitable inevitably going to happen. Now, I had another thought related to this. I want to chime in here. Oh, yes. I've talked before about how when we add things in, for example, when we add that protein in like we're adding in the oatmeal instead of the cereal, right we're at, we're adding in the protein, so it crowds out the cereal, that concept can apply to anything we're adding in the walk after lunch. So crowds out the sitting and being on social media. And everything you add in is going to naturally display something that just doesn't work anymore. And that's the same concept of of shrinking that comfort zone a bit expanding the Improvement Zone a bit, it's the same idea. So whichever way helps you that's the way to do it. Now going back to the extreme zone, that is what we want to avoid going all in and going to the point where we break. And so this leads me to actually wanting to tie this in to the rapid fat loss phase that I so as I record this episode, I'm about five days in it's it's the weekend, but the

Philip Pape 13:32

the challenge will be over by the time you see this, it'll be just over. So an upcoming episode will actually go into all the results of that and kind of examining what we learned from it almost from a research type approach. Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com and click on coaching or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. Today what I wanted to talk about is the amazing experience that I'm not surprised by but I'm it's validating to see that so many people in the Rapid Fat Loss Challenge that are doing it with Me have had this experience. And here's where I'm going. Here's where I'm going with this. If I just say it with no context whatsoever, rapid fat loss, what do you think? You think you might think, oh, quick fix, it's one of those short term programs, unsustainable. Its its marketing. Its extreme right, you might think of all those things. Now, if you listen to my episode called fat loss versus weight loss, you already know that one distinguishing word there is the word fat loss or the word fat versus weight. So I'm not saying rapid weight loss, I'm saying rapid fat loss. Well, what distinguishes rapid fat loss from an extreme diet or an extreme crash diet? Well, a couple of things. One is that we are training extremely hard, hard as in the way we normally want to train to build muscle to give ourselves the muscle building stimulus. And that means our body is in a, in a acute muscle building priority status, meaning the most important thing is to build muscle and therefore it's going to recruit whatever nutrition it can to do that, well, when you're at maintenance, or in a surplus, it's going to recruit proteins, and carbs for glycogen, and you're going to have all this energy coming in. So you can build muscle, when you're in a deficit, when you're in a dieting phase, for fat loss phase, whatever you wanna call it, you don't have that much energy coming in. So number one, you're giving it that signal. And then number two, you want to keep the protein very high. And by very high, I mean around a gram per pound, which relative to calories, ends up being a significant portion of your calories, the more deep your deficit, the more percentage of calories the protein represent to the point where if you are down to like 1000 calories a day or something like that, your protein might be 90% of your calories, because you've got the essential fat coming in very little carbs, and most of its protein. But here's the cool thing, even when you do that, if you if you have no other stressors on your body, if you have not been dieting before, if you have been training, if you have some muscle, you can still be successful, for a short duration, by giving your body the muscle building signal and the protein that it needs. And I won't go into Dr. Bill Campbell's research in detail here like I did last time. In fact, I think I have a bonus episode that came out about this. But

Philip Pape 17:15

where am I going with this is that I see people in the challenge. You know what, I'm actually going to open the chat right now, I'm not going to share it on my recording. But I want to bring up specific, I want to bring up specific quotes that people say, said, okay, so I actually asked about how things were going. So in this rapid fat loss protocol, we have four days at an extreme deficit, I'll say extreme, I don't even use the term because we're using the extreme to represent the outer circle. And my goal at the end of this is to show you that this may not actually be extreme for these participants, and myself. And this is the point is expanding your comfort zone. So what was once extreme or could be extremely someone else is really just ordinary to you, and your body knows it. And your results show it. So I asked about how things were going in general, I didn't try to lead the question by saying, you know, are you hungry? Although I asked that later, I asked how things were going and I got comments like the hunger that gets kicked in, that kicks in is very short lived. Any lack of energy is refueled by a walk or going to the gym. Not gonna lie, I thought this was gonna be way harder. I like the term comfortably uncomfortable, not too difficult, but also challenging. I'm not hungry, and everything is balanced. To be honest, in terms of hunger, I wouldn't even need a refeed today. But there's one thing I noticed my legs were sore, I train consistently, and there's not a huge difference in stimulus. So maybe this is due to lack of carbs and fats to fully recover. So I shared that quote, because it's a little bit of, hey, I, this is not that hard. I have a little bit of symptoms going on. But it's within the realm of possibility. And this is from someone who's been training for years, who has a bunch of muscle and knows how to track their food. Another quote, to be honest, I was having doubts one day before the challenge, because I promised myself many years ago, I wasn't going to go hungry for losing weight ever again, right, which would be extreme. And I've done many diets in the past with the same amount of calories I'm now in and I was hungry all day, the high protein ratio really makes a difference. And I'm very happy to be doing this challenge. Thank you for creating, I'm grateful to be in the community. And it gave me that push. There are a lot of quotes like that, that basically said, You know what, this isn't even bad. Like I thought, you know, a lot of people were a little bit scared with the rapid fat loss phase that they would feel just ravenously hungry. And the idea of prioritizing protein and fiber satiation training, and then only doing it for four days before you have your first refeed a refeed. Basically filling up your calories to maintenance is enough to show that you can push your comfort zone and still not have it be unachievable or extreme now, if you came to me and you had never tracked food before, you'd never strength train before your metabolism was kind of downregulated from your years of dieting, I'd say hell no this is not free. You This is not the thing for you to be doing this would be so out of your comfort zone, that it would feel like a crash diet, it would be extreme because from day one you'd struggle like, oh, how do I get enough protein? How do I even track this? What do you mean by this much of a deficit, on and on and on. So there's a foundation of knowledge, a foundation of I should say, skills and habits needed before you go to a level that's beyond that, for it not to seem extreme. And that's really the point of this whole thing. Okay. So what do we do about this? What, how is this information valuable? The key here is not to exit your comfort zone, because you're going to fail, the key is to expand it. This is a balanced approach. This is how we add new and, quote unquote, healthier habits. without abandoning what you know, and love, I will always want to eat ice cream, I do it in a fat loss phase, I do it in a circle, it doesn't matter, I love ice cream, I will always want to go out to eat, whether it's a restaurant, whether it's a cafe, whether it's for dessert, at a bar, whatever, I'm always gonna want to do that. And I know I'm going to want to do that. I'm always going to love carbs, I love all the carbs, give me all the carbs. And guess what you can have all those things, it's really, it really comes down to making them fit within your comfort zone, and balance with your Improvement Zone. And the Improvement Zone is where you're always pushing yourself a bit, just a bit. All right. And so we keep things in our diet that we enjoy that prevents the burnout, we do the micro habits that push our comfort zone out into the expanded comfort zone, that's create that creates consistency, because it's pretty easy to stick with small changes that we barely notice, and not doing too many of them at once. So those are kind of the practical tips on expanding your comfort zone, which is a balanced, sustainable approach to self improvement. And so yes, even a rapid fat loss phase that's only two weeks long, that's done by someone who has a foundation that it takes so that the the extreme quote unquote, deficit that you're doing is actually just a little bit out of your comfort zone actually means that it's sustainable. And in fact, the skills that the people participating are learning myself included, they actually just sharpening or refining the skills we already have of, okay, here's, here's really how we dial in the fiber and protein to a to another level. And now when we go back into a normal fat loss phase in the future, that's going to be easily in our comfort zone. And people are going to hit all new heights of body composition or body recomp and physique enhancement. And if people want to go for other more extreme goals in the future, like maybe a longer fat fat loss phase, but a normally aggressive or moderately aggressive rate, for example, they're going to now have even more sharpened skills because of their expanded comfort zone. Okay, it's not about extremes. That's my point. It's really incremental changes you can maintain over the long term. And so the next time you're thinking, I'm going to do all those things, because I need to get in shape, consider just expanding your comfort zone instead. Because the long game is actually the fastest path. The long game is the fastest path. Because the short game of trying to do the shortcut, and go into your expanding comfort zone, it's going to collapse every time you're going to do it over and over and over again, potentially for years. Many people never learn that lesson. You're listening to Wits, & Weights, you're gonna learn that lesson. And you're gonna do the long game, which is actually the fastest path to results. Now, one way to do this to expand your comfort zone is take the teeny tiny step of scheduling a results breakthrough session with me, yes, you'll get some clarity on how to expand that comfort zone. As I said before, it's kind of like an accelerator. It's a multiplier. This is like a free coaching session where I'm just gonna give you some tips with from all my expertise and years of working with people of how to do that, how to make training and nutrition a comfortable, everyday part of your lifestyle, and embrace the athletes inside of you the one that's inside of you right now that just is roaring to come out. So to schedule that call, just click the link in my show notes or go to wits & weights.com and click free call at the top. It'll take no more than 30 minutes. I will not sell you on anything. I'm not going to mention prices, my coaching none of that. It's all about clarity and how you can take concrete steps starting as early as this week, like the day after the day of our call to expand your comfort zone. In our next episode 115 how Tony lost 15 pounds 8% body fat and built lifelong strength with barbell training. We'll discuss my friend, fellow lifter and client Tony, his transformative journey, the intricacies of nutrition and barbell training and the mental hurdles he faced along the way. Tony's insights could radically change your perspective. And I mean totally serious about that even though he might think I'm joking, and your approach to fitness, nutrition and health. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning into another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Philip Pape 10/13/23 Philip Pape 10/13/23

Ep 113: Barbell Training for Physical Therapy and Injury Prevention with John Petrizzo

Today, I welcome John Petrizzo, a physical therapy advisor/coach of mine whom I met in Andy Baker's barbell club. John will debunk common myths about strength, recovery, and mobility. He’ll explain how to merge rehab and strength training to prevent injuries. You’ll learn why strength is a fundamental attribute that affects every aspect of your life, from post-surgery recovery to traditional PT to overall function and performance.

John is a Physical Therapist, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Starting Strength Coach, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Health and Sport Sciences at Adelphi University. He holds a B.S. in Exercise Science from Hofstra University, where he was a member of the football team and a Doctorate in Physical Therapy from the New York Institute of Technology.

John has worked in the fitness industry since 2006 and has helped many clients achieve their health, fitness, and sports performance goals through barbell training. In 2012, he began competing in powerlifting.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:
[2:34] Combining physical therapy and barbell training
[7:46] Benefits of barbell training for the average person
[12:02] Counterintuitive lessons on human strength and mobility
[16:37] General philosophy on post-surgery recovery and linear progression in lifting
[25:58] Importance of strength as the primary physical attribute affecting human performance
[29:18] Limitations of mainstream fitness and PT methods
[33:03] Prescribing barbell training in a rehab setting
[35:12] Patients' reactions to barbell training as part of their rehab
[36:15] Differences between mobility and flexibility
[40:39] How physical therapy knowledge improved an athlete's performance
[45:30] How barbell training influences clinical reasoning in physical therapy
[47:06] Barbell training's role in injury prevention and reducing the recurrence of injuries
[49:17] One question John wished Philip had asked
[52:00] Where listeners can learn more about John
[53:08] Outro

Episode resources:

Progressive Rehab and Strength - https://www.progressiverehabandstrength.com/

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Transcript

John Petrizzo 00:00

Everything that you do in your daily life, in some part relates back to your ability to generate force, right? So get yourself up out of a chair to go up and down the stairs, right to keep your balance when you're carrying the groceries, all of those things relate back to your ability to produce force and the stronger you are, the more submaximal those tasks become.

Philip Pape 00:23

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I've invited on John Patricio, a physical therapy trainer advisor coach of mine whom I met in Andy Baker's barbell club. And I wanted to bring him on because of his unique combination of physical therapy and barbell training. He and I have had a few conversations leading up to and then after my rotator cuff surgery, where he gave me some great advice helped me accelerate the process of getting back to what I love, which is training, building muscle and being active. And I wanted to dive into some of these principles so you can benefit from his tremendous expertise, John will dismantle some of the more pervasive myths about strength, recovery and mobility. We'll discuss how to merge the worlds of rehab and strength in a framework that could drastically change your approach to injury prevention and rehab. From post surgery recovery to the cautionary advice you often hear in traditional physical therapy. You'll learn why strength isn't just about lifting weights. It's really a fundamental attribute that influences every facet of your life. John Patricio is a physical therapist Certified Strength Conditioning Specialist, starting strength coach and an associate professor in the Department of Health and sports sciences Sciences at Adelphi University. Sorry, man, that's a mouthful. He holds a BS in exercise science from Hofstra University, where he was a member of the football team, and a doctorate in physical therapy from the New York Institute of Technology. John has worked in the fitness industry since 2006, in a variety of roles and settings, and has helped many patients and clients achieve their health fitness and sports performance goals to barbell training. In 2012. John also began competing in powerlifting. John man, it is an honor finally to have you on the show.

John Petrizzo 02:31

Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Philip Pape 02:34

So let's let's get to know you a bit. You have this uncommon dual practice that I think it's uncommon, maybe it's not, but it combines physical therapy, and barbell training. So tell us how that came to be and tell us some of your guiding principles behind that.

John Petrizzo 02:48

Sure. So my interest in training started, you know, way back when I was a teenager, played a lot of sports growing up and became interested in lifting specifically to try and improve my performance and athletics, wanting to get bigger and stronger, like a lot of high school guys that play football. And I also played basketball and lacrosse in high school, and wanted to try and continue to play in college. So I saw, you know, weight training is kind of the key to that. And then once I got into college, I had to figure out, you know, what I actually was going to do there academically, and decided on majoring in exercise science, I didn't really know much about it. To be honest, at the time, I just knew that it sounded like it aligned with my interests. And once I graduated, I started working as a personal trainer at a large commercial fitness facility, which I really enjoyed. And finished up college I continued to train and true meaning train myself. And ultimately, I became interested in physical therapy a little bit because there was a PT clinic in the gym that I was training people at, and I just kind of became curious about was that they knew you know, about the body and about rehab and performance that I didn't know. And it kind of piqued my interest and made me want to pursue that. So I ended up applying for grad school for physical therapy and doing that. And, you know, once I was in the program, and certainly I mean, I learned a ton. But I also realized that not a lot of people that were involved in rehab really knew or had a ton of interest in strengthing conditioning, you know, so, so I was a little bit unique from that standpoint, I think it's becoming more common now. But that's really where it started for me, you know, and once I got out and started practicing, it really was about taking the things that I knew about training and strength and conditioning and kind of applying that to a real limitative setting, you know, I wanted to be able to work with people from across the continuum, whether they needed strictly rehabilitation, whether they're looking to improve their sports performance or, you know, get stronger, you know, I wanted to be able to do all of that. And that's really where it started for me.

Philip Pape 05:17

Yeah, and it sounds like it's a, it's a really natural combination of things, because we all experience injuries, surgeries, and issues over the years. And there does seem to be a gap, at least from the lay person's perspective, from both sides from trainers who don't quite understand movement patterns and, and injury and maybe don't even want to go there for liability reasons. And then physical therapists who just from personal experience, very few of them seem to understand lifting, you know, and or it's this attitude of like, well, you know, if they know me, as a lifter that, like, you've got your strength stuff, we're going to focus on the range of motion stuff and like, well, isn't there an overlap there? How comedy, do you think it is becoming? Even though it's still uncommon? Like in any given town in the US, for example, could you find somebody in your radius that is like, a guy like you?

John Petrizzo 06:03

Probably not? I mean, you know, so for me, when I say I feel like it's more common, you know, that's probably a little bit biased, because of the people that I associate with. And you know, that I tend to follow through social media and things like that, which makes it feel like yeah, this is becoming more common. But still, you know, when you think about in your, like, you said, your average PT clinic, you know, outpatient orthopedic PT clinic, you're probably not going to have a PT there that that really understands. Let's say, if you come in as a lifter, right, you're a competitive power lifter, you're an Olympic weightlifter or something like that, probably not going to have somebody there that necessarily understands what you're trying to get back to, you know, and that's unfortunate. But I think that's kind of the reality of the situation. I think, a lot of the people that do have that expertise, tend to they start their own businesses and things like that. They, they don't want to work with insurance, they're out of pocket. You know, what a you know what I mean? I mean, yeah, that's what my wife, she, she ended up doing. And, you know, so you may have some luck, maybe at like a CrossFit facility or something where they have someone there like that, but your typical, like, outpatient orthopedic insurance based clinic? Probably not.

Philip Pape 07:24

Yeah. And it's great that we do have the ability to connect online today, like I did with you. And I wanted to bring you on the show, because I just truly believe in what you're doing and how it can help people. So as people are listening or watching this, you know, John is a guy, you can reach out who may not be local, but to give you some, some direction, at least. So yeah, let's let's touch a little bit on training and rehab and combining the two. You're a big, big believer in barbell training, as am I, and you even compete in powerlifting. There, I guess there's some debate with people still about whether barbell training is beneficial or not for the average person, right, I get questions like, Is it safe? Can you train with barbells? Over the age of x? Right? 450? Whatever? Sure. Just just break it down in simple terms, you know, what's the philosophy behind why you believe in barbell training? Well,

John Petrizzo 08:11

you know, the first thing I would say is, does anybody have to do barbell training? I mean, the answer is obviously no, right? There's nothing that you absolutely have to do, can make plenty of progress in a variety of different ways using resistance training, right? But you know, barbell training, to me, is something that is a lot more accessible to people than they realize. And, you know, the benefit is, just from, in my opinion, the efficiency with which you can train large groups of muscles, right, large amounts of muscle mass, through long ranges of motion, using what we would consider to be fairly normal human movement patterns, like the squat, like the deadlift, which is just picking something up, like the press, you know, and, and those sorts of exercises, they have a ton of carryover to our everyday activities, you know, I think an additional benefit for people is that they incorporate the majority of them incorporate at least some sort of balance component, right? So so you can get a lot of benefit with just a handful of basic exercises or movement patterns. And, and that's what I think the average person doesn't really see, you know, they kind of look at this as that's a body building thing. That's, uh, you know, that's a weightlifter thing, and, you know, I don't need to be doing that and it's, again, you don't need to be doing that but you might find it to be way more beneficial than then you realized and, you know, to me, it's it's really just about finding an appropriate starting point and that's, that's where a coach or someone with experience in this stuff can really make the difference you know, so know knowing sorts of maybe equipment modifications do you need do you need a lighter barbells do you need you know what I mean? Do you need? Do you need to modify the range of motion of the exercises initially, those are the things where a coach can really help someone get off on the right foot and have a positive experience with this stuff. And and then it starts to build on itself over time.

Philip Pape 10:16

Yeah, I agree with everything you said. I mean, there's, there's some things in there, like the fact that it's accessible and safe, I think is lost on some people until you kind of run them through the scenario of increasing your barbells or increasing dumbbells with progressive overload and some of the safety challenges that come with that, or even just practical challenges of, you know, going up in certain increments and the availability of all these dumbbells, like you said, 15 pound bar, empty bar, whatever it takes to start. And then the balance and mobility stability. All of that is can't be overstated, I think for folks. Yeah. Yeah. So

John Petrizzo 10:51

yeah. And I would just say, people that haven't done it, they, they can't really understand what we're talking about. So that's kind of that's kind of the barrier for some people. And I think that's where it becomes an issue from a rehabilitative standpoint with physical therapists, right? So, or even lots of physicians, you know, they're very quick to tell people, no, don't do that, you're gonna hurt your back, you're gonna hurt your knees, you're gonna hurt your shoulders, whatever it is, when in reality, they're just that take that with a grain of salt, because it more than likely, they've never done it themselves. They've never gone through the process of learning how to do those things. And it's really outside of their area of expertise. But they throw those comments out there, because they just make assumptions about it. Right. And that's a hard thing to overcome. Certainly,

Philip Pape 11:40

it is. And I've had three surgeries myself, one of which was a back surgery. And without deadlifting, I'm not sure where I would be, in other words, the positive side of it being able to recover and get strong again, right, right, where oftentimes, you're told well, I'm not even sure you're gonna deadlift. Yeah, of course, things like that. So speaking of those kind of, I guess, counterintuitive, lessons, myths, whatever you want to call them, since you you've been in the game since like, 2006, right, working in physical therapy, and as a strength coach, what is what is one of the biggest or the most maybe counterintuitive lesson about strength and mobility that you've discovered in your years of practice?

John Petrizzo 12:17

Well, I think, again, this is probably something that is counterintuitive to a lot of people, but the two really go hand in hand, right? So you know, if you're, if you're training through a full range of motion, you know, you're squatting to below parallel, you're pressing over your head through your full shoulder range of motion, then you're building strength, and mobility simultaneously, you know, and, and I think that's another misconception people have is like, well, if I, you know, if I lift weights, I'm just gonna get Titan. You know what I mean? Like that, that kind of thinking still persists today, which is kind of crazy. For those of us that are, you know, a little bit more educated about this stuff. But I'm talking about the way like the general public kind of looks at it. Right. And, you know, they don't. And over the years, I've, there been a number of people that have told me, Wow, you know, I can't believe like, how much better I'm moving, how much more flexible I feel, you know, even though flex actual dedicated flexibility training really only makes up a very small part of what they're doing with me. So I think that that's probably the biggest thing. So let's

Philip Pape 13:25

take a very specific example that right, this morning, I did the PEC PEC deck flies for the first time, this was at the end of my workout, because I had left rotator cuff surgery and I'm trying to like work that capsule every way I can and get it stretched out. And I took video of myself and I noticed, you know, the affected arm. The angles are just way off from my good arm still, because it's an even on my head, they feel symmetrical. And the straight started to get looser and looser, even though it wasn't doing stretching. I wasn't using bands, I was just lifting, right? What, uh, I guess, when you think of the physical therapy concept? What's the value between the range of motion isometric and stretching type work versus just say lifting with certain movements that use the same joint? If that makes any sense?

John Petrizzo 14:12

Well, the way that I always kind of describe it to people is that you only get stronger through the range of motion that you're training through, right? So we want to train through the full available range of motion provided it's safe, it's, you know, not painful, right? Those sorts of caveats. Now, with like, specific flexibility work, you're obviously going to get some, you know, specific benefit from that but you don't get the the strength benefits simultaneously right. Now, with the flexibility work, you can you know, maybe work through a further range of motion, right, get to a further endpoint if that's your goal, but then you can with with the resistance training exercises, but, but in reality, you know, the way that I Look at it is if you have the range of motion to do everything that you need to do right in your day to day life, then do you really need to spend a bunch of additional time doing flexibility exercise, just to achieve some kind of arbitrary endpoint that you're trying to get to, you know, and obviously, like, if you're a gymnast or a dancer or something, then you need a different degree of flexibility and mobility than the average person does. But for most people, just doing full range of motion resistance training is going to give them a pretty good flexibility stimulus and, you know, keep their mobility at a, you know, above average sort of level.

Philip Pape 15:44

Yeah, I can definitely vouch for that. So, let's let's talk about post rehab or post surgery recovery, then, because again, I like to throw my personal story in there, because that's how we met and I'm experiencing it right now. After I was cleared to start lifting by my surgeon, I reached out to you for advice. You pointed me to some some rehab movements that could increase range of shoulder range of motion. So again, these weren't, these weren't loaded movements, they were rehab, just what you're saying. There's sometimes we do need those. Yeah. But you also made my day because you said, Hey, can you start benching again, you know, I was like, I honestly had not even thought that that would be possible. And I was almost scared to, you know, there's this fear, right? That like, just gonna tear the tendon again. And so here I am following a linear progression, again, back to getting to bigger loads, without the pain I used to have. So what is your general advice? We can't cover all the types of surgeries, right? What's the general advice and philosophy for recovering from surgery? Understanding everyone's situation is of course unique. Yeah,

John Petrizzo 16:43

so So the first thing I would say is, depending on the surgery, and you just went through this with your rotator cuff, there is going to be a period of time where for a lot of surgeries, you have to protect the surgical site, right. So I typically am not having people back to to doing anything overly aggressive on that surgical site right away. But I do want them to train everything else, as normally as possible, as soon as possible, right, because you want to maintain as high a level of fitness as you can, you don't want to totally de train. So if you have a rotator cuff surgery, and you're in a sling for anywhere from four to six weeks, you know, usually is the timeframe that most people are recommended by their surgeon. Well do as much lower body training as you can train your opposite arm, there's actually research that shows that there's some positive carryover to the affected side, even during periods where it's immobilized, if you're training the opposite limb, so So I definitely encourage people to train everything that they can during that initial recovery phase. And that could be you know, a couple of weeks, in cases where I'm kind of just consulting with somebody remotely like I did with you, I'll be a little bit more conservative than if I'm working with them in person, obviously. So a good kind of frame of reference for most surgical procedures, if there's a repair, right, like they reattached your tendon, right, your rotator cuff tendon, or a reconstruction like an ACL or something like that, I would say like four to six weeks before, you're really going to start to challenge that area, you know, and over the first, those first few weeks, you are going to do you know more kind of traditional rehabilitative stuff to directly for the surgical site. And in the case of the shoulder like you've had, really, initially it's about getting your range of motion back, and a lot of passive stuff because they don't want the surgeons don't want you really forcefully contracting that musculature that that's still healing because the repair is not very strong yet, right? So so that initial phase is really building back the range of motion in most instances, while you're kind of working on everything else that you can, you know, and then after that those first several weeks, then you can start to kind of directly challenge the area that you had surgery on. Right. And again, it'll vary depending on what you what you had done. But the approach that I always take is a linear progression type of approach. And when when you understand the reason why we use it in, you know, strength and conditioning way from from that perspective, it's because you're very far away from your ultimate potential right for strength development when you're first getting started as a novice lifter, so you can make very rapid workout to workout progress for at least several months, typically, right? Well, if you're a lifter that just had surgery, now that area is D trained. So you kind of by default, go back to being a novice to a certain extent right and you can utilize that very simple, linear type of Loading model for several months after surgery usually and you know, you're gonna find a starting point in terms of range of motion and in terms of load that is comfortable for you, right? That's pain is an indicator that you're maybe pushing a little bit too hard, right, you don't want your pain level to be getting worse while you're training. So if you kind of use that as a guide, and you find an appropriate starting point, then it's just about progressing a little bit each session, and you'd be amazed at how fast the progresses you can make,

Philip Pape 20:32

yes, firsthand for those listening. So what John had me try was bench pressing with a limited range of motion. So I used pins in a rack, I came down literally just a few inches below my, you know, taking it out of the rack from the top position, the first time with like an empty bar, and then I would lower the range of motion with an empty bar, then I would add, say 10 pound plates, with the same range of motion, right, and so kind of back and forth, until I got to a full range of motion bench, which felt great, by the way, it almost felt better than doing the, the pin version of it, right, because you get that natural stretch at the bottom. And each time I did it, I noticed that if I if I increase the load too much, you might get a little bit of feedback that maybe this is the gonna cause pain and that you back it off. But as long as you don't have the pain, it's incredible five pounds every time five pounds every time. And within a few weeks, you could go from wherever you were to double where you are potentially, because you're still submaximal relative to your personal original strength that you're at. So just for those listening, it definitely works. And you have to be patient, but you don't have to be so patient that you're not still making good progress.

John Petrizzo 21:43

And I think if you compare that to more typical physical therapy approach, you know, I've been in so many clinics and seen over the years and talk to patients over the years that go in, they have their exercises, they're very isolated exercises, right for this specific area that they had surgery on, the rest of the body kind of gets ignored. And they are not progressed over time, right. So it's kind of like, you start doing your shoulder internal and external rotation, and maybe some, you know, scaption exercises and different things like that with very light loads. And then you know, you're doing your couple sets of 1015 reps, whatever it is, four or five, six weeks later, you're still doing the same stuff, right with the same resistance and, and maybe they feel better. But it's not because of the exercise, right, the exercises and driving any sort of improvement, you're just feeling better, because now you have more time since you had the surgery and air sealing. So I think that there's a big misconception there. Right, I want to use the exercise as a driver of adaptation, right to help you get physically stronger and develop your muscle mass again, as opposed to just waiting around for things to feel better, you know? Yeah,

Philip Pape 23:02

absolutely. barn on for sure. So let me I wasn't gonna ask you this. But I in my gym, I noticed I had my BFR kit that I haven't used in a long time, because I bought it for fun a few years back, do you ever get into that blood flow restriction?

John Petrizzo 23:16

So I have some experience with that I've actually done a little bit of research in that area. And, you know, BFR is not a bad tool. And basically, what the research on VFR will tell you is that you can get a similar type of training effect to a heavier load using lighter loads, right. And the thought processes by partially including the blood flow, it kind of, you know, gives you this different adaptive stimulus. And what I would say is, it can be useful in certain situations, but it's not a necessity. You know, over the years, more recent research regarding resistance training shows that for relatively untrained populations, you can get a lot of benefit with lighter loads, you know, provided you're taking them very close to failure. Right. So BFR is kind of a similar concept. What I would say, in regards to training to failure and BFR, you know, those two approaches, which certainly can be effective, is that they're not for everybody, because they can be really uncomfortable, right? And to me, it's like if, if you're using a protocol that doesn't foster good adherence, right, if a person just as miserable and dreading having to go to the gym, because they know they're going to put this cuff on and it's going to be super uncomfortable to do their resistance stuff with it, then I don't see it as super valuable, but for people that can tolerate that and that enjoy that, you know, then it can be useful, you know, but I don't think it is I don't think it's a necessity by any means.

Philip Pape 24:50

Okay, I mean, the reason it came into my brain was I was like, I was unhappy with the diameter of my left bicep versus my right because of the the what do you Can't atrophied, I guess that occurred. Sure. Like, can I? Besides the just bicep, tricep work that I'm throwing in there? can I enhance that with a little BFR work? Or is it just a little bit more volume of standard lifting? That's going to do it? You know what I mean?

John Petrizzo 25:13

Yeah, and that's the issue. When you look at a lot of resistance training research. It's all done on relatively untrained populations, you know, everyone's very responsive, either, right? Exactly. So they're, so they're relatively untrained. So they're gonna get a really positive response. And, and it makes it a little bit trickier for someone like yourself, who's more highly trained to be able to pull from that research and say, How does this apply to me? You know, so yeah, so I, I would say you can try it, but I don't think it's a necessity. Got it?

Philip Pape 25:45

Curious, I don't think I've ever brought it up on the podcast. So people were curious. Alright, so one principle you've written about, I think in the starting strength website, you've got a few articles up there is just this idea, kind of taking a step back that strength is the most important physical attribute because it affects all other aspects of human performance and well being. So can you elaborate on that just so people understand, we talked a little bit about barbell training, but just strength overall.

John Petrizzo 26:11

Yeah, I mean, that's something certainly that has become more clarified for me over time, especially working as a physical therapist, you know, I think when you're younger, and you know, you're more into athletics, and you know, maybe training for aesthetics and things like that, you don't really understand how important strength is to your everyday life. Now, as a PT, I work with lots of older people, you know, I've had people up into their 90s that I've worked with, and when you see the difference that physical strength can make in their quality of life. It's amazing, you know, I've had people go from wheelchairs to walkers to canes, you know, just because they doubled the strength on the leg press said that they were doing you know, and it's just it, like you said, it has an influence on everything else that we do, you know, we talked about a little bit the the relationship to mobility and flexibility, getting physically stronger will have a positive impact on your endurance, again, certainly more of an impact if you're a relatively untrained and previously sedentary, if we're talking about a high level endurance athlete, that's going to be less the case, but so it just has carryover to everything that we do, every everything that you do in your daily life, in some part relates back to your ability to generate force, right? So get yourself up out of a chair to go up and down the stairs, right to keep your balance when you're carrying the groceries, all of those things relate back to your ability to produce force, and the stronger you are, the more submaximal those tasks become.

Philip Pape 27:53

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it reminds me of like solely John Sullivan's term, you know, the barbell prescription, which is the title of his book, and and that being, strength being the prescription for aging. Yeah, the point where I mean, I would go on, go out and state that you almost can't have to have it in your life if you're going to be, you know, fit for a long time.

28:12

Hi, this is Alan. And I just want to give a shout out to Philip pape, Wits, & Weights, for his nutritional coaching, because coaching is based upon science research, intellect, and wisdom, his coaching is safe, supportive, connecting. And it actually has helped reset my compass in terms of how I direct my health, the action steps I do, and really, really has helped me regain trust and belief in what my body can do and how my body can change.

Philip Pape 28:45

So on the other side of the coin, right, we have the mainstream fitness industry and the mainstream physical therapy industry promoting lots of methods of exercise. They don't always directly produce or increased strength like, well, we have cardio, I mean, cardio, cardio is good for a lot of reasons. But you've got cardio, you've got isolation work, single joint work, the functional movements, the lighter weights, higher reps, bands, and so on. What are the limitations of those? Is there a place for these, you know, people get very overwhelmed with all these ideas, you talk about barbell training, and then all there's all these other things. So how can we clarify it for folks?

John Petrizzo 29:20

Well, I think and the way that I describe this to my students that, you know, again, anything is better than nothing, right? If the choice is functional training, or sitting on the couch, you know, then go ahead, do as much functional training as you want. But if we're talking about you know, efficiency, and if we're talking about maximizing the benefit of the time that you spend exercising, I think that really the traditional strength training, exercises can't be beat from that perspective. The problem with all of those other modalities, if we're talking about functional training or isolation, exercise and things like that, is their ability to be progressed over time? Right? How do you progress a functional exercise? How do you progress an isolation exercise? You know, functional exercises are really more displays of the ability that you already have, right in terms of your balance and that sort of thing, as opposed to developing those characteristics further. And so that's different than if every time you go to the gym, you add five pounds to your deadlift, right, that is developing your strength, the isolation exercises, they're self limited by the fact that they don't involve a lot of muscle mass, right. So their ability to be loaded progressively, is is more limited, right? You can progress on a squat. For years, you can progress on a knee extension for weeks, you know, maybe, but you're gonna hit a wall at some point where you can't do more reps, you can't do more sets, you know, and it just becomes a limiting factor because the amount of muscle mass that you're that you're using, so. So to me, there's kind of a point where all of those other modes of training, at some point are you get more diminished returns than you get with the traditional strength training exercises.

Philip Pape 31:14

I love it. So you clarified it really to I'm gonna, I'm gonna just put words in your mouth, two big principles that I heard there. One is just the time efficiency perspective, right. And I like to call it the lazy persons way. And workouts like barbell training, when I found that I said, Man, I only had to work out three or four days a week for an hour, I don't have to do almost almost anything else, really, and still get a huge amount of results, which is liberating. When I have clients who come in, especially women who are working out seven days a week and running, doing a million things, I say, Well, we're just going to cut out a whole bunch of things. Yeah. And you get the look like really, and they start getting results and the stress goes down and the sleep goes up, you're just, you know, people are floored by that. And then the progressive overload can't be overstated. I'm gonna call it infinite progressive overload is kind of what you imply that there really is no end in sight, when you're using all that muscle mass and those natural patterns. And you're right things like knee extensions, they get tiring after a while, you have to rotate them out, you have to get clever with rep ranges and all this other stuff. But you don't have to do that so much with squats,

John Petrizzo 32:15

right. So so I would say, you know, if you enjoy that stuff, then supplement your basic training with a little bit of that, that's fine, you know, and there's nothing wrong with, you know, having some variety and doing some, you know, some of that stuff if you enjoy it. But, you know, I don't think that they're really good building blocks to like, form the foundation of a good program. Yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape 32:38

And that is a third of what you just mentioned, is it isn't fun, because really, at the end of the day, you do want to stick to something. And he's really good about that. In his program, he understands the practical side of it, you've got, you've got rip over here saying just do the program. Right. And, and then you can kind of add some variety over time. How do you determine when barbell training then is appropriate for or maybe contraindicated for a patient? like physical therapy patient comes in, you're not sure if their history from day one? When would would it be appropriate or not?

John Petrizzo 33:07

Well, I mean, one thing, when I'm dealing with patients, you know, first, I do get a lot of people that come to me because they strength train, right, so so that my perspective is probably a little bit biased. So those people it's a no brainer. I mean, that's what we're gonna do, right? But first selection bias. Yeah, right. Right. But for the average person, you know, one, they have to show a little bit of interest in it, you know, and in my clinic, when they see other people doing it, sometimes they'll start to ask questions about it, they'll say, hey, you know, and they see a 75 year old woman deadlifting. And they're like, Can I do that? And I'm like, Yeah, of course, you can do that. Do you want to learn how to do that? And they're like, yeah, why not? You know what I mean? So, so sometimes it kind of feeds on itself, when they see other people doing it, it makes it less intimidating, and it makes them realize that, hey, you know, I actually can do this stuff, look, that that that kid is doing that that older person is doing that and they look like they're fine, you know, so it makes it less scary for people. But you know, another way that I'll get to it sometimes, you know, if the person maybe is not naturally curious about it, which does happen. But, you know, let's say I start somebody on a leg press, and then I progress them to a bodyweight squat, and then I progress them to a goblet squat. And then I get to the point where I say, Well, you know what, that weight that you're holding? That's actually the same weight as the bar. So why don't we just try to do with the bar and they're like, oh, okay, you know, or if I'm doing like a deadlift pattern, and we're using a kettlebell to start and we kind of progress that to the point where I'm like, hey, you know, that's actually the same weight as this. Why don't we just do this and then they're like, well, if it's the same way, why not, you know, different tools. Yeah, exactly. So So that's almost kind of like a trick them. But that that seems to work pretty well too.

Philip Pape 34:51

for their own good. Well, that's cool. You know, I mean, you you are in a position of trust or authority or whatever you want to look at it where you kind of develop that over time. And that makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool. So do you ever get, you know, weird looks from patients when you recommend or prescribe barbell training? And they're not really sure. They don't really know you? I mean, does that situation come about?

John Petrizzo 35:13

I mean, yeah. And again, like I said, I don't force it on people. Like, if someone is like, listen, I just don't want to do this. I'm not. I've said, okay, you know, we'll, we'll figure something else out. But what I do try and be very upfront about is my rationale for doing things with people, you know, so I always try and explain to them, you know, this is what I want to do. And this is why I think it would be beneficial for you, you know, and if you have a good rapport with the person that you're working with, and they have trust in you, and they, you know, think that you're a competent person. And, you know, you can clearly explain your rationale, then that breaks down a lot of the barriers that people put up to it, you know, for sure. Great. Yeah. So I think just good communication is super important.

Philip Pape 35:55

Yeah, absolutely. And even what you just implied even more deeply than that is the empathy and, you know, meeting somewhere where that understanding people's where they're coming from, right. It's part of coaching, of course, yeah. Okay. So earlier, we talked a little bit about mobility and flexibility, which are sometimes thrown around interchangeably or entertain changeably, or people are confused about the differences. Let's take a squat, for example, just a typical squat, low bar back squat, and someone hasn't had success on their own because of fill in the blank, maybe they say, my hip, hip flexors are tight, right? Or, and they and you know, when you look at them, they're saying their 40s, they're relatively, quote, unquote, fit. And they're just for whatever reason not getting this full range squat. How would you address that situation?

John Petrizzo 36:41

Yeah, so for that sort of thing, a lot of times, it's not necessarily a flexibility limitation now. And when I say flexibility, meaning like a muscular tightness thing, you know, so like, the hamstrings get blamed on a lot of stuff, you know, then my hamstrings are tight, so I can't do this, I can't do that. And in reality, it's usually more about coaching the person through the movement properly, right, and making sure that and making sure that they know where they're supposed to get to, you know, what I mean, showing them, this is where I want you to go, this is how we're going to get there and kind of walking them through that process. Now, sometimes people do truly have a limitation, you know, maybe that's a limitation in their joint mobility, because they have osteoarthritis, or they have some sort of bony anomaly, you know. So those are the types of things that you can't force people through, you know, and that's really super important. You know, I think sometimes we just assume everything is like a flexibility issue. And a lot of times it that's not the limiting factor. If you've coached the person as well as you can, and they're still kind of having trouble, then it might be a joint issue that they're dealing with, you know, rather than like a muscular flexibility issue, but that's probably something that doesn't come up that frequently, you know what I mean? So I would say more often than not, it's just probably the person kind of having a lack of understanding of how they need to get to where you want them to go, you know, and it's more of a coaching thing than a flexibility thing.

Philip Pape 38:18

So let's take a specific scenario, if someone, let's say, someone could sit down to a box that's below parallel, right? Is there any reason they can't do that with load? Like, is there any reason where at some level of load not having progressed there yet, but if they do, they would hit some sort of wall because of mobility slash flexibility?

John Petrizzo 38:40

No, I don't think so. I think that and I start people squatting with boxes all the time, you know, one for someone who's never trained before, it's a little bit of a security blanket, you know, to know that, okay, I'm going to touch this and you know, something is behind me, so they don't feel like they're falling. And especially from a rehab standpoint, it can be really useful in a lot of situations. So, again, it's just about finding the right load for them to start with, and there's no reason why they can't progress from there. And, you know, a lot of times I'll take the box away at a certain point, and then I'll maybe have them do a pause squat, right, so that they really get comfortable in that bottom position before, I'll start to have them actually do you know, the full squat with the stretch reflex and the rebound, and that sort of thing? You know, so, but again, that's a lot of times that progression I'll use from a rehab standpoint.

Philip Pape 39:33

Yeah, no, I think that's important for people to understand. Because I always think in terms of like, what are the excuses we make to ourselves? And how can we get out of that thing? Yeah. So if you can start with this, and then that means you can eventually get to this. So if you can get this that's, that's great. Yeah, it's empowering. Yeah. And

John Petrizzo 39:51

even if it's starting with a limited range of motion, right, so maybe they really can't squat to a box below parallel to start because of pain or weakness, you know? and they can move through that full range of motion, start them with a higher box and then progress them, you know, gradually lower over time, you know, so. So there are all different strategies that you can use, you know, the key is just finding the right starting point for people.

Philip Pape 40:16

Oh, for sure. And if if you have like an elderly mother, for example, who has trouble getting off the couch? Maybe you work with her for with a slightly higher chair than the couch, doing some squats there and then eventually moving your way down? It definitely works. Yes. Yeah. Okay, so kind of on the flip side of this is you have experiencing all experience also working with athletes looking for performance gains? How does your physical therapy knowledge, improve their performance? How does that play into your work with them?

John Petrizzo 40:45

Well, I think it's helpful, really, from the standpoint of avoiding overtraining, and most of the athletes that I work with, their biggest problem is that they're over overtraining, you know, and they're just sore and beat up. And they don't understand why. And it's like, and so the biggest challenge with them, is to get them to take a step back, actually, and do a little bit less and pay a little bit more attention to recovery, that is hard for them psychologically, to say, you know, okay, I'm going to do a little bit less, if they do, typically, we see much better results, right, and they feel better, they perform better, their training goes better, you know what I mean? So that's the biggest thing is trying to get to, in my, from my perspective, is trying to get athletes understand that it's not just your training, it's your ability to recover from your training that is going to dictate how successful you are, you know, and when we're talking about athletes, they have to balance their their weight training, their conditioning work, and their practice, you know, their practice time. And that's the challenging thing, you know, so I think it's, it's really more stressing how important it is to recover in between your sessions.

Philip Pape 42:02

Yeah, and I think that applies to also just older lifters who also are so dedicated to their lifting, like many of us in the club, that you know, you are kind of athletes of a sort, right? We may not be practicing a skill for competition, but we definitely can get beat up. And I'm curious, in your experience, what are the most let's say, the top three parts of the body or type are things that get fatigued and I'm just gonna guess low back and shoulders are on the list? But that's Yeah, yeah, certainly

John Petrizzo 42:29

low back and shoulders. You know, it's funny, when you look at the research related to resistance training injuries, they're really not different than the general population, right? So like the general population, what's the number one type of orthopedic pain is back pain? Well, what's the what's the most common type of injury that lifters experience is typically low back injury, right? So so that's, I try and stress that to people too. It's like, well, you could hurt your back doing anything around your house is just like you can tweak your back. deadlifting. So it's not that that makes the deadlift dangerous, you know, it's not like you would avoid doing stuff in your everyday life. Hopefully, too, because you're worried about tweaking your back. So, but yeah, backs and shoulders. Certainly super common for lifters, hip and knee, maybe a little bit less. So you know, I see more nice stuff with like, my, like high school and college athletes and weekend warrior type people that are doing a lot of additional stuff outside of lifting, you know, but, but certainly backs and shoulders are super common, and, you know, stuff that lifters, you know, elbow tendinitis and, or tendinopathy, just from overuse, and that sort of thing is very common to but in terms of, like, little bit more serious stuff. It's usually backs and shoulders.

Philip Pape 43:47

Makes sense. Oh, yeah. And so speaking of the elbow stuff I used to have, definitely, because of my squat grip, what do they call it? medial epicondylitis. Right? Golf, right? Yes. Although, and I actually I actually follow the pin firing approach and switch to an easy bar for my curls and fix my squat grip. So three training variables, and I changed. Yeah, not sure which one fixed it, but something did. Right. What are your what's your opinion on pin firing? Because I know it's controversial. Yeah. I

John Petrizzo 44:13

mean, it's, it's typically not something that I do with patients just because it's so aggressive, right? And, and, and you know, that you're really going to flare things up in order to, you know, get it to heal. And that's not super appealing to most people. You know, what I what I maybe try it for myself. Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to doing that. Right. But, but usually what I do is I look at, alright, what is the variable that's probably causing this and how can we address that you know, and like you just said you, you altered three variables. So I always try and do one thing at a time for a rehab standpoint, because then we can kind of assess Okay, so now we've modified your squat grip. Let's do that for a couple of weeks. Use this new grip and see how things start to feel if that's not working. Okay, maybe we need to adjust your grip on your assistant As exercises or whatever the case is, like you did with the EZ curl bar, you know, that's that's a super simple thing. But I try and kind of layer changes in one at a time.

Philip Pape 45:09

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm impatient. That's all. I get it. I mean, when you're doing stuff yourself, you know, it really is sometimes the process of experimentation too, because of course, yeah. All right. So here's another thing wanted to ask about in another one of your articles on starting strength, you talked about how barbell training has enhanced your clinical reasoning and decision making as a physical therapist. So I'm curious about that how to use the principles and methods in terms of diagnosis. And I don't know if you remember that article?

John Petrizzo 45:39

Well, what I would say is that just I think my my background with strength training, just gives me a little bit of a different perspective, when I'm looking at things and I look at how things work together, you know, from a larger scale than in terms of the more isolated approach that we tend to take in physical therapy. So you're recovering from a rotator cuff surgery, you know, the very typical approach is isolated rotator cuff exercise, right. And, in reality, when you're benching and you're pressing, and you're doing rows and pull downs, and those sorts of things, your rotator cuffs going to be very active, right, and you're also getting the additional benefit of training all the other muscles around it, right training through longer ranges of motion, you know, more normal type movement patterns. So So I think that it really just comes from, from having that perspective on things and kind of thinking more about the bigger picture of how all this stuff works together, as opposed to, you know, looking at things from a more isolated perspective.

Philip Pape 46:44

Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so in addition to recovery, what about prevention? Right? How does barbell training strength, reduce the risk of injury? I mean, you've alluded to it a little bit how, like, you know, deadlifting doesn't necessarily hurt your back, you can hurt your back anytime. So why not be stronger, but like, be very explicit about it. So people understand how valuable that is?

John Petrizzo 47:05

Well, I mean, what we see from a research standpoint is that people that are stronger, are more resilient to injury, right, you're less likely to, to hurt yourself, if you're physically stronger. So we see that in the research related to athletics and athletes that are prone to like overuse type injuries, you know, if we're talking about athletes with lower extremity, you know, overuse injuries, stress fractures, tendinopathies, things like that. And we break it down into looking at, let's say, their one RM, squat strength, typically, the stronger athletes have a lower incidence of those types of problems, you know, and to me that just kind of carry overs to, to everything, right? So it's just going to make you more physically resilient to the types of issues that, you know, people a lot of times suffer from, because you don't have your that as low of a threshold, right? So the way that I look at a lot of these injuries, it's like, you accumulate these little insults that, you know, maybe become painful at a certain threshold, right? Well, if your thresholds up here, because you're stronger, then those things are less likely to be a problem for you.

Philip Pape 48:15

Yeah, for sure. And I even like to think about when as you get older, and you think of frailty, with older folks, just the ability to fall or not fall at all, because you have better balance. But even if you do to kind of, if you're able to bench, you know, multiple times your body weight, probably supporting yourself in the fall is gonna be a lot easier.

John Petrizzo 48:34

Yeah. I mean, I get asked by older patients all the time, how do I get up from the floor? You know, I'm scared, if I fall, I won't be able to get up. Right. I mean, those are things that if you're stronger, I mean, you don't really have to have that same level of concern, you know. So yeah, I think that it just, it helps with everything. And it's, it's really can't be more simple than that.

Philip Pape 49:00

So we've covered so much. Before we wrap up, there's a question. I do like to ask all guests, not sure if you've listened to any of my other episodes, but it is what one question Did you wish I had asked, and what is your answer?

John Petrizzo 49:12

Hmm. That's, that's a good question. I. Well, I guess one thing that I would say and I don't know how, maybe you would have asked this, but I don't want to give the impression that I'm like, bashing on PT and physical therapy. And there's a lot of different areas within physical therapy, you know, and I deal with like, sports and orthopedic, you know, type issues primarily, you know, sometimes I deal with some neurologic issues and things like that. But you know, you can be a physical therapist in a, in a subacute facility in an acute care facility in a hospital setting. And from that standpoint, you know, it's a totally different type type of approach then than what we do, you know, in a in an outpatient setting. So, you know, I don't want to give the impression that I'm that I'm bashing on physical therapy. I mean, I think that I want the profession to be as good as it possibly can be so that patients get the most benefit from it. And, and that's, that's really where I'm coming from with this stuff.

Philip Pape 50:21

Yeah, and I think my perception or perspective, everything you said is from a positive value added, you know, wanting to help people kind of perspective so I get it, and honestly, if we will all want the profession to improve for everyone. So even if physical therapists hear this, and they're like, oh, that's an interesting idea. Maybe I should learn about barbell training, then we've helped the profession. And I know plenty of physical therapists who take the traditional approach, and they're great people who mean, well, right. And they have great attitudes, oftentimes. And so again, yeah, I agree. There's no need to do that.

John Petrizzo 50:52

They're still helping people. And, and one, one last thing I would add, because I do get contacted sometimes by, you know, young, like, Pts that are just starting out or student physical therapists, and they asked me, they say, Oh, I, you know, I want to get into this, I want to do strengthing auditioning and stuff. And they asked me, What do I need to do? And I always tell them, you have to train yourself first, right? So there are a lot of people that, you know, they like the idea of what we're talking about. But if you're not training yourself, if you haven't gone through the process of getting yourself stronger, and figuring out these little programming issues, and you know how to perform the exercises efficiently, yourself, you're not going to be able to translate it to other people, you know, so you have to train yourself if you want to get good at this stuff. And that definitely for coaching, or you know, from a PT standpoint, yeah, I agree. And as

Philip Pape 51:44

a nutrition coach, same thing, I would not want to help people with that unless I've gone through myself. And everybody listening to this show is interested in this. And hopefully everybody wants to do that, regardless of therapy tea or not, that they want to get stronger and do the things we're talking about today. So where can listeners learn more about you and your work, John?

John Petrizzo 52:02

Well, like you said, my full time job I teach at a Delphi University, which I love doing, I do work out clinic seeing patients part time, few days a week on Long Island here in New York, but probably for people that aren't in my area. Best way to get in touch with me would be through my wife's business, which is progressive rehab in strength. My wife is also a PT high very high level power lifter much more so than I ever have been. And strength coach in her business. We work with people remotely, you know, all around the world. So that would be the best way to get in touch with me.

Philip Pape 52:39

Okay, and that's progressive, rehabbing strength.com Yes, you got okay, we'll put that in the show notes. And this was a lot of fun. We covered a lot and I know that listeners is going to get to learn a lot hopefully shatter some of the misconceptions they might have had and really want to get out there and hit the gym and get strong. So thanks again man for coming on.

John Petrizzo 52:56

No problem. Thanks so much for having me. I enjoyed it.

Philip Pape 53:00

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