← Iron Culture presented by MASS
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- [00:00]
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Foreign.
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What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Iron Culture presented by Mass. It is me, Eric Drexler, joined as always by the Dr. Eric Helms. Helms, how are we doing tonight?
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I'm doing well. Yeah. Yeah. Just came off of a nice 3DMJ meeting, which was great. And now I'm here, so I'm seeing all my favorite people. Trex.
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B
Well, hey, what more could you want? That sounds absolutely riveting. I'm going to get my audio levels adjusted. They're a little wonky here. All right. So, Helms, what is new in your life these days?
- [00:42]
A
Well, let's see. It was great having some time where I did not travel post Norway, and I don't have any travel coming up, at least nothing significant until September, which is Singapore. I've got a trip to Australia, but that really doesn't feel that significant for me. Training's going well and things are. Things are going well at Sprins. So, yeah, I've also been nursing a mild adductor strain, which seems like it's at the point now where I'm like on the upswing, which is good. So, yeah, ready to get some more significant training in the. Without having to be kind of like tempo controlled, like feet position in the right exact spot on a hack squat close together to try to, you know, train my quads. But yeah, it's just nice when you don't have to get everything just right to get your body to cooperate when training. So all that stuff is great. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, how about you?
- [01:50]
B
So I can confirm that weird clicking thing is coming through on my microphone to the good people. So here's what I want to do. I want you to go through the typical sales, tell people what's coming up with Mass. And I'm going to try to mess with this and see if I can salvage the episode and not just annoy the hell out of everybody.
- [02:06]
A
No problem. So here's the thing, my good folks. I know how to blab. You know, I know how to blab and I can actually say interesting things. So the good news is we are dropping on the 1st of July the new issue of Mass, which I'm pretty excited about. I did a very, very deep dive on body recomposition. I called it Body Recomposition Decoded. And I went through all of the things that could impact body recomposition, jumping into some really cool papers that look at the impact of fat loss on muscle gain and vice versa. A really cool review by Havers and colleagues, which kind of challenges some of our understanding of how those things operate together. Also, I covered a recent paper by Vargas Molina which came out and kind of broke down what occurred there and covered of course some of the case studies where body recomposition has been observed even in drug free natural physique competitors dieting for a show. And, and of course these are all interesting because they challenge some of the misconceptions or I would say the overly restrictive categorical beliefs about who, when and why body composition occurs and who's allowed to experience it and kind of just really going through the math of it, which I think is one of the biggest misconceptions people have, is just not understanding the relative energy content of different body tissues and being maybe too focused on the idea that a surplus results in scale weight increase and a deficit results in scale weight losses. And it really actually comes down to the mixture of body composition changes and how a recomp can actually occur in a small surplus deficit in or at around maintenance and in certain cases in relatively large deficits. So yeah, I had a really fun time breaking that down. I actually probably got a little too in the weeds and thankfully both Lauren and Trex gave me feedback in peer review like, hey, this is great content. It's not readable. You need to make this better. So by the time it actually got out into the issue, I think it was far better in terms of readability and that's the kind of honest peer review which I really do appreciate. So yeah, for those who want to jump into that and you've enjoyed the episodes we've done talking about it, it's there. But there's also a lot of other really good stuff. There's a quote unquote consensus paper from protein experts which we touched on a little bit, which Trexler wrote. That's our cover story. Kind of going into a lot of the lack of consensus in many ways on certain areas of the non kind of central things that we know to be true about protein. Lauren did a great job talking about how misuse of LLMs in a medical context can lead people to thinking there is a medical emergency when there is not, or missing medical emergencies when they're there. And that hey, guess what, we're not quite ready yet to replace doctors with, you know, Gemini, Claude or whoever or whatever. And yeah, a lot of other good content as well in the issue. Trex talks about reverse dieting. I'm kind of looking at the most recent study which I was privileged to be a part of, led by Buchel and colleagues. She did really Great work for her PhD looking at the recovery process. Mixed methods too. So qualitative interviews, quantitative work and this was a really, really cool study that tracked people trying to follow different approaches to post contest recovery. So lots of really good stuff for the Iron Culture audience. If you do want to jump in and support what makes the show go, which is of course mass and as always we want to give a shout out to our partners over at EliteFTS. If you want to use our code MRR10 that's Mass Research Review 10. You can get a 10% discount on anything you purchase there. So those are the big pieces of news. But of course there is always more to talk about in the world of lifting and in the world of bodybuilding. So yeah, for those who are interested, we also did a nice recap over on King of the Lifts where I joined Matt Gary as well as Ryan Lapidat covering both the men and women's divisions of the recent World Championships which had some pretty awesome things happen with Brittany Schlater. Totaling I want to say something like 756 or 757 in the 84 plus category winning a world title over Sonita Mullah who unfortunately did not register a deadlift and could not maintain the squat record which she got. I think she squatted like 321.5 in kilograms which is insane. So just seeing the strongest women on the world level up there and another really cool thing on the strongest men in the world is that Devonte Lewis at USAPL Nationals that's the non IPF affiliate but former IPF affiliate drug tested raw Powerlifting Federation actually broke Ray Williams long standing squat record. Of course unofficially because it's not an IPF affiliate. But if you're just interested in any, you know, drug tested raw squat 490.5 and he totaled 1136.5. So he is actually quite close. Especially when you consider the type of attempt increases that occur in the 120plus class to sorry to Jesus Olivares. And guess what? Finally he is coming over to the ipf. So make sure you check out the PA Nationals coming up. That's the US Nationals where it sounds like there'll be an epic battle. And for the first time Jesus Olivares might have a challenge with Devonte taking him on. So yeah, there's big shakeups with the in the world of powerlifting. So Trex, have I given you enough lead in time? Because I can keep laughing.
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Honestly I think I actually fixed it which I, I got to a very Deep, low point. People watching on YouTube will have observed as I just furiously tried twisting every knob, pushing every button available to me. I tried every trick in the book except the last one. And I think the last one actually came through and worked. So I'm just absolutely tickled at the idea that somehow this seemed to have worked. So I'm very happy. I appreciate you knocking out the boilerplate stuff and giving us the iron update of people who lift heavy things. And I think we're ready now, with no weird background clicking sound, to actually do some Q and A. How do you feel about that?
- [09:20]
A
I am totally ready for it, my man. And I think you should be congratulated because I know that the technical side of things has been a challenge as of late. So well done.
- [09:32]
B
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Every time Lauren and I finish recording an episode of Front Page Fitness, me and Lauren Colenzo something. We've noticed that whenever we finish an episode and be like, that one sucked, but it wasn't bad enough to like burn the tape. You know, those are the ones the audience likes. And then every time we say, wow, that was a good episode there, it's just crickets. So I did. We did get a comment in the live chat from Michael King that says watching Eric struggle with mic settings while Eric non stop talks about body recomping is peak content. And I don't mind which Eric is ericing. So in a weird way, some small niche of our audience will enjoy me turning off my microphone and looking a little bit stressed for like seven straight minutes, just twisting knobs and pushing buttons. So all's well that ends well. We are now ready for a functioning episode. We got some great questions in the Q and A and helms. I am going to hit you with them semi rapid fire so you can decide which ones you want to go longer on, which ones you want to go shorter on. Someone did ask a question before we dive into the real meat of the episode. They said, is Mike Zordo still part of the show? I feel like he hasn't made an appearance in a while and I miss his guest appearances. We need to start an aggressive mail in campaign, everyone. We'll just dox Mike and we'll send out his mailing address so he gets flooded with paper mail telling him to come on the show. The reality is, you know, we've had all these different iterations. For a minute there we had like the mass podcast that was like we were trying to get all hands on deck. It turns out when you are spread across a million different time zones and people have families and stuff like that. It's actually quite difficult to make that work on a weekly basis. So Mike is a valued and cherished member of the mass family and we will have to make a mental note to twist his arm and get him to hop on the podcast sooner rather than later. So he is, like I said, every bit a part of the mass world and we just need to bother him and basically disrupt his family time and dinner and university responsibilities and make him get on a podcast. So that is an update there. All right, here's a question for you, Helms. I'm curious to see how much you want to dig in. You can go quick with it, you can go long, whatever you prefer. The first one is from Damien and it says do protein requirements scale with training volume? We've talked a lot on the show about protein requirements. We've talked a lot about training volume. Should a person actually consider their volume when they're deciding whether or not they're going to scale up their protein?
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I think it would be good to tackle this one because you I might be hearing those clicking sounds again. I wonder if the audience is. But I will give and now it stopped. I'm going to ignore the clicking sounds. Audience you say in the chat if you hear anything and I'll let Tricks decide what he wants to do. But great question and I think there's a really intuitive response to this is oh, it must, right? Because if training volume increases rate of muscle growth and muscle is dependent upon, you know, energy availability as well as amino acids, you'd think, oh, I should benefit from more. And also if you were to look at the other side of it, the more training you do and the more stimulus you have, typically it's going to generate a little more muscle damage. And we do know from studies on short term studies, I'll say there's there's two relevant ones to look at here. The DeMoss work back in the day, which showed relatively convincingly that the body prioritizes repairing muscle damage before it starts initiating new muscle growth. They did an interesting method of looking at muscle protein synthesis responses that once they corrected for quote unquote damage, then MPS strongly correlated with early phase hypertrophy. And I think the important piece of context with that is that these were untrained individuals doing unaccustomed exercise. And I think right now, especially in this kind of phase where people are very focused on the fatigue boogeyman and concerned about muscle swelling, edema and needing to train high frequency low Volume to optimize things because the damage carryover is going to prevent you from getting full, you know, motor unit recruitment of every fiber and getting an optimal training response. All those things sound really interesting in theory, but when you actually look at how robust the repeated bout effect is in well trained individuals and the frequency data, which of course has gaps, you know, after training a muscle group like three times per week, and if you look at the real world data on how some people train in terms of frequencies and volumes, and finally, if you were to also look at the kind of our, the short term studies that have looked at well trained individuals training high volumes, trying to see the impact it will have on subsequent training responses, we see that while this is absolutely a thing, it is heavily, heavily mitigated by the repeated bout effect and someone being adapted to the exercise selection, volume, intensity that they're doing. So yes, it is true that if there is more muscle damage and if you are growing substantially faster, there's an argument for higher protein intakes. How much that is, it's hard to say. But in a trained individual well adapted to the exercises they're doing and doing higher volumes, it probably becomes a very, very small amount of protein that would potentially get you over that line. So I think it is probably a directionally true statement, but the magnitude is so small that if unless you're borderline low on protein already, it's probably a non issue. And there is one other study that I should mention again, another short term NPS study. I think there was an examination of full body training where they found slightly higher elevations in acute MPS when they were taking in 40 grams of whey versus 20, which stood in contrast to the studies that were using like a single exercise model. But again, there's huge issues with extrapolating short term MPS data anyway. So again, I think this really comes down to it. If you're ticking the box of having at least three meals per day and getting in say at least 1.6 or higher intake of grams per kg of protein, this is something that probably will cover your bases independent of the amount of training you're doing. Unless you're trying to do something crazy in terms of overreaching that you're not adapted to, which I would just recommend against in the first place and instead ramp up to it.
- [16:35]
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Yeah, I got basically the same opinion on that one. So I've got nothing to add here. Um, I do want to move on and go a little rapid fire since I wasted so much time fiddling with audio. And also folks if you saw the countdown, it just went to a black screen for a while. That's because I was asleep at the wheel, as I typically am. So I'm going to make up for it with some just meaty, dense quality in the middle of the episode here. So one question we got from a fan from Thailand. Hello, fan from Thailand. They're curious if there's any research on a supplement called pgx. They said it's advertised as Nature's Ozempic and it claims that it's backed by science. So this was new to me. I actually looked it up. I had not heard of that. But apparently PGX Polyglycoplex is a highly viscous soluble fiber complex designed to promote satiety, manage blood sugar and support healthy weight loss. Apparently it is made from konjac root, xanthan gum and sodium alginate. The idea is that it absorbs water and expands in the stomach to curb cravings. Things. Now here's what's interesting. So is it Nature's Ozempic? No, nature actually doesn't have an Ozempic. Nature does have GLP1, but at very, very low magnitudes with shorter half lives compared to what we get from actual pharmacological intervention with Ozempic and that whole kind of class of drugs. And so anytime I see Nature's Ozempic, I say, well, not that. However, let's look at, you know, what this can actually do. Now I, because I just quickly looked at this, I haven't had time to dig around for any like randomized controlled trials for these specific outcomes. But at least on the surface, what I would say is there is probably something to a supplement like this when it comes to the outcomes that I mentioned. So, for example, is this going to induce a type of weight loss? Ozempic would absolutely not. I'm willing to put everything I have on that gamble without being PubMed and doing the search. However, if you did have, I mean, you look at the ingredients, Konjac root, xanthan gum and sodium alginate, those should gel up and form a very viscous goo basically after ingestion. And sodium alginate is really interesting. That's an area in sports nutrition where there's a lot of innovation right now, where people are, for example, saying if we do like a carbohydrate product with this sodium alginate and we have more of like a delayed release kind of carbohydrate delivery, like kind of a smoother kind of delivery system. I've seen some, some interesting Papers in the endurance world where they do basically a mixture of glucose and fructose and sodium alginate to kind of alter the like, absorption and, you know, kind of time course characteristics of that absorption. And they've said, you know, what we can actually feel. We can feed Endurance athletes 120 grams an hour of carbohydrate with the kind of side effect profile we used to associate with like 60 grams an hour. Because a lot of times GI upset, this kind of rapid influx of glucose and then this kind of backup at the transporter in the small intestine often causes GI upset in endurance athletes. So sodium alginate is being used in these kind of novel carbohydrate delivery systems. It's also being used in novel sodium bicarbonate delivery systems to try to again, kind of attenuate its impact in the stomach and get it to the small intestine where it can then, you know, kind of have a more delayed release type effect. So sodium alginate, very fascinating. These other fibers, I have no doubt that this forms a goo. I have no doubt it takes up room in the stomach. And we have seen studies, actually brief, very briefly covered, a study in mass back in the day about these really interesting capsules. I don't know if they're commercially available, but the idea was, I forget the exact formulation, but the same kind of concept where you ingest these capsules, they get down into your stomach. Once they interact in the stomach, the outside of the capsule dissolves, it interacts with fluid in the stomach, it expands, and it basically forms this big gel mass in your stomach. And apparently in that trial, it was well tolerated. It increased satiety and induced a little bit of weight loss. So I have no doubt that this type of thing consumed with a meal definitely should impact the blood glucose response. I have really no doubt about that. Can it promote satiety? Probably so, if I had to guess, although I expect it to be less so than the actual, like really expanding gel capsule type thing that I reviewed in mass. And could that promote healthy weight loss, which was weight loss. I said healthy because it's on my screen. Could it promote weight loss? Maybe, if you're getting enough of a satiety effect. So this is the kind of. The kind of. When I just look at the ingredients list and borrow from other literature, I would say this probably does things that's not a placebo. Like there's actually physiological effects of taking this. I could very much imagine this having an impact on satiety and weight management. But I would expect it to be quite modest. Right. You're not going to like Metamucil your way to a totally different physique. Same thing with this. I don't expect that you're going to lose £25 because you started having basically a viscous gel that you've added to the mix here, Helms, Anything you want to add to that or any elaboration?
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No, it's definitely worth like a hypothesis in a randomized controlled trial. And the only caution that I would say is if you're someone prone to GI issues, constipation or the other direction is, you know, probably don't jump right into this with both feet.
- [22:19]
B
Yeah, yeah. And just like with fiber, like if you're going to have, if you're like, you know what, I'm going to really ramp up my fiber intake and my soluble fiber. Like you want to do that incrementally work your way up and assess your symptoms. And especially I would say, yeah, this is the type of thing that I'm way more concerned on the anti diarrhea or the, the anti constipation side than the constipation side. I, I could see this really clearing you out if you jump to a really high dose. Again, speculating. But what we see in the fiber literature is generally you want to start small and work your way up and just assess tolerance from there. Another quick one I want to hit. So someone asked, does the percent daily value on food labels in the US actually tell you the quality of the protein? For example, a bar with 20 grams of protein and a DV percent of 40% versus a bar with 20 grams of protein and A DV of 30%. So same grams of protein, different percent of daily value. And as you would infer if you actually did see that in the wild, yes, that does happen. You will see two different protein bars with the same grams of protein and different percent daily values. And the reason is those the p, the grams of protein makes no adjustment. That is just pure how many grams of protein are in this? But the percent of daily value is corrected based on the PDCAs or the protein quality score. So basically what they do is they take the grams of protein which you see on the label, they multiply it by a correction factor based on how high or low the PDCAS or quality score is and then they divide that by 50 grams. Because as we know, Helms, every human being should have 50 grams of protein a day. Right? And so that, that's basically where that comes from. So yes, you can get an indication of, you know, if one protein source is dramatically different from another in terms of protein quality. But then you also have to understand you're putting a lot of weight on PDCAs as a scoring system. And then you have to kind of make a determination of how much does that matter to you? What, what does that mean in the context of the rest of your dietary pattern? Because, you know, if basically if everyone was screwed by individually going through their proteins and calculating a PDCAS corrected score as a vegetarian, I simply wouldn't be here. I would have wasted away and died many years ago. So we have to keep that with a little grain of salt. So it's not necessarily true that you would look at one and say, oh, this one says 40% of Daily Value, this one says 38%. My decision as a consumer is made. There's a lot more to it than. But yes, there is a reflection of that quality score on the label Helms anything I missed there any nuance to add?
- [24:56]
A
No, I think it might be useful for folks who are looking at protein bars when that's shown and you're like, oh, the first type of protein ingredient they have is like milk protein isolate or calcium caseinate or soy protein isolate. And the second one, as is often the case for the mouthfeel and the cost is collagen. It gets you an idea of is it like 51%, 49% or 80, 20 if you see a precipitous drop in that DV and that is maybe something you would want to think about if you're actively buying a protein powder. When you're think or sorry, a protein product and you're thinking of enhancing your, your total protein intake. But even then, you know, unless you're kind of riding borderline low, it's not like those amino acids don't count if you have complementary sources throughout the rest of the day.
- [25:49]
B
Yeah, yeah. Basically what you want to look for. Like if you're saying I'm getting a bar for muscle building purposes, if they say on the bar, listen up, this is a pure collagen bar. That is the whole purpose of this bar. It's collagen plus sugar or whatever the hell they put in it and you look at the DV and it's just a shockingly low percentage, then yeah, if you were looking for a collagen supplement that is doing that. If you were looking for a muscle building protein supplement, it's not. But I don't think you're going to run into that a lot. I think you're more likely to see, you know, maybe a protein blend that has some collagen and some other high quality proteins. And then when you average it out, you know, it ends up being a PDCAS score north of.08, for example.0.8.9. Which is putting you right in the thick of where you find a lot of like moderate to high quality protein foods. So yeah, there's some nuance to it, but absolutely it is giving you information. How you interpret and contextualize that, like we said, is where the nuance comes in. All right, Helm, so last episode you talked a lot about recomposition. And so there's this big question, can you simultaneously lose fat and build muscle? Your answer was yes. And you actually managed to stretch that yes into about 60 minutes of content, which people loved. I am not being dismissive or taking a jab, but for people who want that, the full answer, last episode is a goldmine. Episode 380. But the question here is actually a little bit different. So they're asking, do we see similar adaptations in cardiorespiratory fitness or function during endurance training in a caloric deficit? So looking at biological adaptations like capillary density, increased stroke volume, increased mitochondrial density, basically, is the energy deficit impairing the ability to make those types of adaptations?
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See, I don't really operate in the world of aerobic adaptations. So my first question is, have you looked at this much?
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Oh yeah, I'd be happy to take a stab at it. So here's what I'll say. I am not familiar with any evidence indicating that there's like a massive blunting. And I am familiar. I was actually just reading a paper by Jose Areta and colleagues, or he was one of the authors on it. I forget if he was first, last, somewhere in the middle, who cares? He sent it to me and he was an author. But in any case, what they found was actually that being in negative energy balance for a controlled period of time, relatively short period of time, to be honest, they were looking at, basically they found a lot of evidence that just being in negative energy balance in a very low state of energy availability that independently started to induce changes that looked a lot like aerobic training. Basically a lot of shifting of enzyme profiles, increased mitochondrial activity, shifting away from glycolytic more toward oxidative phosphorylated of fat. So at least at the kind of like molecular metabolic level, it actually looked like it was, if anything, if nothing else, it looked like it was more promoting some of those adaptations. Now when we get to the gross Level. I talk about cardiac remodeling, vascular remodeling and things like that. I frankly don't have a very good answer for that. I'm not totally certain. But I will say from what I've seen on the short term data and just looking at some of the metabolic pathways that get up or down regulated, the enzymatic profiles that get up or down regulated, I would be pretty stunned if fat loss, especially if you're, if you're losing fat at a reasonable rate, you're not just like doing a really aggressive crash diet and jumping straight into like a 2,500 calorie a day deficit. I would expect that your cardiovascular adaptations are similar, if not better during a fat loss phase compared to weight maintenance or even a caloric surplus. It helps. I saw you tip tapping away on the keyboard. Are you ready to debunk support or in the middle?
- [30:03]
A
No, you actually just unlocked the memory of mine. There was an episode of Sigma Nutrition Radio. They had Jose Hereda on and he talked about a paper and I was like, oh. And it wasn't specifically actually it was pretty close to this. It was more about the muscle physiology adaptations rather than the cardiovascular centric ones. This might be the paper he sent to you, but is the lead author like Nishimura and it was endocrine metabolic and skeletal muscle proteomic responses during energy deficit with concomitant aerobic exercise in humans. Does that sound like it's the one he sent?
- [30:37]
B
Was that published within the last year or so?
- [30:40]
A
Yeah, it was an FASEB journal in November of last year. So pretty recent.
- [30:46]
B
That sounds right.
- [30:47]
A
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of cool. They did five days of a 78% reduction in energy availability with concomitant aerobic exercise and healthy men and. Yeah, exactly what you said. There was a change in the skeletal muscle phenotype and they used stable isotope labeling and peptide mass spectromeny. Spec. Wow. Spectrometry to investigate individual turnover of proteins and big like shifts towards a more oxidative phenotype. So obviously this was concomitant exercise with an energy deficit. It's hard to isolate which one is which, but it's actually quite interesting and I think you would probably have thoughts on this from your kind of evolutionary biology perspective. But yeah, like in many ways when we think about how have humans been able to get here today with a lack of food availability, it is being really good at still being able to hunt and forage when there's not food and in some ways not having food. Triggers these adaptations. So hopefully you can go get it and you can act more efficiently and survive longer. So yeah, I think that's, it's just interesting. Like this isn't one of those papers that tells you exactly how it's going to improve your aerobic performance. But I think the reason why Jose Arreda is talking about it a lot is, at least from his view, there's been a, maybe an overly negative view of what low energy availability in reds does in athletes. I think if you're on the other side of the fence, people have been writing about reds and low energy availability. They might feel like there is maybe a over emphasis on that. And they'd be like, listen, we have 20, 23 red statement, you know, facilitative, non facilitative energy availability. We acknowledge this, like, what's the deal? But I think, you know, you know how researchers are. They get focused on one thing, take it too literally, and then they need to, you know, have a whole career correcting the record that was maybe just like a minor smudge and they want to tear the whole paper up. And this happens all the time because we're weirdos. So it's funny to watch, but it's
- [33:06]
B
tricky in research because it's like when you agree with somebody on 97% of things but not the other three, you end up fighting with them more than the people who you're like, oh, they're just a crank, like they have no idea. So it's like the closer you are to somebody, the more you're like, no, I'm going to argue with you for years and years and years over several papers about the 3% that, that we don't agree on, you know, so it's, which by the way is kind of the point that that is what science is for. So I'm not criticizing it, but I think, I think, and I say this because we are scientists, well adjusted people, really struggle to comprehend how you will find people who are engaging in these like volleys back and forth with papers over literally a decade, even though they share and you read the papers, you're like, wow, these people are really trying to destroy each other's ideas. But then they're like co author on several papers outside of that. It's a very strange way that science operates, but, but ultimately to get to the root of it, you know. But, but yeah, so. Exactly, yeah, so, so like you said basically that that paper did not like take it all the way to the finish line and say, look at these improved cardiovascular adaptations over the long run, especially at like the morphological level and like the heart and the vascular system. But it did kind of lean into this idea that there, there are some adaptations that are kind of shifting toward a more aerobic kind of muscle phenotype that would be conducive to endurance type performance. So all that is to say, from what I've looked, from the minimal amount of research I've looked into, I would expect either really no impact of doing a fat loss phase, aside from just if your fat loss phase makes it such that your training quality or volume just tank because you don't have it in you. But if you're, you know, if we're keeping all things equal and you're doing the same amount of training with the same quality, intensity, etc, and the only difference is instead of being at weight maintenance, you're doing a gradual weight loss phase, I would not expect that to really interfere with those cardio respiratory performance adaptations.
- [35:06]
A
Yeah. And one final thing from kind of the anecdotal world that I point out is that many endurance athletes, because A, they find it easy to do so and B, it can improve running economy or cycling economy or whatever, do end up losing a bit of weight as they prepare for a big race. And that's probably more common than not, especially if we're talking about the elite level. And it is managing that in a way that doesn't also expose them to a higher risk of injury or illness. But it is reasonably common to see someone drop a couple pounds as they get leaner and train for a marathon and they feel that that helps their performance. But it is a bit of a tightrope walk and there's probably some selection bias going on there as well. Like those who can operate at the highest level, have a lower kind of lower intervention point, are more robust to low energy availability. Just like in power lifters, you see people who just manage to not get injured the way most humans would, trying to lift as much as frequently and with that type of repetitive heavy loading that mere mortals would.
- [36:13]
B
So yeah, but I do think that's an interesting and valid point which is that if you just like zoom way out, I think pretty much everyone, again, pretty much not everyone, but pretty much everyone who is currently operating at an elite level in endurance sport is leaner than when they started. So like you could say that fat loss to some degree is built into the training arc that brings you from beginner to, you know, elite. So clearly it doesn't seem to be something that along that way is, is necessarily holding People back from achieving what they want to achieve. All right, Helms, we got a question here about tendons and ligaments. Okay, so this one is what does one have to do in order to keep tendon and ligament adaptations to high load training if they're going to be switching to a more hypertrophy oriented training program or maybe just kind of switching modalities. But basically I think we can boil this down to as someone who has kind of bounced back and forth between powerlifting type stuff and more bodybuilding type stuff, have you ever given a lot of thought to actively or I guess proactively going in and doing stuff for your tendons other than just kind of lifting as your program prescribes?
- [37:35]
A
So again, caveat here is I'm old now and also I've been training for as hard as possible that my body will allow for now 22 years. So it's not just a physical age thing, it's it's time in game. And I'm also someone who has been on both sides of actively competing in strength sport and then not, but still lifting for bodybuilding. So a lot of personal experience here and also some theoretical stuff. So I've done a lot of work prophylactically to address tendinopathy. So the latest data would indicate that the things that produce not only the beneficial short term analgesic effects that kind of reduces pain related to tendinopathy, but also seems to improve long term remodeling. And based upon essentially return to play and time it takes to then perform back at the old level is what's called heavy slow training, which is kind of like 3 second concentric, 3 second eccentric, but still as heavy as you can go within those confines. So you're kind of working probably with what you'd think of like a 10 to 12 RM, but you're doing lower reps with it and it takes a similar amount of time. And that tempo seems to be helpful for both immediate analgesic effects, movement control. And it's still, if you train to the point where those three second voluntary concentrics become three second involuntary concentrics, you're actually getting reasonably close to failure. And it limits the load a bit. But then you notice that you adapt to it and you can start increasing load. And that seems to be just as good, if not better than some of the other options that are used for tendon focus training, like slower eccentrics or functional isometrics at a given joint range, which can also be helpful. So I'll finish with the prophylactic stuff. That I have found to be useful, that is also supported by the evidence. And then I'll talk about kind of my theoretical perspective on maintaining the adaptations from more performance side. Another one that I find is really helpful and this is kind of cool because it has like short term effects and also similar, but maybe not quite as good long term effects is finding a joint angle when you do have some type of tendon tendinopathy related pain where you can push pretty hard and you're going to have to just figure out where that is for you based upon your unique situation. And then doing say 30 seconds at near max effort, that not only has an immediate analgesic effect of reducing pain, which sometimes kind of opens you up up to being able to then train more normally through that range, but also seems to have positive effects on performance as well as kind of returning to normal. And that's kind of cool. And I think sometimes you get conversations thinking more about long term tendon adaptations and not acknowledging that while yes, tendon takes longer to adapt, it's not very oxidative tissue. It's not, you know, getting protein turnover in the course of hours. That muscle can in some cases and you know, early stage hypertrophy can occur in the course of weeks, sometimes visibly if someone gets a robust enough training response. Certainly not true. But what does happen in response to training are very short term and pretty quick changes in the resting length or the current active length, if you will, of the muscle tendon unit. Anyone's ever done calf raises will see that. Oh shoot, like by my fifth rep I'm getting deeper. And some of that is kind of just where your nervous system calibrates the basic level of tonicity in the muscle which is connected to the tendon. So the functional muscle tendon unit length does get modified when you do things like isometrics, any type of training. And there are different effects when you take different tempos. So if you look at say the same movement but done at different like amplitudes, like how deep do you do like a short kind of plyometric jump versus a deep pause squat jump, you'll see more resting length change in the muscle versus the tendon and one or the other. So the body is actually quite good at adapting in a very, very quick, immediate sense, the resting length. And that can impact whether you walk around with a little more pain or less pain in addition to just the pure analgesic effects. And then potentially the the effects on resting inflammation if you're spending more time in a detrained versus a retrained state. Because a lot of times you get the tendon issue and kind of the default setting is I'll just work around it. And if you're not actually exposing that specific tissue to regular training stress, it effectively comes locally detrained. And when you go back to it like, oh, I'm getting doms and mortadenopathy and it's this kind of recurring issue, especially if you're an athlete and you want to come back all the way instead of kind of doing a bit of a graded exposure thing. So being able to do just a little bit of isometrics at the joint angle you can do and then just, you know, giving it a shot there and then building back up to more normal training has been really useful and with my clients and myself. And there was even a study by Varovic and colleagues that compared it's only one and it wasn't a huge sample, but it was kind of cool. Covered it in mass where they did long muscle length isometrics. So essentially leg extensions at the very, very full extended bottom, you know, and just kicking against the pad for the same length of time that a set of like 10ish to failure would take for equal number of quote unquote sets produced. I wouldn't say equivalent because I don't think they could justify that, but pretty similar hypertrophy in the quadriceps. Now, with that said, most of the time in tendinopathy, the most elongated position is not the one where you're comfortable putting forth a lot of force, but you do what is pain free and know that it has some stimulative effect. Now, theoretically, and again, we don't have direct data on people transitioning from powerlifting to bodybuilding and long term adaptations. I do think that there is a theoretical rationale for sometimes lifting reasonably heavy because of the absolute load having an impact on bone and the crosstalk that we know exists between bone and muscle. And I think if you do have the type of adaptations that a very strong powerlifter would have in tendon and bone, I'm not convinced fully you can completely maintain 100% of that by doing sets of like 10 plus on cables and doing less axial loading. So I do think there's something to be said for maybe doing some hack squats in the 4 to 6 rep range, rdls in the 4 to 6 rep range. But I don't think you need to be doing powerlifting and I think that will keep such a high amount of what you got from powerlifting without necessarily needing to think you need to do like a single at 8rpe before all your training. And I, I think that's from a performance, a maintenance of adaptation perspective, probably all one would need to do. And that is all I do. And I haven't seen a meaningful difference in my, this isn't tendon, of course, but my, my bone mineral density scores on DEXA from back in the day versus now about, you know, two years apart, were functionally identical, even though my training had changed pretty substantially.
- [45:22]
B
Cool. So there's actually like a related question in the live chat and of course whenever we do hop on live and we do a Q and A, I always like to give the live chat plenty of love. BZ Wick asked, is this like a Q and A? The answer is yes, but unfortunately each listener only gets one question a year, so you'll have to come back in 12 months to use your next question. But the one that's actually relevant, Helms, is there's a question from rafbmf. It says, is there any evidence supporting claims such as low reps increase hardness, high reps create rounder muscle appearance, or even just the claim that you need to train different types of muscle fibers with high loads versus low loads? I think it's relevant because you talked about that idea of like maybe as a bodybuilder, maybe you do want some heavy stuff because of that crosstalk. I was wondering if you could dig in a little bit more about what is to be gained kind of fact versus fiction in terms of what do you really get out of having that broader palette of heavier and light loads, specifically as a bodybuilder.
- [46:22]
A
Yeah. So if we go back to the bodybuilding lore, you could at least dig in the crates to go back to watching Pumping Iron and you will hear Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about he likes to have a more dramatic look to his physique than Franco, who still essentially trains just like he did when he was mostly a powerlifter. Because when he flexes as a bodybuilder doing more high rep work now than when he was a powerlifter in his youth, you see more of a change. But Franco just walks around looking hard all the time, but he flexes, not much of a change. And that's something that maybe was stated even prior to that point, that they are, you know, carrying on as what they might see as quote, unquote wisdom. But I would say that is at least to my knowledge, the kind of in the trenches origin of that lore. Now, as far as the support for it in the literature, there is some Interesting data. The first one is that mechanistically very little support for meaningful differences in fiber type specific adaptations to different rep ranges. But when you look at the collection of data on people training exclusively, like in the 8 to 12 rep range versus those using various different types of approaches to organizing training, whether it's block day to day undulations or week to week undulations, or even within session pyramid style sets, those who train across a broader spectrum of rep ranges, those being the studies and the study groups, you will sometimes see significant positive effects or you'll see non significant positive effects, but always pretty consistently leaning in favor of having a broader range of reps that are used in training. And I think that's probably pretty good advice. So I generally recommend people train across say like the 5 to 20 or 25 rep range. And I don't think it needs to be bad exercise pairings. Like I wouldn't do your 20 rep sets on heavy compounds that will tap you out cardiovascularly. But you could definitely train the same muscle group with sets of 20 on an isolation versus sets of 5 on a compound and get kind of the theoretical benefits. I talked about heavy axial loading as well as any potential benefits of training across different rep ranges, which may be indirect due to psychology focus, but probably not related to like signaling differences or muscle fiber type differences. And certainly is a very useful thing to know when you do go through phases of having different degrees of musculoskeletal pain, prior injury or things that would prevent you from having as much effort, engagement or enjoyment from training in a more narrow rep range. So yeah, something to it, but probably not the specific claim that Franco and Arnold make in Pumping Iron.
- [49:24]
B
I'm a little worried you're starting to say musculoskeletal like a person in New Zealand. Is that how you always said it?
- [49:31]
A
No. I've been here 14 years Trex, and one thing that won't change is the fact that I still am going to sound like I'm from California, but I will absolutely use the terminology here. Like gents. Cheers. Musculoskeletal. I'll sometimes say motorway instead of highway and you're just going to have to deal with it.
- [49:49]
B
If you start saying capillary instead of capillary, I'm quitting. I'm not going to record with you and hear that, that one I want
- [49:56]
A
another one that I can't do and it just sounds so weird. Is aluminium rather than aluminum crazy?
- [50:03]
B
Yeah.
- [50:04]
A
Not doing it? No.
- [50:05]
B
All right, Speaking of locations, people joining us from San Antonio, Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth, Thailand, Australia. Love to see everybody. The Thailand, actually, that came in the question portal. But we got folks in the live chat from all over the globe, spanning many time zones. So thanks for joining us, really appreciate that. Helms, one last question. I know you're short on time, so let me know if we need to like immediately jump. But really interesting question here. So someone asked Michael King in the live chat, would either of you ever consider using Tirzepatide? Is it really the wonder drug? Helms, could you imagine a scenario in which you would consider using Tirzepatide? And if so, what would that scenario look like?
- [50:50]
A
Yeah, so Tirzepatide is the new, not fully, fully FDA approved, I think triple agonist.
- [50:57]
B
No, no, no. Tirzepatide is the double agonist.
- [51:00]
A
Oh, that's okay. That's the one that is out now. That's right.
- [51:04]
B
Tirzepatide's been approved for a while, people.
- [51:07]
A
That's right.
- [51:07]
B
Using it.
- [51:08]
A
Yeah, yeah. And Retatratrite or retrotrite, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. It's like aluminium is the one that actually we talked about in that one episode that was live where at the high, at the, the higher dose, there were zero people who didn't lose like 5% of their body mass.
- [51:24]
B
Yeah. And there's, there's been trials where people literally are losing a third of their body weight. Like, it's.
- [51:29]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're, we're, we're mapping out all the different types of appetite and satiety signaling. And that, that drug, it, the experience must just be, I don't have interest in food anymore to get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is pretty, pretty wild. So, you know, the interesting thing about these drugs to the question asker is that while we're viewing them from the perspective of treating obesity and diabetes, they are having a lot of other interesting effects. They're currently studying effects on addictive like behavior, impulse control, and also looking at potential cardiovascular effects and other effects. And the thing that I want to see is just because we're, we're affecting a lot of systems and right now all the, all the effects seem positive. I would be curious to see where this goes long term and if it ends up being a better possible like use or option with fewer side effects or fewer downsides than some of the other cardiovascular specific or metabolic specific drugs that are prescribed. You know, personally looking at my life trajectory and my health and my family history, I don't think I'm gonna need to be on a statin. I don't think I am likely to develop metabolic disease later in life. I do have, I have actually been diagnosed with, with ADHD and there are interesting impacts of, of, you know, the, the neurobiology of what that means and, and how that impacts people is, is interesting. You will see much higher rates of addiction. And this isn't me though. That's the thing like, and I, I don't have any trouble like I'm a competitive bodybuilder who just recently realized I was staying too lean in the off season. So personally probably not, but I am interested in seeing the effects on the brain related to dopamine which is intrinsically tied to, you know, that the type of neuro atypical that I am. You know. And looking at my genetics, I do have a relatively unique dopamine signaling. So most people with ADHD are either and or produce less dopamine or have fewer receptors for it. So. Yeah, and the impact on the reward system seems to be a big aspect of GLP1s and you know, single and dual. Agnes, there's a lot of clinicians who are talking about oh I had a, you know, a patient who was trying to quit smoking or drink less and they also happened to have type 2 diabetes or they also happen to have, you know, obesity. And we got them on one of these, you know, GLP or GIP and GLP in the case of the question being asked, agonists. And we saw a improvement in those behaviors unintentionally. So I think there is actively new interest in how these drugs impact some of the neuro atypical conditions and traits that are out there. And because they impact impulse control and dopamine signaling and quote unquote food noise, which is probably related to some of those things as well. I am curious to see if they have potential applications there. But currently I'm doing just fine. So I don't foresee myself ever taking it. But I am still interested in their other effects. That's the best I got.
- [55:25]
B
Yeah, I'm in a similar boat in the sense that I'm really curious to see where this all goes in terms of. You've heard so many of these trials that they'll say hey, we actually noticed lower rates of cancer than we would have anticipated or things like that. We've noticed improvements in a bunch of cardiovascular parameters in the absence of any structured exercise. And I think it's going to take some time to kind of sort out, you know, how, where do we put all these Effects in buckets. So what you know, for example, we know that obesity is a major predictor of cancer. Several types of cancer, not all cancers. So to what extent are these preliminary whispers about lower cancer rates really just kind of a side effect of, you know, reduced obesity, reduced adiposity? We don't know. Then there's the stuff that doesn't seem to be at all caused by weight loss. Right. So like you said, a lot of the kind of neurophysiological aspects, things related to the reward centers of the brain, impulsivity, addictive behaviors. And one of the things that's interesting there, though, is I. I'm not at all ready to be, like. I've heard multiple people say, basically, everyone should be on this. I don't agree with that because I think you also have to consider some of the potential downsides. Right. So the obvious side effects that people talk about are the gastrointestinal. Right. There's a lot of people who do it, and they're like, I felt nauseous all the time, or I had a lot of constipation. This was not for me. I did not like it. Another one that doesn't get talked about as much, but I've seen some stuff about, is just anhedonia. You know, basically. Anhedonia is basically, you really struggle to achieve any sense of, like, pleasure. Right? So when you do something for hedonic purposes, it's purely to derive pleasure from it, Right? So hedonic eating is when you're eating because you know what, Cheesecake is really good. I'm not hungry, but I sure do love cheesecake. Right? So anhedonia is like this kind of broad, you know, across the spectrum. You're just really struggling to achieve the same levels of pleasure that you're typically accustomed to, or you're just struggling to find really anything that brings you a sense of pleasure. And so it's not depression. But to the untrained eye, it kind of reads a similar way where you talk to somebody. You're like, what are you, like, enthusiastic about doing today? And they're like, really? Nothing. Nothing really gets me too excited. The things I know the hobbies I would normally do for joy and entertainment and pleasure aren't really doing it for me. That, I think, is a side effect that as we see more and more people who, especially with, like, Retatra tight are just like, hey, I guess I can just like, order this on the Internet from China. I'll give it a try, which I certainly don't advise. I think we're going to see more people who say, you know what, it's not even the gi stuff for me, it's that I use this drug that I really was not a good candidate for and I really didn't need it. And I found that it was giving me some minor fringe benefits on these outcomes, but also really making it difficult for me to enjoy things I typically enjoy. And I think a lot of, I don't know the prevalence, so I don't want to say a lot of people, but I think a meaningful number of people enough that you would say this is not a no brainer where you just say, well obviously everybody take your multivitamin and take your tirzepatide like as just like a across the board recommendations. So all that is to say I, I don't want to make it seem like I have a negative overall view of the, of this drug because I actually think it's really incredible. I think it's one of the biggest, the whole class of drugs I would say is probably the biggest medical breakthrough we've had in quite some time. People are going to win Nobel prizes, they deserve them. It's really, it's huge. So I'm not, I don't have like an overall negative view of it, but I think just like any drug, any medication, you have to think through am I really a good candidate for this? What is the upside for me? What are the potential downsides for me? And so if I was somebody who had a history of really struggling with weight loss and really needed to lose £30 to get down to a more health compatible body weight, I probably would be on it. If I was somebody who had a history of very successful weight maintenance but had just found my way toward a heavier body weight, I probably would first go back to the stuff that worked previously and go a more just lifestyle behavioral approach and see how far that takes me. And then if I needed it to get me over the finish line to get to that number I wanted, then maybe I will use it. And then if I was somebody who was really struggling with, you know, I do have like a, in like a layperson sense. I have a bit of an addictive personality in the sense that like I'll, I'll get interested in a topic and then get really interested in that topic. But I don't have any addictions that harm my life other than workaholism, which someday I'll probably have to address. But in any case, you know, if I were in a position where, for example, I was struggling with alcohol use disorder or gambling or, you know, anything that like is like real serious stuff, I wouldn't just go and like jump onto his appetite, but I would talk with a qualified professional and say, do you think this makes sense for me as almost like an off label use? So I think it's a really fascinating category of drugs. And I would never say, absolutely not. Like, if they come out and say, hey, this has like a big effect on cancer risk and it's not even related to weight regulation, I don't think that's likely to be the case. But if it is for someone with my family history of cancer, I would get it on it the next day and I just wouldn't think twice about it. You know, Helms, I did have a question. Is this stuff all banned in natural bodybuilding? I have no. I'm so far out of that world, I have no idea.
- [61:15]
A
It's in progress. I think WADA is looking at it. Natural bodybuilding is looking at it. Currently it is like the default setting is it's banned in natural bodybuilding. And I actually think that's in my opinion, probably the way to go, considering the spirit of what natural bodybuilding is supposed to be about. Hey, you got the cards you dealt, you go to the table. And part of the reason why the contest prep is a journey and a challenge. And it's not just, hey, let's just pull people off the street and see who has the best physique. Just walking around, you have to actually be able to have the traits and the discipline and the ability to prep. Right. And I don't even think many competitors, I know a lot of competitors, they have mixed feelings about it. The hardness of prep and the ability to get through it is something that they have pride about, but they also don't enjoy it. But they wouldn't necessarily want to eliminate it. And I think it is part of the competition. So I also, I would worry if. I actually don't know. I haven't talked to enough people on the enhanced side who have used these drugs for prep or for the recovery phase or what have you, how much easier it makes things. And like a concern I have, especially as we keep adding new and new and new less muscular divisions. Like, you know, is if we essentially can use, you know, safe but still prescription drugs that lower the barrier to entry. And we already have classes that lower the barrier to entry and people haven't actually developed like kind of lifestyle, bodybuilding, eating habits and they could just be like, oh yeah, I train twice a week and I want to join the fit model class and I have decent shape and now I just jump on this drug and I could get on stage. I think that would potentially. I don't think it's. I'm not worried about like diminishing the sport because, you know, no one respects bodybuilding anyway, but I think you can
- [63:22]
B
worry that much about reputational harm when your reputation is so low.
- [63:26]
A
Yeah, exactly. What I'm. What I'm more concerned about is that it would lower the barrier to entry to what I think is actually a pretty serious lifestyle decision. If you want to be a physique competitor, it can have notable impacts on your social life. And if you don't have a kind of healthy underlying diet, your relationship with food. And there's a lot of people, like, if you look at rates, you and I both know this much higher prevalence of people with a prior history or current history with body image concerns or disordered eating or football and eating disorders, not so high that it's the majority of competitors. And I think we have talked about that. It is probably more like chicken or egg question. It's probably more so that it exacerbates existing issues and attracts those type of people. But it's not just that. And it can at least be a moderator. Like, we do know that tracking behaviors and dietary restriction are not a problem in people without clinical issues, but in people with clinical issues, I think there's a reasonable possibility that it could exacerbate those things. So just being able to get into
- [64:33]
B
it, you know, not to be too flippant, it's a sport of competitive body checking, which in any other context is considered like a clinical indicator of body, like pathological body image concerns. Right?
- [64:44]
A
Yeah. So in general, anything that makes bodybuilding more accessible and could kind of put a bit of wallpaper over a more serious issue, I'm not in favor of. So. So that is my main pushback as to why I do think they probably should remain banned in bodybuilding. And I'm not fully committed to that long term. But yeah, I think right now the standard rule in, I think the more respected natural bodybuilding organizations that any prescription drug used for bodybuilding purposes is banned. And then if you have a prescription drug which could have some impact on bodybuilding, but you are taking it for legitimate clinical reasons, then you can get a therapeutic use exemption, so long as it doesn't also currently have a major impact on bodybuilding outcomes. Which is why you can have thyroid prescription if you are dealing with low thyroid from a clinical perspective, but not testosterone. Replacement therapy, and you can take an ADHD medication, but you can't take something like just straight up amphetamines. So I think that there's, of course, gray areas and wiggle zone, and you have to make a decision. And it's not black or white. But I think I'm personally on the side of we probably shouldn't have GLP1s, which are essentially behavioral weight loss drugs if someone does not. Because, I mean, how many people have type 2 diabetes who are competitive natural bodybuilders, right? The answer is probably zero. You know, so I think you would have a hard time justifying that you weren't taking this as a prescription drug for bodybuilding purposes.
- [66:29]
B
Yeah, I made a very bad mistake. I'm a rule follower, Helms. I'm a good boy. And I was before one of my shows, many years ago, when I was younger, I had to get some dental work done. And I very stupidly asked them, by the way, what's in the Novocaine shot? And they're like, actually, there is a physiologically irrelevant level of epinephrine in the shot. And of course, this is going to do nothing for my physique, but will it do something for my polygraph now that I asked it to have that information? I don't know. And so I actually got some pretty invasive dental work done without any local anesthesia because I am such a rule follower. So I just opted myself into, like, like, one of the worst experiences of my life because I. I had so much respect for the drug testing rules of natural bodybuilding.
- [67:24]
A
It's. It's good to know tracks that if you happen to be allergic to bee stings and you had committed to a bodybuilding prep, that you would literally die for the sport. And, like, you know, you're puffed up, can barely say anything. Someone's coming in and you're like, I.
- [67:38]
B
I literally am allergic to bee stings and I do have an EpiPen. So, yeah, I.
- [67:45]
A
So, yeah, it's probably better that you have stopped competing because I could see you, like, looking at your EpiPen while your airway is closing, and then maybe you would have decided to take it, but then you pass out and we've lost tracks due to his commitment to the polygraph.
- [68:00]
B
So I basically, I jab that thing in my thigh and immediately call the WNBF office and say, I need to report my sins.
- [68:09]
A
I'm sorry for cheating.
- [68:11]
B
Yeah, please strip me of all my titles. Yeah. So all that is, I hope I didn't ruin anyone's life by just letting them know that dental novocaine may or may not have a little bit of epinephrine in it. So sorry if I just opted you into the real thing you're supposed to do, though. Helms is what, just like email the federation and be like, hey, do you
- [68:31]
A
care about this dude? The things. I'm the same way. Like integrity and like, things rumination and things being on my mind. I go into the polygraph.
- [68:41]
B
We're both very well.
- [68:44]
A
Yes.
- [68:44]
B
We're not doing okay.
- [68:45]
A
Yeah. I disclose stuff that they're like, dude, this is a, it's a 10 year polygraph tested thing. You're telling me about something that happened literally 21 years ago. And I'm like, listen, all right, but if you bring up the fact that when I was 22, I did the weeks of a pro hormone that I got on bodybuilding.com, i know it was, you know, 21 years ago and for less weeks than I've been years than I've been training, but I'm thinking about it and I don't want to fail the poly. And they go, okay, do your thing. The worst one, though, that's embarrassing. And I shouldn't even bring it up, is that until recently, melatonin was prescription only in New Zealand. You can buy it over the counter now. But I was taking Melatonin, but I, I purchased it in the United States, but I took my polygraph for WNBF New Zealand. And they were like, this is the question if you take any prescription drugs for bodybuilding purposes. And I was like, well, I have taken melatonin. Melatonin's on the band list. But I'm like, but technically it's a prescription drug. And they were like, oh, did you get a prescription for it? And I was like, well, no, I got it in the States. And then they were like, oh, then it's not an issue. But I'm like, but maybe I should have gotten a prescription if I'm taking it here and that. And the polygrapher's looking at me like, can we move on? I'm trying to catch cheaters, not like neurotic idiots like you. So that one was embarrassing.
- [70:10]
B
But I, the polygraph guy says, so the good news is you're allowed to compete. The bad news is I think you have serious anxiety and I'm very worried about you.
- [70:19]
A
Well, the most embarrassing part was I figured I would just do my typical spiel about, hey, you know, 22 years ago, you know, I had weeks of time taking a pro Hormone and they go, okay, it's fine, I'll modify the questions. And then they get to the. Have you ever taken any pharmaceutical drugs? And I'm like, fuck now, now I'm going to be. Now I'm going to like that's a reasonable one to bring up. Like you get it. Like, you know. But yeah, so yeah, yeah, I'm sure
- [70:45]
B
there's like a little check on the, on the sheet for the polygraph result where they're like, when you asked a very benign question about super mundane pharmaceutical drugs, did the person just absolutely fall to pieces and divulge every detail of their life history? And if the answer is yes, they probably didn't cheat for this competition.
- [71:03]
A
No. So, yeah, that I, I relate is I guess what I can say.
- [71:08]
B
Yeah. All right, Helms, I tell you what, man, that probably does it for tonight. I think it is.
- [71:13]
A
Actually I have to do two rapid fire because there's a question about volume and there's a question about length and partials and I can answer them both quickly and I won't be late to my next appointment. I have to. So amang 2010 do lengthened partials produce greater long time hypertrophy than standard full ROM training when their higher soreness and recovery rates reduces total training volume and frequency?
- [71:36]
B
First, do you want to take this one or me?
- [71:38]
A
I got it.
- [71:39]
B
This is my area that I like to.
- [71:42]
A
Yeah, I don't want to see you damage your screen and then tell everyone just to stop lifting weights ever. So yeah, there's a premise here that I'm going to potentially reject that there's an assumption here that higher, that like they cause higher soreness and recovery costs. That reduces total training volume and frequency. They do produce more tension and therefore have slightly more fatigue. But that's true of any more training that's more effective. That's just the way it is. Like if you could use the same argument to train further from failure to do less volume and just to choose poor exercises in general. Another way to look at it is that certain exercises are built in lengthened partials. Romanian deadlifts might as well be a lengthened partial. Right. Bench press might as well be a lengthened partial. Unless you're doing really close grip. Right. An overhead dumbbell tricep extension. They are unloaded in the shortened position and they're increasingly loaded in the lengthened position. They are just what we would call favorable resistance profiles. And I don't think someone would make the argument if they took that perspective. However, with that said, if you are shifting to doing a lot more lengthened bias training, lengthened partials or otherwise. You probably want to do so in a staged way. But also refer back to what I said about the repeated bout effect. It is far more powerful and robust than the current anti fatigue craze meme and infographic stuff indicates. The second question, do you think there's a paradox with peri session volume having an upper limit per Remmert that's a great meta regression, yet frequency barely mattering as long as the weekly volume is the same per pellet. And I would say it's not a paradox, it is a limitation of our data in that there are very, very, very, very, very few studies on more than a three times per week frequency. And actually when you consider that they line up pretty nicely because the point at which the diminishing returns are unclear if they provide a benefit in Pellen's meta regression if you use the pairwise comparisons is 30 sets per week. And the per session volume, where again it was unclear if there's a benefit in Remmert's analysis was 11 sets per session. That's like 33 sets if you use the kind of the frequency interpolation. Now that just means that we don't have direct data and we're extrapolating as to what would happen if you had someone on a four times per week frequency doing eight sets or could they get away with a little bit more. But I think functionally they're showing the same thing to shorter time courses and the frequency I believe, I think there is more meat on the bone there that we need to discover and investigate because there are logistical caps, the typical frequencies that we're going to use in research as well as volume. And there may. I think the best way from a practical coaching perspective to leverage higher volumes is to use higher frequencies. So I do think that if we were to do an analysis of higher volumes and higher frequencies, or higher volumes with lower frequencies, frequency as a moderator, if you will, would start to become increasingly important. That's a hypothesis though. It's a testable hypothesis. It's a hard one to test because you need to have research assistants who will come in every day and people who are willing to train four or five, six times a week to test this. If you're only coming in three days per week, like 90% of resistance training studies, the highest frequency you can test is training muscle group three times per week. So we got to kind of get around that barrier before we have a direct data driven answer to this question.
- [75:39]
B
Absolutely. All right, Helms, you ready to sign off on the night?
- [75:42]
A
Yes, sir.
- [75:44]
B
All right. Well, as always, really appreciate everybody for joining us here on Iron Culture, presented by Mass. If you happen to be a Mass subscriber, keep an eye out. We got the new issue just came out, and you're going to want to read that. Lots of good stuff in this month's issue. And, yeah, we appreciate the support. Make sure you like, rate, subscribe, review all that good stuff, and we will see you back here in seven days with yet another episode of Iron Culture, presented by Mass.