2645: Muscle Building & Fat Loss Shortcuts for the Over 40 Crowd With Stan Efferding

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
Episode 2645: Muscle Building & Fat Loss Shortcuts for the Over 40 Crowd With Stan Efferding
Release Date: July 21, 2025
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews
Guest: Stan Efferding
Produced by: Doug Egge

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1. Introduction to Stan Efferding's Recent Life Changes

The episode kicks off with host Sal DeStefano welcoming back Stan Efferding, a renowned expert in fat loss and muscle gain. Stan shares his recent significant life change:

Stan Efferding [00:12]: "Last summer, I sold my home, packed up my family, and we all moved to American Samoa. It's where my wife was born and raised, and we've been visiting frequently over the last 20 years. Finally decided to head on down there for good."

Stan’s relocation reflects his quest for a balanced lifestyle, moving away from the hustle of Las Vegas to the serene environment of American Samoa.

2. Impact of Environment on Health and Performance

Stan elaborates on how the shift from a high-stress environment in Las Vegas to the relaxed pace of island life has positively influenced his health and performance:

Stan Efferding [04:17]: "Most of it would just be the less stress... It's been very peaceful not to be so hurried, not to have such a tight schedule."

The reduced stress levels and slower pace have contributed to improved mental clarity and overall well-being, emphasizing the importance of environment on fitness outcomes.

3. Importance of Whole Foods Over Shakes

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the benefits of whole foods compared to shakes and bars. Stan highlights the inherent advantages of whole foods in providing satiety and essential nutrients:

Stan Efferding [12:34]: "There's plenty of evidence to support the satiety value of whole foods over drinking... And the micronutrient density of a food as opposed to a shake."

He explains how whole foods can better satisfy hunger and offer a richer nutrient profile, which is crucial for muscle maintenance and overall health.

4. Nutrient Bioavailability and Whole Foods

Delving deeper, Stan discusses the bioavailability of nutrients from whole foods versus supplements, stressing that whole foods often provide more comprehensive nutritional benefits:

Stan Efferding [18:13]: "The protein might be the same, but are you getting the iron and the B12 and the zinc and the choline and the bison?"

He underscores that whole foods contribute to better gut microbiome diversity and overall nutrient absorption, which shakes alone cannot match.

5. Metabolism, Muscle, and Fat Loss

The conversation shifts to metabolism and the role of muscle in energy expenditure. Stan debunks the myth that building muscle has a negligible impact on metabolism:

Stan Efferding [22:26]: "At rest, the BMR only burns that extra 60 calories a day. But when you move the muscle, you burn significantly more."

He emphasizes that increased muscle mass enhances basal metabolic rate and overall caloric expenditure, aiding in more effective fat loss.

6. Lifting Heavy and Injury Prevention in Older Adults

Addressing concerns about heavy lifting and injuries, particularly in older populations, Stan draws parallels with powerlifters like Ronnie Coleman:

Stan Efferding [25:14]: "Ronnie Coleman is in a wheelchair because of some bad back surgeries, not because of heavy lifting. People have more back pain who don't lift."

He advocates for responsible heavy lifting, emphasizing proper technique and load management to prevent injuries while maintaining strength and muscle mass.

7. Training Frequency vs. Volume

Stan and the hosts discuss the effectiveness of training frequency over volume, especially for seasoned lifters:

Stan Efferding [32:07]: "We've found you get far better results from doing three sets twice a week than you do from doing six sets once a week."

He explains that spreading workouts throughout the week allows for better recovery and consistent muscle stimulus, leading to more sustainable progress.

8. Isometric Training Benefits

Exploring different training modalities, Stan highlights the benefits of isometrics:

Stan Efferding [45:26]: "Isometrics are probably one of the most effective forms of exercise for reducing blood pressure more than running three times more or walking alone."

He shares personal experiences and research insights, advocating for the inclusion of isometric exercises to enhance muscle activation without excessive fatigue.

9. Optimizing Warm-ups: Post-Activation Potentiation

The hosts delve into effective warm-up strategies, emphasizing post-activation potentiation (PAP):

Stan Efferding [46:13]: "The one thing that improved performance was actually lifting the working set up to about 80% of your one rep max on the exercise that you intended to perform."

Stan illustrates how performing heavy sets can activate the central nervous system, enhancing performance in subsequent lifts by reducing perceived exertion.

10. Re-evaluating Sodium and Electrolytes

A significant segment is dedicated to the evolving understanding of sodium intake and its importance for athletes:

Stan Efferding [61:21]: "The current average consumption is somewhere between 3 and 5 grams a day. And that seems to be okay for the general population."

He discusses the nuances of sodium sensitivity, the role of electrolytes in hydration, and optimal sodium-to-sugar ratios in performance drinks, providing practical guidelines for maintaining electrolyte balance.

11. GLP1 Agonists: Revolution in Weight Loss

Stan introduces the topic of GLP1 agonists, such as Semaglutide and Tirzepatide, and their transformative impact on weight loss strategies:

Stan Efferding [76:02]: "GLP1 agonists have been revolutionary. Comparing people who diet to those who diet on GLP1s, weight loss sustained over two years is up to 23%."

He discusses their efficacy, side effects, and the importance of proper dosing and coaching to maximize benefits while minimizing adverse effects like nausea.

12. Importance of Proper Coaching with GLP1 Use

The conversation emphasizes the necessity of professional guidance when using GLP1 agonists to ensure safe and effective weight loss:

Stan Efferding [82:14]: "You can wean them off. That's the key component."

He stresses that while GLP1s are powerful tools for weight management, they should be used under the supervision of knowledgeable coaches to address behavioral and physiological aspects of weight loss.

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Key Takeaways:

• Environment Matters: Transitioning to a less stressful environment can significantly enhance health and fitness performance.
• Whole Foods vs. Shakes: Whole foods offer superior satiety and nutrient density compared to protein shakes, supporting better muscle maintenance and overall health.
• Muscle Mass Boosts Metabolism: Increased muscle mass contributes to a higher basal metabolic rate, aiding in effective fat loss.
• Responsible Heavy Lifting: Proper technique and load management are crucial to prevent injuries while maintaining strength, especially in older adults.
• Training Frequency Over Volume: Higher frequency with moderate volume yields better and more sustainable results compared to high volume with low frequency.
• Isometric Exercises are Beneficial: Incorporating isometric training can enhance muscle activation and reduce blood pressure without excessive fatigue.
• Effective Warm-ups Enhance Performance: Utilizing post-activation potentiation through heavy sets can improve subsequent workout performance.
• Electrolyte Balance is Key: Proper sodium and electrolyte intake is essential for athletic performance and overall health, with individualized strategies based on sweat rate and activity level.
• GLP1 Agonists as Weight Loss Tools: GLP1s are effective for sustained weight loss but require proper dosing and coaching to mitigate side effects and ensure long-term success.

Notable Quotes:

• Stan Efferding [04:17]: "It's been very peaceful not to be so hurried, not to have such a tight schedule."
• Stan Efferding [12:34]: "The satiety value of whole foods over drinking... And the micronutrient density of a food as opposed to a shake."
• Stan Efferding [25:14]: "People have more back pain who don't lift."
• Stan Efferding [32:07]: "You get far better results from doing three sets twice a week than you do from doing six sets once a week."
• Stan Efferding [45:26]: "Isometrics are probably one of the most effective forms of exercise for reducing blood pressure..."
• Stan Efferding [46:13]: "The one thing that improved performance was actually lifting the working set up to about 80% of your one rep max..."
• Stan Efferding [61:21]: "The current average consumption is somewhere between 3 and 5 grams a day. And that seems to be okay for the general population."
• Stan Efferding [76:02]: "GLP1 agonists have been revolutionary... weight loss sustained over two years is up to 23%."
• Stan Efferding [82:14]: "You can wean them off. That's the key component."

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Conclusion

In this insightful episode, Stan Efferding shares his extensive knowledge on muscle building and fat loss, particularly tailored for individuals over 40. From the significance of whole foods and strategic training frequency to the innovative use of GLP1 agonists, Stan provides actionable strategies backed by experience and science. The discussion underscores the importance of a balanced approach to fitness, emphasizing sustainability, proper nutrition, and intelligent training methodologies to achieve lasting health and performance benefits.

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For more in-depth training protocols and expert advice, visit mindpumppodcast.com and follow the Mind Pump hosts on Instagram @mindpumpmedia, @mindpumpsal, @mindpumpadam, @mindpumpjustin, and @mindpumpdoug.

Transcript

[Sal DeStefano]

If you want to pump your body.

[Stan Efferding]

And expand your mind, there's only one place to go.

[Sal DeStefano]

Mind pump. Mind pump.

[Stan Efferding]

With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.

[Sal DeStefano]

If you're over 40, you won't want to miss this episode. Stan Efferding is on the podcast. He's an expert on fat loss, muscle gain, and he breaks it down. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Seed, the world's best probiotic. Look, there's a lot of documented benefits from probiotics, including, of course, better digestion but mental clarity, better skin, and better athletic performance. And if you want a probiotic that actually works, go with seed. Go to seed.com mindpump Use the code 25. Mindpump. Get 25% off your first month's order of Seeds Daily Synbiotic. We also have a sale on workout programs this month. Maps split and the anabolic metabolism bundle is all 50% off. Just head over to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code july50 for that discount. Here comes the show. Dan, welcome back to the show.

[Stan Efferding]

Thanks for having me, brother.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's been a while, man.

[Stan Efferding]

It has been. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You look extra relaxed. This time I escaped. Is it the island life or what?

[Stan Efferding]

It is, yeah. Last summer, I sold my home, packed up and my family and we all moved to American Samoa. It's where my wife was born and raised, and we've been visiting frequently over the last 20 years and finally decided to head on down there for good. So I've been enjoying island life. This first time I've been back to the States since I left, and it's kind of a whirlwind trip. I flew from American Samoa to Honolulu to Vegas and then stayed in Vegas for a day. And then I went to Toronto, Canada. I was up there doing a seminar at Fortis Fitness for the weekend. And then I flew down to see my pops in Iowa via Chicago and spent a few days with him. He's 94 years old now. And then I zipped over to Cincinnati. Matt Whitamer from Beat Training, he was the guy who helped me with Jon Jones and Henry Cejudo and did a seminar out there. And then I dipped down to Dallas, Texas to do a. A podcast with Jordan Syat.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, Yeah, I love him. Good guy.

[Stan Efferding]

Had a great time. And then up to back to Vegas. And then yesterday I was in Sacramento with the Bell brothers, with Mark Bell, and. And here I am today in San Jose and I'll be Vegas back in Vegas tonight. And tomorrow morning, back to the island.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, good.

[Justin Andrews]

Did you, did you keep the gym and property there? Do you still. Or did you get rid of it?

[Stan Efferding]

Still partners with Eric Asked the Trian who owns Sin City Iron.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yep.

[Stan Efferding]

Beautiful spot. We finally moved into a spot with air conditioning, which is kind of nice. Yeah, I've been spoiled as I get old, you know, the good old days are gone. Those, those, you know, those dungeon gyms with no air conditioning and just sweating and so. But we sold the home. We have no place in Vegas to say, and just moved down to the land that my wife grew up on. She had 11 brothers and sisters, so there's nephews and nieces, the whole works. And Maya, little 10 and 12 year old that just turned 11 and 13 actually, and they've settled in nicely. And it's just a. The whole island is built around raising children.

[Sal DeStefano]

So you're the perfect person to ask this question because you're really smart and you've also have a lot of experience. Really, it's, it's unique to find a combination of both. Somebody's got the education, intelligence, but also has worked with lots of different people, has trained themselves.

[Justin Andrews]

Decades of wisdom.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And so there's. There's some really great wisdom. And so. And we were talking off air. You're talking about the, the slow pace of the island. In fact, you said something funny. You said there's. There's no street lights on the island. 25 miles an hour is the speed limit.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Everywhere. And it took you, you said three months or so.

[Stan Efferding]

It took me months just to calm down. Like. Like I felt like there's something I needed to do. You know, you're so hurried in, in.

[Sal DeStefano]

The U.S. so someone, someone like you, perfect, perfect person, asked this question. What's the impact been on some, Unlike your health and performance, because you still train, I'm assuming you still eat healthy. It's always been important to you.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

The only difference is the environment. Vegas versus the island. How has it impacted your health, performance, like all the, you know, the metrics that you know to pay attention to.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah, I think most of it would just be the less stress, possibly. The island. Most people don't have a. You don't look at a clock or a calendar. Most of the time they have what's called island time. You get there when you get there. And if I'm standing by the car with my keys and tapping my foot because we're supposed to be at dinner at 5 and my wife's like, nobody's gonna get there at 5, at 5:30 there's still nobody there. And I'm like it's gonna be dead. Nobody's coming at 6:00, clock it's packed.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And that's the way it is. And it's, it's been very peaceful not to be so hurried not to have such a tight schedule. You know here in the fitfluencer industry and, and other people surrounded with social media they often come on and put on a, you know a day in the life of. And it's. You've seen the funny ones with some guys up at 3:30 in the morning and they've got this whole thing before 8am They've accomplished more than most people do all day and, and they brag about it and I, I just have just the opposite opinion now. You know, I get up when I get up and obviously I got to get the kids to school. I drive them back to and from school in a golf cart. It's pretty easy going and it's just less, I've been able to be more calm and less stressed and it's pretty good impact. Like you say. The training routine is pretty consistent. They have gyms down there and I swim and. Oh my God. I picked up this nasty little addiction about a year ago in Vegas. I lived right on Sunset park where they have a 26 court lighted from 5am to 11pm Pickleball brother just got the bug. Dude, is it the gayest thing in the world? You know how far from grace can one man. Oh dude, he is definitely.

[Justin Andrews]

He's all in too. He's got himself a little thing that's shooting.

[Sal DeStefano]

Anybody can pick it up though.

[Stan Efferding]

That's you can pick it up quick and it's fun to play and it's one of the reasons we moved to the island, to be honest with you. We were there Christmas before last and we had a great two weeks of Christmas break and we were, you know, we went snorkeling and we went out fishing in the ocean and we went golfing and hiking at New island and all sorts of different things we did. We just had a fantastic vacation. One of the things they have there is a pickleball association of American Samoa and they have an indoor pickleball facility. And so I made sure to set aside a couple hours every day to go join them for pickleball. And there's a big group, a wide range of people from teenagers to elderly folks that are, you know, in their 60s and up in their 70s. You get these little ladies with the 65 year old with their little tennis skirts on, whooping your ass in pickleball. And you're running around, you know, and the Samoans love to talk shit, you know, so it's, it was so much fun. And I met such a big group of people and when my wife asked me if I'd ever be interested in moving to Samoa, I was like, oh, yeah, I move here. I didn't mention the fact that the number one thing was probably because of the pickleball. So anyhow, I talked about my trip from. I said I left America Samoa, went to Honolulu, in Vegas, when I landed in Vegas, I played pickleball. When I got up to Toronto, I did the seminar, then I went out and played pickleball. When I got to Iowa, visited my pops in the evening time, I'd go play pickleball. I got to Cincinnati, did a seminar, went over and played pickleball, got to Dallas, did the podcast, I went over and played pickleball. It's the neat thing about pickleball is that you can go anywhere, anytime, just by yourself with a paddle. And you can just join in whoever's playing, they have open play or whatever, put your paddle up and you're joining. Last night I was at Sunset park in Las Vegas playing pickleball. And it's, you know, it's kind of a social thing. And plus it's fun. And, you know, I've always said to everybody, what's the best exercise? The one you'll do? You'd never catch me in the gym, walking on a treadmill. It's just nauseatingly boring. And it's not anything anybody looks forward to. But I wish people could find something that would help them move more. And I'm fortunate that, you know, I was able to kind of happen onto this little activity. But yesterday, end of my story, I'm talking to ncima, who's a black belt in Jiu Jitsu. That's Mark Bell's podcast host and partner up there who wins tournaments. He's just a phenomenal athlete for those people who, who, who are familiar with Insema. And I started comparing pickleball to Jiu Jitsu. And you have to know what a nice guy and SEMA is, but the look on his face. And I was just, I was just fucking with him, right? I was, I was like, oh, it's just like Jiu Jitsu, maybe a little harder. And Seema's really physically demanding, the kindest guy on the planet. And his, his face just went blank. And then he starts kind of playing along. Yeah. You can just show up and then you can like have a match with someone and he starts actually trying to support your argument. Yeah, support my argument. And I'm just, I'm. I just, I let it go on and on and on. I'm just laughing. And then sometimes when I go for like an overhead smash, my shoulder. Do you ever get like shoulder problems in jiu jitsu?

[Sal DeStefano]

That's awesome.

[Stan Efferding]

You know, when Seema's winning competitions as a black belt in jiu jitsu and, and I'm playing pickleball with a 65 year old lady with a plastic wiffle ball and I was making poor insema, but he, you know, he played along.

[Sal DeStefano]

You mentioned the social aspect and I think that's one of the most important parts of all of this. So you have this social life, this connection to your community, a reduction in stress, how has it impacted things like inflammation, your movement, exercise, like objective things that people who listen to our podcast tend to get motivated by. They hear the conversations around stress all the time.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

But it's hard for them to put that together with what they love, what they're focused on, which is like, how does it affect my fat loss, muscle gain? Like, are you noticing anything different in your body from this different lifestyle?

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah, well, you know, I've always had that, that foundation of the 10 minute walks. Moving often after meals, et cetera. And I've of course lost a significant amount of weight from when I was powerlifting. I lost even a little more weight intentionally because I was trying to get better at pickleball. And I haven't moved laterally since college. And pickleball, especially when you're playing doubles, not supposed to be much movement, but when you're as bad as I am and they keep moving you around, I'm just running from side to side. It must have taken me six months or better to get over a lot of the aches and pains from the side to side, change of direction, movement in my hips and my knees and my ankles and my, my feet. I had to wear these, these Joe Biden hookahs, HOKA shoes because my feet were sore from playing. You know, I would on the concrete for two, sometimes three hours a day every day. I would limp home at night and then wake up in the morning and, and do it all over again. But there's, you know, the movement is key.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And the frequency of movement, as we know now, we've Talked about the 10 minute walks in the past, but even five minutes an hour just sitting is like the. The new smoking. And so I do try and get plenty of movement in. I have lost, you know, additional weight and more than what I had additionally dropped from powerlifting. So my health has been great. Obviously, the. The psychological component of just being less stressed and relaxed is probably the biggest change.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I feel like you look the best right now.

[Sal DeStefano]

I really look very healthy.

[Justin Andrews]

You look really, really healthy.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And what's cool about the enjoyment factor, as you mentioned, two hours, three hours. You're not going to exercise for that long unless you're really enjoying.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

What you're doing. It sounds like you're having a lot of fun.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Something else you said off air, which I would love to. To veer off into, is we were talking about the difference between getting your calories and macros from things like shakes and bars versus whole foods. And, you know, there's kind of this debate. Right. Well, it's all the same. Same macros, same calories. Whether it's bars and shakes versus food, there's no difference. But you have experience in this. You've trained lots of people yourself. Adam's talked about this when he competed. I knew this with my clients. There's something else about whole natural foods. Even when we. Even when we count everything and measure everything, it seems to be the same. What do you think it is? Or do you think we just don't know what it is with whole foods that makes it different?

[Stan Efferding]

Well, I think there's two things we can certainly say. There's plenty of evidence to support that are pretty obvious. One is the satiety value of whole foods over drinking. Even if it's a protein shake, we know it doesn't have the same satiety benefit as if you have, say, a steak. And I've used that to my advantage in the vertical diet, as we've talked before, whether I'm trying to I've got a client, or whether I'm either competing in powerlifting or bodybuilding, whether I'm trying to gain weight or lose weight. So on both ends of the spectrum, you can use whole foods differently to impact satiety. When I'm working to people trying to lose weight or having them cut and chew steak. When I'm working with people who need to gain weight, I'm using ground beef and white rice and bone broth to make the moisture content and the consistency, the softness of the food so they can consume more. So those are strategies that we use that I think are important. When you're talking about shakes, the other thing is going to be the micronutrient density of, of a food as opposed to a shake. The protein might be the same, but are you getting the iron and the B12 and the zinc and the choline and the bison? Are you getting what you get from steak or eggs or yogurt? I don't, I don't think shakes contribute anything to your digestion improvement for your digestion. And we know that fermented foods, at least in the Sonnenberg trials at Stanford, they, they fed, you know, either yogurt or kimchi or kefir or sauerkraut to some participants in their studies and found that a hundred percent of them improved their gut microbiome diversity and density. So the vertical diet had always intended to be more diverse because as far back as the late 80s when I was started training people for competition and I was competing already, I found that the over restriction was causing a lot of problems and we still see that today. A lot of digestive distress comes from being in an over restricted state. Same thing happens, of course, with the bulkers doing the dirty bulking. They get a lot of digestion problems. And so particularly with respect to say, the bikini competitors, they tend to demonize and exclude too many foods. You know, they end up with that egg white, tilapia, asparagus diet, maybe a tablespoon of, of almond butter or something like that. And so I'd always intended the diet to be more diverse to help avoid things like anemia with iron deficiency and things like, you know, calcium deficiency. So we keep the dairy and fruits and you know, egg yolks for biotin, for skin, hair and nails and getting them to salt their meals. And you know, so we have a, the diversity matters. Some salmon for omega 3s and I think that people just get too restrictive. So I think that's what's pretty important about whole foods as opposed to shakes. And then there's the bro science like we mentioned earlier. You know, so sometimes the, even the, the academics will say the bros were right. And I said on Mark Bell's podcast some 10 years ago, you know, shakes are for fakes, eat steaks. And I, and I think that, that Jay Cutler also said in an interview once he was never able to gain or maintain a significant amount of lean mass on shakes. He always had to incorporate plenty of whole foods. I hate seeing people drink shakes after shake after shake. Yeah, if you're going to throw shakes in, then, you know, mix them up. Whole food shake, whole food shake. Something like that would be. And how much science is behind that I'm not sure, but we have plenty of good reasons to eat whole food as mentioned, and the rest is just kind of my experience.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I think that there's, there's, there's a lot we know about food, but there's so much we don't know about food, especially in relationship to mammalian metabolism, which is incredibly complex, one of the most complex things we've ever identified. So I think a lot of it's mystery. So at this point it's like this is just what we've seen and I've experienced this as a trainer, like you could count everything, make it as equal as you want, it just doesn't work the same. Is there any data that supports that nutrients from whole foods tend to be more bioavailable or your body tends to use them better? In other words, low iron. If you eat a certain amount of iron from liver versus taking an iron supplement, or you need more B vitamin eating it for meat versus taking a B supplement. Like, is there any data to support that? It's, it's just more efficacious when it comes from whole food versus a supplement form.

[Stan Efferding]

I don't think we can say that. I think that the supplements are, are a lot of them are made to be identical too, but the diversity is different in food, like you said.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

I mean, even when Wetsen a Price was, was doing his research, the dentist that traveled all over the world and did his research back, I think it was in the 1930s, to be honest. It's a long time ago. It was a fantastic book. I think we've all read that sometime back maybe a decade or more ago, he found there were certain nutrients that he couldn't even identify or wasn't aware of at the time. Yeah, I think they were referred to one as an activator X and they weren't aware, you know. And eventually as time progresses, we see, you know, we weren't even aware with scurvy that it was vitamin C. So we are discovering new things. I think we've got a pretty good grip on it now with the level, you know, the advancement of science now. But, you know, now it's a different kind of problem is that we're eating foods that are, like you mentioned, that are devoid of a lot of nutrients just because those are the cheap, you know, the highly palatable, ultra processed, calorie dense foods and those tend to be deficient and then they end up having to, you know, put vitamins and minerals in those just to meet some minimum requirements.

[Sal DeStefano]

You just made me Think of one. Bioflavonoids. We know that, we know that. Actually if you get a vitamin C supplement, sometimes they offer, they include them. But that makes vitamin C and like an orange more effective. Whereas before we didn't understand that whether it was just the vitamin C. Yeah. Orange has other things called bioflavonoids which.

[Stan Efferding]

Help with the vitamin C. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Stan Efferding]

Importance of many of those things.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I read a study, there was a study a little while ago and people quoted often that compared whole eggs to egg whites. Controlling for macros, the whole eggs produced better muscle protein synthesis levels. Do you think it's the cholesterol? I know old school bodybuilders swore by it. What is it?

[Stan Efferding]

I, I do recall the study. I quoted it myself some many years ago. I think there was a calorie difference.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Stan Efferding]

I don't think they controlled the calories. The macros were controlled, but I don't think there was. The calories were controlled. And we're discovering now, like we used to think that cholesterol from eggs would raise LDL and increase cardiovascular disease risk. And now we discover that the cholesterol and dietary cholesterol. Cholesterol is really a cholesterol ester that the vast majority of people can't break down. Only a small percentage, 15, 20% of the population who are hyper absorbers actually absorb cholesterol from the diet. We've also been able to find out that the. One of the confounders was, is that a lot of the foods that are high in cholesterol also high in saturated fat.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right. And that makes a difference.

[Stan Efferding]

And it was the saturated fat that was raising the LDL and not the cholesterol. Most of the cholesterol that is in your bloodstream is made by the liver or recirculated. And most of it that's in your small intestine is, is free cholesterol that was put there by the liver and in the absence of a sufficient amount of insoluble or soluble fiber that it doesn't actually get taken out of the system. And so a lot of it's just recirculated from your own endogenous production.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, staying on the metabolism talk, I don't know if I've heard you communicate this or not. Really curious to your thoughts on. And this is a debate that I feel like we find ourselves in. I can't count on, I can't count how many times I've taken a client that was eating 16, 1500 calories on her and can't move the weight, can't move the scale stuck there. And we reverse diet them, build, you know, say five, six pounds of muscle. And over this is over a period of time, say six months to a year. And I've now got that female client that was eating 1500 calories, eating 2700 calories and staying lean, eight, sometimes even losing my fat. Yet you get the science nerds that want to argue that it's not the muscle that's burning all this extra calories. It's, you know, maybe a pound of muscle burns another 4 to 10 calories a day. Yet I've seen this example over and over of where I've just added five pounds of someone and their metabolism is through the roof. How do you communicate that to somebody?

[Stan Efferding]

There's a few variables there. Oftentimes the individual that says they're eating 1600 calories isn't really eating 1600 calories. That's a challenge. That's the most common problem. When somebody's weight loss stops and they claim of a certain calorie consumption, if they were actually to very accurately weigh it, they're probably going over sips, bites, licks, snacks. You know, those kinds of things can add up. Sauces, just oils that you cook food in. It's not a good food, bad food conversation. It's just hidden calories. Secondarily. A lot of times when they raise their calories up, we're putting in more protein, and we know the thermic effect of food. They net out 70 of the hundred calories. Right. So they're actually getting kind of a benefit from that. They also tend to use more fibrous foods, and fiber doesn't really count in the calories necessarily. So they're able to eat more food volume. Maybe the calories on the package or, you know, on the label might say one thing, but what you net out could be different. And then on the muscle discussion. Yeah. You burn around 6 calories an hour per pound of muscle. Is it per pound or is it per 10 pound? It's per pound. I think it's about 60 calories a day for, for about. I want to say it's 10 pounds of muscle, isn't it? For 10 pounds of muscle at rest, yeah. That's the key component in the energy expenditure side of the equation is that at rest, the BMR only burns that extra 60 calories a day. But when you move the muscle now, you burn significantly more. Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So it's not accounting for that, probably.

[Stan Efferding]

Because it doesn't Account for that.

[Justin Andrews]

The reason why I wanted to talk about it is because I think it's a really big terrible message and it comes from our, our space sometimes, again, trying to argue and debate with each other. And I think we lose a lot of people that were, you know, maybe considering strength training and building muscle. And then they hear this, oh, well, it only burns an extra, you know, six calories a day. Like, what does that. To me, that's, that's. Yeah, what's the point of that? I'd rather just get on the treadmill or do something else. And I just think it's a terrible message and it loses a lot of people when I know I've helped many, many clients that were eating 500, 700 less calories just by simply building some muscle on their body.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. And I've got to say in, in this whole conversation about the energy intake side and the energy expenditure side as it relates to weight loss, the energy expenditure side isn't very promising. About 99 of the weight loss occurs from the calorie deficit. On the energy intake side, more exercise doesn't equal more weight loss than. So the idea of having someone try and do more exercise. And that's because of Herman Poncer's constrained energy model of obesity and the fact that people compensate in a number of different ways when they exercise more. They also tend to sit more and it increases their appetite. They get hungry and eat more. And additionally the body becomes pretty efficient. More efficient. Say day one, you go in and do 30 minutes of treadmill and you burn 300 calories. Just an estimate. By day 30, you're burning 120 calories for the same 30 minutes at the same pace. Now, ideally you'd increase the pace and duration over time, I guess, but it's just not the most effective. You get diminishing returns. It's not necessarily the most people don't adhere to it as long, particularly the hard workouts, the battle ropes and burpees where they're just sweating and their heart rate's going crazy and they think they got a great workout. But that's not a client that's going to do that consistently over an extended period of time. So I'm cautious with the energy talking about the energy expenditure side as it relates to fat loss. But exercise is great for health and then the weightlifting is fantastic for everything else.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And I would even say I think we could speculate quite a bit. I think a lot of it we don't necessarily understand because I've experienced this same thing that Adam says, I mean, just changing how your body responds to insulin and testosterone, all things being equal, will change body composition. Right. Like, I know when you build muscle, you increase androgen receptor density and insulin sensitivity, both of which might change how much body fat you store, even with the same calories.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. And that's different than scale weight. Right, right. And so the calories might determine the scale weight, but how your, your hormonal may leave you or your training, you know, your muscle, your strength training, is going to change body composition.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Stan Efferding]

So that's very. And can increase your, your caloric expenditure over time, your basal metabolic rate. So that makes a big difference.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. You know, I want to ask you this because you're, you're interesting in the sense that you've, you've done powerlifting bodybuilding, you train heavy, hard, you've got a history of that, to my knowledge. You don't have, like these lots of major crazy injuries. And now you're an older guy working out, like, how have you been able to do that? And what does lifting look like for you as you're getting older? Because you often hear the argument, people will use examples like Ronnie Coleman, like, oh, well, he's, you know, look, look what he did himself. He's really injured because of his, his heavy training. And I can get that rationale, like, how do you communicate, oh, you know, you can lift heavy, not injure yourself or what does that look like?

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. Ronnie Coleman's in a wheelchair because of some bad back surgeries, not because of heavy lifting. If he had never had a surgery, he recovered from the heavy lifting. You know, you get little bumps and bruises along the way and back pain. And people have more back pain who don't lift. And people who lift have back pain. So there's a whole pain science. The people are really good at that, I think is Jordan Fagenbaum and Austin Brocky at Barbell Medicine, and they pursue a biopsychosocial method of pain, Dr. Lara Mar Mosley's work out of Australia. And it's fascinating stuff and they do a very good job of that. So I won't try and get too deep into that. But so people do, with Ronnie's example, worry about lifting heavy and how it might injure them, but in fact, lifting, you know, responsibly. But you should lift with enough weight to maintain strength and, you know, as you age, and you should lift with enough effort to within a couple reps of failure. Right. That would be your effort such that you get a sufficient stimulus that you're actually getting some result from the training. Probably the biggest thing with me and I had a few bumps and bruises along the way, you know, popped a hamstring and you know, shoulder torn rotator cuff and things that happen when you're power, you're competing at a very high level. I've always said that health and fitness are not the same thing and that if you want to be healthy, don't compete. As we know, the fitness level required to compete is often at the sacrifice.

[Sal DeStefano]

Of health for people who don't know you were lifting insane weights. So I mean you could expect to have maybe an injury and the same.

[Stan Efferding]

Would be true of a football player.

[Justin Andrews]

I was just saying at that point.

[Stan Efferding]

It'S a sport, It's a sport at that point. Or a 14 year old gymnast in the Olympics with carpal tunnel syndrome or Achilles tendons popping or 10 year old badminton players in China blowing out lateral collateral ligaments. So it's not specific to the lifting. As a matter of fact, lifting actually prevents injuries and we see that American Academy of Pediatrics has said that it is essential for adolescents to lift weights and it has a huge impact on decreasing exposure to injury. So, and it's not, you know, the, the, the highest percentage of injuries in the gym, 65% of all injuries in the gym is dropping a weight on yourself. It's not from the lift itself. And most injuries are incurred. I guess this gets us to the original question. What I, what I did then mostly was I would periodize my training. I would power lift for a while and then I would bodybuild for a while. And so I would go up in weight and lift heavy weights. And then I would actually be dieting down and with more frequency and volume, which was, you know, bodybuilding can be a, you know, it could be a, how do you term this? Because you're not using maximal weight and you're doing more frequency and volume and you're incorporating more cardiovascular fitness. It can be more health healthy than powerlifting. And with that I was able to have more longevity in the sport. Eddie Cohen trained the same way. He competed in powerlifting meet twice a year and in between the meets he would do bodybuilding stuff. Higher repetitions, lighter weight, more frequency and volume from a variety of different angles and maintained really good health that way and had a pretty long career himself. So that was big. But what I didn't do then, that I do now after learning more about this and I did a video, the best way to recover from training on YouTube on one of my rhinos rants and I was talking about everything that I did after the training stimulus. I talked about passive versus active therapy. I always said that the things that are done to you or for you are not as effective as things you do for yourself. So if someone's, you know, giving you a chiropractic or a massage or dry needling or gua sha or any of the passive therapies that you go in and have somebody do to you to try and recover from workouts, foam rolling were pale in comparison to any kind of movement that you just do. The 10 minute walks, that's how that kind of originated for me. As I found out my doms would go away much quicker if I was doing, if I was moving frequently following big workouts. So that's how I was managing fatigue back then. I was do everything after the training session. Now as we've evolved with our knowledge, we an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We look at everything on the front end in terms of load management and try not to do too much damage to begin with. We try and do just enough training so we get a sufficient stimulus so that we can then get super compensation from that. Not so much training that we're. I always said to John Jones, hey, we're not digging ditches here, we're building mountains. I just need enough, I just need you to take yourself to a place where it's a little more than last time and then let's, let's cut off and let yourself recover. And I look at the days off as growth days. The training days are breakdown days. Right? You don't grow in the gym, you break down muscle tissue. Even though muscular damage is not a driver. It's just a, a phrase but muscular damage is not a driver of hypertrophy or strength and neither is metabolic stress. As we know now the pump, it's all mechanical tension and you have to get a sufficient stimulus to get mechanical tension and recruit maximum muscle fiber. And that just requires that you lift to within a rep or to a failure. And there's some variance here between powerlifting and bodybuilding of course, so that just the effort has to be significant enough. Probably even more important than effort. If we wanted to start from the top, we would say that consistency, I've said compliance is the science. Just you have to get in and train regularly. You can't be on and off, on and off. You're just going to, whatever results you get are going to go away. It's. Joe Rogan said it was like Building a sandcastle, bodybuilding, it's just eventually it all, you know, washes away. You have to keep at it, obviously. So that would be compliance is science. The next one I think would be frequency is probably the second most important thing on that list. A hierarchy of the most important things for the results, for strength or hypertrophy and the frequency. Now we're finding you get far better results from doing three sets twice a week than you do from doing six sets once a week. Far better results. Now whether or not you go to three days a week, you might, may see a tiny bit more results, but the big difference is that twice a week is better than once a week.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And what's interesting is the academics have always coined the once a week training as the bro split. And I thought that was funny because back in the early 90s when I used to drive down to Gold's Venice from Oregon and take my road trip so I could watch these guys train and ask them questions. Every one of them trained every body part twice a week and most of them trained twice a day. They would split quads and hamstrings and you do the double split. Most of them would do six days straight. It was a push, pull legs, push, pull legs day off. Now we've kind of involved in our thinking and can mentioning that the days off are the growth days and we've tried to do a little more with less and have more days off. So maybe push pull day off or yeah, we do upper lower day off. Upper lower weekend off would be an example if I were. When I design programs now for my clients, I give them one of a couple of choices and that's an upper lower day off, upper lower two days off. If they wanted to do everything in a six day window as opposed to a seven day window, then they just go upper lower day off, upper lower day off and just keep repeating it like that. If they wanted to go to an eight day window, they could go upper day off, lower day off, upper day off, lower day off. That's twice every eight days. So those are progressions twice every eight days, twice every seven days, twice every six days. Those are potential progressions that you could design into a program for someone. Start them at twice every eight, then twice or seven twice and see if they're still progressing. So that's your, your frequency. Next thing on that list after frequency is probably going to be your effort and that's going to be getting you within a rep or two of failure for power. For bodybuilding, you can get closer to failure. It's okay to grind some reps here and there. For powerlifting, you kind of want to leave a couple reps in the tank and not do slow reps because speed is a component for powerlifting. It's a lot of central nervous system adaptation for powerlifting. And so generally speaking, if you're doing 85% of your one rep max, you, that might be a five rep grinder. Do the three, leave the other two in the tank for powerlifting. And another thing to consider with respect to powerlifting is that strength is specific and so it does have to be a heavier load. 80, 85% of your one rep max. Hypertrophy, as you know, can be on any range. You can do a heavy 5 rep or you could do a light 20 rep. Here's what's interesting that I didn't realize 10 years ago I thought the lighter 20 rep set would be less fatiguing than the heavier weight just looking at load. Right. But now we're discovering that it's not. It's more fatiguing.

[Sal DeStefano]

More fatiguing.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah, absolutely. And we know now that, that it's because there's a lot of metabolite accumulation, possibly calcium channel ions or maybe it's not lactate, but hydrogen ion clearance. And we're noticing that that's what is causing the doms. It's not necessarily muscle damage, although some of that can be accumulated in a good workout. But that's the muscle damage doesn't drive the workout. The, the, the tearing of the muscle fibers and repair. We used to think that that was a driver of strength or hypertrophy and now it's, it's a passenger and it isn't necessary. So back to, we said effort was the next most important and I guess that takes us to volume. And volume is where we have this huge argument going on right now, right in, in the social media industry amongst the academics and the lifters. And some people believe in high volumes and people believe in low volume. At my age and with athletes, I'm much more inclined to believe in low volume. Of course, I think a lot of the high volume studies are confounded by a number of different variables. I think that they measure the muscles too close to completion of the study, in which case they're. It's influenced by swelling and water accumulation, edema, whatever. I think that they're newbies, in a lot of case they're new lifters. And so a lot of the initial volume is probably neural adaptation from lack of experience or coordination with the movements, whereas Seasoned lifters would, you know, very quickly adapt.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, I agree. I think a seasoned lifter can get more out of one set than a newbie can set.

[Stan Efferding]

100%.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And the third variable, which I think is the largest variable that confounds a lot of this literature is that all of the participants who made gains also increased strength. There was a progression in or reps.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

And that, I believe, is the ultimate driver. You cannot build muscle without getting stronger. You can get stronger without building muscle. You cannot build muscle without getting stronger. And if that's happening inside of a volume study, then who gets credit for. For the results?

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm. I'm much more interested. I'm far less interested in the most you could do to get the best results. I'm far more interested in the least you could do.

[Stan Efferding]

Bingo.

[Sal DeStefano]

To get results. I just read a study. I just quoted this. Now, this was with people over the age of 60. Still fascinating. And they took one exercise once a week, press over six weeks. 33% increase in strength. 100% like that, to me, is far more interesting than the, oh, you can do up to 38 sets per body part and see whatever, and get 15% more growth than if somebody did. I don't care.

[Stan Efferding]

Well, here's what we know, or we think we know. The first set that you do of an exercise in the gym, you're going to get X result from that set. The second set is going to be 50% of X. The third set, 50% of the second set. So you get diminished returns. Yes, it's not nothing, but it's going to keep diminishing and each subsequent set is going to accumulate more and more fatigue to the such, to the point where eventually, if you're going to do a really high volume workout, you'll get less and less result from each subsequent set and you'll get more and more fatigue, which will create doms. Now, doms and hypertrophy are two different things. You can usually the hypertrophy stimulus only lasts for about 48 to 72 hours after the workout to which you're growing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Then you see the.

[Stan Efferding]

And then you see the decline. So, yeah, that's when you want to pop in a new workout. But if you've done so much damage that by the time you do your next workout, you're still sore and you're unable to perform at the level of the previous workout.

[Sal DeStefano]

You're just healing. You're not adapting.

[Stan Efferding]

You're healing, but you're not adapting. And so you have to separate those two things. And I think a lot of people can. They confuse how hard the workout is or how much pain that they're. How much soreness they have. And I did that. We wore it as a badge, everybody. Yeah, look, a lot of this conversation, a lot of these questions that I answer with respect, you know, now that I have the opportunity with my years of experience to reflect upon some of the things that I did wrong, I. I don't want to sound like a curmudgeonly old, you know, has been that. That. That's just on everybody's program. I listened to guys like that as I came up in through the years who would just sit there and complain about everything. That's not my intent. It's just I really want to be able for people to look at this and figure out what's meaningful, what works, and what is probably unnecessary so they don't have to go through a lot of things.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's wisdom is what it is. And a lot of the progress that we made was in spite of the mistakes that we made, not because of those mistakes. One question I want to ask you, I would love your input on this because this is something that we noticed. We released the program recently, and the intent initially was for people who don't have a lot of time with their workouts. And what we ended up finding was some of our seasoned lifter listeners. Many of them followed this program. And we're breaking PRs. Yes, I broke a PR.

[Stan Efferding]

I love it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Adam got great results. So here's what it was. Okay. You're doing two lifts a day, six days a week. You're doing 2025 minute workouts.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Versus, let's say two one hour, one and a half hour workouts. Same total volume. But because it's spread out every single day, the fatigue that you just mentioned is removed. Do you think that separating out sets and doing a little every day is more than doing a lot sometimes, or what do you think's happening there?

[Stan Efferding]

I think you should get 48 hours. Ideally, when I said you go from twice every eight to twice every seven to twice every six, that to me, is a progression. I'd like to pinch that down to where I said that hypertrophy only occurs for 48 to 72 hours after a workout. So I want to hit that muscle every 48 to 72 hours. If you're doing it daily. And you know, the Chinese with their Olympic lifting, I mean, they do 16 workouts a week. It's pretty high. Now. They're not maximal efforts.

[Sal DeStefano]

No. And the Fatigue is not even a factor.

[Stan Efferding]

And fatigue is not a factor. They're not doing max loads and they're not trying to, to do a lot of muscle damage. But, but just doing, you know, a couple of sets and grabbing all of the stimulus with very little fatigue coming back and doing that as soon as you can. Especially if you're going to do an everyday workout, you're going to want to do maybe two sets for like a chest workout. You're getting all the, all the good stuff without any of the potential bad stuff.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And we noticed that people writing in are like, I've been working out for seven years. I followed this program because my time was limited and I'm breaking PRs.

[Stan Efferding]

You know what's hard is I just took on a client last week. I still train clients to this day. I still do online coaching and I've done. I was a personal trainer in college and worked at box gyms and I've owned numerous gyms over the years and I still do it and I took on this and I learned something from all of them, particularly the athletes, the collaborations, it's more of a, you know, a shared experience. Took on a 71 year old client last week and he was telling me all about all the trainers that he had. He trained with the former Mr. Olympia and the Mr. AAU, whatever, and he's been training for 40 years and blah, blah, blah, and he wants to put on 10 pounds of muscle, tall order for a 71 year old. But then I looked at his training program and it was the BRO split and it was way too much volume and less frequency and he was lifting lighter loads and not that load matters. Of course, effort matters more. But I saw opportunities there, a lot of opportunities there. And so I the same type of deal. And when I told him he was only going to do two sets for chest, he was like, I had to explain it to him. I said, look, you're gonna, you know, I just want you to give it a try. Because I said, all I'm interested in is prs. That's all I'm interested in. Every time you go to the gym, I want one more rep or five more pounds. Not every time, but, you know, over time. And like you said with all your people who followed your new program, they're setting PRs and that's all that matters. Did you get a one rep or a five pound? PR is all that matters. You can't get bigger. How's his results so far? He's doing great. He loves the program because he's not sore all the time.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And I remember for years after I stopped competing in powerlifting, I kept trying to go back in and do a lot of the same workouts. And, and even while I was competing, you'd walk around for two or three days after a big leg workout just in this fog. You know you survived. Yeah. You just walk around and you just did. The brain fog was outrageous. Your whole central nervous system was drained.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

Really what we've learned a lot now is that that firing muscle contraction is a signal that's sent from the brain. It's not the muscle that fails, it's your brain's perceived level of exertion. Which is why my co author of the vertical diet is Dr. David McCune, PhD, RDN. He was a instructor in the exercise phys department at UNLV and head of the dietetics department. And he did his PhD thesis study was on taking in carbs pre workout versus swishing a carb drink around your mouth, spitting it out. That's been repeated. There's a number of different studies.

[Sal DeStefano]

Such a weird result.

[Stan Efferding]

Same result. Yeah, it's psychological, CNS related. It's CNS related. It's psychological and it's about perceived level exertion. That's why when somebody goes to the gym, if you're stressed from work or you're tired from missed night of sleep or let's say you missed a meal and you're hungry, if you get to the gym and you're hungry, that's a distraction. It's like things like caffeine theanine work so well, they keep you focused, you know. And we just saw another study just came out this week on I think it was pre workout stims that multiple ingredient stems versus just caffeine versus no stimulants. But a, it was a placebo that was to taste good. They had equivalent results. Isn't that great in terms of performance?

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm selling pre workout called placebo.

[Stan Efferding]

Largely, largely psychological. Even even some of the caffeine benefit. Yes, largely psychological.

[Sal DeStefano]

Just to back you up, you know, we just talked about the Chinese Olympic app by the Soviets by the way. You know, they did a lot of that stuff. What they're is they're practicing the lift, they're training the central nervous system. And just to add more credence to what you're saying, we've heard stories of the mom, the car flipped over, it's on the baby. Oh, now all of a sudden she can lift the car. Right. There's some truth to that. And really what's happening is you're not able to be as strong as you can because your brain limits. It's afraid that you're going to hurt yourself. And in some cases an extreme duress, you can override that but through training you can maximize that. And one, when we first started working together, Justin brought up isometrics. Now isometrics strength athletes use forever. And they kind of fell out of favor. But Justin perked my interest. I started looking at the data on it. I'm like oh my God. Like now it doesn't work as long but in a short period of time if you want to build strength and activate muscle fibers, isometrics, there's a crazy slope of strength gain and stuff from them. You're starting to see them start to pop back in into training. How do you feel about isometrics? What do you think about them and do you use them great?

[Stan Efferding]

For a lot of reasons. One is it's probably one of the most, probably one of the most effective forms of exercise for reducing blood pressure more than running three times more walk angle.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. It's huge. And I wasn't aware of that. That research.

[Justin Andrews]

Interesting.

[Stan Efferding]

We've never shared, we've never talked.

[Sal DeStefano]

No. That's yet another benefit.

[Justin Andrews]

We talked so much about isometrics. I don't think we've ever.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's post isometric pain.

[Stan Efferding]

Relax for me. 90 second wall sits. Do a few of those every other day. Maybe even a leg extension to a hold or just a gripper. All three of those have better output than. Than running or jogging or walking for reducing systolic blood pressure.

[Sal DeStefano]

Is that because of the. I'm assuming it has to do with the CNS and how it, it dilates blood vessels and so you're training the ability to contract relax.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah, I, I wouldn't be the best guy to explain it, but I see that the outcomes are consistent.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

How funny when you think about the, the journey of that like you probably as a early trainer scoffed at the. The wall sits and like oh, these must be. You know what I'm saying? And then here we are full circle recommending that before you recommend doing cardiovascular exercise or something else. That's so wild to me.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And in the bronze area, strength athletes, that's a lot of their training was holding things and pushing against things that couldn't move. And they're, it just, they're very safe and yet super activating when it comes to muscle fiber. And, and, and the strength gains on. Are great if you look at the, the studies on. It's wild. The strength gains you see in isometrics are. You don't get that with any other form of a muscle contraction, which is really, really cool.

[Stan Efferding]

You know, Perillo performance, he's been around for decades. Loved him as early as the 70s, I think, certainly by the 80s he was doing the Golgi tendon organ desensitization program. I don't know how effective those are, but that was always. Perillo was trying to turn off or desensitize the Golgi tendon organ is, is what kind of interprets the load for the tendon to make sure that you don't hurt yourself and it'll shut down your muscle contraction or turn off the nervous system because it's worried that you're going to break yourself. And so he would perform different exercises to try and desensitize that.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Stan Efferding]

Theory. Yeah. I'm, I'm not certain what works for that other than just, you know, loading over time.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

Which is why they say strength is specific because you have to lift a heavy weight in order to get your body. And you know what recent. And a recent study that came out in terms of warm ups, you know, we've all argue about what the best warmup is and how people and a lot of folks a little foam roll or they'll ride the bike for 10 minutes or they'll stretch either dynamically or statically. And they went through and looked at all these different warmups and they found that as far as. And whatever warmup gets you to be able to work out is great. Okay. But if you're trying, if you're asking whether research says about which warmup helps you perform the best, none of that stuff, dynamic static, foam rolling, biking, none of that stuff actually improved performance. The one thing that improved performance was actually lifting the working up to about 80% of your one rep max on the exercise that you intended to perform.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And we know that because of post activation potentiation, you know, if you go up and lift to a single at a particular weight and then maybe drop down, you can do more reps.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Stan Efferding]

So saying get to about 80% of your one rep max and it's, it's just potentiation of the central nervous system. And then when you do your final set, you'll do better, you'll get one more.

[Sal DeStefano]

So I'm going to add to that because there's a, there's a little bit of context there or nuance. Right. So essentially what you do is you're turning on your cns. Yeah, you're turning on your CNS so it works more effectively.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Powerlifters know this by the way. A power lifter is going to warm up a bench press by bench pressing or warm up a deadlift by deadlifting or a squat. But power lifters and experienced lifters know how to turn those muscles on, get in that position, get tight, grab the bar, squeeze the bat, whatever, to get into that right position to set them up. When you're training a novice person, this is from a trainer perspective. If I have a novice, I'm teaching them how to squat. I can't warm up up with a squat because the warm up's gonna look like crap. So we do, we will do what's called priming. And priming is, is a, it's second best, but it's best for a lot of people because they can't perform the squat properly to begin with. So with them, I would look at them and say, okay, you got a little thoracic issue there. Let's, let's get you in a position where we could squeeze the rhomboids, bring the scapula down and back. Let's hold that contraction. And I would piece it out, then get them to do the squat as their first warmup and then they jump into the exercise. So we call that priming is what we do.

[Stan Efferding]

I've told this story before, but when I was preparing, when I was backstage warming up for a powerlifting meet, there were a couple things that I would do because a lot of it I understood was psychological and that post activation potentiation. I would get on the bench and I had said that I didn't like to do a lot of junk, volume or get a pump. When you're powerlifting, you don't want to get a pump.

[Sal DeStefano]

No.

[Stan Efferding]

And now I believe that when you're bodybuilding that you don't chase a pump first. It's, it usually comes along with a hard workout, but can actually decrease the number of repetitions or load that you can use on your top set. If you have a pump already interferes with the way that the muscle fibers can, can slide.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Stan Efferding]

And contract. So two different conversations. Very briefly. Whenever I was powerlifting, I would get under and I would maybe just warm up with a band and get my body temperature up and walk around the room. Right. Get your heart rate elevated slightly. I would bench 135 for a couple of reps and racket and then I would sit there for a minute or two or whatever and I would bench 135 again for a single. The second time I benched it, it would explode off the chest.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

Put two and a quarter on. I come down, I hit a single, rack it. I'd wait three minutes, I'd do two and a quarter again. The second time, just fly off the chest. I do that with 315 and do it with 405. And then I was ready to, to hit, you know, probably get out on the platform and hit your opener. But each, each time I hit the weight, the second time, it just felt faster. Again, perceived level of exertion is gonna, is gonna, you know, dictate or determine your muscle contraction. And my perceived level of exertion on the second set was of the single rep. On the second set of the same weight was like, this is nothing. This is light. Everything's just flying off the floor. But the first set was like. The second was pow pops right off you. So I make this analogy. When somebody goes in to do a hypertrophy workout. Traditionally, we've all done this in the past. You go grab the. To do an incline dumbbell press. You go grab the 60s and you do a set of 10, and you set them down and you rest a little bit. Grab the 70s and you do a set of 10, rest a little bit, and then you grab the 80s, you do a set of 10, you rest a little bit. Then you grab your top set, your heaviest set that you can handle. When you do, like six, you know, maybe your partner taps you on number seven. You didn't do four sets. You did one set.

[Sal DeStefano]

One set.

[Stan Efferding]

And the other three, to me, are junk volume. And they probably interfered with the number of repetitions of the load that you could have used on your top set.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

And so I, I would rather do back down if, if at all. I'd rather do two top sets than a bunch of junk. Volume leading up.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's, that's your. That is what you learned from powerlifting, that I think made your bodybuilding better. Because the pump, I think the reason why we value the pump for. Well, there's two reasons I think we like it. You look bigger.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So it's really cool. Right. I also think getting a good pump really is just a sign that you're well hydrated, well rested, good diet. So when you get a good pump, you build more muscle, probably as a result of the other things, not necessarily the pump. But what's funny, what you said about the pump, that you don't necessarily. Don't want to chase the pump early because it messes with the. Every athlete knows this. You talk to a jiu jitsu fighter. Hey, do you want a forearm pump while you're in a match? No, absolutely not. I can't grip the gi anymore. I suck. You talk to a cyclist. Do you want a quad pump while you're out there trying to compete? No, never beneficial for me. No. I remember my first time encountering this early trainer. I was a young trainer. I had this kid who hired me. His parents hired me to train their kid who was a motocross racer. You know what his question was? I need you to help me not get a forearm pump while I'm riding and racing. And at that point, I thought the pump was the best thing ever.

[Stan Efferding]

Right.

[Sal DeStefano]

How do I trade this guy to not get a pump, you know, type of deal?

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

But, yeah, the pump reduces performance. So what you're saying makes absolute, you know, so what does that look like.

[Stan Efferding]

If you went back and you were to kind of reprogram, you know, leading.

[Justin Andrews]

Up into a powerlifting meet in terms of, like, managing fatigue and then also.

[Stan Efferding]

Like, you know, eliminating the junk volume. Yeah. Well, I think the big thing about powerlifting is, is I mentioned that you don't want to do grinder sets. So if. If you're with an 85% of your one rep max, you might be able to grind out five reps. You only do three, and that'll allow you to accumulate less fatigue. You maybe even do an extra set there if you want. Or you can train again sooner and potentially benefit from that super compensation and start to progress your loads. That's the goal, really. It's not how much you can do in any one workout, but how you can grow by stringing together a series of workouts. What was that on social media? The lady that said you go to the gym and you train real hard and you come home, you look in the mirror and you'll see nothing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

You know, over and over again, you're like, yeah, go in the gym the next day, we're training real hard, you see nothing. So, you know, you could train long or you train hard, but you can't do both. And so I just. I believe in those shorter training. You said you created those workouts. You probably also did some synergistic or antagonistic. Antagonistic body part. You do chest rest a minute, back rest a minute. So now you shorten the training session down to 20 minutes, but you got the same volume, the same total number of sets for the body, and it's Just as efficient as if you'd sat there and done just your chest rest, chest rest, chest. There's a lot of things that you train in those workouts, like that dumbbell example that I was giving. You know, eventually I would have the client just do two sets with the 60s or two, two reps with the 60s, one rep with 70s, one rep with your 80s. Time to take your top set. Dorian Yates put all this in his blood and guts. He was right. He was 100% right. Because you're not training hypertrophy at that point. Now that we know it's all mechanical tension and everything else is a passenger. There's other things that happen whenever you do a set to work out. You know, you're having a central nervous system impact that takes time to recover, which is why people who rest for two and three minutes do better on the subsequent set than people who rest for one minute and they get better hypertrophy and strength outcomes. Because the one minute people, their central nervous system didn't recuperate and so they weren't able to, to lift as significant amount of reps or load on the second set. And we talked earlier about whether it's calcium ion buildup, whether it's cardiovascular fitness, whether it's creatine phosphate is something that, that you utilize in the first 10 or 12 or 15 seconds and it takes you time to replenish those creatine phosphate stores. That's why creatine helps as a supplement for getting that extra rep. But when you deplete Those in a 10 or 12 or 15 second or 22nd set, that needs to replenish itself. And so you're training something else other than, you know, muscular contractions, mechanical tension, you're training something else. And that's fine if that's your goal. We say this when we train sprinters too. If I'm training a sprinter, and let's just say, for example, that you're, we don't do hundreds, we usually do 40s. But if your 100 meter dash is, is 10 seconds and you're training for speed, as soon as you're 10% slower, you're no longer training for speed.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, that's a little stamina.

[Stan Efferding]

Repeated bad, all those other things. So as soon as, as you're, you know, either you rest longer or you go home because you've, you're not training what you want.

[Justin Andrews]

This is our biggest pet peeve with plyometric training that you see. Yeah, they bastardize the hell out of that. I mean, you rarely ever, it's at least rare for me to walk in, in a gym and see plyometrics being applied correctly. It's just like.

[Stan Efferding]

Well, a lot of people try and combine cardio cardiovascular exercise with their strength training. Even Henry Cejudo, when we were down there working with him. Fighters want to keep moving. They want to always be moving, get their heart rate up. And they want to go from, they want to have short rest periods. They want to go from exercise. Exercise. It's not the most efficient way to train strength, right?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, no, no.

[Stan Efferding]

And so it's really hard. So sometimes we would just throw in fake stuff like wrist curl grippers or something just to let him rest his legs a little longer. All we were really worried about was the belt squat.

[Justin Andrews]

That's. That's old trainer wisdom.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

So the superset would be a bunch of, you know, like pinky curls, keep them busy. So, yeah, these are great, coach. I like these, you know. Okay, we've got our three minutes. Let's go do another belt squat.

[Justin Andrews]

Talk of that with such great wisdom there, right? Like an area where you know it's best, but you also know, like, I can't. This, this is such a habit for this guy.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

How do I meet him? Somewhere in the middle where I make him feel like he's still staying busy, but what I'm really doing is I'm making him rest.

[Stan Efferding]

We'll lay on the side of a bench and do the rotator cuff exercise.

[Justin Andrews]

And it's so smart.

[Stan Efferding]

It's not for anything, but to give us some rest time so we can smash him on the next.

[Sal DeStefano]

I became, I became an expert conversationalist with my client, with some of these clients, because let me just make this a great conversation that lasts three minutes so they forget exactly that we're resting. You brought up mechanical tension. I, I observed something as a kid over the years that then resulted in me, you know, including a type of training in some of the programs that I wrote. Now you hear people talk about it like they'll call them like exercise snacks. I call them trigger sessions or whatever. But I had family members that didn't lift weights, had mail carriers in my family, didn't lift weights, any high protein diets. I had really muscular calves. I had mechanics in my family. Nobody worked out. I'm sure that at that point, after six months of doing what they did, and they did for 30 years of cranking on wrenches, they weren't getting a workout. These guys had crazy looking forearms. I thought, how are they building these body parts? When they're not like working out, they're not getting damaged, they're not creating lots of waste, they're just moving these muscle groups. It was the tension, it was the mechanical tension. And so how do you feel about including sessions throughout the day? You'll see this with arm wrestlers. Well, they'll practice a gripper or practice. Do you think that there's some value in that for the traditional lifter who can add a few, you know, minor things in the middle, maybe maintain a muscle protein synthesis signal? Like, what do you think about that?

[Stan Efferding]

I said that frequency after consistency was probably the second most important thing on this hierarchy of things. Frequency that you can recover from. So I think as often as you can train, and we talked about the Chinese weightlifters and exam. As often as you can train, so long as you've recovered from the previous session, I'm all for it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And that's using all the methods that we just discussed in terms of, of less fatigue.

[Justin Andrews]

That's the biggest key is the over application of intensity on something like that. I mean, we see this with our own programs where we've included what Sal's talking about, where we have these trigger sessions that are designed to be, you know, take you five, eight minutes to do. You're just supposed to get a really light pump, you know, then you get feedback from how the people do it and they're going to failure and they're.

[Stan Efferding]

The industry refers to intensity as load. That's why I always say effort and load.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

I never use the word intensity because it confuses my client and it confuses me, to be honest with you, because intensity to me seems like how hard you train. But intensity is, is to. Defines the load that you're using.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

It's my understanding in the scientific literature. And so I always use effort, that's to within a repetitive failure. And load is the amount of weight.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

I still want our client or our, our viewers to get confused when we're using all three words. Intensity gets confused. But yeah, load and effort.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, one of the biggest changes I've seen in perception around nutrients is around sodium. Now, I know I, you know, we all, you know, we're in fitness in the 90s.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And you know, in the 80s and 90s and sodium was like a bad thing. Avoid at all costs. Terrible for blood pressure. Whatever. Years ago, our friend Rob Wolf sent us elementary, which is a company we work with.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And it's electrolyte.

[Stan Efferding]

He sends me element too. Thank you, Rob.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And he'll Send. And I remember he sent it and my assistant's like, hey, are you interested?

[Justin Andrews]

Sat in the back for like electrolyte.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, I'm like, no, I'm not interested in that electrolyte powder. Who cares? Nobody cares about electrolytes. And it sat there forever. And then one day I was walking around in the back and I looked at it. I'm like a thousand milligrams of sodium. Like they. Finally somebody figured it out. So. And now the attitudes around sodium are starting to change. Let's talk about that a little. Is it scary? Should you avoid sodium at all cost? Is it valuable?

[Stan Efferding]

You know, there's a lot of nuance here and so bear with me. Okay. I put out a video some years back. This sucks, but. Or creatin sucks, but this works. This is the video. And it wasn't really a knock on cre. And I've always said that it was. Gives you a little result. And after a year it seems like it's somewhat equivocal, but now we've got some of the cognitive benefits, et cetera. Take Korean. Korean's great. It's cheap. Give you a little boost to performance. But people kind of overlooked the necessity of salt for performance.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And in that video I talked about the importance of salt for, for performance. But a lot of the academic or the medical community conflated my recommendations with sedentary, hypertensive people. And I got attacked from, from all sides. But in the video, I very much spelled out that if you're eating a lot of ultra processed foods or packaged foods, you probably don't need salt.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And the vast majority of the country, 70% being overweight or obese, probably don't need to add salt to their diet because 70% of the, the.

[Sal DeStefano]

They've already got plenty of it in their food.

[Stan Efferding]

It's already in your food. Okay, so I wasn't talking about those folks. We know that about 25 to 30% of the population is hypertensive salt sensitive. And they should minimize their salt. They should exercise and lose weight, but they should also minimize their salt. But even in the salt studies, the DASH diet, the ones that reduce sodium to reduce hypertension, they had less of a decline in, in blood pressure from the sodium restriction than they had from adding in more potassium, magnesium and calcium.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

That was the bigger variable.

[Sal DeStefano]

And so don't cut the sodium, increase.

[Stan Efferding]

The other electrolytes for hypertensives, we're eating a lot of processed foods and cut the sodium, but add in potassium, magnesium and calcium. You'll get a much bigger effect. But we also now have 5 to 15% of the population we know suffers from reverse salt sensitivity where if they lower their sodium they have an increase in blood pressure. One of the things that, that has changed since I did that video, I, I had talked about the research on the J shaped curve where when you had lower sodium intakes you would see an increase in, in poor health outcomes, cardiovascular disease risk. And that was from the pure study, which was the largest, you know, international multi country study. One of the authors ON that was Dr. Salam Youssef, head of the World Heart Federation, a cardiologist. Unfortunately, what we found out now, they would do one 24 hour urine test for salt. But when you do multiple tests because the body's salt is constantly, you know, the sodium level and the kidneys are constantly adjusting. When you do multiple tests, you'd flatten out the J curve. You don't see, you don't see poor health outcomes from low sodium. But for the 5 to 15% that are resource salt sensitive. And so that JK shaped curve kind of washed away with the new research. Now as we, with respect to the general population, those who are not salt sensitive, you do not see a significant maybe 0.3%, maybe 1 millimeter of systolic blood pressure reduction for sodium reduction. But you have other problems that occur. You start to get some insulin resistance potentially with a, with a lack of sodium or maybe some water retention. Even so, for the general population, I think what we're, the current average consumption is somewhere between 3 and 5 grams a day. And that seems to be okay for the general population. Not for the salt sensitive people, of course, but, and then for active individuals now we're in a different realm. And in terms of performance, if you're a salty sweater, and that's genetically predetermined, we use Dr. Sandra Godic, President of the Heat Institute. She was, she's a PhD in thermoregulation hydration. She sends sweat tests. She has a website called levelin.com oh, interesting. L E V E L Y N. You can order a sweat test, they send it to you in the mail. You put a patch on your athlete and let them wear it for an hour during their training. And then you send it back and they'll tell you how much sweat salt does your athlete sweat out every hour. We did that with Hawthor, we did that with Jon Jones, we did that with.

[Sal DeStefano]

You see a big variance?

[Stan Efferding]

Yes, it's genetically predetermined. Lane Johnson from Philadelphia, Eagle sweats out 5 grams of sodium an hour.

[Sal DeStefano]

5 grams.

[Justin Andrews]

Isn't there a new. I think Gatorade is doing this right now where there's like a patch that you can wear and it actually, you can watch it in. In real time.

[Stan Efferding]

I don't know sure if it's similar or not.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, Google it. I'm pretty sure it's Gatorade. Does it. I don't know how accurate it is.

[Stan Efferding]

Is.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I just saw it recently, though.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, that's crazy, you guys. Five grams per. Per hour. So he would have to drink five packets of element per hour to make up.

[Stan Efferding]

You'd have to design a rehydration program that accounted for his daily needs. We don't do it. The only acute.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, right.

[Stan Efferding]

Intervention that we do is probably post workout.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

But it, it helps also to be you hydrated or to have some hydration prior to training. So to kind of stave off a little bit of that. And so, you know, with Lane, we had to design a program for him that included, you know, over the 24 hours. But if you've got two training sessions a day now, there's a shorter window. So salt sweat rate is genetically predetermined. And then if you're in a hot climate or a humid climate or, you know, hockey players, if you're wearing clothing while you're training, then you have to take a good look at how much sodium you're sweating out. One of the things we do in sports is we, we met. We weigh athletes before and after. There's an. I think the ISSN suggests that for every kilogram of weight that you lose during training, you want to get about 1.5 liters of water with about 500 milligrams of sodium. Now, first consuming salt with water for say, pre workout, which seems to be one of the better times to consume it, you don't want to guzzle it because your body only absorbs it at a limited rate. Uh, so you kind of want to sip the whole hour prior to training. And then maybe throughout training. Uh, there's a lot of peri. Workout drinks that have a little bit of salt in them. And then post training, uh, it's not a more is better scenario. If you take in too much sodium, you could end up with diarrhea. Uh, but one of the things with. With athletes, we want to make sure that the titration matters. I mentioned blood pressure is important. Right. In terms of how much sodium you take in. There's a second concern that the concentration of salt can potentially be bad for the endothelial lining of the blood vessels. If you're eating a whole thing of potato chips, let's say.

[Sal DeStefano]

So like all at once.

[Stan Efferding]

All at once, yeah. The concentration of sodium in your bloodstream, you should have sufficient water to dilute it so it's not damaging the endothelial lining. So that becomes important. Consuming enough water with the salt. The other factor is what's the concentration? What's the optimal concentration? So that you're absorbing. Getting the water into the bloodstream from the small intestine through what's a sodium glucose transporter. That kind of determines the gradient as to how well the water is absorbed. And it kind of gets us back to Gatorade.

[Sal DeStefano]

So a little bit of sugar, good idea.

[Stan Efferding]

A little bit of sugar, good idea. Too much sugar, bad idea. Can do just the opposite. Problem. One of the things I talked about in this video was when I was doing a powerlifting meet with Mark Bell in Sacramento. It was over 100 degrees and we were in a warehouse and I was wearing a beanie and I was just sweating like crazy. And after weigh ins, I started downing just tons and tons and tons of Gatorade. And I'd never historically done that. Well, that actually increased my urination and I ended up dehydrating myself. And I got done squatting and I started cramping up too much, too fast. Too much, too fast. The sugar did just the opposite. All the sugar started to get me to expel to urinate. And so I would grab the bar and my fingers actually were cramping onto the bar. I had to actually pry my fingers off the bar. And so it was really. Because that's. The sodium potassium pump has a great deal to do with. With muscular contraction and relaxation. Everything that's affected by the nervous system is affected by salt. The heart, for arrhythmias, your digestion, you get constipation. Everything that's affected by their nervous system is affected by salt. So I started cramping up really bad. And I was actually told my wife to get the keys and go to the. We had to go to the hospital. And Mark came out with Jesse Burdick. And they were like, what's wrong? And I said, I'm cramping, I have to go to the hospital. Like, no, no, no, here drinks. And oh no, you're not done with the meat. You can't leave. So they fed me a whole bunch of nun tablets at the time, which is just salt tablets. And I sat there for 20 or 30 minutes and I just drank salt. Salt, Salt, Salt, salt. Because the Gatorade was high in sugar but low in salt, it's not enough salt. And the ratio is like six to one. And at most maybe a three to one works better. Closer to one to one. Two to one right in there. So long story short, I was able to get rehydrated. I was able to finish my bench, and that was the 2303 world record total that I set that day. And it. So it was.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow. It didn't. Almost didn't happen.

[Stan Efferding]

A couple years later, Larry Wheels had the same problem at a meet in Sacramento or in Oakland. And I was there with him and we did the same thing. We had to rehydrate him because he had. So let's be specific because people, we talked a lot of numbers here about percentages. Usually about 2% sodium, 2% glucose for the, for the drink. So let's make it easy for people. Let's just use a gallon of water. Not suggesting. And drink the whole gallon, but take a gallon of water, put in 500 to 1,000 milligrams of sodium and about 80 grams of sugar. A fructose glucose blend is a little easier to digest on the stomach. So that could be your, your water bottle that's mixed correctly. It could be an lmnt.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

With a gallon of water. And I usually use dextrose 80, but you could use sustainable sugar.

[Sal DeStefano]

What do you think about waxing maze or.

[Stan Efferding]

That's fine too.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Stan Efferding]

Yep. And put that all in your water and shake it up. And now you sip that.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's your whole gallon.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. And you don't drink the whole gallon. That's an easy way to mix it. So everybody can, you know, can mix it the same. That would be the, the concentration, the titration that I think would be most effective for performance.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what I found, by the way?

[Justin Andrews]

It's another bodybuilder bro thing to sip on the electrolytes all day long too. I just want to point out I.

[Stan Efferding]

Don'T think it's an all day thing and I do think it's around. And again, dependent upon your sweat rate and the amount of sweat that you are, you know, the temperature, the humidity, and are you sweating during your work?

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what I found to be a great natural. And I'll just add sodium to this. And it's just a great natural example of what you said is coconut water. You ever look at the amount of potassium to sugar in natural coconut water? And then just add some, add some salt to that and it Seems to be like a great ratio.

[Stan Efferding]

It does. I will say this with respect to potassium because people, people look past the sodium into magnesium potassium. I think there's some, some extra benefit to that. It seems like the sodium is the primary driver. One thing that Dr. Goedek did tell me when I was asking her about potassium, she says the muscles release potassium into the bloodstream while you're working out.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, okay.

[Stan Efferding]

She said so we don't put it in our drink for that reason. Eat it with your food. And we know how important potassium is and we've talked about salt. We should. You can't not talk about potassium. That definitely should be in your diet as well.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, yeah. Coconut water is interesting. Coconut water. Add a little salt to it. It's like this nice ratio of all these different things.

[Stan Efferding]

And you'd want a little sugar in there too. I don't know how many calories are in coconut water.

[Sal DeStefano]

Not enough. But it's got some sugar in it. Yeah, Just natural sugar.

[Stan Efferding]

Get your 2%.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

80 grams per gallon.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So I want to ask you. We're going to take a left turn here and ask you about a topic that, you know, we've talked about on the podcast many times. I've said that I believe we are in a, a culture shifting moment in regards to medical intervention for weight loss and akin to like birth control. Birth control changed the world.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

I think GLP1s are doing the same thing. How do you feel about them? Are you, do you, do you work with people who are using them? Like, what's your opinion on, on this, this revolution of, of just peptide intervention?

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah, Peptides in general. I mean, back in 2006, I was using melanitan to get ready for bodybuilding shows. There's a peptide to get tights. Yeah. To get tan for the show. I'm, I'm Irish, so I just turned red and back to white and you got to be tan on stage. And those tanning beds just burned me up. So. Yeah, peptides have been around for a long time and they're supposed to, you know, they're short chain amino acids. There's probably over 60 legal FDA approved peptides. People aren't aware of many of those, but the most popular ones are insulin, of course.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And they're supposed to have more targeted action with fewer side effects. And the GLP1 glucagon, like peptide is the family that you're talking about for Semaglutide and Wegovy and Ozempic and. And now the new tirzepatide is hugely successful for weight loss. And it, they've been used in, in, I think diabetes control for nearly 20 years.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

Best of my knowledge.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

So we have a lot of research on them going back a long way. I used Melanitan back as long as 2006. It had some interesting side effects to itself other than the tanning. Melanitan was combined with what was PT141.

[Sal DeStefano]

You get libido boost from that.

[Stan Efferding]

You get a little libido boost from that. You get those. And they're not predictable. You just walk into the grocery store, next thing you know you're like, yeah, some melons in there.

[Justin Andrews]

Not the worst thing ever.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. What they say about C is something about a few. If your erection lasts longer than four hours, call the doctor. I'd be calling the wife. Yeah, calling the wife. So I used those back then. And then early on there was some appetite benefits from things like the ghrelin agonist, GHRP6 ipamorelin. We would use those to improve our appetite so we could eat more at the time. GH does that too. GH can give you an appetite. The problem with too much of that, that stuff is it can cause insulin resistance. It's one of the problems with too much GH or those. And the ghrh, the growth hormone releasing hormones, Tessamorelin, Sermorelin, those.

[Sal DeStefano]

Hexarelin, I think is another one.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah, those all, they help your own endogenous production max out and release at a greater rate. And those can have some benefits as well and some drawbacks. There's a, you know, there's side effects to everything. And that kind of brings us to where we're at today with these GLP1 agonists, which have been revolutionary.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

You know, for the longest time, personal trainer for 35 years, as mentioned, since college, we've been getting our asses handed to us in this industry. With the obesity epidemic, it's just a losing battle. With 50 weight regain after the first year and 90 plus percent after year three, most people regain the weight. I think in most of the research comparing people who diet to people who diet on GLP1 agonists, dietary adherence after two years with just dieting was 2% weight loss. It's not even necessarily clinically significant. You need 5 or 7% to resolve some fatty liver or maybe even 15% to reverse type 2 diabetes. So it's 2% weight loss. So on the GLP1 agonist, we saw 17, 18% and now tirzepatide 23% sustained weight loss over two years. Crazy. So they're hugely effective. They do have some side effects, and a lot of it seemed kind of interesting to me. You know, people who use these products and have used these peptides for years. Back when I was using melanitan in 2006, I found out really quickly that you don't take the whole milligram on day one.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, no.

[Stan Efferding]

You know, the daily dose. You. You take a small fraction of that and your body will adapt to it because it causes nausea. It's the Same thing with GLP1. Agonists cause nausea at full dose, but if you take a smaller dose and slowly titrate it up over time. Which is what they're finally doing now.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

After a couple years of making people puke, the same thing happened. There was a. The side effect of the melanitan that caused the Libido was from PT141.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Which you could buy by itself now.

[Stan Efferding]

You can buy by itself for that.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's for. For libido.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. And it was, it was. It was FDA approved for a women's libido because it works on the brain rather than the organs. And. But they were charging like 900amonth for it. And you would hear all these stories about women would take their milligram of. Of whatever the name of the drug was, I forget. And they would get violently sick and start puking.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Because they were horny.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. They were taking it an hour before they intended, anticipated, kind of like now we, you know, Instead of taking 30 milligrams of Cialis, now the. The generic form is tadalafil. You take 5 milligrams a day, and it can provide you an increase in libido without the side effects. Some people would get headaches or they would get blurred vision just because of the. The microvasculature, the vasodilation. But tadalafil now is utilized for. For libido, but also for blood pressure.

[Sal DeStefano]

There's a lot of health benefits, a lot of health.

[Stan Efferding]

Endothelial lining of the blood vessels improvement because of the, you know, kind of like beets, the nitric oxide bph, that's. The. Increased. The benign prosthetic hyperplasia, you know, increased sense of urgency and complete evacuation. Waking up numerous times throughout the night to pee. Tadalafil helps with that. And what's interesting. And you. You probably. I don't know if you've interviewed him yet, but a great person in this longevity field is Dr. Matt Kaeberline. He's he's an MIT grad who's head of Longevity Institute professor at the University of Washington and he's done the bulk of the. Not the bulk but he's done, he's well regarded and well funded by the NIH for studying different things that affect longevity. He's done all the NMN research and all that other stuff and with what's his name from Harvard the. There's a lot of NMN research and stuff. Anyhow, Matt Caberline did a recently talked about like the top 10 things that actually probably will help with longevity and one of them was Tadalafil and he said that it seems to have pretty good benefits and he was actually going to incorporate. He's not even a weightlifter, he doesn't have high blood pressure but he's going to incorporate it into his regular supplement program along with like omega 3s and because that, that class of medications, you know like it's, it's beets, you know people take beet juice for the same reason, the nitric oxide. But to Dofil obviously is a much. Has a longer half life and it's a much, it's, it's much stronger. It's a meter. Yeah. And whatever the dose is at least it's you know, it's consistent because it's pharmaceutically produced. But like that we, you know, you discover how to use these products and you know back to the GLP1 agonists, they're incredibly effective. There's been a lot of people making some really big claims about the side effects that are now unsupported by the long term studies. Obviously the nausea can be greatly reduced with titrating the dose. But people were concerned primarily about muscle loss.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

And people are making extraordinary claims about muscle loss. And as it turns out now our long term research suggests that when you compare a similar weight loss it's preserving. Yeah. It actually can be muscle preserving and of course if you eat enough protein and work out then it's, it's a non issue. One of the concerns I think people had was that you had to stay on it or the results would go away.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

Well the same would be true if you had diabetes and your insulin intake. Same thing would be true if you had high blood pressure and you're taking medication for that or if you had.

[Sal DeStefano]

I argue against that. I think, I think that these peptides are getting abused for some people. I want to lose £10 for summer. Yeah. Like you know, you're not the right.

[Stan Efferding]

Person for the right people.

[Sal DeStefano]

But I will argue.

[Justin Andrews]

You said a 600 pound guy yesterday.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. I will argue that for the right person using a GLP one that, that they will have better results coming off of it than they would hadn't they not used it, lost the same weight. Because of how it allows you to train and develop different behaviors. I do think that the, a lot of overeating. There's a lot. It's very complex, but part of it is behavior based. And I think if you stop engaging those behaviors, those neural networks start to weaken, you develop other behaviors. If you do it right over time you can come off and yeah, the appetite signal will go up, but you're not gonna have the same pull towards that behavior that you engaged in when you were stressed or bored or whatever. And that's how we're coaching our trainers and coaches that listen to the podcast to use them. It's like use them as a, as a training wheels to get that tighten.

[Stan Efferding]

Down to a much smaller dose.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Stan Efferding]

So you can wean them off. That's the key component.

[Justin Andrews]

That's the biggest, I think the biggest qualm that we have with it is the, the name brand stuff like WeGovy and so that works. Yeah, the preset pens, it's like. But so many people. We, so we did a thing last year where we took, we took a group of 50 people all that were already taking GLP1s and we took them through. We kind of wanted to do it just to see and, and learn. Right. And we met with them every week and wanted to see it. And almost all of them that had any of the, the nausea problems, it was all because they had the preloaded doses. Almost everybody also at one point hits a plateau where they have to reverse diet where they need to come back on the dose a little bit so they can increase some of the calories, build some muscle. And so that was the most common things that we found. Have you personally experimented with it at all?

[Stan Efferding]

I haven't used it myself, so I.

[Justin Andrews]

I took it last year.

[Stan Efferding]

Did you really?

[Justin Andrews]

I did just. And, and I wanted to take it so I could speak firsthand. Not I, we understand the science, we've read on it. So with that. But I also wanted to feel I didn't need to take it to lose weight, but I wanted to see what would happen, how I would react. It was mind blowing. The, the, like the disassociation that I had with like behaviors around snacking and stuff that I would crave and habits and obviously I've been a bodybuilder before. So I could discipline myself for periods of time of eating only this. But how much. I had none of that noise. Not. I mean it was so strong.

[Stan Efferding]

Two things you said there. One, addictive behavior in general. We see a reduction in, in alcoholism.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's weird.

[Stan Efferding]

Cigarette smoking, Just gambling. Yes, gambling. We see reduction.

[Justin Andrews]

Dan. It was wild. Nothing. I've experimented.

[Stan Efferding]

Like the food noise is incredible. And that's, that's the. I was just watching a video. B.D. carpenter. I've never met him. He does a great job on Instagram. It's a fantastic job. He. And so he fit his wife. He did a fantastic video. And I had told this story myself many years ago. Not as well as he told it. But I talked about the fact that one of the reasons I have some empathy with respect to people's appetite signaling is because I used to bodybuild. And when you diet for bodybuilding show, food was just preoccupy your brain.

[Sal DeStefano]

I think I told you dream about it.

[Stan Efferding]

You dream about it and in 3D dream of the pizza going across the conveyor belt and the pepperoni curling around the edges, the cheese bubbling. You would just dream about food. You would have no interest in sex. You would just 24. 7 food. And he was telling the story about how he was prepping for a bodybuilding show and he was telling his sister about this and she looked at him and she's suffered from obesity for her whole life. She said, you just described every day of my life. And people don't understand that bodybuilders diet down sure to single digit body fat and have enormous hunger signaling like we'd mentioned. But if you diet down from 40% body fat to 37% body fat, you have the same.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, that's right.

[Stan Efferding]

The same feedback. Just because you don't have a six pack doesn't mean you don't have the same hunger.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Stan Efferding]

So food noise was huge. Two things with that. One thing I heard Mike Israel tell say one time but I hadn't even considered, he said, imagine the productivity loss. And I thought that was incredible because she's constantly thinking about food. That's a huge one. And then also as a trainer, you, you have to find a way to get your client to eat enough.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Stan Efferding]

Because they end up getting too low protein and they just aren't eating. They don't think about food. You know when I have clients that take it sometimes they're like have you eaten today? And they're like I don't think so. They haven't thought about it, they might eat one meal a day and that's a problem. I, I think that, that a good trainer and a, you know, a good.

[Justin Andrews]

Supervision, that's what it needs. It needs a, it needs a good coach and trainer with it.

[Sal DeStefano]

I think they're gonna, you're gonna see some people fix one problem and trade it for another. Yeah, overweight problems than under muscle problem which you know, look at the data.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Under muscled and being weak is as bad or maybe worse for you than even obesity in some cases. So, so I think good coaching is, is, is really important with that. But, but we Talk, we interviewed Dr. Seeds, who's a, one of the world leading researchers and doctors on this and he speculates that it acts on the hedonistic reward systems of the brain, which is why you see some people suddenly like I don't want to smoke, I don't want to smoke cigarettes all of a sudden or I don't even want alcohol or I'm not gambling.

[Stan Efferding]

Right.

[Sal DeStefano]

So. And I think what we've done in our have everything you want society, food engineered to be like drugs literally have drug like effects. I think what we've done is we've messed up our hedonistic signaling. I really do. And so I think in some cases because we've trained lots of people, what happens when you train lots of people is you might be a fitness fanatic. You might think you have it figured out. You train enough people and you're like, wait a minute, this is very different for this person. You have empathy. Whereas I think some fitness fanatics look at people struggle with obesity and just think you're lazy and you don't have enough discipline. And it's like, no, I've trained enough high powered executives who have incredible accomplishments who struggle with obesity to know it's not just discipline, they're very disciplined. Other areas.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah, it is. Appetite dysregulation.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes. Something else going on.

[Stan Efferding]

There's plenty of hormonal challenges there. I'm going to say the same thing about discontinuing GLP1s. Would you say somebody with that was hypogonadal or somebody that was hypothyroidism? Would you tell them to discontinue their medication? Those are hormonal problems.

[Sal DeStefano]

So it's all that's another theory is that there may be a GLP1 deficiency in some people that might have be a result of lifestyle or who knows?

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So I do think it's an interesting topic.

[Stan Efferding]

Yeah. I'm, I'm fully for it with for the right people and managed correctly like yourself. And you guys have done as much as anybody to see how that works.

[Sal DeStefano]

Very cool. Stan, always a pleasure having you on, man. I'm sorry it took so long to get you back on the show.

[Stan Efferding]

That's fine. Another six months, I'll probably leave the island.

[Justin Andrews]

Anytime you come over over here, you just have to hit us up.

[Stan Efferding]

That's what you please. I couldn't believe how cold I was when I got here. Here I've been in shorts and a tank top for nine months straight.

[Justin Andrews]

Always good. See. Appreciate it.

[Stan Efferding]

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super bundle@mindpump media.com the RGB Super Bundle includes maps, anabolic maps, performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers. But Adam fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pumpkin. Hi, I'm Chris Gethard and I'm very excited to tell you about Beautiful Anonymous, a podcast where I talk to random people on the phone. I tweet out a phone number. Thousands of people try to call you talk to one of them. They stay anonymous. I can't hang up. That's all the rules. I never know what's gonna happen. We get serious ones. I've talked with meth dealers on their way to prison. I've talked to people who survived mass shootings. Crazy funny ones. I talked to a guy with a goose slab. Somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends. I never know what's gonna happen. It's a great show. Subscribe today. Beautiful Anonymous.