In this episode of the Fresh Fit Podcast, we are joined by Monda Hanselman to talk about how to get in shape for the new year. Monda is a scientist and researcher that focuses on the science behind the science in the fitness space. He has been a student of the game since 2011 and has been involved in fitness since the early days of college. He is a certified personal trainer and has worked with some of the most elite athletes in the world. He's been in the business for a long time and has always been a fan of the fitness industry and has a passion for helping people become better at what they do. In this episode, Monda talks about his journey in fitness and what it takes to be a good coach and how to become a better person. We also discuss how to lose fat, gain muscle, get stronger, and get in better shape in 2020. We hope you enjoy this episode and don't forget to subscribe and share it with your friends and family to help spread the word to the fitness community! If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and become a supporter of the show! Subscribe, Like, Share, and Subscribe to stay up to date with what Fresh Fit is all things Fitness, Nutrition, Health, and Mindfulness. Fresh Fit. Subscribe to our newest podcast episode, "Fresh Fit Podcast! We are live on all of the social medias, social media, and social media platforms! . Subscribe and Retweet us your thoughts on what you think of this episode. We love it! and we are live! Enjoy! - Monda - Cheers, Cheers! XOXO <3 - M. - Derek ~ - Mike - P.S. - R. ( ) - D.J. ( ( ) & ( ) ( ) . ( ), Thank you! ( <3 ( ) - Mike ( ) <3 and Mike ( ( . ) ( , ) - , M. ( ). And we are Live on the pod, :) CHEERS! , R. ( , ) , , and P. :D AND PODCAST Thanks, Mike Podcast ! ( :D) (
00:03:20.000Optimized hypertrophy, fat loss, what diet's the best, what exercise routines are the best, etc.
00:03:26.000I have been a student of the game since 2011, man, researching fitness and looking at people in that space from an evidence-based perspective, right?
00:03:38.000You know, you got the gym bros that, hey bro, just eat six meals a day with chicken and rice, blah, blah, blah.
00:03:42.000But I like to go to the guys that are the actual researchers that are taking groups of athletes and comparing, you know, one group training fasted versus another group training fed.
00:03:51.000One group being trained with such and such exercise or certain rep ranges and, you know, testing the results.
00:03:57.000And we got one of those researchers here in the house, man.
00:04:00.000You guys might not know him, but I know him, so I'm about to put y'all on right now.
00:04:04.000So we got Mando in the house via Zoom.
00:04:19.000So my story is that I was a business consultant, but my passion had always been in fitness, and therefore I became an online PT, also some physical PT. That went well, so I created my own PT certification program.
00:04:35.000I coach people directly, and I teach other people how to become better coaches, and I do all of this through an evidence-based lens, where I learned from my education and my work as a scientist.
00:04:46.000I do international public speaking, I do scientific research, and I try to bridge that gap between the nerdy lab coats that only do their ivory tower research that people in the gym don't really care about, And actual lifters that, as you say, are still often more in a bro community where it's like,
00:05:03.000well, the big guy says this, so let's do that.
00:05:05.000And I try to just look at the data and the hard facts and determine based on that what is the optimal method to lose fat, gain muscle, and get stronger.
00:05:21.000Well, fat loss, that's important to distinguish first.
00:05:25.000You don't want to lose weight, you want to lose fat.
00:05:27.000A lot of people think they want to lose weight, but you want to lose fat.
00:05:30.000Because if you're just losing a lot of muscle mass, that's not going to make you look any better.
00:05:34.000It's also going to suppress your metabolic rate, which is going to make it harder to get back to a healthy body composition afterwards, and also makes it harder to lose more fat.
00:05:43.000So, to lose fat, and to build muscle, actually the recipe is somewhat similar, you need strength training.
00:05:49.000Strength training has become known now, scientifically, even in government organizations already, as an absolute must-do for your health, for muscle mass, for fat loss, for pretty much any purpose.
00:06:02.000Like, everyone that's interested in being healthy and fit should do strength training.
00:06:06.000And strength training plus a high-protein diet, that is basically the essentials you need to get into an energy deficit And lose fat instead of muscle.
00:06:16.000Now, the energy deficit is the crucial part.
00:06:18.000Most of the things that people care about, paleo, fasting, fructose, they don't matter that much in the grand scheme of things.
00:06:25.000It's that you get into an energy deficit because it's physical law that if you get into an energy deficit, your body has a higher energy expenditure than its energy intake.
00:06:34.000The body has to get rid of some energy from the body.
00:06:38.000If you're doing heavy strength training, high-protein diet, you've generally got your lifestyle set up, Then the mass that the body will burn is going to be fat instead of muscle.
00:06:51.000And it's amazing how people really complicate this with complex diets or they'll sit there and they'll say, oh, I'm on a keto diet or I'm on a paleo diet.
00:07:04.000Would you say that not tracking your calories is probably the biggest mistake you can make when it comes to improving body composition?
00:07:11.000I think you at least need to have calorie awareness.
00:07:14.000So a lot of people confuse the means and the end.
00:07:16.000You can absolutely lose fat on a paleo diet, a keto diet, vegan diet, whatever diet that puts you in an energy deficit even if you don't realize that you are in an energy deficit and that is why it works.
00:07:28.000But if you track directly or you have a good sense of your energy intake, then it is much easier.
00:07:33.000And then you can also have a much greater variety in your diet.
00:07:40.000If you fit it into your macros, then that doesn't actually sabotage your fat loss.
00:07:44.000The problem is, if you're not tracking your macros, people will generally overeat on these foods.
00:07:49.000So calorie tracking is essentially a tool that A, guarantees that you are losing fat when you want to, if your caloric intake is appropriate, and B, it affords you with a much greater variety of foods that you can eat, because you can determine exactly all the foods that you want to eat.
00:08:03.000If it fits your calorie budget, then you can still lose fat on it.
00:08:12.000Let's say I want to get into weight training and I want to lose weight.
00:08:16.000When it comes to reps, how many should I do to maintain that weight loss?
00:08:19.000Or does it not matter as much as people think?
00:08:22.000It indeed doesn't matter as much as people think.
00:08:25.000In general, the training you do doesn't matter much for fat loss to begin with because you don't burn that much energy in the gym or in any type of workout, really, compared to how easy it is to overeat in your diet.
00:08:37.000So there are a bunch of cliches in fitness.
00:08:44.000These are all cliches because they're very true.
00:08:46.000Your diet is much more important for fat loss than your training because you know that thing what they have at Planet Fitness where you do a workout and then you get a slice of pizza?
00:08:59.000So you just funded everything you accomplished in that one hour that you eventually got yourself to the gym for.
00:09:05.000It's much more important with your training to retain muscle mass, ideally build muscle mass, to create that extra energy reservoir.
00:09:12.000There's also a great meta-analysis on this, which found that, by Clark, it found that the strength training is more effective on average in the literature than cardio, actually, because you build that long-term investment into not just acute energy expenditure,
00:09:28.000but you also increase muscle mass, which increases your metabolic rate, which increases your energy expenditure throughout all time.
00:09:34.000If you build, say, 40 pounds of muscle, then you're carrying around all that mass everywhere you go.
00:09:55.000Because guys, we're going to cover a lot of studies here.
00:09:57.000He just started a study with Clark, so get ready throughout this podcast where he's going to cite studies.
00:10:02.000Can you tell the audience real quick what a meta-analysis is so they understand?
00:10:06.000So very roughly put, a meta-analysis is when you look at a bunch of studies, or basically all the studies on a subject, and you get the average.
00:10:15.000So if you have, say, 10 studies and it's like, well, one of them found a big advantage, one of them is small, and then there was this one study that didn't find an advantage.
00:10:22.000So if you put all 10 of them together, what do we get?
00:10:25.000And then, well, if all 10 of them together, you see, well, there is still a robust effect.
00:10:29.000That's what you want to find out in a meta-analysis.
00:10:31.000And in this case, it found actually that strength training was superior for both health and fat loss purposes, interestingly, to cardio or a combination of the two on a time equated basis.
00:10:42.000So, you know, the general conception is, oh, I'm going to do cardio to lose weight, but the reality is if you just control calories and lift weights, you'll make just as much progress, if not more, because you'll actually be able to retain the muscle mass that you worked so hard to get in the first place.
00:11:28.000If you are obese, then you don't need to worry about your body fat.
00:11:32.000You don't need to worry about your energy deficit.
00:11:34.000You need it to be lean yesterday and your body's not going to burn any muscle when it has that much fat that it can burn instead.
00:11:40.000If you're overweight, you know, don't push it to extreme levels.
00:11:43.000Like, 50% is very aggressive, for example.
00:11:46.000Most people never end up in that much of a deficit anyway, so it's still not a big deal.
00:11:50.000Now, when you get to some athletic body fat levels, and there are a couple studies on this by Garfield, for example, from Norway, and they found that in athletes, so people, you know, healthy body fat percentage, not overweight, not necessarily bodybuild or ripped, but just healthy body fat range, then most people want to be in,
00:12:09.000Because if you still diet very aggressively, then you're just going to end up losing a lot of muscle.
00:12:13.000In general, you cannot go wrong taking it slow with more of a lifestyle perspective because then, yeah, you'll lose all fat and maybe you'll recomp a bit as well.
00:12:21.000But if you want to optimize things, you know, nobody likes dieting, so I might as well get it over with.
00:12:25.000Then for many people that are at a healthy body fat level and you just want to get a six pack, for example, then 20% is usually an approximate ballpark figure that works for many people.
00:13:13.000And real quick, because I've talked about this before and I'm really glad that you mentioned that.
00:13:18.000A lot of people tend to worry about, okay, I need to be in a calorie deficit every single day, which obviously is important and you should do that, but should people really be focusing more on being in a calorie deficit for the week versus being in a calorie deficit for every single day?
00:13:32.000Because people might get anal, might cause them to get anxiety, go crazy.
00:13:36.000Should they be focusing more on, alright, as long as I'm in a calorie deficit overall, on average, for the week, for the month, etc., is that what they should be focusing on more?
00:13:48.000Dieting is a lot like spending money or trying to save money.
00:13:52.000You know, how much you spend on a single day, it's not so important.
00:13:55.000You have a certain salary per month even, or per week, per month, and that is basically what you have to spend.
00:14:01.000If you want to save money, you need to be under that, or you need to be under your salary in terms of your expenditures, right?
00:14:10.000It's the same with dieting, that you have an energy expenditure for the week as a whole, and if you're under that, then your body has to get rid of some energy.
00:14:17.000You have a lot of flexibility in how you distribute that across your days.
00:14:20.000So it's the long-run average energy expenditure and average intake.
00:14:24.000The balance between those, that determines whether the body has to burn energy or whether it's going to store energy.
00:14:31.000So baseline, put yourself in about a 20% calorie deficit, and then if you're, you know, with a higher body fat percentage, you're obese, you can go up to, what would you say is the max range that they could go up as far as deficit goes without messing themselves up?
00:14:45.000As obese, yeah, you don't have to worry about it.
00:14:47.000Just get your protein in and do strength training.
00:14:50.000Don't deprive yourself of essential nutrients.
00:14:53.000Other than that, most research finds that the more of a deficit you can achieve, the faster you lose fat.
00:14:59.000Okay, so would 30% be appropriate for maybe someone that's obese out there watching?
00:15:04.000Yeah, basically, I would say as much as you can sustainably implement in your lifestyle.
00:15:13.000Can you talk about, since we're on the topic of weight loss, can you talk about the importance of protein intake and that in comparison to other macronutrients like carbohydrates and fat?
00:15:26.000Because a lot of people tend to maybe cut carbs altogether.
00:15:37.000I co-offered the latest meta-analysis, or one of the latest, on the requirements for strength trainees and the effect on lean body mass development, and it's huge.
00:15:46.000In terms of protein, compared to the other macronitrients, The other macros don't actually matter that much at all.
00:15:54.000Because protein is what your body needs for not just muscle mass, but for almost anything.
00:15:58.000Protein comes from the word proteos, from Greek, meaning of first importance.
00:16:03.000It's like the worker bees of your body.
00:16:05.000The proteins, they do almost everything.
00:16:07.000All the functional stuff in your body is done by proteins.
00:16:10.000It's in digestive stuff, your heart, your liver, everything needs protein, and your muscles are one of the organs that rely in very significant part on protein to build and to function.
00:16:22.000So you need a protein intake as a lifter of at least 1.6 gram per kilogram or about 0.7 gram per pound.
00:16:30.000That's total protein intake per total body weight.
00:16:45.000Now, so, I guess we can get into the diets, right, a little bit here.
00:16:50.000You know, you got your people that swear by intermittent fasting, you got your people that swear by ketogenic diets, you got your people that, you know, swear by paleo or vegan or whatever it may be, and they're all running around saying that my diet's the best and beating their chest.
00:17:06.000If you equate protein, let's say you take someone that's intermittent fasting versus someone that's doing keto versus someone that's doing a regular traditional diet, if it fits your macro, so to speak, is there a real difference in body composition changes if you equate calories and protein overall?
00:17:26.000Things like fasted training, those are probably not great.
00:17:29.000But if you're distributing calories and protein somewhat equally across the day versus fewer meals, like at least three meals spread across the day, after that point, there's essentially no further effect of the timing.
00:17:42.000Or at least you're talking about very small effects.
00:17:44.000Whether you do fasting or not, especially if you're not training fasted, Doesn't affect fat loss either.
00:17:50.000Again, it's the means in the end, and people, because of the culture wars, people take a lot of pride in, basically, they're confusing the evidence and the culture wars, where people think, I'm an intermittent fasting person, or I'm a keto person, I'm a vegan, I'm a carnivore, and it becomes part of their identity,
00:18:07.000And they don't realize that the intermittent fasting diet, I also like intermittent fasting, but it's not my religion, you know?
00:18:13.000I just do it because it's a tool that gets me to the ends that I want, which is reducing my energy intake.
00:18:20.000So fasting helps me, by not eating, reduce my energy intake, and I'm typically not hungry in the mornings, so it's easy not to eat in the mornings for me, and that's the case for a lot of people.
00:18:31.000So intermittent fasting in that sense is a tool that allows me to reduce my energy intake and thereby helps me lose fat.
00:18:37.000And that's been confirmed now by numerous fat analysis studies, a very large body of literature, especially because intermittent fasting has completely blown up in the last few years, is now super popular.
00:18:48.000But there's more evidence than ever that it actually doesn't do anything special.
00:18:57.000But I've had people even come in and say, intermittent fasting is the best.
00:19:02.000It's the reason why I've lost weight, etc.
00:19:05.000I've always looked at it like the bottom line is being in a calorie deficit and intermittent fasting simply helps you get there in the easiest way.
00:19:33.000Also not if you're not training fasted.
00:19:35.000So there have been a couple studies by Grant Tinsley et al, which looked at strength trainees doing intermittent fasting type diets, and they found more appreciable differences between groups.
00:19:45.000If you are training fasted, we recently conducted a study that's yet to be published, where we found some detrimental effects on strength development.
00:19:53.000There was also a recent study on Ramadan.
00:19:56.000During the last Ramadan, where they looked at people that trained fasted versus people that didn't train fasted, so they broke the fast before.
00:20:03.000They did their workout in the evening later, and they found that it was better to do the workout after some food, which, you know, it's not too shocking.
00:20:12.000In that case, there was some confounding by fluid intake.
00:20:15.000So I don't think it's simply fluid intake that is the issue.
00:20:19.000It just makes sense that if you don't have any carbs, you don't have any protein, your body is in a catabolic state, and mTOR enzyme, for example, is It's like a regulator that's in your muscles.
00:21:11.000Because a lot of people swear by training fasted, right?
00:21:15.000What would you say is the optimal, I guess, pre-workout meal then, I guess, to kind of allow people to train in a state where they can optimize hypertrophy?
00:21:25.000I mean, a lot of it is just mindset because you don't need a big meal.
00:21:28.000In our recent systematic review on carbohydrate requirements, we found that just 15 gram carbohydrates is probably sufficient, especially if you're not doing like super insane workouts.
00:21:39.000So that in itself is enough to just get it where the mTORs are going to, I guess, when it sends a signal out, it's not going to fall on deaf ears, if that makes sense.
00:24:03.000You're actually going to lose more fat with the protein sparing modified fast than a complete fast.
00:24:08.000Because the energy that you consume from the protein, now in theory, at least, if you consume just protein, in practice you'll also have some other nutrients, but let's say, theoretically, you really only consume pure protein.
00:24:19.000What is your body going to do with that protein?
00:24:21.000Well, up until the requirements, it's going to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.
00:24:26.000That is going to stimulate energy expenditure because it costs energy to build muscle proteins, to build all types of proteins.
00:24:32.000So what happens is that none of that energy that you consume from protein is going to be used for gaining fat.
00:24:40.000None of it's going to be used for energy as long as you're not consuming excessive protein.
00:24:44.000It's going to be used to fuel muscle protein synthesis.
00:24:46.000Your energy expenditure goes up and your effective energy intake doesn't go up because all of that energy is used For MPS, for muscle protein synthesis, rather than for fat storage.
00:24:56.000So you actually do a little bit more fat, and your muscle retention is way better, and you're not starving as much, and it's better for your health, and you get essential nutrients in.
00:25:05.000So a PSMF, protein-sparing modified fast, is simply completely superior from a body composition point of view than actual complete fasting, like not eating anything, regardless of whether you're consuming water.
00:25:17.000And that was a very polite way of saying that it's bullshit.
00:25:21.000You know, obviously he's keeping it scientific, but you know, I've always been extremely critical of these water fasts, these stupid ass long term fasts.
00:25:28.000I've always said that they're not optimal if your goal is to, you know, build an aesthetic physique.
00:25:34.000And I guess, what is up with the explosion of these fad diets, you know, of people, you know, I'm not going to eat anything for days, or I'm going to be on a snake diet, or I'm not going to do a water fast, or I'm not going to eat any carbohydrates.
00:25:45.000Like, why have these ridiculous diets become so popular versus just simply tracking your calories and getting adequate protein?
00:26:09.000You know, there's a difference between people like to hear and what people need to hear.
00:26:12.000And with fitness, that is extremely true.
00:26:14.000Now, if I had to throw a bone to the fasting crowd, I would say that the fasting crowd has taught us that the body can fast for much longer and function effectively for much longer than the mainstream believes.
00:26:27.000Because if you ask anyone in, like, you know, Gen Pop, okay, how long do you think you could go without any food and still perform fine on an IQ test or do your job and those kind of things?
00:26:39.000Many of them would probably be like, oh, a couple hours, my brain starts to suffer, I get hangry and whatever.
00:26:44.000And no, it's not a couple hours, it's a couple days, at least.
00:26:48.000So, and it can be weeks and months even.
00:26:50.000I think the longest therapeutic fast on record is about a year.
00:27:31.000I wouldn't recommend not having any carbs pre and post workouts, but we recently did a systematic review where we found that, like I said earlier, you only need about 15 grams of carbohydrates before the effect on performance becomes moot for the vast majority of trainees.
00:27:50.000You need a little bit, but you really don't need much.
00:27:52.000And your total caloric intake also, or your total carbohydrate intake across the day and across time, for most trainees that are just doing strength training a couple times a week or even daily, is not very important.
00:28:03.000Your body can very adequately re-synthesize the glycogen, which is the stored form of carbohydrate in your muscles, very effectively via other mechanisms.
00:28:10.000So you don't need to load it with carbs, which was kind of the previous bro idea.
00:28:14.000And what endurance trainees do actually need to do, because they burn way more carbs So we talked about adequate protein intake.
00:28:24.000What about adequate carbohydrate intake to maximize gains?
00:28:31.000In our review, we found that in the vast majority of long-term studies, there was no effect of carbohydrate intake on strength development or muscle growth.
00:28:40.000Okay, so someone that's on keto can absolutely kill it, just like someone that's on a traditional diet.
00:30:21.000Most important for muscle growth is that high protein diet, consistently working hard in the gym, going multiple times, high effort, decent volume of training, that is by far the most important.
00:30:33.000And I would say for the vast majority of trainees, the biggest problem with going to peptides or steroids, most peptides don't even work, but steroids or anything, is that I think?
00:31:07.000You also get a higher ceiling of muscle protein synthesis, so you need more protein.
00:31:12.000You also get higher recovery capacity, so you can benefit from training even harder.
00:31:21.000Yes, they have good genetics, but also they still work extremely hard.
00:31:24.000They have their diets in order, and they do this consistently for year in, year out.
00:31:29.000It's like they already have the good fundamentals and the good habits, and it allows them to use those good habits and train even harder and increase their capacity.
00:31:38.000I've noticed, when you look at old-school bodybuilder training splits, like Arnold and Yates and Tom Platt, All these guys.
00:31:46.000Like, if you looked at their routines, they trained each muscle group once per week, but they would do, like, 50 sets.
00:32:31.000The other one, I don't remember the offers.
00:32:33.000They both found that if you look at huge, there was actually meta-analysis of meta-analysis.
00:32:38.000So they were like super, super, super big picture views of just looking at all the available research and looking at what is really, really, really important.
00:32:47.000And for dieting, for example, then you find protein intake is in that list.
00:32:51.000Calories and protein are pretty much at the top of the pyramid.
00:32:54.000Now, for training, training volume is way up there.
00:32:59.000It was the number one, especially for muscle hypertrophy.
00:33:01.000For strength development, not as much, but for muscle hypertrophy, training volume is the number one up there.
00:33:06.000You need to train hard, and then you just need to do more of it up to a certain point that you can recover from it still.
00:33:11.000And then the more you do, while you can recover from it, the more muscle you gain.
00:33:15.000So it's like you're training, so you got like this window, and you want to be at the, you know, max of that window, but not overstep because you still need to be in a range that you can actually recover from, but you want to push as close to that red line as you possibly can.
00:33:30.000Now, for most people, and I know, I understand that like if you're a beginner versus an intermediate versus an advanced, that's going to, you know, vary wildly, right?
00:33:37.000A beginner could probably make gains on maybe five sets a week, even 10 sets a week.
00:33:41.000How much, I mean, how many sets per, let's say per group, like let's say with a beginner versus an intermediate and advanced person, how many sets per muscle group per week should they be focusing on?
00:33:53.000A meta-analysis by Brad Schoenfeld et al found that you get quite consistent, you know, returns on investment, if you will, greater muscle growth, up to 10 sets at least.
00:34:03.000And then there have been some additional meta-analyses in the last years that found, especially in trained individuals, you get a greater response in the 12 to 20 range.
00:34:12.000And in some studies, even like 30, 45.
00:34:16.000But almost nobody actually trains that way.
00:34:18.000And in these studies, they weren't doing full body training.
00:34:20.000They were only training a couple muscle groups.
00:34:22.000So most people, even in evidence-based fitness, they will not go up to those extremes, especially not if you train hard, long rest intervals, high quality sets.
00:34:30.000The general consensus is in the range of 10 to 20.
00:34:33.000And then if you really know what you're doing, your recovery is good.
00:35:08.000Let's look at like, let's say a bench press, right?
00:35:10.000You're hitting, you're stimulating mostly your chest and your triceps versus when you're doing pulling movements like a pull-up or a row, you're hitting your biceps and your back heavily, right?
00:35:18.000You got a primary and then an accessory group that's working.
00:35:21.000Do these set numbers count towards both muscle groups or only the primary muscle group that's being focused?
00:35:27.000So in other words, does this set volume that we're talking about, does that apply to the biceps as well when you're doing the rows or just the back?
00:35:37.000In most of these studies, they count all of the exercises, compound or isolation.
00:35:41.000Anything that hits the muscle group, it counts.
00:35:44.000However, when we look at individual studies where they look at growth rates of one exercise versus the other, we do see that a dumbbell row, for example, has been found in research to grow the biceps only half as much as a biceps curl, which makes sense.
00:36:07.000So, would it be fair to say that, like, you know, if you're doing, you know, you want to hit 10 sets for biceps, right?
00:36:14.000Maybe count the rows as half and then, you know, then focus on, like, the isolation movements to get the rest of it?
00:36:21.000Or how would you say people can make up for that set deficit?
00:36:26.000It depends on how complicated you want to get.
00:36:28.000So for my PT course clients, for example, I teach them a method that for every exercise lists exactly how much it targets every muscle group and how to get to those numbers.
00:36:38.000And then you have to do basically math with fractionals, like this exercise hits it a third or half.
00:36:44.000For most people, half is about as complicated as I would go.
00:36:46.000And if you want to keep it really simple, I would just say, if it's a primary target muscle, you count it.
00:37:31.000But for most individuals, Yeah, the methods we just talked about are probably as complicated as they need to go.
00:37:38.000Yeah, and obviously, right, the trainee's experience level is going to matter significantly.
00:37:42.000If it's a beginner, they could probably get away with doing no bicep curls versus, you know, a more advanced guy, you're going to need to probably target that muscle and get more volume in since your body's more trained.
00:38:01.000That's how strong the stimuli is for beginners.
00:38:03.000Yeah, I mean, it's funny because there are even some studies where if you look at complete beginners, they will get the same growth response in the first, like, two weeks or so, at least, of training when they do cardio and strength training because anything is more stimulating than sitting on a couch and eating Doritos.
00:39:55.000If you're going close to failure, you can do sets of 20, even 30, and you still get the same growth response.
00:40:00.000And the question to why you would do that is because it's a lot less injurious.
00:40:05.000So I do kickboxing, for example, and now that I do that, I do mostly high rep work in the gym because I want to just maintain my muscle mass, have the mass, and use the kickboxing to get better at kickboxing.
00:40:17.000Now, kickboxing is extremely injurious.
00:40:20.000And if I add strength training to that, then it will quickly become too much.
00:40:25.000So, a way to get good stimulus on your muscles, but keep it easy on the tendons and the joints, is To go with very high rep work.
00:40:33.000This also works great with elderly clients and in general people that care a lot about injury prevention and don't care so much about strength development.
00:40:41.000And I've always kind of like try to tell people that like you know if you're training because like if you're a power lifter right it's obviously strength specific and centric but if you're just training to look good naked I think?
00:41:12.000Now, how about when we're talking about compound movements versus isolation movements?
00:41:16.000Does that also work with, let's say, something like a bench press or a squat or a deadlift versus a bicep curl or a tricep?
00:41:23.000Should those rep ranges be a little bit lower versus isolation movements being higher, or does that not matter either?
00:41:29.000It doesn't inherently matter, but in practice, most people benefit from keeping their compounds a little bit lower in reps and isolation work a little bit higher.
00:41:37.000Because if you're going to do a lateral raise for adults, for example, you're not going to do a 1RM. First of all, nobody cares what your 1RM is on a lateral raise.
00:41:44.000Second of all, it's really hard on the shoulders, like the joints, the tendons for most people.
00:41:53.000It just doesn't work well practically.
00:41:54.000And on the other hand, if you do squats, I mean, more than, depending on your level of conditioning, more than 10, 12 reps per set, especially for men, that becomes cardio.
00:42:05.000Like, it becomes really difficult just breathing.
00:42:08.000So, yeah, it's just not very practical to do that.
00:42:11.000So, most people, they gravitate towards doing the compound work for somewhat heavier, better for strength development, better for motor coordination, again, because you build strength and movement patterns that actually might matter.
00:42:21.000And in isolation work, you use that to supplement the compound work with higher reps, And the benefit of that also is that you get lower and higher rep work, and there is some research that combining them is the best of both worlds, because you get potentially different growth stimuli.
00:42:37.000Some research, a bit iffy, but some research points towards hitting different muscle fiber types, like type 1 versus type 2 fibers.
00:42:44.000And it might also have a slightly different effect on your fatigue.
00:42:47.000The type of fatigue might be different.
00:42:48.000So overall fatigue management may be better if you do high and low rep works.
00:42:53.000It's not very solid in research, but it works well in practice.
00:42:56.000So I generally do recommend having a bit of both.
00:43:05.000Some people say, hey, you should train a muscle group only once per week.
00:43:08.000We talked about the old school bodybuilder training routines where they were hammering one body group per week and they were doing 30 sets in that one day.
00:43:17.000Then there's other people that advocate for, hey, drop the volume down per muscle group and then go in the gym more frequently and hit each muscle group two to three times per week.
00:43:26.000What is the best and most optimal way to promote muscle growth as far as training frequency and duration?
00:43:34.000So if you equate the total volume, the training frequency is not that important.
00:43:40.000If you go up to higher volumes, more advanced trainees, then the general body of research does trend towards either benefits or at worst neutral effects of higher training frequencies.
00:43:51.000So my general programming is also on the side of higher frequencies because there's some research pointing towards better testosterone to cortisol ratio, so actually better recovery, higher muscle activation levels on average because of lower fatigue within each session.
00:44:17.000But there's essentially no research to speak of that finds any detrimental effects of higher frequencies, as long as you keep the volume in check.
00:44:24.000So I tend towards more higher frequencies, so I'm the high-frequency guy in evidence-based fitness.
00:44:29.000But I think that's entirely justified if you simply look at the hard data, which are all positive or neutral for higher frequencies.
00:44:37.000So I don't think you need to go high-frequency, and I don't think you need to go to the gym very often.
00:44:40.000But when in doubt, you're on the side of hitting muscle groups more frequently.
00:44:44.000If you go three times, for example, probably you want to do full-body workouts, especially if you do very high-volume training.
00:44:50.000There's some meta-analytic research, James Krieger et al., or James Krieger performed a meta-analysis, where he found that if you go above six sets per muscle group per session, You run into very strong diminishing returns.
00:45:01.000So basically, you don't have that much to gain anymore.
00:45:04.000The muscle gets the hint after six sets.
00:45:06.000Either that or you're not training very hard.
00:45:07.000And it's better to, if you then do an additional exercise or more sets, do those on a different day and distribute it a bit more equally across the week rather than just hammering the muscle with even more sets in that same session.
00:45:19.000Okay, so if you're going three times per week, full body workouts might be the way to go.
00:45:24.000What do you think is optimal for someone that's really trying to maximize hypertrophy and aesthetics as far as gym frequency?
00:45:32.000Well, this might be a controversial stance, but based on the research, it's very hard to go wrong with full body training.
00:45:37.000And I personally, I'm an advanced trainee, and I know what I'm doing, but I train full body every single day.
00:45:42.000So do I. And I've been doing that for years.
00:46:23.000So it's uniquely bodybuilding and uniquely the last 60, not even 60 years, maybe 50 years or so, that training splits and muscle group splits have become kind of the norm.
00:46:35.000Because up until steroids became popular actually in around the 50s, 1950s, Full body training was the norm.
00:46:43.000Almost all strength trainees, whether they were bodybuilders, powerlifters, or strongmen, they did full body training.
00:46:48.000So as a natural athlete, it's probably better for you to get a little bit more frequency in than someone that might be enhanced.
00:46:58.000Yeah, that's, I mean, I wouldn't be confident in saying that because we don't have research on enhanced trainees, but I think you will have to do more as a natural trainee to get the same results, and it might include, indeed, going with higher frequencies.
00:47:11.000And if you look at some bodybuilders as well, like Big Rainey has said that if you train certain muscle groups more than once per week or once per two weeks, they get too big.
00:47:21.000So there is also at least some anecdotal evidence that they also benefit from higher frequencies, whether they do it or not.
00:47:28.000And if I'm not mistaken, there was a study by Schoenfeld, Brad Schoenfeld, which for the audience, he's a leading hypertrophy researcher in the world from, I think, 2014 that showed that two times per week was superior to only one time per week, if I'm not mistaken.
00:48:02.000So again, most studies don't find differences, but when, especially when the volume becomes higher due to the higher frequency, which usually is the case, like if you spread some sets over from one session to another, even the same number of sets are going to give you more reps because you're less fatigued.
00:48:17.000You know, if you do, say Monday, you do nine sets of bench pressing because Monday is national chess day, right?
00:48:34.000Now, you take those three sets, you move three of them to Wednesday and three of them to Friday.
00:48:38.000Now, on Wednesday and Friday, you're going to do a lot more reps because you're still fresh.
00:48:43.000So just from redistributing the training volume to more days, which is increasing your training frequency per muscle group, you're increasing the volume, the effective volume, without initial time requirements or anything.
00:48:55.000So in that sense, it's also time efficient.
00:48:59.000That was a perfect example of doing what I would consider something called trash volume, where those three sets, yeah, you did it, you persevered, but if you had moved that to another day, maybe the day after, whatever it may be, you would have been able to do more reps, more weight, which would increase your overall volume, which we know volume is the main thing.
00:51:03.000And then you got the other guys that are there just kind of going through the motions, looking at whores on Instagram while lifting weights.
00:51:09.000What is the happy medium and what is the optimal intensity to be at where people are still able to train hard enough to get that stimuli, but not destroying themselves so that they can go in and give a productive session a day or two later?
00:51:22.000Yeah, so in research, this is usually called proximity to failure and measured as reps in reserve or reps to failure.
00:51:31.000I would say, based on the research, that it's best to be very close to failure, but not hit actual failure.
00:51:37.000Now, this is a nuanced topic because for the majority of listeners, if you're not an advanced trainee, if most of the things that we talked about are new, then the advice you need to hear is just train to failure, bro, because you're probably not going to.
00:51:53.000Most people don't lift to actual momentary muscle failure, which is the physical inability of the muscle to produce another repetition.
00:52:01.000There was actually a recent meta-analysis from this year which found that the average gym-goer leaves seven to eight reps in reserve during their average set.
00:52:14.000So the reason that most people are not getting their results It's because they're not training hard enough.
00:52:21.000You can compensate for that with doing very high volumes.
00:52:24.000That's a scenario where, for example, even 40-50 sets per week might be beneficial for some people because they just don't train hard enough per set that they need to get in an absolutely ridiculous number of sets to get a good growth response.
00:52:38.000However, if you can push yourself to train harder, then you can make do with way fewer sets.
00:52:43.000And there we see this This trade-off in the research between how hard you train and how many sets you have to do.
00:52:49.000So you can do fewer, harder sets closer to failure, or if you get the same number of repetitions, at least somewhat close to failure, you can do more sets and make up for the fact that you didn't do as many reps in the other sets.
00:53:03.000Especially me as a beginner, you see me, I'll go to the gym, but I was really pushed to the actual limit of tearing muscle.
00:53:10.000Hiring a trainer, though, my brother Arthur showed to him, he can actually rep me, hold me with the set, push me further, so I can do more reps and not be scared of hurting myself or whatever.
00:53:20.000And that led to me actually getting muscle and actually improvements, because before, I was just pushing without any type of actual muscle tear.
00:53:27.000Yeah, no, I think that's a big thing that a lot of beginners...
00:53:30.000And I like that you mentioned that, Mendo, that for a beginner, you might need to just kind of get yourself beat up a little bit and just go to failure so you understand what real failure is, and then you work off of that.
00:53:40.000Because once you understand what real failure is, where you literally can't...
00:53:42.000If I put a gun in your head and you can't do another rep, that is failure.
00:53:46.000You need to experience that burning sensation to understand what it is.
00:53:49.000And then from there, you're saying have...
00:53:51.000Was it one to two reps in reserve, you said?
00:53:53.000Yeah, for most people, one to three is probably about the sweet spot in terms of stimulus to fatigue.
00:53:59.000Because there's pain and then there's actual failure.
00:55:10.000The principle is that usually your last set of an exercise, and especially of a muscle group, is a great way or a great place to go to failure, especially if you needed to learn what failure is and to make sure that your other sets are close enough to failure, because you don't fatigue yourself for the next sets.
00:55:26.000And if you go to failure on your first set, all your subsequent sets, they suffer from that.
00:55:31.000Whereas if you go to failure on your last set, that's fine.
00:55:34.000You can have the, well, you can get a little fatigue and you're probably going to recover from it for your next workout anyway.
00:55:39.000Most people can recover from much more than they think.
00:55:42.000Now, this also applies on a macro level, like you say, in the last week of the program, the week before a deload week.
00:55:48.000If you're sure that you're going to recover, then by all means, just push it, give it everything you've got.
00:55:54.000And that's a good point that you made, because I think a lot of people, they'll get on that first set, and they'll go to failure, and they'll kill it.
00:56:00.000And then what they don't realize is that's going to effectively hurt the rest of your sets, which will hurt your ability to get the volume in, which is the bottom line.
00:56:09.000Okay, so we talked about the intensity.
00:56:11.000Now let's talk about exercise selection real quick and then put this all together for the audience.
00:56:16.000When people are looking for exercises to do, to optimize hypertrophy and increasing aesthetics, what are the exercises that people should be focusing on?
00:56:25.000You want exercises that provide your muscles with a high degree of muscle tension throughout a large range of motion, and in particular, getting a good stretch.
00:56:34.000There's a lot of research from the last couple of years that shows that stretch-mediated hypertrophy, which just means that hypertrophy you get from training at long muscle lengths, is very important for maximizing growth.
00:56:46.000So you want to get a nice deep stretch, you know, squat all the way down, bench press all the way down, get the bar to your chest, and preferably even use dumbbells or something so you can get even lower.
00:57:09.000So, if people were to, you know, draft, I guess, like an exercise plan, what exercises do you think every body should have in their repertoire to some degree?
00:57:18.000As far as like, maybe let's say, maybe a leg movement, a pull movement, a push movement, what should the basics be in anyone's repertoire?
00:57:26.000I don't think there are any must-have exercises.
00:57:28.000There are a lot of exercises which are really good.
00:58:53.000But in general, I think that people overestimate rows a little bit and they're like, oh, I have to do a vertical and I have to do a horizontal pattern.
00:59:02.000Like, for muscle growth, that doesn't really make sense because the body doesn't care if the movement pattern is diagonal, horizontal, or whatever the hell.
00:59:09.000It just cares if the muscle is under tension or not.
00:59:12.000And vertical pulling movements, like pull-downs, chin-ups, They typically put almost all the back under high tension and also for greater range of motion, especially for the lats, than a horizontal one.
00:59:24.000So it's not strictly necessary to do any horizontal type movement.
00:59:28.000The important thing is that you hit all the muscle groups that you want to train.
00:59:31.000Yeah, and I ask that because the gym bros I remember would always say, you know...
00:59:36.000The pull-ups build the width, and then the rows build the thickness.
00:59:40.000And I was like, man, is this bro science?
00:59:41.000Do you really need to be doing rows like that when you can actually just do pull-ups?
00:59:46.000To be honest, your pull-ups are harder than doing rows, right?
00:59:49.000So you're going to get the same stimuli from a vertical versus a horizontal pulling movement.
00:59:58.000There is some truth behind it that rows are better for the traps, and especially the higher fibers of the traps, whereas chin-ups are better for the lats.
01:00:06.000But chin-ups are equally good for most of the traps if you do them with full range of motion and rear delts.
01:00:14.000Yeah, it's like they have slightly different functions, but chin-ups are definitely a better overall movement.
01:00:21.000So if you're doing chin-ups and pull-ups and you're doing shrugs, you've basically eliminated the need to do rows.
01:00:27.000Yeah, which, you know, they can be a good exercise to put in a program, but they're certainly not essential.
01:00:32.000Okay, so if we're going to talk about essentials, maybe a squat-type movement, would a lunge, would you say a lunge could also qualify as like a How do I say this?
01:00:43.000As a replacement for someone that might not want to squat or deadlifts?
01:00:48.000I think Bulgarian split squats, reverse deficit lunches, Squats, front squat, back squat, low bar, high bar, all of these exercises have quite similar effects on muscle hypertrophy of the quads and the glutes, which are the primary targets.
01:01:04.000So, they are largely interchangeable, and people have squats religion, somewhat, where the power lifts in general are Sheena's exercises that thou shalt do.
01:01:22.000Whether it's, and I kind of always tell people this too, like when you're exercise selection, like get a king movement for each plane, right?
01:01:31.000So like you get a king movement for legs, right?
01:01:32.000It could be a squat, a deadlift, or a lunge.
01:01:35.000Pick one of those three or a variation of those three.
01:01:38.000Then, for chest, pick a bench press of some kind.
01:01:41.000I've always said I think the decline bench is fairly useless, but I don't know if you have data that proves me wrong on that.
01:01:46.000I think whether it's a flat or preferably an incline, because it's very difficult to hit.
01:01:50.000The upper chest typically tends to be the least developed a lot of the times on most people, right?
01:01:55.000Because you can easily get stimuli on the middle and lower chest.
01:01:59.000So hit some kind of bench press exercise, whether it's a barbell bench or a dumbbell bench, right?
01:02:04.000I like dumbbells better, too, with a better stretch.
01:02:06.000Then get some type of pulling movement, whether it's a pull-up or a row, which we just discussed, you know, might be in a better interest to do a pull-up, or maybe even a lat pull-down if you don't have the strength.
01:02:18.000But if you figure out, if you pull one of these exercises and then maybe an accessory movement on top of that, you should be pretty good.
01:02:27.000And then, you know, if you want to optimize, then you need to figure out the muscle, the volume for every individual muscle group, and how well every exercise hits each individual muscle group.
01:02:36.000Then you really get to the fine tuning and the optimization.
01:02:39.000With what you mentioned, you get a decent stimulation of all the basics.
01:03:00.000Based on what we talked about, what is like, let's say, a hypothetical good split routine that someone who is a beginner and or intermediate can implement right here, right now after watching this podcast based on the information that we gave?
01:03:14.000Maybe like a blank template that we can give them.
01:03:50.000And that really is the most important thing, like training hard, getting a good volume in of effective exercises, and how many reps you do.
01:04:01.000Even the things like your rest and the like, they are not nearly as important as just getting these basics right consistently for a long period of time.
01:04:09.000So if you go, so I guess a hypothetical split we could do here is, so you're going in, you're hitting no more than six sets per muscle group, right?
01:05:10.000And so for the optimization, because this is simply where, you know, you need to, if you want to be like a fully optimized program, you just need to sit down, count the volume and everything.
01:05:18.000So we're actually working on an app that can do all of this for you called Cybernetic Fitness.
01:05:22.000It's not out yet, but that should be a really good way to just plug and play, get an optimized program, not only with the AI that can actually do all of this for us, and walk and roll.
01:05:32.000Yeah, and that's kind of the beauty of it because the thing is about with training that so many people get wrong is it's a delicate balance between so many different factors.
01:05:41.000Are you getting enough volume while simultaneously getting enough intensity?
01:06:13.000Then you've got the other camp that are powerlifters or guys that are more strength-centric, and they're like, no, you need to rest three to five minutes, man, so that you can actually make sure that you actually hit each set and lift as heavy as you can.
01:06:24.000Where should people try to put their rest periods between sets to keep the intensity high while simultaneously still being able to rest adequately to hit proper volume?
01:06:35.000I think most people, they can actually just auto-regulate it.
01:06:38.000I'm not a big proponent of doing things by feel.
01:06:45.000So I co-offered, together with Brad Schoenfeld, the biggest review paper up until the time showing that the traditional idea of short rest intervals for hypertrophy and long for strength was wrong.
01:06:56.000Long for strength is correct, but for size, long is also better, at least to the extent that it helps you do more volume.
01:07:03.000It all comes down to volume in the end.
01:07:06.000So, longer rest interval means you can do more reps, which is longer time under tension.
01:07:11.000It all comes back to the tension as the growth mechanism.
01:07:17.000So, it's not so much about having a fixed rest interval.
01:07:21.000It's about getting the total amount of work.
01:07:23.000Now, if you're very pressed for time, then short rest intervals are good because it's better to do an additional set rather than do one set closer to failure.
01:07:32.000Because we know that doing a set closer to failure, okay, you do two additional reps, or depending on how hard you normally train, maybe you do two additional reps.
01:07:39.000That's, well, two additional reps worth of growth stimulus.
01:07:41.000But if you do an additional set, you can probably hit six plus.
01:07:46.000So would it be fair to say that you want to be at least...
01:07:51.000Two minutes, but maybe below five minutes?
01:07:54.000Yeah, good for most people that are not pressed for time and trying to hit their workouts in a certain predetermined time period and getting in a lot of volume.
01:08:03.000Most people can just rest until they feel mentally recovered for the next set.
01:08:07.000In particular, don't start your next set until your heart rate and your general out-of-breathness has normalized somewhat.
01:09:41.000So theoretically, it's very important because we know that it's the tension multiplied by the time and retention that's essentially the growth stimulus.
01:09:47.000However, when it gets to the implementation, most people interpret that to mean as, okay, I'm just going to slow down my reps, get more time and retention, get more gains.
01:09:56.000But it doesn't work that way because if you slow down your reps, you cannot do as many reps.
01:10:01.000And it turns out that that balances out almost perfectly.
01:10:05.000So how slow you do your reps doesn't matter.
01:10:06.000You want to control your reps, otherwise it's not your muscles doing the work.
01:10:10.000But other than that, your tempo is not super important for hypertrophy.
01:10:15.000For strength, you want to be explosive on the way up, the concentric portion.
01:10:19.000Yep, the eccentric portion, the descent, when the muscle is lengthening.
01:10:24.000You want to have control, but the exact tempo just doesn't matter because, like I said, you're trading off more time per rep for fewer reps, and in the end, you get the same total growth stimulus.
01:10:47.000It's a deceptive concept in that it seems the things you would think Yeah.
01:11:14.000Because it's like, okay, you're lowering the dumbbell and you were able to hold it for 10 seconds and lower it down slowly, but the fact that you were able to even do that in the first place probably means that you weren't lifting heavy enough because you're able to control that weight.
01:11:27.000So it's like, you know, yeah, you're accomplishing this, but you're using a weight that's so goddamn low that is it even worth it?
01:12:12.000Guys, that's why I brought him on, man.
01:12:13.000He's actually, as y'all can see here, he's one of the ones actually doing the research, man.
01:12:20.000Should we hit some of the questions here, guys?
01:12:22.000I know they probably might be piling up here.
01:12:24.000We'll take a quick break and ask some questions because I did have some more questions on meal timing and frequency, which I know we're going to piss a lot of people off on that one, going back to the dieting because so many people are zealots when it comes to that.
01:12:35.000But we'll go ahead and hit some of your guys' questions.
01:12:37.000Hell, you guys might even have some questions about mealtime and frequency.
01:12:39.000And I also want to talk about sugar, too.
01:12:41.000Because sugar gets demonized in the fitness world.
01:14:15.000Because many people, they eat more than they think.
01:14:16.000They're forgetting about that Starbucks coffee, that latte that was actually 500 calories.
01:14:20.000They're not measuring the peanut butter that they put on their bread and they think it's like 30 grams, but in reality that's like heaping scoops.
01:15:13.000Also, check if your waist circumference or your skin folds, ideally something like that, something that really tests your body fat level, not just your weight.
01:15:20.000Because what I see as well, and what I get a lot of my students when they start designing programs for their clients, they actually don't lose weight on a fat loss program because they recomp.
01:15:29.000They're building muscle and losing fat at the same time, and you actually remain weight stable.
01:15:33.000If you're not super advanced, this is basically the goal.
01:15:50.000If you then decrease energy intake further, then what happens is they start losing muscle.
01:15:54.000And they are happy because now they're losing weight, but they're no longer building muscle and they actually start losing some.
01:15:59.000So we saw in one Gartha study, for example, that you can actually go from recomping to losing marginally more fat or not even more fat and just start losing muscle.
01:16:08.000So ideally you want some measure of whether you're losing fat, not just weight.
01:16:12.000And then, when you have that in order, and you are indeed not losing fat, your energy intake is as it should be, then the logical conclusion of that is, well, you just have to go lower in energy intake.
01:16:22.000If you're not losing fat on your current energy intake, for sure, then you have to go lower in energy intake.
01:17:02.000They're not using MyFitnessPal or one of these calorie tracking apps.
01:17:07.000Every bite or munch or morsel of food that you eat needs to be measured, guys, when you're trying to lose weight.
01:17:12.000And a lot of people just suck at tracking or they're not tracking at all, or they're trying to eyeball it, and it just doesn't work that way.
01:17:17.000And then you also mentioned, are you taking...
01:17:20.000Maybe using calipers or using a tape measure to take your measurements in because yeah, the scale might not move anywhere, but you might be losing some inches or whatever off of your waist.
01:17:31.000So I think these are all very important things that you need to make sure that you have in check before lowering calories.
01:17:37.000And I don't know if you guys noticed, he made changing your calories the last resort, making sure you had everything else in order first.
01:17:43.000Do you have all these things in order?
01:17:44.000If you do, then yeah, you probably need to go ahead and drop your calories.
01:17:47.000But I think, you know, less is more and doing the minimum invasive tactic is the best way to go first and then whittle it down from there.
01:18:12.000That's one of the things that so many trainees don't do.
01:18:15.000And also, another thing I used to do as well was I would take a picture of myself every week.
01:18:20.000Now, it starts to get monotonous after a bit, but when you start scrolling down and you look like a month or two later, you'll see a difference.
01:18:34.000And then take your measurements as well.
01:18:35.000If you're doing all that, like Menno said, and you're not losing weight, then you can go ahead and go back to the drawing board and lower the calories.
01:19:23.000So the first question is, animal-based protein versus vegan protein?
01:19:26.000And the second one is, does 500 calories from chips versus steak count, which I think he's just trying to show maybe a lower quality food versus a higher quality food?
01:19:57.000Theoretically, animal quality is of much higher quality because it has better digestibility.
01:20:02.000The body has trouble digesting plants, they have fiber, they have defense mechanisms that are not easy for the body to absorb and digest.
01:20:13.000That is a negative factor, plus the amino acid mixture, like all the different amino acids that are in the protein, they are very different from the body.
01:20:20.000Like a piece of steak, the amino acid mixture in that is very close to that of our meat.
01:20:26.000Animal meat of all kinds at a biological level is not that dissimilar.
01:20:30.000So when you get a cow or chicken or steak, whatever, Mm-hmm.
01:20:54.000However, it seems that the body is very good at using the different amino acids from different foods and also using the free amino acid pool to basically mix and match and create the non-essential amino acids from the other ones.
01:21:10.000My recommendation, typically, if you want to keep it simple, is if you want to do a completely plant-based diet, then increase your protein intake by some 20%, about 1 gram per pound, or if you want to be exact, I think it's 2.3 gram per kilogram.
01:21:25.000If you supplement royally with a protein powder that's 80% pea protein, 20% rice protein, that's a really good mixture with almost a high-quality protein source, both in digestibility and in the amino acid mixture.
01:21:40.000So you don't need that much additional protein.
01:21:41.000If you're just winging it and just eating whatever as a vegan, then your protein intake might be very, very high if you want to be optimal, because you might be covered for all the amino acids, but leucine is still very low, or lysine is still very low.
01:21:55.000There are some of these amino acids that you just might be lacking, and if they're essential, you're limited, you're rate limited by that amino acid.
01:22:03.000It matters, and you need additional protein, but the question is how much, and if you rely on a protein powder, then the answer is not that much extra.
01:22:16.000I know he made a video about this, and he said exactly what you said, that, unfortunately, plant-based protein just doesn't have the same quality because it's lacking in leucine, which I think, if I'm not mistaken, please correct me, Menno, is the number one amino acid when it comes to muscle protein synthesis.
01:22:32.000And vegan proteins simply just don't have enough of it.
01:22:35.000So you need to consume more vegan protein to get the same quality of protein that you would get from an animal-based product.
01:22:43.000So yeah, guys, so all the vegans out there, man, y'all can stay vegan, but maybe what you said, they should be consuming maybe 2.3 per kilogram of grams of protein?
01:22:51.000Yeah, if you were around the protein partner, you're going to be good with that amount.
01:23:55.000Menno, what do you suggest for people to figure out their maintenance calories?
01:23:59.000Because it seems to me as though that's the starting point that people need to figure out first and then kind of go from there, how much calories they need to consume per day to maintain their weight, and then they could choose to go up or down from there.
01:24:08.000How should people figure that out, their TDEE? Yeah, that's something that requires a bit of calculation again and just doing some work.
01:24:16.000If you want to get a decent idea, you can Google something like catch McArdle, BMR calculator.
01:25:07.000They are not exactly the same because especially if you're comparing a higher protein versus a lower protein food, there's going to be a difference in the firmic effect of food.
01:25:15.000So basically the steak is going to increase your energy expenditure more than the chips.
01:25:20.000The chips are going to have very little effect on your energy expenditure.
01:25:23.000It's very easy for the body to metabolize, digest, and absorb them.
01:25:27.000And the steak is going to require a bit more energy to process.
01:25:30.000It's going to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.
01:25:32.000So there's a lot more going on in the body which increases energy expenditure.
01:25:36.000But you're looking at differences of 10, 20% at the very, very most.
01:25:40.000So big picture is just total caloric intake.
01:25:43.000And then, yes, the type of energy source does matter, especially when it's protein versus non-protein.
01:25:48.000But there's also one study, for example, where they compared very processed versus non-processed foods.
01:25:53.000And they also found about a 10% difference in firmic effect of food.
01:25:57.000So if you go from a pure crap junk food diet to a healthier diet, you will find that probably you can increase your energy intake by some 10, maybe 20% at the very most level and get similar fat loss.
01:26:10.000So there is something to be gained by eating healthier and less processed foods, but it's not nearly as important as simply the total energy intake.
01:26:22.000Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, that's super important because, like, people tend to...
01:26:24.000I mean, I hate to say a calorie is a calorie, but the data just shows a lot of the times a calorie is a calorie, and, like, you know, yeah, you might get the thermic effect of food when you eat more protein, right, which will help, but it doesn't make as big of a difference as...
01:26:44.000One, they fed them nothing but crap, like sugar, high fructose, corn syrup, diet, whatever it may be, but they kept protein and calories the same, and they found that there was virtually no difference in body composition change between the two groups, even though one group ate a bunch of crap and the other group ate a more healthy diet.
01:27:00.000They've done multiple studies like that, actually, with different types of sugar, replacing rice with sugar, different types of carbs.
01:27:07.000I also have an article called, Is a Carb a Carb?
01:27:11.000So it's well established now in research that the type of where you get your calories from, especially given the same protein intake, is minor compared to simply the total energy intake.
01:27:23.000And the other thing, too, I think that will piss people off, because people like to demonize sugar a lot, right?
01:27:28.000Which I'm not saying, I'm not advocating, go run around and eat sugar, but I think it's important people realize, like, the sugar doesn't necessarily make you fat.
01:27:35.000It's the calorie surplus that makes you fat.
01:27:38.000And people don't want to track calories, they just want to say sugar's bad for you.
01:27:41.000And I know that there was another study that came out where they fed people sugar versus no sugar, and they found that as long as the person was in a caloric deficit and they lost weight, their health markers improved pretty much the same, even when they ate crappy food.
01:27:58.000Yeah, being lean is incredibly good for your health.
01:28:35.000And for the idiots out there, we're not telling you go eat junk food.
01:28:38.000We're simply telling you that it's the calories that's the most important thing.
01:28:43.000And losing the body fat, that's the most important thing, versus what you consume.
01:28:47.000Sorry, first you're going to say something.
01:28:48.000Yeah, real quick, before you go, so I actually found your videos looking for TRT, like, you know, some research on TRT on YouTube, and just a quick question from me.
01:28:58.000So, in this case, right, let's say I'm a guy that's interested in doing TRT. What age should I even look into it and get on it, versus should I do it right away?
01:29:11.000Super short answer, we can go into this in great detail in the follow-up, but super short answer for most people, annual blood work is a good idea for anyone, and especially beyond the age of 50, and absolutely mandatory at age 65, do your blood work,
01:29:28.000check if your T levels are normal, and if especially free or bioavailable testosterone is not normal, validate it.
01:29:33.000If it's again below the normal range, then you definitely want to consider TRT. Do you think they should optimize their training, lifestyle, sleep, diet before they get on the TRT and pretty much exhaust all natural options and remedies prior to going on that?
01:29:50.000Because there's no turning back once you go to the dark side, right?
01:30:11.000It's not like if you have the basics in order and you're going to fine-tune how much avocado you eat, sugar and testosterone are going to triple.
01:30:18.000But yeah, if your lifestyle is not in order, sleep, smoking, alcohol use, all those big factors, if those are not in order, then you definitely have to get those in check first.
01:30:28.000I asked because I'm not actually on it, but I was actually like offered it.
01:30:33.000However, Myron said- I told him don't do it.
01:31:32.000And you can also get a free email newsletter.
01:31:35.000If you like this type of stuff, then if you go to my website, you'll immediately get it spanned right in your face.
01:31:40.000And if you get your email in there, you get a lot of free email course lessons, like a tour of my most popular contents.
01:31:46.000And I really like the fact that you put out studies all the time.
01:31:48.000Like, guys, if you go look at his stuff, he's always putting out new studies on hypertrophy, muscle and fitness, getting your body on point.
01:31:58.000So this guy is one of the most up-to-date researchers when it comes to hypertrophy and overall body improvement when it comes to composition.
01:33:01.000So versus instead of bringing one of these guys on, these big YouTubers, why not bring the source themselves that's actually doing the research in the lab?
01:33:08.000Yeah, because they don't get the actual recognition for what they do.
01:33:10.000Yeah, because they don't go fuck, they're not YouTubers, they're scientists.
01:34:46.000I can tell you how this is a prior endurance athlete.
01:34:48.000You're going to need a lot of carbohydrates.
01:34:50.000And you mentioned subtly as well, is carb loading and endurance athlete practices do work.
01:34:58.000But yeah, you're going to need more carbohydrates as an endurance athlete versus what I would consider a cosmetic athlete, like a bodybuilder or a guy that wants to look good on the beach.
01:35:06.000Is there an optimal way to lose fat to prevent loose skin and stretch marks as much as possible?
01:35:13.000I know some of you guys are very critical of how we're getting Mo to lose weight, but that's a part of the reason why I have him on a slow deficit, is that he's losing the weight in a way where, number one, it's sustainable, and then number two, he's not going to look like shit after the fact, or we're trying to mitigate him looking like shit after.
01:35:27.000And that's unfortunately what quick fat loss does, especially when you're really heavy.
01:35:32.000Johnny Blaze goes, I lost 40 pounds in three months.
01:35:35.000I might open up my fitness coaching for y'all back again because you guys really have a lot of these questions.
01:35:42.000It's just that it's very time consuming and I really like to make sure that I give people my all and it's very difficult to do that while doing the pod.
01:37:37.000My lower abs won't show no matter how much skinny I am.
01:37:40.000Could it be trapped air in the pelvic region?
01:37:42.000No, you need to develop that portion from a hypertrophy level.
01:37:46.000I will start doing more lower ab movements and then also start using resistance.
01:37:51.000And what's going to end up happening is you're going to build muscle in that area so it'll be more visible when your body fat percentage is low.
01:37:57.000Guys, when you're ripped and you look good and you got muscles popping out, all that is is muscle development coupled with low body fat.
01:38:03.000That's all it is when you look ripped.
01:39:01.000I'm a college student where my gym is free, but my question is, do you think it's a good idea to eat Chipotle for a source of protein and what's a good meal there?
01:39:11.000Also, what is a healthy carb and fat to eat for 5-11?
01:39:14.000We talked about healthy carb versus non-healthy carb.
01:39:16.000It makes almost no difference in body composition.
01:39:18.000Number two, as far as Chipotle, guys, I eat Chipotle every single day when I lost to 50 pounds.
01:39:22.000What I always do is I get a bowl, white rice, black beans, mild salsa, and then double chicken.
01:40:21.000Peter Table goes, based on your experience, how long do you think someone needs to go to the gym consistently in order to see some results?
01:40:28.000You also have the right mindset of long-term training.
01:40:30.000Well, if you're training optimally, you're going to see results in as little as three to six months that are pretty tangible.
01:40:48.000Give yourself enough time to diet, especially when you're training for sports that are required to be at a certain weight.
01:40:53.000Because if you diet too aggressively, that's going to fuck you up, especially since you're going to be training hard with cardio and multiple training sessions.
01:41:01.000So you want to diet down nice and slow.
01:42:51.000Any coach that's based on evidence-based research, I haven't launched my stuff yet, but it seems like a lot of you guys want to get in shape, so I'll put something together and we'll do something maybe Wednesday.
01:43:21.000I'm going to give you all a tangible number.
01:43:23.000If you don't even have $1,000 to invest, don't even bother messaging me.
01:43:26.000And I'm not saying that to be an asshole or whatever.
01:43:28.000It's just that I got to protect my time.
01:43:30.000Obviously, the podcast comes first, which is why I put the fitness business to the side.
01:43:34.000To focus on this and getting new equipment and make the podcast better because obviously you have a certain amount of mental energy, right?
01:43:40.000It's very mentally draining, guys, to deal with these bimbos every single night and also give you all a daytime show and be alert and aware for each of them.
01:43:47.000So if I'm going to do this, I'm going to work with a smaller clientele.
01:43:51.000The price point is going to be high so I can ensure that I'm giving them the best quality service while simultaneously making sure that the podcast is at the highest level.
01:44:00.000If you're serious, you got at least a thousand bucks you want to invest, you want me to work with you directly, hit my Instagram, unplugfitcoach, in all caps, and what I'll do is I'll flag your DM, and when I roll it out, we'll make something happen.
01:45:51.000People aren't going to care about your shit.
01:45:52.000You're going to have to probably make fixes all the time because when you have Airbnb tenants, they don't care, bro.
01:45:56.000They're going to come in and mess your place up.
01:45:57.000Especially if you're in a party location like in Miami or whatever, which is why they don't allow Airbnbs at most of the buildings here in Brickell because this is a residential neighborhood.
01:47:01.000You're not going to cash flow like that.
01:47:03.000And then finding Airbnb in itself is going to be a little bit tougher.
01:47:08.000So I'm a fan of investing in the city of Miami, but staying away from these luxurious buildings where the HOAs are damn near $1,000 a month or whatever.
01:47:19.000If you're running a business or something like that, like me, you guys know I bought this condo, but it's different because we're running a biz out of it, whatever, I'm able to write shit off.
01:47:25.000But if you're just living there and stuff, it might not be, or you're renting out, excuse me, Renting it out, even Airbnb-ing it, might not be enough to offset the ridiculous HOA fees that you're going to pay and the risk that you put yourself in, where if you're Airbnb-ing out your unit,
01:47:42.000you might get kicked out by the association.
01:47:43.000So you've got to weigh all these things out.
01:47:46.000I know that's a very complicated answer, but it's a complicated situation.
01:47:51.000Forex goes, I'm 5'5", 150 pounds, trying to bulk, but I feel like I'm losing weight.
01:50:04.000And the reason why I'm against it is because it's a crutch for a lot of y'all and you guys don't have the rudimentary basics down and you guys want to go ahead and jump on gear.
01:50:58.000Until you're training in the gym for five years, straight, no breaks, maximize your natural potential, you're sleeping eight to ten hours a night, you're drinking enough water, you're pissing clear all day, you're getting enough protein, you're eating vegetables and fruits, you're getting your micronutrients in as well as your macronutrients in, and you're optimizing everything...
01:51:14.000Then you could think about even entertaining the situation, but most of y'all can't even do that for five years.
01:51:30.000Got a complaint from my building because someone took a picture of the FNF podcast on my 72-inch TV through my window and make it make sense.
01:57:35.000All the ladies that are watching, don't get with no fucking guy that has a gambling problem or does drugs or is involved in criminal activity.
01:58:45.000Girlfriend of two years just replaced on Coke and was recently texting her friend about lusting over a co-worker at first live but came clean.
01:59:52.000When I meet a girl, right, I'm talking to her, I'm asking certain questions, and I'm listening very intently.
02:00:00.000If she reveals anything that is what I would consider a wife deal breaker, mental instability, former drug use, alcoholism, doing some thought activities, whatever...
02:00:15.000I automatically in my mind put her in the sex only category and she never leaves that category.
02:00:49.000So, whether I close or I don't with them, it doesn't matter.
02:00:53.000Because they were in the streets category already.
02:00:56.000But a lot of y'all meet these fucking girls, put them in the, she could be the one category, even though she gave you a bunch of red flags.
02:01:04.000And then you get attached to her because you put her in that fucking category where she has the ability to get you attached.
02:01:09.000And then your dumb ass is over here sending us a message later on.
02:01:45.000So just put her in the sex-only category and save yourself the fucking headache that you're dealing with now.
02:01:50.000Because now, you got a coked-up 304 that you thought changed, she didn't, your dumbass invested two years in her, and then you're over here wondering, asking us, yo, what should I do, bro?
02:01:59.000She realized, nigga, you should never been with her in the first place.
02:02:02.000So take that two years as a fucking L, you're a fucking dumbass, you deserve to get fucking ridiculed for this, because you wasted two years, wife and a girl that should never be wiped in the fucking first place, you retard.
02:05:43.000You know, you go to, you know, you want to be a police officer, you admit on there that you committed a felony, they disqualify you from the process.
02:05:49.000Sorry, but you're not a candidate with us anymore.
02:08:53.000On Wednesday, give you guys a two-parter.
02:08:55.000We might even give you a three-parter now that we finally got the IRL backpack ready to go with dinner as well to make up for this lack of after hours tonight.