Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Resistance Training for Time Efficiency, Body Composition & Maximum Hypertrophy

It is in my humble opinion fundamental to uh combine resistance training at the very least with an energy deficit through uh nutritional restriction to promote weight loss and here's why if you do not lift weights even if you just do cardio you will lose muscle as you're losing body fat evidence shows 25 percent to 30 percent of the weight loss will come from muscles if you don't do resistance treatment my views of in certain respects done 180 and nothing can be characterized more so than loading so I had always thought that if you're doing anything

over 12 to 15 repetitions it's basically glorified cardio and that you know it's just muscle endurance you're not going to gain muscle um the literature is now compellingly shown I just there's so much literature on the topic Arrow lab has done quite a bit of research as well as many others and it shows that you can gain um muscle similar amounts of muscle regardless of the loading across a wide range of loading spectrums up to 30 To even 40 repetitions which is along that's a long set. [Rhonda] Hi, everyone. I'm sitting here with Dr. Brad

Schoenfeld, who is a professor at Lehman College in the Bronx, in New York City. His research primarily focuses on muscle adaptations to strength training, muscle hypertrophy. He has published over 300 studies in the field of exercise, sports nutrition. I am super excited to talk about so many things related to why we should care about resistance training, about the mechanics, training load, training intensity, reps, how many to do, sets, whether we should rest or stretch or everything related to resistance training and muscle adaptations to resistance training. This is going to be a great podcast. So, Brad

thank you so much for coming out. I'm really excited to learn everything that we're, you know, going to talk about today related to muscle hypertrophy and muscle adaptations and response to resistance training. But maybe we can just start with resistance training. I mean, why should people care about resistance training? [Brad] So, in my humble opinion, certainly every form of exercise or most forms of exercise are very beneficial. Doing something has always been better than doing nothing for your health. But if I were to pick one activity that is indispensable, it would be resistance training. And

there's a couple of reasons. So, certainly cardiovascular exercise, it's been much more well researched over the years, and indisputably it has great effects on your health and wellness, but resistance training has many of the same benefits as cardiovascular exercise but it goes well beyond what you Can get through aerobic training. And particularly dealing with muscle strength, obviously, and bone density and other things like posture. So, aerobic exercise itself has very minimal effects on your strength levels, on muscle development, on muscle hypertrophy, even on bone development. So, certainly running has certain benefits to bone but nothing

in the way that resistance training does. And again, things like your posture, people need to consider doing...if you are sedentary and not doing anything, over time, you're going to lose muscle, your posture is going to go. And you can do all the aerobic training you want, it's really not going to have these benefits. [Rhonda] So, you just mentioned two things that I was unaware of, bone density and the posture, so, can you talk a little bit more about that, resistance training affecting bone density? [Brad] Yeah, sure. [Rhonda] Because that seems very relevant for particularly post-menopausal

women. [Brad] It is. So, osteoporosis, which is basically porous bones, it's when, over time, the aging process, your bones, if you are sedentary in particular, will start to degrade. And the 80% of people with osteoporosis are women because women generally, number one, start out with less bone mass and there's also effects of, as you mentioned, estrogen is osteoprotective. So, when women undergo menopause, postmenopausally, they're going to have increased bone resorption, Which is going to increase their chances of getting osteoporosis. And resistance training, by pulling on the bones, muscle pulling on the bones, so, there's an

interaction, your musculoskeletal system is the muscle that allows, when you have movement, it's the muscle pulling on the bones to move. And strength training really is the primary way to strengthen the bones. So, while you're strengthening the muscles, necessarily the bones become strengthened as well. There's certain ways that are going to be more appropriate than others to maximize that process but really, no matter what type of resistance training you do, whether it's light loads, heavy loads, etc., you're going to be strengthening bones. And it's always, by the way, specific to the joint that you're working.

So, weight-bearing exercise in particular is what strengthens bones. If you're doing cycling or even the elliptical machine, it's really not weight-bearing enough to have substantial effects on bone development, and swimming and other endeavor. Whereas, running, to some extent, there is ground reaction forces but it's mostly specific to the femur, to your lower-body musculature, whereas the spine and the wrist is going to be a major area for osteoporosis, particularly in women. Anyway, long story short is that resistance training, when done regularly and consistently over time, has profound effects on staving off the potential for osteoporosis and

even building bones, particularly when you're younger. [Rhonda] You said there are certain types of exercises that may, you know, be better...or is there any types of exercises that you can talk about? [Brad] Yeah. So, most of the research has been using somewhat moderate to heavier load. I'm not convinced though, I think it's an effect that we just don't have research that's really looked at doing lighter-load training with bone density. And I would surmise, if you are training with a good deal of effort, high levels of intensity of effort, that you would achieve similar effects, but

it also does seem that doing more multi-joint movements...so, multi-joint meaning like squats, movements that are utilizing more than one joint, multi-joint is more than one joint, so, rather than a curl, you can get better effects overall on bone because of the loading that is imposed. So, again, not really great evidence, this is more speculative, based upon the literature I've seen. So, again, I'm a fan of any type of resistance training over not but if you're looking to maximize bone development, I would certainly say you want to include some multi-joint movements. And I think, just in

general, there's other reasons why you want to as well. [Rhonda] Besides the squats, what are some other, like, body... [Brad] Rows, presses...I mean, push-ups, you know, any type of movement where you're involving more than one joint. [Rhonda] For, like, someone that's working with dumbbells, for example, who's not going to go use a machine, can you do multi-joint movements without that? [Brad] Yeah, shoulder press, so, I mean, chest press. Dumbbells are great, sure. Shoulder press, chest press. You can do squats, you can do a goblet squat, where you hold the dumbbell here and do a squat.

So, yeah. [Rhonda] Well, that was very...I mean, I had a question there about bone density but I Didn't realize that it really does play a significant role in the bone density, and it's really good to know about that. Muscle mass in general, aging. I mean, what about someone who hasn't...let's say, you know, they're more of an endurance athlete, like, throughout most of their, you know, young adulthood and they're getting into even just maybe perhaps older age? Is it ever too late to start resistance training to help, you know, build muscle mass or help prevent the

atrophy that's going to happen? [Brad] Absolutely not. So, in my previous life, I was a personal trainer before becoming an educated researcher and, I mean, literally I was involved in the training of thousands of individuals. And I had clients at the time that were 60s, 70s, and 80s, never lifted a weight, and saw Huge benefits in relatively short periods of time. We carried out a meta analysis on the oldest of old, which was 70 and above. Well, 70s actually not that...it's the new 50 now, 70. But 70-plus-years-old and up octogenarians, profound improvements in muscle strength,

muscle hypertrophy within 12-week, 8 to 12-week training programs, these are novice trainees who've never done anything before. Now, I will say this with the caveat, it's always better to start when you're young. The earlier you start, the better. Because, once you start losing, to get it back is harder. So, you can always improve upon where you're at at a given point in time but trying to get back to where you were when you're in your 20s is going to be almost impossible if you're not starting till you're 70. However, if you start when you're in

your 20s, you can maintain a majority of your muscle mass. And certainly I would say this, someone who is not doing anything in their 20s, I've had clients in their 70s who were stronger and more fit than people in their 20s, who were, you know, serious lifters. So, yeah, it's always best to start when you're younger. And I will say this too, for women in particular and particularly in reference to bone density, it is very important to start early. Again, it's never too late because you can get some, to some extent... [Rhonda] How early? [Brad]

I mean, as early as you can but certainly like in your teens and twenties because you do build up a bone bank. I mean, the analogy I like to use is having a retirement account. Yeah, it's never too late to start, technically, but if you start in your 50s, your retirement is not going to be what it is if you start in your 20s. And there is this concept of a bone bank where, if you start when you're young, and particularly, again, for women, who have the biggest issue with osteoporosis, you end up staving off

the possibility of having osteoporosis. If you start when you've already lost bone density, it's very difficult to get back. You know, you can stave off, you can certainly prevent the progression of osteoporosis, but getting back your bone density becomes much more difficult. [Rhonda] So, it's very similar to this concept of building up a muscle reserve, right, where...because that's also, right, when you're... [Brad] Correct. [Rhonda] ...in, I don't know, 30s even maybe, you start to lose the muscle mass. And so, yes, like you said, starting with that bigger reserve is always better because things are going

to be taken away from it so you want to have, like, a bigger starting point. So, that's really great to know because, you know, in particular for women I think, you know, and at least for myself in particular, and I know, like, many of my friends and growing up even, you know, throughout high school, I mean, we were always endurance, we were endurance athletes. You walk into the gym and there was mostly guys in there lifting weights, you know, the wrestlers, the...you know, and so, I don't know, this may be changing now, where women are

starting to understand the importance of resistance training and building up muscle mass and bone mass through resistance training but, you know, for me, it was always endurance. If I'm doing my endurance then I'm checking the box, you know, I'm getting that exercise, I'm going to be healthier because of it. So, it's really so important I think for young women too to really...it's easier to convince young men who, like, want to get the muscle, I mean, for them, they've got other goals as well in mind, but I think there's now a growing interest in bone mass

and bone density, preventing osteoporosis as well. So, that's really great to know. What about starting, like, so, starting young? Like, you know, can you start, like, in childhood? [Brad] Absolutely. So, there's compelling research now that children...kind of it's never too young to start, provided the child's maturity is such that they're able to lift. I will say that always it should be done, especially early on, if you're dealing with children six, seven, eight-years-old, you want to have a fully supervised environment. Even beyond that, until they are, you know, in their teens even. But yeah, there's really

compelling research now that resistance training in youth not only is not detrimental...so, I mean, I want to dispel the myth now that it stunts growth. I mean, there's been this myth around forever that, you know, the training, if you do resistance training early on, it will stunt your growth. Zero evidence. [Rhonda] I would think the opposite because growth hormone increases with resistance training... [Brad] Yeah, growth hormone really does not have the effects on, interestingly, even though the name is growth hormone, it's really not the driving force of development. Well, it is on height... [Rhonda] Height,

yeah, that's what I mean. [Brad] But growth hormone is pulsatile, and the effects on growth hormone for...it's actually interesting, it's never been studied, but it's pulsatile and the effects on growth hormone with resistance training are very specific to 1 hour or so after the workout. But it was thought that you would injure the epiphyseal plates and that would, you know, somehow stunt the growth. Anyway, zero evidence to that. The issues can be that, I want to emphasize, if a child is not emotionally, mentally ready for that, yeah, they get injured. But I'll say this, to

me, it's always this weird thought process that parents often have no issues with letting their children play football and basketball, the possibility of getting injured, and potentially breaking bones, in sports, you know, major sports, Are much much higher. Resistance training is one of the safest things you can do, in a supervised environment. So, yeah, with children, again, very young, as young as six, seven, eight-years-old, there's been a good compelling research on this that they can do it. I generally say you want to start off with lighter loads with them. And again, it's getting them into

the feel for doing it. And look, when you're dealing with children, the most important thing is making it fun. So, if something is not fun, you're forcing them to do it, not only is it not going to work and you're going to have rebellion against it but it can also later on in life get them to a point where they're kind of adverse to doing that. So, again, I think what's really important is to make it enjoyable for them. And it improves self-esteem, obviously, it improves, you know, bullying in children, These are all things that

can help to stave off a lot of the issues that children can have, makes them better athletes. So, from a parent standpoint, you can get scholarships, if that's the avenue they want to pursue, it can make them better in their sports and lead to just a host of positive improvements. [Rhonda] With respect to body composition, so, you know, we're talking about the benefits of resistance training on bone density, obviously, muscle mass, and people are now thinking about those things but, you know, back in the day, you know, body composition, and it still is important as

well, but that was kind of one of the major things people would think about, like, why they should do resistance training. Can you talk, like, a little bit about body...like, how does resistance training, you know, affect body recomposition, can you gain muscle without gaining fat mass? Sort of things like that... [Brad] You know, great question. So, well, let's start from the basics that resistance training, certainly it improves lean mass, which is largely muscle mass. I do think it's important to understand, like, certain measures, underwater weighing, like, a lot of the measures that you'll see, DEXA,

underwater weighing, BIA, bioelectrical impedance analysis. They are looking at not necessarily muscle mass, although there are ways to try to derive that, but when they talk about fat-free mass and lean mass, generally, depending on the measure, they're combinations of in the very least muscle and water. So, it's not necessarily just, if you're gaining water, that'll show up as fat-free mass, anything outside of fat mass would be fat-free mass. And that, I think, is somewhat important to understand there. But, with that said, resistance training certainly can impact fat-free-mass aspect and it can help with fat mass.

Now, I want to say, in general, and this goes for cardiovascular exercise too, exercise is not the best way to lose body fat. It can help, it's certainly I think a good adjunct to a fat-loss program, which I'll get to in a second, but you have to do a lot of exercise to meaningfully lose fat, whereas it's just much easier to do it through reducing the calories in nutrition, the energy intake. So, for instance, if you do an hour of cardiovascular exercise, and hard, you know, where you're running for the most part, I mean, you

can burn 500-600 calories in that hour. You know, you have a bag of potato chips, that can pretty much offset everything you've done. Whereas, if you focus on reducing the energy intake through your food and using exercise as an adjunct, it can certainly help with weight loss. Not only in terms of increasing energy expenditure, to some extent...because, by the way, during an hour of exercise every day, for most people it becomes very laborious. And that's just cardio. Like I said, you want to do resistance training as well. And resistance training...cardio actually is somewhat more effective,

just purely from creating more energy expenditure, than resistance training is. But here's the catch, it is, in my humble opinion, fundamental to combine resistance training at the very least with an energy deficit through nutritional restriction to promote weight loss. And here's why, if you do not lift weights, even if you just do cardio, you will lose Muscle as you're losing body fat. And depending upon how you're going about it, evidence shows 25% to 30% of the weight loss will come from muscle. So, you might lose, let's say, 70% fat, it can even be more if

you're somewhat leaner, and 30% coming from lean mass if you don't do resistance training. Now, you talked about recomp, resistance training not only will stave off the loss of fat-free mass often but you can actually recomp. Recomp means you can gain muscle while losing fat. There are two primary factors, and I'll leave out...so, there's three, the elephant in the room is anabolic-steroid use. So, if you're taking anabolic steroids, yeah, you can have serious recomp. But putting that aside, that's probably not your audience or most of the people listening Here. The two primary factors are, number

one, "How much weight do you have to lose?" So, the more weight you have to lose, the easier it is to recomp. Also, how long have you been training? So, someone who has a lot of years of experience of training, that's closer to their genetic ceiling, will have a more difficult time recomping. Now, by the way, so, if you have a lot of body fat to lose and you're just starting out, you can do serious recomp, I see this all the time. Not only anecdotally have I seen this in clients but we have controlled experiments

run through our lab where I see this all the time, and individual subjects that we have. You cannot, however, maximize muscle mass while you are losing fat, so, this is important. If your goal is to go into, let's say, a mass-gaining cycle where you want to...let's say, bodybuilders Do this or strength athletes, and your goal is to maximize muscle development, you're at the very minimum going to need to be at maintenance, and generally you're going to need to be in a small surplus where you're going to gain a little bit, at least some amount of

fat. [Rhonda] Okay. Boy, this is fantastic information, it's sinking all in. So, if you are in a caloric deficit, and this kind of brings us into the dietary-protein-requirements world a little bit, if you are in a caloric deficit but you are...and we should probably talk about what the protein requirements are, but, let's say, you are getting sufficient protein intake, daily protein intake, to prevent your body from pulling protein out of your muscle, basically, can you not lose the lean mass or muscle mass? Let's say you're not doing resistance training but you are just getting the

protein in, say, You're doing aerobic but you're still in the caloric deficit but you're getting protein... [Brad] And not lifting weights? [Rhonda] You're not lifting weights. [Brad] So, the answer is it will help to preserve some lean mass but you'll still, no matter what, if you are not lifting weights, I mean, this has been shown again over and over in research, you will lose...well, I want to at least...I always hate to talk in absolutes because if you're very obese where you just have, let's say, you're 100 pounds overweight, you can lose fat without losing muscle

because you just have so much fat to lose that the body is going to pull from the fat storage, but I'm talking when you're starting to get down into, you know, people who're just, quote unquote, "overweight," you're going to lose muscle if you do not resistance train. Now, I want to point out though, even if you're lifting weights, if you are getting insufficient Protein, you're going to leach some muscle. So, you need to still take in sufficient protein. And there's actually evidence that you need more protein than what has been shown for people at maintenance

or above to maintain muscle or even to gain it, slightly, when you're in a caloric deficit. So, that actually increases protein needs, to some extent. [Rhonda] And can you talk about, like, what those requirements are? [Brad] Yeah, sure. So, we start to get into generalizations. So, the general literature shows somewhere around 1.6 to 1.8 grams per kilogram per day of protein is required for resistance-training people, which is about double the RDA. So, RDA for sedentary individuals, is around 0.8 grams per kilogram per day. You need roughly double that, you know, to maintain or to promote

anabolism while you're resistance training. The upper confidence interval is about 2.2 grams per kilogram. So, meaning that, to really be on the safe side. For the vast majority of people, if you're in the gen pop, it's probably not going to make a difference, but if you're a bodybuilder, when I'm coaching bodybuilders and consulting with them, it really does not hurt to take in more protein. I mean, there's a lot of myths about kidney damage. In healthy individuals, no good evidence that there's any negative effects on renal function, certainly on bone density. These are all unsupported,

from my reading of the literature. So, there's not necessarily a downside to it, you have to look at cost/benefit, everything Is cost/benefit. For bodybuilders, I would say go up to 2 grams per kilogram per day, which roughly around, for those of us in the States, it's about a gram per pound, it's not going to hurt. But I would say that becomes even more important to stay in that upper realm. So, if you're at 1.6, if you're especially in a surplus, the needs for protein are going to be encompassed because the body isn't going to leach

protein needs. When you start getting into a deficit, that's where I think it becomes even more important to be at that upper realm, 2.0, 2.2 grams per kilogram. [Rhonda] So, people that are...let's say people that are obese. And I always say "obese" or "overweight," maybe it's important to distinguish these two, based on what you just said, but, if they are obese and/or, like, you know, overweight and they're wanting to lose fat mass, right, should they be calculating their protein intake Based on their targeted weight? Because if they're like, you know, 300 pounds, for example, or,

you know, that's a lot of protein, right? So... [Brad] Yeah, it's a great question, and the answer is no. So, the protein needs have been based on men and women who are relatively lean. I want to say "relatively," for the vast majority of the population they would consider it lean. So, for guys somewhere like in the 12% to 15% body-fat range, for women around 20% body fat or so. So, if you are 300 pounds and you should be 200 pounds, let's say, you would calculate it at the weight that you would be where you would

be at your lean weight, you know, for a guy, 12% to 15% body fat. So, we can then regress to saying, "Base it on lean mass," but most people aren't getting DEXA scans to determine their lean mass or even, you know, they're not going out and getting body-fat caliper measurements. It's just not in the realm of what most people are going to do. When you can make a general estimate, these are not precise measurements, it's not like...you know, people think that we're doing these experiments and they really nail it down into these precise areas, they're

generalized recommendations based upon what we know. And there's going to be variations around the mean, you're always going to have people that are...when we do research, we report the means, as you well know, which are the averages. But people aren't an average, you get some people that are up here, some people here, and they average out here. So, yeah. So, if you're overweight/obese, you want to figure your protein needs at what you would be at a relatively lean weight. You know, let's say, again, for a guy, 10-12-15% body fat. I will say this, it doesn't

hurt to take in, like I said, a little extra protein. On the good side, protein is very difficult to store as body fat, much more difficult than carbohydrates and fat, so, if you're going to err on the side of question, that's what you'd want to err on the side of, you know, taking in a little more protein, if your goal is weight loss, at the expense of carbs and fat. [Rhonda] Right. Now, we had Stuart Phillips on the podcast, a colleague of yours, and he was talking about, with the protein requirements, like, the buy-in being

more like, you know, just to get, like, At least 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. And for me, I was like, "Okay, because that's what I'm going to try to aim for," but then, as I started to do more resistance training, I realized I was meeting the buy-in but I wasn't meeting the 1.6. And so, I have to now increase...like, a can of sardines will get me there. Like, I need about 16 to 20 more grams a day. So, you know, for people like my dad, for example, he's in his 70s and,

like, good luck getting him to 1.6. I'm trying to get him to 1.2, right, I'm trying to prevent him from just completely depleting his amino acids from his muscle every day, which he's kind of doing. So, he has to supplement and do the protein shakes and stuff like that, and I'm happy at least to get him there. Next step would be even 1.6, you know. And, of course, adding the resistance training, which should be essential, but I haven't been able to get to that point yet. So, I wanted to mention that with the protein requirements

because, you know, there was, like, I know the RDA is so low, 0.8. And Stuart talked a little bit about, like, some of the flaws in the early studies that were done to calculate that. And I'm just, like, wondering when is it time to reassess this, you know, and change it? Because a lot of people think they're getting enough protein and many people don't even get the RDA. [Brad] So, to address that, two things I think that are important. So, 1.2 is better than 0.8, certainly, but, I mean, there's good literature showing we've Done work

on this that, if you want to maximize anabolism...so, again, it doesn't mean that you're not going to gain any muscle if you're taking in 1.2 but it will impair the gains that you're going to get, and especially when you're talking about older individuals when they're anabolically-resistant. So, it becomes even more important. And I think this is another important thing when you're dealing with older individuals, not only anabolic resistance to resistance training but also to protein where the per-dose aspects need to be higher, to some extent, to get what's called leucine, which is one of the

essential amino acids. And there's, I don't know how deep you want to get here, but there's a leucine threshold, leucine is the amino acid that seems to kick-start the muscle-growth process. And it seems to be somewhat higher, at least some of the literature does show, that, in Older individuals, getting more leucine is important to kick-start that process. As you point out though, unfairly, for older individuals, it becomes increasingly difficult to get protein in. And I'm a big fan of whole foods, like, supplementation is something that you do when you cannot get whole foods in, but,

as you get older, taste buds start to dissipate, your food does not have good taste, so, older individuals have difficulty chewing sometimes too. And that is where supplementation can come in, it's much easier to drink a whey-protein or casein or egg-protein shake and get that protein in through supplemental means if you're not meeting your daily requirements. And for anyone. I mean, it seems that women often also are not programmed to take protein as much. And yeah, it's just very easy to do it through protein shakes if you're not going to be able To do it

through whole foods. [Rhonda] What's the leucine thresh...in terms of protein, obviously, we'll can get into the vegan, vegetarian, because it's a whole other thing, but, if you're eating meat, chicken, poultry, fish, if you're getting the essential amino acids, what gram dose per meal would you say would be important for crossing that leucine threshold, and what age? [Brad] Yeah. So, these aren't, again, hard cutoffs in either of those. I've seen 3 grams, where it starts to increase from 2 to 3 grams of leucine as you get older. Where is that cut off from being, quote unquote,

older? There isn't one. And I certainly don't think you need to take leucine as a supplement if you're taking in a high-quality protein source, you know, you're eating meat-based proteins. Which, by the way, aren't just meat, they're also milk and eggs, etc. So, proteins from, I should say, animal-based sources. You're going to be getting quality proteins that are rich in leucine. And again, it's just getting the proper dosages, it's been shown there is a graded...there's a recent study out of Luc van Loon's lab, is a terrific protein researcher in the Netherlands, and they looked at...again,

my memory now, it's been a while since I looked at the study, but they did 0, 15 grams of protein, I believe they used whey, 30 and 45 I think it was. But anyway, it showed a dose-response relationship for muscle protein synthesis where they kept getting a greater response. Now, the curve, it wasn't a linear relationship, so, there was, you know, more parabolic where it started to trail off after 30 grams, but it did continue on above the 30 grams. So, it just shows that in older individuals that it's needed to take more per-dose protein

To hit that leucine threshold, particularly in the time after resistance training. [Rhonda] I mean, yeah, that's talking about a dose that you're going to have in your animal products. But then you're also probably going to have a protein shake with it because it's quite...I mean, I guess unless you can eat large large large steaks and stuff. But for me I know, as a female too, I'm often... [Brad] I mean, 4 ounces of chicken is 30 grams of protein or so. [Rhonda] Is it though? [Brad] Yeah. I mean, you know, if you got... [Rhonda] I eat

4 ounces of chicken, yeah. Pretty good. With respect to what we were talking about with being in a caloric deficit and gaining muscle mass and how, you know, you have to do the resistance training and get the protein, but it seems as though you're not going to be really gaining if you're in that caloric deficit, if you're the person that is actively doing caloric restriction for recomp, like, you know, I guess aspects. But what about, you know...so, like, something I practice is time-restricted eating where I like to eat all my food within a like 10-hour

window. You know, I don't go too crazy but, you know, like, I like to have a resting period. And, you know, when you're not digesting and all that, you are in a repair process, right, you're in repair mode. The problem that a lot of people make with time-restricted eating is they go, "Oh, in order to eat within this 10-hour window I have to skip breakfast." Right? So, they skip meals, which ends up being caloric restriction, you know, combined with the time-restricted eating. And so, what I do is not skip meals, I do not skip breakfast,

I do not skip meals, unless, you know, there's some circumstantial thing that happens where I have to get somewhere or whatever, right, but if I'm getting all of my protein within that 10-hour window, so, it's a intermittent fasting but not being in a caloric deficit, so, getting the same calories that I would get if I was eating my food throughout the day. And then adding in resistance training, making sure I'm eating the protein. Is that going to be conducive with gaining muscle mass? [Brad] Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, we actually are starting to get some

good research on this topic. Now time-restrictive feeding, it's interesting you bring that up, I have a review paper currently in review with my colleague Alan Aragon, who's a big nutritional expert, and we covered this exact topic. The interesting thing with time-restrictive feeding, number one, there's various iterations of it. So, there's 4/20, so, we have 4 hours eating and then 20 hours off. There's 6/18, there's 8/16, so, there's all variations. Then there's also the 2/5 concept where you fast for 2 days and then eat 5 days or. So, a lot of that will depend upon the

specific type of time-restrictive feeding. You're talking about a 10-hour window, it's much more friendly towards anabolism. But it's interesting because, conceivably, spacing out your protein would logically have benefits, and there's been some research, even longitudinal research, that backs this Up, that you get better utilization of protein if it's spread out, let's say, at least over three meals relatively spaced. Like, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and perhaps even four. But now, again, so, this is where the nuances come in, if you're a bodybuilder, I would recommend trying to take in protein across the day as much as

possible. Because when you're not eating, you're catabolic. Eating is anabolic. So, not eating is catabolic. But the studies on time-restrictive feeding really don't show much difference. Now, our measures that we have, our current measures of looking at hypertrophy or even MRI, which is the gold standard, still has a margin of error, it's not like you're looking at a cadaver and you're actually, you know, measuring or you're doing like rodent research Where you actually can weigh the muscle, etc. So, our measures might not be sensitive enough to detect subtle differences but, for the vast majority of

people, when you're not looking to body build, it's just not going to be much of a difference. If you're going to do a 4/20, I would say you're then going to be in a lot more...and there's been research, one study certainly showed diminished muscle hypertrophy with a 4/20 versus a traditional eating pattern. I could see where a 2/5 might have issues. So, again, I would say, whatever you do, try to structure your training within that eating window that you have. Because, and there's actually been quite a lot of research on this, that the body is

highly anabolic for at least 24 hours, if not more, after a workout. But when you start getting outside of, you know, 6-8 hours or so, it's probably going to trail off where you might not harvest some of the gains, depending upon what you're looking for. You know, especially if your goals are more optimizing muscle mass. So, I would say it's beneficial to try to get the feeding in within that window, whatever it is. If you're going to be, let's say, in a 10-hour window, try to train within the earlier part of that eating so that

you're going to be able to eat after your workout and...let's say, not do it right after your final meal and then be catabolic for 14 hours. [Rhonda] Okay. So, with the anabolic window, is there some... [Brad] It's really a barn door. Yeah, we've done a ton of research on this. So, certainly there is somewhat of a window. And even in the paper we published, which people take there's no anabolic window, that's not what our research showed but it showed that it's really minor. The much more important thing is getting your total daily protein intake. And

that's where, kind of to your point, if you're hitting your daily protein requirements, whatever your window is, if you're doing, let's say, certainly 10 hours but even like a 8/16, which is the most common time-restricted feeding strategy, if you're getting 1.6 grams per kilogram, you're pretty good, you're going to get the majority of your gains regardless. Then it starts to come down, you kind of mentioned this with Stu Phillips in similar veins, that's kind of, like, the...now you're starting to get more, like, the cherry on the sundae here if you want to eke out the

maximum amount of gains. And really it's, like I said, more of a barn door, it's not this narrow window. And I think what we've debunked is that, after 45 minutes, you, "Oh my God, I got to slam my shake immediately after training or I go catabolic," and even if you're an advanced bodybuilder, I don't think there's utility...the utility in that is virtually nil. But I do say, when I'm coaching bodybuilders, you know, "Get your protein in as quickly as you can after a workout." You don't have to stress and slam your shake the minute you

finish your last set but...because this is where even small amounts of gains can be the difference between winning and losing a competition. So, again, it's highly context-specific. We try to make these general guidelines and apply to the population but everyone has their own, you know, goals their own lifestyle that they have to deal with and other factors, And that needs to be taken into account. [Rhonda] If you are working out at home, let's say, and you can go and you're not a professional bodybuilder, you're a recreational...you know, I guess I wouldn't call it a gym

goer if you're doing it at home but you're a recreational at-home gym goer and you can go and take your shake right after your workout because you're at home and it's not stressful and you don't have to think about packing it and all this, I mean, would that... [Brad] Not going to hurt. And, like, even if it helps a tiny bit, yeah, I would say that is the cost/benefit where there is really no cost and a potential very small benefit. Now, again, if you start going longer and longer, if you're taking 5, 6, 7, 8

hours and, again, if you're doing a, let's say, 10/14 and you train right after your last meal and then go 14 hours, then you can start compromising some gains. So, there's no hard rule to this, it's on a spectrum, but I would say the quicker you can get it in, conceivably, the better. There's just no downside. [Rhonda] You mentioned the aging study where the fella from the Netherlands was looking at, I guess, on a, you know, per-meal effect with respect to protein intake and muscle protein synthesis...like, you know, like, most people aren't going to do

3 meals with 40 or 50 grams of protein without supplementing on top of that. You know, maybe there's, you know, some people that will do it but, like, not all the women and all the older folks, you know. For the majority, I think, those types of people, they might not be taking in that much protein per meal. Should they try to at least get 40 grams in at least one meal? Or is 30 enough? I mean, so, is 40 better than 30 for these older people, is it something they should even think about or is

it, like, just the cherry on top but you don't stress yourself kind of thing, you know? [Brad] So, yeah, great question. So, one of the things I think that needs to be understood is that the studies are sterile. So, what I mean by that is that they're taking people, they're going to look at kind of proof of principle, so, they take them fasted, they're having nothing in their body, and they're giving them, let's say, a whey-protein shake. Whey is a very fast-acting protein that gets into your body very quickly, into your circulatory system, the body

gets to use the amino acids quickly, when you're eating a whole meal, the amino acids are released in a much more time-released fashion. Because the body has to digest the food, break it down, there's fats that are going to delay absorption. So, again, you're eating, let's say, chicken with, you know, broccoli and rice, etc., you're eating a whole meal, there's time-delayed release of nutrients into your body. So, that's why I said the most important thing, 90% is targeting your...I hate to give exact percentage because I'm just [inaudible 00:43:44] but I just want to emphasize the

vast majority is worrying about getting your total daily protein intake. Stressing over this, you know, minutia of how much is in the meal...if an older individual is taking in 1.6 grams, they're going to be doing fine, they're not going to be meaningfully compromising their gains unless they're looking to body build to a master's level bodybuilding show. [Rhonda] Okay. Well, that's good to know, I mean, for the people like us, you know. Shifting a little bit into mechanics and, like, the training load...I mean, that's a big one. I mean, for the longest time, you know, I

remember hearing, "Lift heavy," or, "lift big or go home," or something like that. I mean, you're like, you know... [Brad] "Go heavy or go home." [Rhonda] Yeah, that's it. Like, what does the science say about that? Like, you know, you've really contributed to this area about, "Do you need to train heavy to get your gains?" [Brad] So, this is an area that I've done pretty much one...so, I've changed my opinion On so many things, you know, that I had learned as an up-and-coming sports scientist and that were treated as dogma, you know, in textbooks, my

views have, in certain respects, done 180 and nothing can be characterized more so than loading. So, I had always thought that, if you're doing anything over 12 to 15 repetitions, it's basically glorified cardio and that, you know, it's just muscle endurance, you're not going to gain muscle. The literature has now compellingly shown, there's so much literature on the topic, our lab has done quite a bit of research, as well as many others, and it shows that you can gain muscle, similar amounts of muscle regardless of the loading across a wide range of loading spectrums, up

to 30 to even 40 repetitions, which is a long...that's a long set. And that's at the whole muscle level. Now, there may be, I want to really emphasize, this is still equivocal, there may be some Muscle-fiber type-specific benefits to doing light loads for type-1 fibers and type-2 fibers for heavy loads. If you're asking my confidence in that literature, it's, you know, modest at best but I can't rule out that that would be the case. But when you're looking, let's say, at MRI data or ultrasound, which we've used extensively, it really shows no difference. And I'll

tell you what I think is a quite funny story, looking back, but Stu Phillips had published a study, circa 2012, and he went on social media, it was Facebook at the time, and it was on untrained subjects doing leg extensions. And it showed that there was no difference in the whole muscle hypertrophy between 30% 1RM, which is like 30 reps, versus 80% 1RM, which was like 8 reps. And I remember it as clear as day saying, "Stu, come on, this is untrained subjects Doing leg extensions,they get jacked from doing spin cycling," that was I think

my exact quote. And I said, "I'm going to do this study in trained individuals, you're going to see there's going to be no question the older individuals are going to need the heavier loads to get those highest threshold motor units, the type-2 fibers, into play." And lo and behold, I carried out that study, no difference. It was really [inaudible 00:47:14]. And since then there's just been so much evidence, not only just across the spectrum of populations, untrained, trained, older, younger, men, women, really any and every population has been extensively studied. And it really is a

beautiful thing because it provides so much flexibility and options to carry out resistance training. And it's particularly I think beneficial for issues like training through injuries. So, if you're training through injuries, you know, heavy loading can be contraindicated. And also particularly for the older individuals because joint-related issues, as you know, as people get older, they get osteoarthritis and other joint-related issues where heavy loading can be very uncomfortable for them and perhaps debilitating. So, it's kind of contraindicated. And they can use lighter loads. Now, the caveat to this is is that the lighter loads have to

be taken with a high degree of effort. So they have to really...if you do not extensively challenge your muscles, meaning that the last few reps are difficult to complete, you're not going to achieve gains. So, when I talk about light loads, it's not this, you know, taking pink dumbbells and Just, you know, doing some lifting, "Okay, I stop," you must challenge the muscle. So, when you lift heavier, just innately you're going to challenge the muscles regardless because the weight is already heavy. With lighter loads, the first number of repetitions are very easy to complete and,

if it's easy to complete, you're really not doing much for challenging. And this goes back to a survival mechanism. So, I think this is important, because the reason that the body adapts to strength training is survival. The reason that the body adapts to anything is through a survival mechanism. And if you are not challenging it in a way it is not accustomed to being challenged, it has no impetus to adapt. So, the reason that you will get these adaptations in strength, and power, and hypertrophy, muscle Endurance, bone density, etc., is because the muscles and bones,

etc., tendons, ligaments are being challenged beyond their present capacity. [Rhonda] And so, as you get stronger, then you have to push past that and challenge them more. So, the big take home for lifting lighter, which is what I tend to do, is to get fatigued, right? [Brad] That's correct. [Rhonda] ...when you're doing it, and so, it often means more reps. Which I enjoy doing. I've done both and I do find, for me, I like doing the lighter lifting and more reps versus doing heavier and fewer reps. And I also notice I'm less likely to injure

my wrists if I'm doing...now, if I was doing Things like proper form and all that, maybe it wouldn't be such an issue. But you mentioned the muscle type 1 and type 2 fibers, and maybe there's some evidence that lifting a little heavier might help shift a little bit more type 2. Can you talk just for a moment, like, what are the roles of those types of fibers and should people aim to kind of gain both of those? Or are there distinct differences, you know, in terms of with aging, their roles in aging? [Brad] Yeah, yeah.

So, great questions. So, I'll tackle the second question first. Yes, aging is mostly specific...so, when I say "aging," what's called sarcopenia, which is the age-related loss of muscle is most specific to the type-2 fibers, which are your strength-related fibers. So, just to kind of even circle back for those who don't know, type-1 fibers are endurance-oriented fibers, they do not produce force as well as type-2 fibers but they're indefatigable, they can go on for longer periods of time, they're hard to fatigue. Whereas your type-2 fibers fatigue relatively easily but they have the capacity to produce greater

force. As you age, the type-1 fibers are more well preserved, whereas the type-2 fibers, there's even what's called apoptosis, which has been shown as a loss of fibers. But certainly there's a diminishment where the fibers get smaller and smaller. It's more specific, the sarcopenic effect is more specific to the type-2 fibers. Which is, obviously, problematic because the ability to produce force is where your primary functional capacity, at least from being able to open cans and, you know, jars, avoiding falls, etc. Circling back, so, then the training effect, I want to emphasize, if you are training

hard regardless of heavy/light, you're going to be targeting both 1 and 2-fibers. So, we're talking now nuance. So, I think this is where this kind of gets lost in context that where I think this would have the, if it is in fact true, greatest relevance would be to, let's say, bodybuilders who want to maximize their muscle development, it probably is beneficial to utilize some heavier training and some lighter training so that you at least make sure you're kind of hedging your bets and make sure that you're maximizing development of all fibers. For the average individual,

if you are training hard, regardless of light or heavy, you're going to be getting type-1 and type-2 fiber development. And it's been well documented that light load training does target the type-2 fibers. Which was one of the myths, it used to be taught when I was an up-and-coming sports Scientist, that, if you just use light loads, you would not activate the highest threshold motor units, which are associated with these type-2 fibers, and thus you would not optimize your strength and power and hypertrophy. [Rhonda] So, we were talking about the resistance training, we've mentioned strength training,

and then there's power training. And I think this probably has a little bit to do with what you just mentioned, with the problem with aging, right? And so, can you just briefly talk about the differences and maybe where, like, does one shine more than the other with respect to, like, what older individuals should be doing or focusing on? Or is it, like, you know, women versus men, is there any differences there as well? [Brad] So, the definitions do somewhat vary, depending upon who you ask. I'll give you mine. So, resistance training is kind of a

catch-all for any type of exercise that moves against resistance. This would be body-weight exercise, push-ups, pull-ups, body-weight squats would be resistance exercise, free weights, machines, cables, any of these would be considered resistance exercise. Strength training often is used synonymously with resistance training but also it can be thought of specific to, let's say, power lifting where you're moving very heavy loads and necessarily, when you're lifting heavy loads, you're moving them very slowly, you can't...if I give you a very heavy load to lift, you can't move that fast or you'd be able to do more than whatever

you're doing, you'd be able to do more repetitions than what you're doing. Whereas power is the ability to produce force over time, so, more quickly. The more rapidly you can produce force, the more power you generate. Power is developed on a foundation of strength but it also involves this time component. And there is evidence that at least some training needs to be done, quote unquote, explosively, so, moving weights quickly or, when I say "weights," doing resistance quickly to generate maximal power. And our group was involved recently in a meta-analysis on older individuals that showed functional

improvements were optimized when they did training that involved moving the concentric action quickly and then doing a controlled eccentric. So, I do think it's important for older individuals to incorporate some power training in their programs. It doesn't mean that every set needs to be done in this respect but at least having some of the training that will be devoted towards power training. And I think it's really exemplified by the fact that hip fracture...so, an older individual's fall, and it's a frequent thing now, particularly in those who are sedentary, they are not able to quickly reverse

their fall and avoid, you know, the resultant effect of a hip fracture. And studies show that older individuals, when they get a hip fracture, it's been a while since I've looked at the literature, I think it was 50% never recover full function and die within I think two years, half of them going to convalescence, they have to be under constant care, they're not able to be functionally independent. So, I mean, it's a big thing. You know, whereas the younger individuals, they can get their cast signed by their friends, or whatever, and it's not a big

deal. But older individuals, these are really important, you know, issues that you want to stave off. And I would say that having some power training, and then again other types of training, this Is another thing I think is really important, we often think in binary terms, "Train this way, not that way," or, you know, there's programs that are devoted, "this is how you should train," we should be thinking of training as combining different concepts to a given goal. Because often, doing some lighter-load training with some heavier-load training, if possible, sometimes that's not possible but sometimes

it is, doing, you know, like I said, some power training with heavier-load training or lighter-load moderate training, these are things that, ultimately, can optimize the effects for a given goal. [Rhonda] Thinking about the power training, for me, I would think, well, sounds like it'd be easier if I had lighter weights. I mean, is that still considered power training or does it have to be, like, a fast movement with a heavier... [Brad] No, no, no. So, again, you're not going to be able to move...heavy and light are relative terms. So, let's say you're doing what's called

a 3RM, the maximum amount of weight you can lift three times. Let's say I'm doing a bench press with a 3RM. Even on my first rep, if I try to move it fast, I'm not going to be able to because, if I could, I'd be able to do more than three reps with that. So, you're going to have to choose a weight that is relatively light. Let's say, you're able to do a minimum of 10 repetitions, right, 8-10. So, again, light exists on a spectrum. 8 is lighter than 3, 3 reps is heavier than 8

reps, 8 reps would be heavier than 15 reps, 15 reps...so, at what point is, you know, that optimal effect? There's no research that indicates that at this point. But I'd say you'd have to go a minimum of eight repetitions, 8RM. If you could do more, if you could do a heavier load, you're not going to be able to move it quickly enough to get that benefit. And by the way, there's other things you could do. You can do plyometric training. Now, for some older people, that can be somewhat dangerous. But, I mean, you can throw

a medicine ball, that's a way of power training. So, take a medicine ball, and, you know, older people can easily do that for the upper body, these are good upper-body movements that would be I think very user-friendly for people that are older. It can be fun, which, again, I do see kind of this trajectory from youth to getting into Our adulthood and then aging, we're making it fun again, a lot of times this is important for older people. [Rhonda] So, you mentioned, with the lifting lighter and, you know, the important thing of, basically, fatiguing yourself,

right, like, you can't just do a couple and, you know, compare that to lifting heavier and doing a couple, right? [Brad] Yeah. [Rhonda] This whole idea of training till failure and...what does that mean, do we need to train to failure? Is that important? [Brad] Yeah. So, failure, an operational definition would be the inability to perform another repetition with proper form. And we carried out a meta-analysis recently on this topic and the bottom line is that, and that's kind of the "go hard or go home philosophy," that's the bodybuilding mentality, "go hard or go home," every

set needs to be taken to failure. The evidence does not indicate that's the case. So, certainly, you need to train with a high amount of effort but certainly to take every set to failure...not only is it not...doesn't show any benefit for hypertrophy, it actually showed a small detriment for strength. So, with strength, stopping, you know, a couple reps short of failure seem to have better effects on maximizing strength than training to failure. Again, there's some limitations to that research, how much does that mean that, if you train to failure, you won't maximize your strength, I'm

not necessarily on board with that, but that is what our results showed. I also would not dismiss the fact that for very high-level...let's say you're very close to your genetic ceiling, that it might make the need to go to failure, at least on some of the sets, more relevant, beneficial, we don't have good...this is purely speculative on my end. But I can see at least the logical rationale where it's a way to challenge the body in a way that it is not used to. I will tell you that, when I coach bodybuilders, I generally incorporate

some failure training. But another area where my view was shifted maybe not 180 but probably 90 degrees where I used to be the go-hard-go-home dude who, "Every set needs to be taken to failure," and now most sets within 2 to 3 reps of failure. So, there's a concept called "the repetitions in reserve," that's the RIR scale, repetitions in reserve. An RIR of zero means you're at failure, means you cannot have done another rep, there was zero reps left before you got a failure. An RIR of one would mean that you could've done one more rep

and, at that rep, you would be at failure. From the literature, although we don't have a definitive way of making, you know, estimates on this, but my own interpretation of the literature is somewhere between probably one to three rep RIR, reps from failure, would be needed to promote optimal adaptations. You can still see adaptations, particularly when you're more in the newbie stage, in the early stages, below that but one to three, I think, is a good general recommendation that's necessary to see adaptations. Again, then you start getting into the weeds, getting into the nuances. For

the gen pop, I probably would say that's always going to be effective and you probably Never have to go to failure, for the goals of most gen pops. For bodybuilders, high-level athletes, perhaps some failure training, the last set to failure on some of your exercises at least. And again, if you want to get into the weeds, probably using your single-joint and machine-based exercises would be more appropriate for failure, let's say, than squats or biceps curl, a lateral raise, a leg extension. First of all, there's less issue of injury because, when you're going to fail, let's

say, on a squat, if you've ever squatted, and you're in the hole and you're trying to push out, there's a greater potential for injury. Certainly, you're going to need a spotter in that regard or else you could be stuck and you can have problems. Or a bench press where you're trying to do that rep, if you don't have a spotter, that Bar is stuck to your chest. Whereas, if you're doing, let's say, dumbbell curls or lateral raises, at the very least you're not going to be really torched after your sets, you're going to be able

to come back strong. So, these are just general...speculative on my part but I think there's good logical rationale behind these things. And I do want to say that an evidence-based approach...so, I do want to promote, my biggest hobby horse in life is to promote the importance of evidence-based practice. It is not simply deferring to research, research is never going to tell you what to do, or virtually never, it's going to provide general guidelines, particularly in the applied sciences like exercise and nutrition. It will get you into the ballpark, it'll give you general strategies to use.

You then need to take this to the individual. What are their genetics? What is their lifestyle? Their stress level? Their sleep? Their nutritional status? All of these things together. And then, of course, goals are going to enter into it. So, developing a program from the research means to understand the research and then to use your own expertise in combination with the goals and abilities of the individual. [Rhonda] Right. With the designing the training program sort of aspect, we're kind of, I mean, sort of Talking about this and, you know, training till failure it sounds like,

that's pretty clear for me, like, you know, maybe the bodybuilders, that's a little bit more important, but for most people getting within one to three reps until failure kind of answers the...you get a lot of questions about, "How many reps do I need to do? How many reps do I need to do?" it sounds like it depends on the person. And when you start to feel that fatigue when you're getting close, you know, right? Like, so, that's kind of what I'm thinking myself. [Brad] Correct. [Rhonda] Resting between those reps, or between the sets or which

way is it, the resting intervals... [Brad] Between sets. [Rhonda] It's between the sets. So, yeah. So, basically, when you're getting ready to do another set, like, how many sets do you need to do or how long do you have to rest between them, is that important? [Brad] Yeah. So, again, it's on a spectrum and it depends on...so, when I talk to my students, they'll ask me questions and I say, you know, "Pretty much any applied question you're going to ask me I will answer with 'it depends.'" Because within broad spectrums, if you're doing a very

minimalist routine, you can make gains. So, if you're saying, "Is it important?" it starts to become more and more important the more important it is to you to maximize your results. If your goal is just to build some muscle, gain some strength, a very minimalist routine, I mean, training an hour a week, let's say, two days, two half-hour sessions a week can give most people very nice results, provided you're training hard. If you're looking to be a bodybuilder, are you going to step on stage? No, I would say with 100% confidence that is not going

to be sufficient to optimize your gains. So, volume has been shown to be a driver of hypertrophy. Again, we've done original research on this, we've made an app, made analytic work, and there is a dose-response relationship up to a certain point. It is individual-specific as well. So, some people respond better or respond well to lower volumes. Some people need more volume to maximize their results. It's hard to study individual responses but these are kind of general insights that we glean from the literature. But I would say, as a general guideline, to optimize hypertrophy, you want

to be somewhere between 10 to 20 sets per muscle per week. Now, that's not going to be able to be done doing two half-hour sessions per week but we recently published a review paper called "No Time to Lift?" it's open-access, you can maybe post on this podcast the link to that or show the image of the study. But we basically kind of looked at what is your minimal effective dose? And that was roughly around four sets per muscle per week, which, again, can be done two, maximum, you know, three half-hour sessions, two to three half-hour

sessions per week. You can get very nice results and, I think, get probably, for most people, the majority Of gains in that period of time. And then, if you want more, you're going to have to devote more time. [Rhonda] Are there certain strategies that can be...so, we were talking about, like, powerlifting. Are there certain things that can be done to, you know, be able to not have to have as much time as well? I mean, certain types of exercises... [Brad] Yeah. So, a couple things. Number one...or several. First of all, training with lighter loads, while,

again, it's a very viable option, it does extend the time of the workout. So, if you're training, let's say, with 30 reps, the set's going to take triple the amount of time if you're training with 10 reps. So, that, if you're very time-pressed, can be a consideration. Now, how much that, depending upon how many sets you're doing, if you're doing minimalistic training, it's probably not adding that much time on. If you're doing a lot of volume, it can be more extensive. But using multi-joint exercises...so, again, multi-joint is more than one joint. Presses, rows, squats, deadlifts,

push-ups, chin-ups, these are exercises that involve multiple muscle groups, a lot of stabilizer muscles. They're much more time-efficient than doing, let's say, a bicep curl. So, when you're doing, let's say, a lat pulldown or chin up, you're working your biceps very effectively, you're performing elbow flexion in addition to working your lats, the external Portion of your pecs even are working, and many of the stabilizer muscle groups. Squats involve many muscle groups, so, really the total lower body, and even stabilizers in your torso. So, I would say focus more on your multi-joint exercise. And then you

can use various time-efficient strategies, so, kind of these advanced training methods, such as a superset, which is doing two different exercises. And there's different ways to structure these to something called a paired set where you do agonist/antagonist movements such as...so, the biceps and triceps are agonist/antagonist muscles, meaning that, when one is contracting, one is shortening, the other is lengthening per se. See, if you do a biceps curl, you can immediately do a triceps press down after that and really you're working the muscles in different fashion. You don't have to rest between the sets. You could

do a leg exercise, so, lower-body followed by an upper-body exercise. Again, you're working different muscle groups so it's more time-efficient, you don't have to take the rest. If you're going to do, let's say, sets of chest press...so, let's say I do the typical traditional way of doing sets is you do a set then you rest and you do another set for the same muscle group, you rest, that's going to take more time because you're going to have to rest between those sets. There is something called drop sets where you can do a set to failure,

or certainly close to failure, then you drop the weight...well, not drop literally but you reduce the amount of load. So, for instance, let's say you have a rack of dumbbells and you use 20-pound dumbbells For curls. You can then, when you finish, you're getting really difficult on those last reps, you then go to the 15-pound dumbbells and you do more reps because you're lightening the load, you're able to do more weights. You can do triple drops. So, you go from 20 to 15 to 10 to 5 even and just do them without any rest and

then not do any more sets. So, rather than doing multiple sets, you just do this one drop set, long drop set. Now, is that as effective as doing multiple sets of the same muscle? We don't have enough evidence to show but I do think we have enough where I would confidently say, for the gen pop, it will be just...or close to as effective. I don't think for the majority of the populations that will make much difference. Again, for the high-level athlete/bodybuilder, it might, and that's where, again, context is important. [Rhonda] This idea of resting, this

is great information because, typically, the way I work out, which is far from bodybuilder level, I don't rest in between sets but I immediately switch to the next thing. And then I'll eventually go back to that first muscle group I was working. So, like, I'll have, you know, like three different muscle groups and I'm doing them lighter and faster. And then, so, if you are doing a set, like, why is it important to rest in between the set? Is it, like, something to do with, like, muscle protein synthesis or what? [Brad] Well, I mean, let's

say you're going to do four sets of chest presses. You have to rest because, if you're training really hard at that last rep, you pick up the weight, let's say, in 2 seconds, by default, if you're training very hard, you're not going to be able to do any more reps or else then you're at failure. So, you have to have some degree of rest. Now, if you're resting very short periods, let's say you're resting 30 seconds, the amount of load that you're going to be able to do will be much less or the amount of

reps at the same load. And this is actually interesting. So, it had always been promoted, this is another area where I've shifted my thought processes, but it had been promoted that resting shorter was better for muscle hypertrophy. So, what I've been taught, when I was an up-and-coming strength and conditioning professional, that, if you want strength, you take long rest, like 3 minutes in between your sets, and for Hypertrophy it's like 30 seconds to a minute because that will maximize the hormonal response. So, in between sets, or depending on the type of training that you are

doing, shorter inter-set rest intervals will promote greater growth hormone, testosterone, and IGF-1 responses after the workout is over. And that used to be thought to be a main driver of hypertrophy, the compelling body of literature now shows that, if it does have an effect, it would be very modest and it might not even have any effect at all. So, certainly it would not be something that I consider would be important to take into account. And the issue is is that volume load, the total amount of weight that you lift in a given session, which is

the amount of work that you're doing, does seem to be a factor. So, let's say I'm doing a set of squats with 200 pounds for 10 reps. And then I rest 30 seconds between...I'll try to do another one after 30 seconds. Let's say I try to use that same 200 pounds, I'm not getting anywhere near 10 reps. And based on the literature that we have, I'm probably only getting five reps. Whereas, if I would rest 2 minutes, I'd be able to get much closer to that 10 reps. And if I rested three, even more. And

that's why it's actually been shown that having short rest periods between sets, if you're doing a certain number of sets and you're taking short rests, it actually compromises hypertrophy. So, it actually has a negative effect, giving greater credence to the fact that, at the very least, the volume load is more important than any hormonal effects that are given. [Rhonda] Which makes sense. I mean, you know, and we talked about this a little bit with Stuart is that, as you mentioned, The hormonal effects, at least, you know, endogenous hormonal effects you're getting from resistance training, not

taking exogenous hormones, don't seem to have much of an effect on muscle protein synthesis. But, and Stu was mentioning this, with growth hormone, you know, affecting collagen synthesis. And so, then a question I, of course, had was, well, what if that's doing something for preventing injury because you're getting more collagen synthesis in the tendons and...I mean, I don't know [inaudible 01:16:16]. [Brad] No, we don't know but I would say, again, growth hormone is a very interesting hormone because it's pulsatile, so, it's secreted at very...you know, at night is when you get your greatest growth-hormone release.

Your guess is as good as mine because, like you said, it's purely speculative, I would be skeptical that that brief spike in growth hormone post exercise would meaningfully alter Tendon synthesis, let's say, to where it would be reducing your injury potential. But without knowing, it could. So, I wouldn't dismiss it, we would need research on that. [Rhonda] With respect, and I think you kind of already answered this, but I just want to make sure, with designing this program, differences between men and women, should women then really be focusing more on the multi-joint exercises, specifically also

because of the effects on the bone mineral density? Or, I guess, all of us should be focusing more on that? [Brad] Yeah, women really should not train much, if at all, different from men. The one area that there seems to be some evidence is that women are able to recover a little more quickly, both inter-set...so, they can actually rest somewhat shorter, and gain back most of the volume load, like I said. It's not clear whether this has something to do endogenously, internally, or whether it's the fact of just, in general, using lighter loads than men

so it's easier to, you know, come back if you're using 200 pounds versus 100. We don't know. And even their recovery between sessions may be a little better, their ability to recover. There's some evidence of that. But as far as the overall program, I don't program women much, if at all, differently than men. [Rhonda] For recovery, you hear a lot about the importance of recovery, the importance...what does that mean? What does that mean? [Brad] Well, it means that you need to take sufficient time so that you're able to come Back strong for your...and it means

a lot of different things, depending on the context. But I think, in the context of our talk, that you're able to come back with sufficient energy and joint-related reserves where you're able to train effectively in your next session, that your training is not compromised the next time you're going to lift. To some extent, it also has to do with the muscle protein synthetic response, which is roughly the time course...it's about 48 hours, it can be truncated a little as you get actually more advanced, you seem to get a higher spike. So, it happens quicker and

actually trails off a little more quickly in some of the research, which is I think getting a little too much into the weeds. But theoretically, you probably wouldn't need to train a muscle or it would be beneficial to give it 48-hours rest so that you can maximize that and work on other things or even just recover. Or it certainly doesn't seem to be beneficial to train it on a daily basis, the same muscle, and having that recovery allows you to do other things that would potentially develop your body and/or your health to a greater extent.

[Rhonda] Does it blunt hypertrophy if you're training the same muscle... [Brad] No, so, there's actually some interesting...it's kind of equivocal. You could tell I've done a lot of work on all of these variables. So, we carried out a study, these were young men. We don't have any evidence in older people, and I can make a case where it might because recovery seems to be blunted in older, but I'll get to that in a minute, but in young men we had them doing either the same exact routine done over three days with more...so, when they did

it over three days, they performed more sets per session. So, like, each session was twice as long, or else doing shorter sessions spread out Over six days, the same exact routine. And no difference for most of the muscles, but we looked at the biceps and the biceps growth was much greater in the group that did three days versus six days. Is that an anomaly? Again, we don't know, you'd need to replicate the study. Now, as I just mentioned, older individuals' recovery does start to become a factor. And this is just, look, ageing. Certainly, you can

stave off aging but you can't prevent it and the consequences of it. So, to a large extent, we can live extremely healthy and vibrant into our older years, provided we take care of our bodies and do things. But father time, mother time, we'll catch up to some extent, and we do have to take this into account their programming. So, like I said, no differences between men and women per se but there are differences between younger and older individuals. And one of them, when I have consulted with older individuals, is to factor in not have as

much volume, so, the ability to tolerate volume seems to go down, to some extent. And by the way, interestingly, it seems their maintenance needs to be somewhat higher for volume, so, they can't use high volumes but also they need to have kind of a higher minimum volume to maintain their mass. There's limited evidence of that but there was one study in particular that seemed to indicate that. And also having more cognizance of inter-session recovery and sometimes having fewer sessions per week. [Rhonda] How much recovery would the older people... [Brad] So, again, this really depends on

the individual because those older individuals, like I mentioned, can wipe the floor with 30-year-olds, and there's other ones. So, these are things that it really will depend upon...so, it depends how long have you been training? Were you just new, when you were 60-years-old, to training or have you been doing it since you were 20? You know, do you have joint-related issues? What's your nutritional status? What's your sleep and stress status? Are there any other medical issues? So, a lot to unpack. And on a general level, I think kind of three days a week is a

default that would be a good...I Mentioned that two days a week people can still make robust gains but I think three days a week would get you a little better gains. And if possible, even, on a minimalist basis, if you can do three half-hour sessions per week, I think that's a good kind of minimalist guideline for everyone, including older people. And then, you know, some older individuals can do what's called a split-body routine where they can do, let's say, Monday-Tuesday, Thursday-Friday, and upper/lower type routine and recover well. Whereas others need that, you know, "Shouldn't do

more than three days a week." [Rhonda] All right. Is there anything that can speed up recovery? So, recovery being passive recovery, active recovery, like, things that can help speed it up nutrition-wise or other things as well. [Brad] Yeah. First of all, being recreationally-active, so, blood flow does help with recovery. One of the worst things you could do is just be a couch potato. So, let's say you do a resistance-training workout and the rest of the week you're just sitting on the couch, you know, munching on bonbons and watching your favorite TV shows. The circulation itself

is going to optimize the delivery of nutrients and expedite delivery and recovery in that respect. Other things have somewhat less evidence behind them. So, massage has been shown to potentially help recovery. What's the problem with that? Well, it's hard to sham massages. So, when your massage feels really good and, "Hey, I feel better." Is that because of the massage or because of the psychological effect that you get? "I feel better now, I feel vibrant." Foam rolling, you know, these are all things that it's hard to sham them properly and get a sense, "Was it really

the treatment or was it the placebo effect?" Because you always want a placebo, if you're comparing it against nothing, then, "Hey, it felt good, so, I feel I have better recovery." You know, taking in proper protein itself, that to me isn't a recovery strategy, that just should be part of your lifestyle, if you want to maximize your results. But if you're not taking in enough protein, protein are the building blocks of your muscle and of any tissues, so, you're not going to get proper, quote unquote, recovery if you're not optimizing your protein nutritional intake. And

then there's other, I mean, essential fatty acids, particularly n-3s, your Omega-3 Fatty acids seem to have certain beneficial effects on muscle development, particularly it seems for the older people. But we don't have great evidence longitudinal, we have some good acute studies that seem to show that... Anyway, so, these are all, I think, strategies... Again, cost-benefit. Well, massage, if you're paying for it, doesn't cost that but, if you have, let's say, a significant other that can massage you, [inaudible 01:25:56] foam rolling, you know, [inaudible 01:25:58]. There is some evidence that cold-water immersion, we can kind of

get into this, might expedite, quote unquote, "recovery" so that you're not going to be as sore. So, if the recovery has to do with getting back to trainability levels so that you're reducing soreness...and heat, by the way, is another thing, which generally does not Seem to have negative effects at least. So, again, those are potential strategies. Now, if you want to get into...it's kind of interesting with cold-water immersion, cryotherapy, particularly it's been shown with the cold-water immersion, there is emerging evidence that it actually has negative effects, particularly on hypertrophy but on strength measures as well.

Somewhat limited evidence, but it's been shown there's triangulation of evidence, meaning that we have acute data that shows it blunts intracellular anabolic signaling, that it blunts muscle protein synthesis, satellite cell. When you talk about anabolic signaling, the pro-inflammatory response, which, on one end, is why, quote unquote, it helps with recovery but the acute pro-inflammatory response actually has been shown to have a positive effect on muscle development. So, chronic inflammation bad, acute inflammation good. At least that's the extent of what we see from the literature. And there's been longitudinal evidence showing that it blunts hypertrophy over

longer-term studies. Now, that is when these studies have been done doing this every day, or very frequently, post-training. I would say that, if you're only going to do it one time, let's say you're feeling really sore, nothing wrong with getting in a cold tub. It doesn't mean all your gains are going to go if you occasionally do a cold-water immersion but I do think that using it frequently, probably, if your goal is optimizing muscle growth, not a good thing. Timing might be a concern. So, if you want to do that, probably spacing it out at

long periods after. But then you might not get the benefit you want. Like, if you're sore, you're going to want to be doing it when you're sore. So, if you're sore the following day, yeah, I think that might be beneficial where you've kind of gotten out of your window, or at least gotten the majority of your protein synthetic responses in. But again, the primary reasons that cold-water immersion seems to have negative effects, number one, blunting of the pro-inflammatory response, number two, blunting of the circulatory response, that cold water restricts the circulation and, thus, you're not

getting nutrient delivery to the muscles. It's speculative but that's the work in theory. [Rhonda] Right, so, that would make sense to not do cold-water immersion right after Your training? [Brad] Yeah. [Rhonda] Like, I like to do cold-water immersion for brain benefits like in, you know, feeling you get norepinephrine release and it affects my anxiety and my mood and focus and attention. But I don't ever do it after strength training, so, it's usually on a day that I'm not strength training. So, the other thing would be...you mentioned soreness, people using it for soreness. But should you

be sore? Like, should you train to be sore? Does that play a role in hypertrophy? And then, you know, like, do you get more sore with age as well or what's that indicative of? I mean... [Brad] Yeah. So, another interesting question, soreness, to some extent, is genetically-influenced. And interestingly, women seem not to have as much soreness as men. There's been some speculation it might have to do hormonally with estrogen, it could be other effects as well. But, so, it's an interesting question. Soreness generally is due to a novel response or novel stimuli. And usually it's

primarily due to the eccentric component of exercise. And that, by the way, can also be done through, let's say, downhill running would be an eccentric form of aerobic training. But let's just focus on the resistance-training aspect where the lowering...so, eccentric Is a lowering...basically, lengthening, muscles are lengthening under tension. And even concentric exercise can cause soreness and there's muscle damage that occurs but it seems to be also more specific to, so, muscle damage and even damage within the epimysium or extracellular matrix. Again, these aren't necessarily clear, so, connective tissue might be even more relevant, it's speculative

that that might have greater relevance to soreness with nociceptors that are exposed to free nerve endings and there's interaction with free radicals. So, there's a whole theory behind this. Do you need to be sore to make gains? No, I think that's pretty clear. But could being sore potentially be indicative that there may be some additional positive gains? It's not clear but a novel response, again, why does the body adapt? It adapts because it is being challenged beyond its present state. A novel response would generally indicate it's being taxed beyond its present state and, thus, having

some degree of soreness might indicate that you are challenging it beyond its present state. But again, some people, it's genetically influenced, so, some people just don't get sore and some people are very responsive to soreness regardless. There does seem to be a repeated bout effect whereas, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, the body adapts and gets less and less sore over time. But some people keep doing the same thing and they keep getting somewhat sore. Where soreness is an issue... So, if you are mildly sore, I think it's probably not

only okay, maybe it's positive. It certainly shouldn't be a negative. If you're not sore, I don't think you should worry about that per se. But, on the opposite, if you are very sore, that is a negative because that's going to impair your ability to train again hard. And that would be an issue. [Rhonda] Are there things people can do to help with the soreness that aren't going to blunt their hypertrophy or, I mean, maybe, you know, be bad for them health-wise, so, that you know about, any evidence-based things that people can do to improve their

soreness? [Brad] Improve their response to soreness? [Rhonda] Yeah, so that they're maybe not as sore as long or... [Brad] Well, I mean, could you? Yeah, you can not focus on the eccentric component, which probably is not a great thing because Not only is the eccentric component as important, there seems to be a synergism between eccentric and concentric exercise where the intracellular signaling cascade for eccentric exercise is somewhat different than that of concentric, and that would imply a synergism in terms of the hypertrophic response. There is also evidence that muscles develop regionally. So, there's interesting research

that, like, certain parts of muscles will develop more than others, and eccentric exercise seems to work more in the distal portion of the muscle, whereas concentric seems to work more in the mid portion of the muscle. And, thus, combining them again would be beneficial. So, it doesn't seem to be...although, yes, you can reduce the soreness that's developed by not, you know, focusing on your concentric, I wouldn't suggest that. By the way, I don't know if they're still around but there was a gym chain called Curves, I don't know if you've heard of them, but they

had these machines that just did the concentric exercise because the whole thing was they focused on older women and they thought that the soreness would scare them away and they just had these machines that focused on the concentric portion. But again, if your goal is to optimize gains, that's not a great strategy. So, look, you can do warm-water baths seem to, again, help to alleviate soreness, doing active recovery, just walking around. And if it's for upper body, doing certain motions, aerobic, you can, yeah, pump arms, you can do the elliptical that has the arm crank.

Just to get blood flow to the area would help to alleviate the soreness. And the other thing I would say, if that's the goal, stick to the same exercises over and over. Now, again, one of the benefits...exercise selection is another potentially important thing if you want to optimize gains. And that's, again, promoting a novel response factoring in different movements can be beneficial to optimizing results. And that would, again, have to do with the novelty of the movement but that will come with the caveat that there'll be some soreness. [Rhonda] Right. So, two things that come

to mind. One is aerobic exercise, you're talking about blood flow, and that's another area that I was wanting to talk to you about was the combination of aerobic exercise and strength training and the effects on muscle hypertrophy, combining them maybe even just either with, like, days...so, you do strength training one day and then aerobic exercise the other day, so, that's Kind of a little bit it seems like what you're talking about, having the blood flow to help with recovery or soreness. But also, what if you do it on the same day, the same session even?

[Brad] Yeah, so, there's been a lot of talk about concurrent training being detrimental, there was something called the chronic interference hypothesis, which, basically, was actually shown in animal models, in rodent models where the intracellular signaling for cardiovascular exercise upregulated your catabolic pathways, your AMPK pathway. Again, I don't want to get too technical here but the AMPK is a catabolic pathway which actually blunts the mTOR pathway, which is an anabolic pathway. Alternatively, your resistance, your anaerobic exercise was your anabolic pathway, thus, if you did aerobic training, it would blunt the adaptations for resistance training. And that

actually has been shown to be at least, at the very least, a way...oversimplification. Now, at some point, there will seem to be some interference but it does seem that that point is a lot further along than what we originally had thought. And I think that more has to do with the overtraining effects than probably the intracellular signaling effect, so, it's not clear. But we have some pretty good meta-analytic data now showing that, within, you know, decent volumes of training, there does not seem to be a blunting of the anabolic effect, and that's even when it's

performed in the same day. There was some evidence that perhaps, even at somewhat higher levels, that maybe there was a negative effect on fiber type-specific, particularly on the type-1 fibers. Again, I think it's a little premature to draw strong inferences on that. But what I would say is I think the general recommendations that I would make from the literature that we have, like you said, if possible, space it out so that, if you're Doing resistance training Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you want to do six days a week of training, do your aerobic training on your alternative

days, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. If not, possibly do a morning afternoon-type thing, or evening, where you do, let's say, resistance training in the morning, cardio in your evening. And at worst, if you have to do them in the same session, always do the resistance training first because, if nothing else, the aerobic training can compromise your energy levels to do the strength training, it can compromise the performance. So, that in itself would have a negative effect, if you're going to compromise performance, on your results. I do also want to point out that this is, again, a very

nuanced topic. So, how much resistance training are you doing, how much aerobic training? So, particularly with the aerobic training, are you doing long slow distance? Are you doing six days a week of marathon running training? Yeah, that's going to certainly start to have negative effects on your muscle development. If you're walking 10,000 steps a day, 12,000 steps a day, very unlikely that's going to have any negative effect. If you're doing three high-intensity interval training sessions per week, very unlikely that's going to have a negative effects. So, there's a spectrum on these things. These are not

yes-or-no questions that I can give a cookie-cutter response but, on a general basis, you need to I think, at the very least, be in tune with your body. And that's, to me, one of the most important things I can communicate to the audience is to really start to be in tune with your body. If you feel you need extra time off, you're probably overdoing it. And I think a lot of times people are just oblivious, they get into a routine and it's just, "I have to do this, I have to do this." And try to

be intuitive, use your intuition. And, you know, if you think you need a day off, take a day. If you think you need two days off... Deload periods, when done properly, can be beneficial where you're having periods of reduced training frequency, particularly if you're training very hard. If you're doing the typical type of workout that most gen pops do, you probably don't need a deload because you're not training hard enough to warrant that. But certainly, if you're very serious exercisers, bodybuilders, particular in high-level athletes, interspersing regimented periods of reduced training frequency, volume, intensity I think

are very important. [Rhonda] How do people that are endurance athletes, like, that are training for a race or whatever, do that? I mean, like, can they still incorporate their resistance training in their, obviously, very extensive endurance-training program without over training. Is it even... [Brad] Yeah, yeah. So, one thing I would say for endurance...so, endurance-training athletes encompass a fairly wide spectrum. But let's take your typical runner. So, when we're talking endurance, cross-country, you know, doing a marathon-type running or long-distance, cross-country, weight is an issue. So, you want to train in a more minimalist fashion because higher-volume

programs will Tend to put on muscle mass. You want to try, as an endurance-based athlete, to reduce muscle-mass development and maximize strength development. And that would be using heavier loads. So, that's what you don't want to do, your light-load training with higher volumes. You'd want to focus more on your, let's say, three to five-rep training for a few sets. So, the volume will be insufficient to substantially increase muscle mass. So, volume is a driver of hypertrophy. And if you're doing low-volume training with heavy loads, then, generally speaking, you're not going to gain much weight in

terms of muscle mass but you will be able to get the benefits that will help you optimize your endurance capacity. [Rhonda] That makes sense. What about stretching? That's something, you know...I see people stretching in the gym, they're stretching before a set, they're stretching in between sets, after working out. What role does stretching play, I mean, in muscle-protein synthesis or muscle hypertrophy or injury or anything? Flexibility, anything. [Brad] Yeah. So, I'll approach it from different levels, but, on the basic level, most people think of stretching from a flexibility standpoint. Do people need to stretch? If you

need more flexibility then it would be beneficial to stretch. Stretching for the sake...or I should say this, gaining flexibility for the sake of Gaining flexibility is misguided because increased flexibility reduces the stability of the joint. So, if you can do what you need to do from an activities-of-daily-living standpoint, from a mobility and flexibility stuff, no reason to gain more flexibility. If you are, let's say, a punter in football, you're going to need to be able to get your leg very high, or a rockette in the Radio City musical, they would, you know, necessarily want to

do, if they're not able to do it, or even to continue doing it, to do some type of flexibility training. But for the majority of people that's not an issue. So, everyone has to assess their own flexibility needs. With that said, resistance training itself is a active form of flexibility training. And there's been studies that show that, compared to static stretching, you get similar benefits doing resistance training protocols, provided that you're training through a full range Of motion. So, if you are lifting weights, total body, through a full range of motion, you get similar benefits

to static stretching. Combining them is even better if you want to add on your flexibility. So, if you don't think you've gotten enough flexibility from your resistance training and you need more from an ADL-activities daily-living standpoint, then go for it. Now, I'll approached this also from a muscle protein synthesis, this is actually quite interesting. I'm collaborating with a group from Germany and they actually have other research that's recently come out showing that, long-term, if you stretch...now, this is a lot of stretching, but they did an hour a day using a stretching boot, they got marked

hypertrophy, like 15% growth in the calf muscles and the muscle thickness. Really interesting. Now, I don't know who wants to use a stretching boot for an hour a day but it just shows that stretching...I mean, there is tension during the stretch and that tension, muscle tension, is a mechanism of hypertrophy. So, doing long-duration stretching...and these were intense stretches that were like an 8 out of 10 on the discomfort scale, so, not a fun thing. So, it's not like, "I'm stretching," you know, they were fairly intense stretch. So, it does show that stretching itself can have

an anabolic effect. We recently published a study, and there was some papers before this also showing this, that what's called inter-set stretch, loaded stretch promoted somewhat greater gains. We used it in a calf exercise. So, basically, subjects did calf raises, what's called plantar flexion, for their gastrocnemius And soleus, which are the two calf muscles. And this was actually within subject design where one leg they just rested for 2 minutes between the sets, they did their calf raise and then they rested for 2 minutes. The other group, the other leg they would do their set and

then, immediately after the set, they would descend into a stretch with the weight still on. So, basically, it was a loaded stretch. And that's intense. I mean, you know, they were kind of hurting at that last...or doing what they could to endure towards the end of the stretch. And they did it for 20 seconds and then they rested for the rest of the rest interval. And we found somewhat greater growth in the soleus muscle and really no difference, no substantial difference, in the gastrocnemius. Now, interestingly, the soleus is a type-1-dominant-fiber muscle, that's about 80% slow-twitch

type-1 fibers. So, it kind of raises the possibility is the stretching, at least the loaded stretching that we do, are more specific to type-1 fibers than type 2. Not sure. [Rhonda] All this talk makes me think about yoga. And, I mean, yoga, I mean, it's stretching but it's also, like, pretty intense, I mean, you're holding a pose and your muscles stretch. Like, what are your thoughts on yoga? Do you think you could extrapolate a little bit? [Brad] Yeah. So, now, again, I'm not a yoga specialist but I do know something about it, and there's Different

forms of yoga, some have more, quote unquote, strength-related focuses within them. You certainly can gain muscle from yoga but is it going to optimize muscle? No, because again, as a general rule, at least from what I know through most of the forms of yoga, you're really not challenging over time...maybe at the beginning, when you're a newbie, that's where you're going to see your gains, but, over time, you don't challenge the muscle sufficiently to need to adapt. So, you will plateau rather quickly and you'll maintain. So, you can get some gains at the beginning. Can there

be ways that you might adapt or altered the yoga principles to doing that? I would guess but I'm not familiar enough with the strategy, you know, to say. [Rhonda] So, maybe yoga shouldn't be used instead of a resistance training but in addition to would be nice... [Brad] That would be correct. If you want to optimize...again, resistance training is paramount. All of these other things are potentially beneficial...and, again, if you have all the time in the world, do them all, to the extent, I should say, as long as you're not overtraining, to the extent that you

don't overtrain within your body's capabilities, but I think, if you can only do one, my objective, a somewhat biased view, is that resistance training is irreplaceable. [Rhonda] Yeah, there were some people that were kind of, you know, mostly women wondering, "Oh, can yoga be considered resistance training?" and I was thinking about it, like, "Oh, no, that's a good question." Because, you know, I could, in my head, come up with the way when, yes, it would be. So, that is good to know. One thing I want to talk to you about, I know we're getting close

to the end, and this is something that I know you've talked about in your book before and I've heard people talk about. In fact, I think Joe Rogan was the first guy that told me about this, he talked about it and I was like...you might just see my face on camera, I'm like, "What?" this blood-flow restriction. What is it? You know, are there benefits, drawbacks to it? Like, what... [Brad] Yeah. So again, another topic that I've carried out quite a few studies on. So, we talked about light-load training. Blood-flow restriction training uses a cuff. And

it's used proximally in the muscle, meaning the upper portion of the muscle that you're looking to train. The caveat is, number one, you can only use it on your arms and legs, you can't train much really your chest or your back or your shoulders because you only can do it proximally. But let's take your biceps, for instance. You would cuff up by the deltoid, the deltoid muscle is your shoulder muscle, you'd place a cuff here, and then you do, let's say, biceps curls, maybe do tricep pressdowns, you know, same thing, the cuff in the same

place. With the legs, you would cuff at the groin area, you know, the very upper region of the thigh, and do, let's say, leg extensions or squats. And generally, you do this with very light loads. They've tried it with heavier loads but it doesn't seem to work as well. Even very light, 20% to 30% 1RM. But when you're using these very light loads, you fatigue much more quickly than if you just did the light load without the cuff. So, let's say, if you're using 30% 1RM, your first set you might get 25 reps, and your

second set you're down to 20, and then 15. And usually, the rest intervals are rather short between them. Good evidence that it promotes similar muscle development to doing traditional resistance training, regardless of the rep range. Strength is similar to light-load training without blood-flow restriction, your strength is not going to be...it's good for hypertrophy but strength is somewhat compromised, which is always going to happen. Heavier loads are going to be better for strength, it's just the way it is. But you still will get...this, again, has been taken...it's not binary, it's not strength, no strength, you just

don't get quite as much strength. But you can substantially improve your strength as well, even in well-trained subjects. Now, the thing is is it better than light-load training? Well, light-load training, I should've mentioned this, and you've done it, you say, it's not fun for a lot of people because you get metabolic acidosis. Again, you have to train hard and you get this burn. And when you're doing it over 30 repetitions, let's say, and it's a 3-second rep, that's a 90-second set. Let's see...70, 80, 90 seconds is a long period of time where you're experiencing that

burn, quote unquote. Whereas, if you're doing, let's say, a leg extension or a biceps curl, with blood-flow restriction, you're cutting the time, you're still using the lighter loads, meaning that you're not putting as much joint stress on, but you're cutting the time of that set and, thus, somewhat reducing the discomfort. Is it necessarily better, from a result standpoint, than lighter-load training? There's been no evidence that we've had, certainly that I've seen on that. But there is some hypotheticals...I can make cases for certain, like, the hypoxia-inducible factor is a substance that is thought to increase the

hypertrophic response, intracellular hypertrophic response. So, there are some logical rationales but we don't have any longitudinal evidence showing it's better. And like I said, the limitation to it is the inability to do it, it's only specific to The extremities. There are some potential...I want to at least bring up the fact, in general, it's shown to be safe but...and people that have blood-pressure issues, I'm not completely convinced there might not be potential issues. And the other thing that I want to point out too is that the research we have is in very controlled environments with researchers

that know what they're doing. You get people, they just, like, put a cuff on, their arm starts turning purple where you can really do some damage if you're not doing this properly. So, you have to be cognizant of how to go about doing it if you're going to employ BFR. [Rhonda] I was going to ask you about that, like, "What kind of cuff are we talking about here?" Like, I always think of a tourniquet with blood pressure where it's like... [Brad] Well, so, in research settings, there are actually blood-pressure-type cuffs that are used that we

can monitor the pressure that's going on. People just use, like, bandana ties and they use a rating scale, like, a discomfort scale of 1 to 10 and saying, "You should be at a 6 or a 7." But a lot of times people don't gauge their, you know, 1 to 10 well and they're saying they're the seven and their arm's turning purple. So, you got to be careful. [Rhonda] Yeah. Well, this has been a really enlightening podcast for me. I really, really, really appreciate it. I'd love to ask you before we go about your personal routine.

I mean, you're a busy, busy guy, you're a professor, you're publishing a lot of scientific Papers, you're an educator, and you're also, like, very spoken on social media. Like, how do you find time and what does your routine kind of, generally speaking, look like? [Brad] Sure. So, for me, exercise is like brushing your teeth, you have to do it. It's not really fun for me anymore because I train hard when I do train, at least resistance-training-wise, but my routine is much more streamlined from what it used to be. Number one, just time factors. I'm not

looking...I was a former bodybuilder and, if I was bodybuilding, I'd be doing something much different than I'm doing now. And as I've gotten older, the recovery issues start to come in. So, I'm on a four-day-a-week resistance-training routine. I do, basically, one off, two on. So, two on, then I take a rest and I train two additional days and take another couple days off. I do an upper/lower split. My workouts last 45 minutes to an hour, so, I'm training like 3.5-4 hours a week. I train quite hard when I do train, well, you know, all sets

are within that, like, one to two reps of failure. And sometimes I do a set to all out failure. And I do, again, lower one day, upper the other. And I do look every day to get substantial steps, I focus on the step count. So, I target 12,000 steps a day, aerobic...when I say "aerobic-type training," just the general step count, which is for overall health. And again, my focus, at this point, is making sure that I'm maintaining my health, that's most paramount to me. And, you know, still looking good is an issue but I'm not

looking to step on stage, at this point, and thus, again, it's goal-specific and lifestyle-specific. So, I'm so busy, as you pointed out, with the research and teaching and also travel that getting the workouts... And when I travel, by the way, even now, coming out here, to San Diego, it's going to be tough to get...maybe I'll get one day where I usually would get two of a workout but it becomes more difficult when I'm away. And those are kind of structured deloads for me. [Rhonda] What about your protein intake? Is that like a... [Brad] I'm at

1.6, yeah, maybe even a little more. I just make sure I don't micromanage it but I make sure that I'm getting...I know just in general what I need to eat and I say a little more is not going to hurt me, so, I'm probably getting a little more than. [Rhonda] Is it harder when you're traveling too or... [Brad] No. I mean, I was at breakfast this morning, I had my omelet and, you know, cheese. And yeah, I'll make sure I get that. [Rhonda] Awesome. Well, so, Brad, you're all over social media, you've got two books.

Can you mention the books and then maybe... [Brad] Sure. [Rhonda] So, you're on Twitter, you're very active on Twitter, and you tweet very interesting studies. And I follow you on Twitter, you're also on Instagram, you're very active there, and again, your breakdown of the studies are great. So, I definitely want to make sure people follow you on, like, your social-media channels. [Brad] Thank you. Yeah. So, my two books, I have a textbook, which is much more technical. For those who want to get into, like, the weeds of science, it's called "The Science and Development of

Muscle Hypertrophy" published by Human Kinetics. And that's a hardcover, that's a serious textbook, we use it at graduate level for exercise science students. But, I mean, if you have a background, someone like yourself, certainly, I would understand it, but I also have a consumer-friendly textbook on optimizing muscle mass called "The M.A.X. Muscle Plan," and that's also Human Kinetics. Both of them can be found on Amazon. And yeah, you can follow me, just google me and you will find me. [Rhonda] So, you're @bradschoenfeld on Twitter? [Brad] Right. [Rhonda] And @bradschoenfeldphd on Instagram? [Brad] Correct. [Rhonda] Okay.

Brad, pleasure. Thank you so much for all the great information. [Brad] Thank you for having me.