Taking Ownership of Your Own Health | ETP#65

[aaron_straker]: 0:29

What's up, guys, Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another episode of each train. Prosper Today is Brian and myself and we're going to talk around a lot of different things. Brian is in the early stages of his calorie deficit. We have some follow ups on metabolic training from both Brian and I. We also have a fresh set of comprehensive labs from Brian that we were going to dig in a little bit, and I'm going to cover or touch on as a coach. How some of this information can help you with your Pzation for your clients? Why? I think it's important in some use cases that I have personally and am personally running into with my own clientele. How we help leverage some of this blood worked. Help us make decisions. We also going to talk a little bit around some new research that has been coming out, and some of the other podcasts covering that, and some just interesting conversation around that. But before we get into these things ran what is going on

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:22

Yeah, today is pretty much a day of uh, a bunch of individual updates and then some discussion about some discussions. So uh, so we were sitting here trying before the episode Be like. Well you, what's the title of the episode And we still uh are unnamed for the moment, so we'll see. Maybe in in retrospect, what we should name this episode, But um, since we had Jordan on last week, we now have a whole bunch of talking to do about things that we find interesting, and a little bit about kind of personal updates and stuff like that. So um, it'll just kind of be a hodgepodge of different things as we kind of maneuver through this hour. Um, so yeah, I guess, uh, first things first, my diet is almost three weeks in. At this point, Um it started. I think the last day of March or something along those lines, and Um, my first week average body weight was uh, one, ninety four point four. Second week it was one, ninety three point three, and this week it's currently trending to one ninety two. So I, I'm on pace. Basically, at this point three weeks in losing about a pound a week, slightly more, one point

[aaron_straker]: 2:26

Ssssssssssssss.

[bryan_boorstein]: 2:31

one, one point two. Something along those lines, and um, for the most part, I am hitting majority of days around twenty eight hundred calories, and then I'll have like one or two days a week where I just kind of if I'm if I'm hungry. I let myself go like the other day. I just I couldn't stop eating carps. I, I like started, and just literally couldn't stop. And uh, at the end of the day, I had close to four hundred grams of carbs, but still kept my Uh, my calories right around that twenty eight hundred number. So uh, within kind of that flexibility of macro nutrients. I, I tend to allow myself a bit of freedom in that way, Like you know, P. in a perfect world. Maybe my goal is that I want three hundred grams of carbs, two hundred grams of protein and eighty grams of fat or something along those lines, And you know, some days if I go four hundred carbs and the fat ends up being fifty, Um, then then that's cool with me, too. So um, I do follow a lot of kind of um, subjective signs of just you know, I'm craving carbs, or'm craving fat or whatever, and kind of let that go. So looking at that totally caal total calorie number, Um, and then uh, interestingly, I find that my my desire for carbs tends to be higher, Um. on days where I I train, so you know, I train in the mornings, and then it's usually that day that that early afternoon evening I'm like man. I just cannot get enough carbs in my body. Um, and then it's the days that I'm not training, Um, because I train in the mornings that essentially I've used the rest of that day to replenish that carbohydrate stores, And then the next day I wake up and I no longer have these cravings for carbs, so it'll usually shift and I'll have a little bit more fat, a little less carbs on the non training days. Um, so that's just kind of like a very brief overview of the way I've been structuring it through the first three weeks, and um, one thing I said when I first started a diet a few weeks ago is that in the past last uh years, I've always began my deficits with body weight close to two hundred. It was uh, one ninety nine point six last year, and I think it was maybe a pound more than that the year before, so right around that two hundred mark and this year I started at at one ninety five, so I've already got a head start, but uh, the interesting uh result that has occurred from starting the diet lower is that my calories are lower, so like when I start a diet at two hundred pounds body weight, I feel like I'm deting on thirty five hundred calories to begin the diet and then right around the. Low one nineties, I'm like I noticed the shift where calories have to drop, and now I find myself already in that point in that shift. Potentially where now I'm meeting. like you know, twenty eight hundred C, twenty nine hundred calor. Something like that instead of thirty five, and it really is just a factor of my body weight has gone down. Um. So for whatever that's worth, I think that that's pretty interesting. Um, I have a ton of updates, but I'll let Ern jump in for a second here.

[aaron_straker]: 5:23

Yeah, yeah, Well'll, talk about. We'll talk about diet stuff, a little bit. what you said about the carbohydrate. I find very very relevant and pertinent to the time of training. especially if you like wake up right. I know, Be you you're a big fan of Like the liquid carbohydrate. You know, pretty much up until up until after, and even I think a little bit after your training, Um, and then the hormonal uh, uh, changes that take place during training and even post training like your body can. I'm using a very unscientific term you can like suck up carbohydrate really quickly and easily Post training. It is a fantastic um use case, especially in like chloork, surpluses. To shuttle a lot of carbohydrate in at times where you will partition them. you know a little bit more advantageously. The downside I guess I could say is when we are dieting and have a total lower. you know, Uh, carbohydrate availability for the day. It's very easy cause like you train at nine, right, you have inure worko carbs. You're going to have some pre workout carbs. if your post workout carves. It's now. What Like ten a M, right, and you're probably through a hundred and fifty isch, kind of grams of carbohydrate. Let's say you do another fifty sixty seventy with lunch. You're now you know two hundred plus. it's noon and you still have like seven. you know, seven, eight hours until you go to bed, type thing, or even longer. And that's what I find myself as well. so uh, even right now I'm in a in a surplus. Um, or you know, not too much in a surplus right now because of my back, but the days that I've been training in the morning like, Yeah, I mean, I can easily hit five, five fifty carbs you know, Uh on on by the evening just because I've used up a lot of them. Um in the morning so great for surpluses and maintenance. but

[bryan_boorstein]: 6:58

Yeah, you certainly di. But so I was just going to say, your numbers of

[aaron_straker]: 7:00

uh in in

[bryan_boorstein]: 7:02

carbs are certainly higher than mine.

[aaron_straker]: 7:04

right now. Yeah,

[bryan_boorstein]: 7:05

I don't. I can't remember the last time I like purposely hit five hundred and fifty. Like, maybe in the off season when I'm not tracking or something, but I literally. I don't think I can remember a day in the last three years that I was tracking and hit five hundred and fifty cars.

[aaron_straker]: 7:21

yeah, it not. I mean for now it's it's what I want to really do is make sure that I get carbohydrate rate in calories high enough for before I go into any kind of deficit and I'm you know, being completely transparent like I always try to be on this podcast. I have not had a fantastic like off season. ▁quote unquote gaining period between the moves and different things, Now injuring my back and now we're going to be moving again in in other countries. It's really just hard to eat a shit ton of food Like it. How easily it is here in in the U. S. Um has not been a very productive. You know, Gaining season on my end.

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:00

Yeah, yeah, how

[aaron_straker]: 8:01

it happens

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:01

is your uh back doing Overall

[aaron_straker]: 8:04

back is better. I would say around like ninety percent. Um. I haven't. I've done some like uh hipinging with with greater degrees of freedom. You know, Uh, like we talked about the Istel, uh, uh, definition, other, the other podcast episode, Um, but I haven't. I've done it. Maybe like forties, any chan, like a dumbbell type thing. I haven't done any bar bell, um ri. ▁ls. it. The pain is gone, but there is like a stiffness there that is generally pretty. Um, common. Uh, to be around. I have ha done a lot of like forty five degree hip extension Like that feels really really good on it. Um, been able to load like the gloops and hamstrings. It does bother me. still sitting down a little bit like the longer I sit. but car car sitting is generally pretty good. Um, so I've just been like taking like the double peanut lacrosse ball thing digging into the spinal erecctors like every single day I'll put it in like the so asz area laying prone, Digg in there, Um into the gluts and stuff as well, and just doing a lot of like some different, like yoga poses that are really great for, like you know, just putting a lot of stretch to the low back. I'm hopeful in like another week to ten days, maybe that tightness will be gone and I'll be back to like you know, loading it a little bit more, but I will be a little uh, trepidacious in my

[bryan_boorstein]: 9:24

Mhm,

[aaron_straker]: 9:25

um, loading in that hipinge, you know, uh, heavy for probably another month or so, just to make sure, because it's something like I don't want this to be like a. I did this stink to my back and now my back hurts me. You know, Uh, for

[bryan_boorstein]: 9:38

forever?

[aaron_straker]: 9:38

a prolonged type thing, yeah, um, I'm I'm very, uh, positively thinking that like this is just going to be something that I will a hundred percent let heal correctly. and and you know, purposely heal correctly so it doesn't linger for ever type thing.

[bryan_boorstein]: 9:54

That's super mature of you.

[aaron_straker]: 9:56

I've only learned that from fucking it up so many times.

[bryan_boorstein]: 10:00

Yeah, is, are you able to go as heavy as you want on? Like movements that aren't involving Hi piinging, now,

[aaron_straker]: 10:08

Uh, I haven't loaded a leg press yet because like the leg press is the one movement like so. basically like I said, sitting down, leaning forward like writing or eating is like the most uncomfortable position. A leg press basically mimics that. but you know,

[bryan_boorstein]: 10:23

Mhm,

[aaron_straker]: 10:24

rolled back, so that is the one I haven't really tried loading up on. but Um, obviously, a lot of like extension type stuff, The Smith Machine squad, I can load up. you know, really heavy, and that doesn't bother it because my back is pretty straight. There

[bryan_boorstein]: 10:39

Mhm,

[aaron_straker]: 10:40

split squats and that sort of thingfectlyine, but I haven't really pushed the the light pres. I will probably add that in this week to test how it feels doing that.

[bryan_boorstein]: 10:50

sweet. I like that. Well, uh, this is probably a decent jumping off point to maybe discuss some some blood work here. Um, so essentially I, uh, as we discussed on prior episodes, I, since you know Aaron and I started this podcast, he's always encouraged me to have predet blood work and post diet blood work, just as kind of like a way to compare and see how numbers are and stuff like that. And so, uh, I have blood work from last April when I started my prior diet. And then I have blood work from this April from like a week ago. Um, when I started this diet, So Um, I sent it to Aarin yesterday and I was like dude, check this out like it's so much better than last year. And and I actually don't know if you referenced it as compared to last year, but you did this really cool. Like he did a twelve minute video for me where he basically went overline by line my blood work and talked about, Um, kind of some of the different elements that maybe I should be concerned with or looked deeper into. Um. And so at first glance I looked at it and I saw a couple of things that were like higher, low in range, out of range, et cetera, Um, but the majority of stuff was in range and so my first impression is just wow, Look at this. It's like way better than the prior years. and then I even looked at some of the things that were out of range and compared them to the prior year, and even those ones were better this year than they were last year. Um, So as Aaron was going down it, I was personally a little bit surprised that he uh, was as critical as he was. We'll just say is that like, Hey, you know you should look out at this like there's this issue here. Um, and one of the things that he pointed out that I think is is the most interesting because it was the catalyst for me beginning to take element last year. was that Aaron pointed out in my blood work in April twenty twenty one that it seemed like I was dehydrated. Um, that, despite the fact that I was drinking, you know, a gallon and a half of water and all of these things, he was like. You know, there's these things that I'm seeing. I can't remember what it was. Something about kidney function, I believe. And and you were saying something, On the lines of it, just seems like you're not absorbing your water properly or whatever, And so you suggest that I start taking element. I started taking element. I've been taking it now for a year. Um, I have my potassium, my sodium. Um, I take my legion. Multi. I have all of these things kind of covered. And then Aaron reports to me this year that it still appears like I'm dehydrated and my kidneys potentially are. are not you know, functioning as as best as they could or whatever. So I don't know if you want to expand on that point at all, but to me that's the most prominent because I thought that that was an issue that I had corrected and it appears like I have not.

[aaron_straker]: 13:25

Yeah, so I think what, and I do not have your prior years' blood work up. I have this this most recent set here. It was. the Uh. estimated glomular filtration rate was at the e, gf, R.

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:39

Yes,

[aaron_straker]: 13:39

Okay,

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:40

I was un mute.

[aaron_straker]: 13:41

yeah, so the one thing I said in with so the particular order of of labs we have here is Um. life extensions, comprehensive weight loss panel, right, third party order in private, private, Uh purchase type thing. What's interesting here is They generally will give you two values. They'll give you an e g, f, r, and then like an e g f R, corrected for your black population, right you, African Americans, because generally, uh, from a population standpoint your your black people are going to have more muscle mass. On average. This is not really the case in when Briryan's uh, standpoint, because Bri has significantly more muscle mass than your average person does. regardless of race. So what I was? What's interesting here is they did not providev the the um, other one. Probably because you marked it, Your you know races is white or whatever. when you filled out the thing, so it is lower and it's low enough to To me. that's concerning to go. Get more information because for someone that lives this type of lifestyle, we would estimate it should be significantly higher. Now it's important when you're when you're looking at at blood workor that these ranges that they give you. So there's a couple different types of ranges. Your standard laboric ranges that you're go to get from like your doctor. life or not life extension. Labcore, ▁quest are going to be what is referred to as pathological ranges. So it is you basically compare to every other mother fucker in America, you know in these age ranges, And if we make a blanketed statement around what your average Americans, blood work looks like, based on what we know about the generalized right, This is one of the few times you will hear me speak in generalizations American. it's shit. So what we have is these like, are also called like, functional or optimal ranges, which are a little bit more tighter bounds for the sake of being optimal. Right. If you're listening to this podcast, If you you know, resonate with the things that Brian and I talk about, You don't really want to compare yourself to the Genin Pop American, you want to be optimal. You want things to be really really functional. So, for someone like Brian, it's just interesting that theicalmil or filtration rate or estimated glamerri or filtration, like I said, Sh would be this low. I would imagine that kidney function Um would be a lot higher. So this to me is something that I would rat recommend. Hey, I would take this to uh, a g, p, or you can order further tests to see different things. Um. Unfortunately, with this specific laboric, we only get this kind of one marker for for kidney function, Um. there could be like. Obviously we can get some proxies first for certain things, like uh, your electrolyte levels and that sorts of thing. Um, but it's not it's It was low enough to me. like Hey, I mean, I review a a fair share of laboric with my client. Tell, and stuff. It's uncommon that I see it this low for someone who prioritizes their health as much as you do, Brian. So it's the first kind of thing that I noted there.

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:43

Yeah, I actually just pulled up the blood work from the prior year as a way to compare and see what that Egf number was Uh, compared to last year And it's actually four points higher this year, So it was fifty six last year and it sixty this year, And then Uh, last year had the corrected African American number and it was sixty four last year, and that was compared to fifty six, So you would think that my sixty this year might be like a seventy if African american, and given the muscle mass thing, like I. Guess it's possible that maybe it's not super low. But if that number is, you know we want it over fifty nine. then whether it's sixty or sixty four or seventy like it's still pushing the pathological range right,

[aaron_straker]: 17:25

Yes, exactly. and and not that I'm trying to like get you scared or anything, Brian. But it's just something that I would like Mark down is like a Hm. This is this is interesting. Maybe you

[bryan_boorstein]: 17:35

yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 17:36

have some gene that makes you know, Uh, you more susceptible to diminished kidney function as you continue to age. Or it's like something enough that it's like this seems you know, potentially slightly off. Or maybe especially this happens in our populations with those of us who are very regimented with our nutrition who eat a lot of the same foods. Maybe we're missing something right. Maybe

[bryan_boorstein]: 17:57

Mhm,

[aaron_straker]: 17:57

there's some nutrient efficiency. Uh, this is more kind of of a larger conversation. But excuse me, also to the point is like, maybe there's a certain supplement that you should just add in pretty much regularly for this particular one. A stragleus is one that you could do. It's one of the few things that have pastro, gaalous, a stragalist. I, I forget exactly which where where the position of the G goes. Um. I think it's astro gaalous, but it's one of the few things shown that can act should help prepare, like the filaments of the of the kidneys, So this is something that you could explore to experiment with. You know, maybe Ru. sixty days of it. Get that test retest to see if

[bryan_boorstein]: 18:36

Mhm,

[aaron_straker]: 18:37

it's high type. So these are really great potential situations where targeted write specific supplementation based on a contextual situation like we have here could be very beneficial.

[bryan_boorstein]: 18:49

Yep, Yep. Well, appreciate that, and uh, I will say, just like, from my experience, I drink a ton of water and I don't always feel hydrated like I literally just constantly drink water throughout the day, and I'm constantly peeing, and I and I still like, kind of have a parched feeling in in my body at times. so uh, maybe there is something to that, Um, one of the other ones I want to touch on, and uh, I think this will probably speak to many people. Here is my justestosterone levels and uh, and I'm totally open being completely transparent with this because I. I even talked about it on my story last year. like when I first got that blood work done in April of twenty twenty one. Uh, my total Ta levels came free te. my No, my total te. My total T came back at two seventy seven, Um, which literally is like at the bottom of the rang, Because the range listed is two sixty four to nine, ten, or something like that. Um, So it was two seventy seven last year and we were just kind of like. Hey, you know, let's keep an eye on that. Let's it it could like. Basically you suggested a number of different things you were like. Well, it could be like downstream from this, or it could be impacted by, you know, lutinizing hormone and uh, uh, s. s. s. H, g, B, a sex hormone binding globulin right, Um, so then

[aaron_straker]: 20:02

Yeah,

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:02

I went and got those extra tests done and they didn't really shine any light on stuff, And it was right around that same time that the episode with Ben House on Iron Culture came out Uh, all about T r T. It was like two hours of him talking about T r T. And one of the things, or a couple of the things he said on there were interesting because he. he mentioned that natural lifters tend to have lower to stople sterone levels than the general population. And he went

[aaron_straker]: 20:26

Ssssssssssssss.

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:28

into a number of different kind of reasons. why, Um, and then he kind of talked about how low tea isn't a problem unless it is a problem. Like, unless you know you're having issues in your life like you have low energy, you have low sex drive. Um, whatever other number of factors could be impacted by the fact that you have lotusosterroone And so what that really did was? It made me rethink things a little bit, and reframed the way I was looking at Lotusostroum, and I went back and found old blood work from prior years, and so I found Uh, some blood work from two thousand twelve where my Te levels were three thirty, and I found some blood work from two thousand sixteen where my Te levels were three eleven. And now, looking at my current blood work from last week, they're two eighty one. So literally, If you look at like the last decade of my life, from two thousand twelve to current, they've been between two seventy and three thirty, which is only a sixty point range. And all of that is on like the lower end of the spectrum, Right and then, in that amount of time I competed in Crossit regionals two or three times I had two kids, Um, and I've basically been living my life as I normally would without a whole lot of worry about. Oh, I have low energy or I have low sex drive, or any of these issues that maybe would be prevalent in somebody with Lottiotroone, Um, And then of course there's the The well, Maybe there is something I could do about this. You know, not going on t, r t, but you brought up some stuff with like triglycerides and some of my cholesterol, which I've always had forever. always I've had low cholesterol, and Um. so my H Dl has been within range, which I think is like fifty, but you wanted to be above forty so it's still pretty low H Dl, which is the good cholesterol, And then you look at my bad cholesterol and that's also really really really low. Um. So when you look at my cholesterol numbers, my triglyceride numbers, it's like I met no risk for Cardi Youovascular events, because all of that stuff is super low, but you also find these correlations between cholesterol trags rides and toosterone levels, So Um, do you want to expand on any of that at all?

[aaron_straker]: 22:38

Yeah, I will. So it? what Start at the beginning and then kind of wrap around. Generally right and I notice I'm saying here, generally the higher testosterum to varying degrees right once you're past, like a threshold of maybe that. like four hundred four fifty type things is generally positively indicate. uh, um, not positively correlated with like lean muscle mass, less body fat. Generally a healthier lifestyle. That being said, it's never super supercut and dry. And what's really interesting here is we have Brid and myself who are kind of anomalies in our respective areas. Brian has dam near hypogonadal levels of you know, free and total testotroone. However, Brian is what I would put in the top. Probably half a per cent of you know naturals with muscle mass on planet Earth. Conversely, just as in in in us being super transparent, I have very high fasting blood glucose numbers right. They're regularly over one hundred, which is not good. That being said, mine never budge based on my carbohydrate intake. I have spent multiple years trying to get these down. They never really move and it's never been correlative or indicative to the amount of carbohydrate. I have. how easy or difficult it is for me to lose body fat. These sorts of things, so each of us are going to have some of these slight um variances and it's important when looking at things, to always take the blood work numbers. Write these dis objective data in a combination with how these things may or may not manifest right, Like if I said I, I mentioned this to Brian last night when I was sending that that video over to him. If I saw this lab work, I, and then, not knowing whose it was and then you showed me like a picture of Brian. You know, working out

[bryan_boorstein]: 24:27

Sss.

[aaron_straker]: 24:30

with the shirt off like, I probably wouldn't fucking believe it, but I know. obviously I know it's Briryan. So, um, it's there things that can be correlative, but not always a hard. you know, cut and dry, But more so what I was kind of getting out with Brian. Is there is generally a reason why, Because Uh, one thing we have here is also on the laboric. is d h, a sulphi. This is an upstream hormone of testotrng. Generally, if this was low right, we would be like Okay. Well, d H, A is super low, so there's not a lot of that hormone which will cascade into testostroone. So that could be a potential. You know. Reason why D G. A is perfectly within range on the higher end of the range. Similarly, if Briryan's estrogen, right, which we have on his lab work as Estradal was super high, we might be like Hey, something is going on. You're aroumattizing a lot of your you know testosterone into estrogen. That could be you know, indicative of why, Also estrodyle is on the lower end. So what I was? basically, you know, Uh, pushing to Brian was like lab work is fantastic. Um, it doesn't give us the full picture. Something that would give us a full picture here if it was something that you wanted to explore just for your own. you know, personal ▁quest of knowledge. Or to see if what, Potentially, if we could get your testosterroone up into the four hundreds. The five hundreds, maybe even the six hundreds, is a Dutch test. And what's really cool about the Dutch test is it gives you the different pathways and cascades of the different hormones. You can see where things either drop off pick up are not getting Um metabolized correctly or potentially metabollizing too much. of. so. it is a potential avenue. Um. there are. It's very, very realistic that Brian could just be an anomaly here, and maybe Brian, correct me if I'm wrong. Did you say that you were super late to go through puberty when you were younger?

[bryan_boorstein]: 26:39

I was. Yeah, my, I was like five two in ninth grade and I didn't even reach height until like eleventh or twelfth grade. I was just a little kid, didn't have any hair to eleventh grade type thing, so yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 26:47

Okay,

[bryan_boorstein]: 26:48

it super late.

[aaron_straker]: 26:49

So that could be something indicative of why, Um again. This is purely speculation on my point, but it is an interesting note. Um. but just that and then the last thing that that we talked about there is your cholesterol. All of it was super low, so I mean, triglycerides were a little bit on the lower end H, dl. Um, while above the pathological range isn't quite as high as we would like. But then your ▁l deel, right, which is Um being subjective here in using my air. ▁quotes, your bad cholesterol was very low as well, so cholesterol again, Just speaking at Um, at a higher level. Here is an upstream precursor to hormones. Right we produce pregnant alone primarily, or I should say in in conjunction with off of cholesterol, So if someone is like never eating cholesterol is super super super low fat for a very very long time. Generally, um, also, you know, in correlation with just having a lower total energy availability will generally eventually affect sex hormone production, because cholesterol provides us a lot of that raw material for pregnant alone, which is generally that mother hormone which we cascade a lot of our other hormones out of. Um. So again, just something that I thought was interesting. Now we do know that cholesterol levels while largely influenced by a lifestyle, there is hereditary impacts of that too, so it could just be from hereditary standpoint. Your genes are mu, signal lower cholesterol. We have seen this. You know before I've seen thisine, incliole as well, but just a larger conversation around. Yes, the blood work is very very helpful. Um. However, it's not always the end. all be all, because we know that Brian has basically ten years now, of what four or five different sets of labs where relative testosterone levels are probably. I don't know. You know, maybe sevent eight percent difference over those, maybe a little bit more, but not a large, a large degree, and we know that he has obviously a significantly higher amount of muscle mass than average, significantly lower amount of bod body fat than average. Um. in. uh, Uh, With these you know less than optal numbers. But while it could be fun, interesting to explore any potential reasons why

[bryan_boorstein]: 29:18

Yeah, that is. uh. that is very interesting. I appreciate that and uh, just two other little side notes. My dad has ridiculously high to sasstern. he's like in his late sixties and it's still like six hundred something and he doesn't take anything. It's just natural. So like genetically, who knows you know, Um, and then interestingly enough as well. Uh, Ben House was saying on that T r T episode that you know, even if you took a guy that was hypogonnadal and got him to double his levels, so say I go from two fifty to five hundred or something like that, he said that, on most people, that only is going to correlate to a total of like two to four pounds of additional muscle mess. So like I mean it it, it's relatively insignificant. I mean when you're talking about my level of training like two to four mi pounds of muscle mass is like is huge, but in like the grand scheme of how much muscle I've gained over my life, Um, two to four pounds is extremely small, so um, I don't exactly know that that. you would say That's significant, Uh, on the grand scheme, but it may be significant at at like an advance level. Um, so

[aaron_straker]: 30:20

it's

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:21

anyways, like I'm I'm up. Yeah, good,

[aaron_straker]: 30:22

I was going to say Ab from an absolute standpoint, No, from a relative standpoint, two to four pounds is is is uh great. The one thing just to kind of throw a little bit of of nuggets your way, I would love to see the people that that study is done on in their lifestyles, right it? because if it's done like a lot of your testoster like your t, r, T, studies are done on like your genin pop person who treats their body like a dumpster fire. Um, and like I mean, it's pretty well known, you take your average male and you give them T r. T. They will increase muscle mass and decreas body fat without much lifestyle modification for someone like you. I think it would be a a. a grander effect. That's just my own personal speculation. Um. but yeah, I don't think it's not like you're going to slap on thirty pounds a muscle. But it could be like five to six. You know something like that.

[bryan_boorstein]: 31:10

Mhm, Mhm.

[aaron_straker]: 31:11

Um is basically what I was getting at, And and the, just to be super transparent, the again could be completely incorrect. Um. logic I use. There is you take your, your average steroid user or your you know T r T guy, and you take them from five hundred. Like a being super transparent. My testosterroone is generally mid, five hundreds, to low, six hundred, so like a, five sixty to like six fifteen range. You take me, you know, throw me on exogenous testosterone that goes up to twelve hundred. You know fifteen hundred, which is essentially double, maybe a little bit more than double. Um. I will put on muscle mass and decrease body fat doing the exact same thing I'm doing now. So my logic is if we take that apply that to Brian. Take him from the high, two, two hundreds, into like the high five hundreds, low six hundreds, mid six hundreds. That potential, same logic should apply to a relatively uh, similar degree, but could be flawed. Just my logic.

[bryan_boorstein]: 32:09

Yeah, I just like adjust and popped into my brain right now, but Um, in two thousand twelve, I also had a blood clot in my leg, so I have a a condition genetically called Factor Five Light, in which a Serena Williams has and a couple other big name athletes have have been, have had their ▁ in their life as well, Um. But essentially it just makes me have a higher proclivity to clot. so um, since two thousand twelve when I had that happen, I've been on um, a baby aspirin every day and uh. and given that that incident was, you know, when I have my first blood work that I'm referencing with my lower toosterroone levels, I'm wondering if that incident itself had some sort of impact on testosterone levels, Um, and the extenuating circumstance of that is that I'm actually somewhat weary of the idea of increasing my disosteron levels like I would never go on T. R, T and I'm and I'm fully open to the idea of increasing to soster and levels naturally through lifestyle or nutrient, uh, intake, et cetera if if we can figure that out, but I am slightly concerned about the idea of increasing toosterroone at all. Just because with that increase in tosterone does come, you know higher rascosity of the blood and things like that. So, um, so there definitely is like a part of me that's extremely trepidacious and it's kind of like Hey, I'm sitting in the high two hundreds for toestosterroone, But I haven't had any sort of uh, blood cloting issues or even a scare or anything in ten years. Uh, maybe that has something to do with the fact that the triglis rides the cholesterol and all of these markers of viscosity are pretty low. And so maybe it would not behove me in like my long term health to actually increase the stastroe. So just kind of like a side thought. There,

[aaron_straker]: 33:52

That is a very fantastic thing to bring up. And here's the reason why one of the downsides of T. one of money is your generally will increase. Inate is essentially your bloodscity, so someone like you, that risk is the relative risk for what you potentially stand to gain from Tt. Obviously, everyone is going to have to make that distinction themselves. but in my opinion, I feel pretty confident saying that yours Oion would be not worth it. Cause it just something you would have to monitor a lot. And because of that history of that that blood clot, Um, with increasing blood viscocity, it just seems completely not worth it. Um, to any degree, so that it's really really interesting. Uh, there.

[bryan_boorstein]: 34:41

himmotacraate is forty two for me right now.

[aaron_straker]: 34:45

Yeah, generally under forty five is is where would be like, really really good. and then again, just being completely transparent. It's really interesting in. Uh. this is kind of a. A. A larger statement I'm making around males. Is we generally do not like to go to the doctor and just like to believe that our our health is is fantastic. I have. If you client out who, before Uh, working with me, they had been on T r. T. for you know, a number of years. Um, and what's really really wild to me is the T. R. T. landscape is interesting. Uh, it is. Obviously you have to be a doctor right to to be able to supply the t. R. T. However, in my opinion, and for what it's worth, Obviously I'm not a fucking doctor. I don't want to be a doctor. All this information is freely available out out on the internet and we live in this fantastic age of. Hey, If you want the information. it's out there. People just won't look at the shit, right. People just want to think it's fine, right? I've had multiple clients. Right who are on T, r, T or Mckay. You're on t. r T. When was the last time your blood work's been done and they're like, Oh, I don't know. like a year ago and I'm like. Are you fucking kidding me like? let's go get your blood work done. The hamticer comes back over fifty and I'm like. Oh, you need to go donate blood right, like this is high. This is your blood viscosity, you. Your heart is now working harder to pump this blood like you're not twenty eight years old. You're in your forties You're in your early fifties, Like it's not wise to be fucking around this type of thing, so it's frustrating for me because like I'm you know, at the end of the day I'm just a nutrition coach, but many times I end up being like the push for these people to go get these things looked at to go actually take action on things that they would have just kept sweeping under the rug or the doctor that you know, puts them on. These things never follows up and it's just frustrating. I. i. I am getting into a little bit of ranting here, but there's there these massive gaps in our in the landscape of like our western, Um. medical situation that it. It's very very frustrating. Um. it's obviously very. It's hard and I have to obviously tiptoe around legality scope, that sort of thing, but more often than not, it's like me just being like. Hey, go look at this. please. go look at this. Let's just look at it, so we know type of thing, and then often times things will come back not great. and I've there's been multiple situations. I, I've like made clans. Make you need to go see your fucking doctor, Because this does not look good. and if it wasn't for me like, they would never go do these things. So just interesting and unfortunate, to some degrees,

[bryan_boorstein]: 37:28

Yeah, totally. I mean. it's good that they have you and that you can actually send them to the right fu.

[aaron_straker]: 37:33

Definitely

[bryan_boorstein]: 37:34

Do you want to talk about some metabolic training?

[aaron_straker]: 37:37

yes, let's do it.

[bryan_boorstein]: 37:39

Well, let's talk about you, because I see a note here that you're using your back to experiment with a little bit of metabolic work. So how are you implementing it? What's going on?

[aaron_straker]: 37:47

Yeah, so I, my prior, uh, or or my, I guess I should say, current, whatever training cycle is more lower volume, but like really really high, uh, or sorry, really low. r. I r. close proximities to failure. lower volume pushing sets really really hard. Obviously I, obviously, you know, injure my back and even something like you know, upper back exercise Lat exercises. you know, chest pressing like everything involves like that, co stability, especially when you're pushing really heavy loads. so I realiz like well, fuck. I can't really train this way because everything hurts my back and you know, just trying to like brace and keep like anti rotation was really ering it. so I was like this is a great time to

[bryan_boorstein]: 38:25

Sssssssssssssssssss.

[aaron_straker]: 38:28

explore a little bit of the metaabolk style training. I'm going to do the local, Um, or I have been doing more local metabolic style training and it's just been fun. Um, and it when I thought it was like this is a great. you know use case that I kind of stumbled into is like if you have an injury or something like that where it's hard to do like compounds like a back squat or a, you know an artyell or something. this could be a really you know. good way to still get like. What feels like hard. you know, fun training in while you're promoting a lot of blood flow, especially to like that area. So I was doing like you know, eight sets of eight type stuff, or six sets of six on. like the like, a a forty five degree hip extension or a a seated leg curl or something Is simple. Um, is that but without like really having to like brace, and then potentially um, reinjure myself or prolong how however long it will take to uh, recover from that and it's just been fun. like, uh, um, I'm usually in in and out in about like fifty fifty five minutes, which is a little bit shorter, shorter for me getting like great pumps. Um, my body is sucking up carbohydrate which has been like, really, really fun as well, too. And that's one of the benefits. right. You're really just promoting glucose up. take into the muscle with the incomplete rest sort of thing. And I'm like my heart's beating. I'm getting like pretty sweaty and it's just like it can be like a fun pivot away from. like. if you're just pushing like you know, mechanical tension, Um muscle damage like that sort of thing, And it's just like more. I feel like it's it's the recovery'. super high. I'll be a little bit sore, but I can train again in like another forty eight hours. Um, if you want to go through a period where you want to train a lot because you're just really enjoying it or whatever. It's just cool to to. now apply a little bit more of the like reasoning behind it into like something that I had only previously experienced from. like, Um, anecdote, sort of thing,

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:25

Yeah, I'm actually really excited to to get into the local metabolic

[aaron_straker]: 40:26

Ssssssssssssss.

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:29

training. I, It's only been. I had a deload week of systememic, and then one work week of systemomach, and I. I just did my first uh session of week two today, but I swear, I feel like I've been in Systemomach phe for like months. It's like it. It's like the most daunting the difficult thing like that. I'm just not good at um, 'cause like if you go back to our our uh discussion on metabolic training from a couple of episodes ago, the systemic stuff is really like taking big compound movements for different areas of the body, like uh, a push, a pull and a leg movement and just doing them as a circuit, kind of, and Um, and man, that stuff is just really really hard. we, uh, I'm I'm kind of glad you're not doing that right now, but, but it would make for for a fun discussion. Um, but one thing, like so on the last episode with Jordan at the very end of the episode we kind of theorized on. like you know what sort of things might we see? What adaptations might actually be tangible from metabolg training Like is it? Are there metrics that you can feel or apply or is it just like a sense of? Hey, This workout felt easier. And and so it worked or whatever you know? And it's it's very ambiguous. So one thing, uh, that I've noticed since starting systememic, and granted, it's only been two weeks of this, but um, my sleep has been better than ever, and that's one of the main things that I hear Cs talk about with metabolic training is just that sleep improves almost immediately and and I was skeptical of that I, I really was. And then when I look at my Appp, which a man I feel like I've become so dependent on my apps for everything recently and and I kind of hate it, but um, but I also kind of like it from from a nerdy data diagnostic standpoint, Um, but my sleep has been way better like I've went from averaging just over seven hours, Um, with eight hours in bed, so I would basically be up for forty five minutes of that that eight hour, to basically having seven hours and forty five minutes of

[aaron_straker]: 42:26

Ssssssssssssss.

[bryan_boorstein]: 42:29

sleep for eight hours in. Bed, so I'm literally improving the quality of my sleep by it to the tune of a half hour every single night, which really adds up. Um. and then one other metric that I'm seeing is is in regards to my h r v. So, um, chante hit me up when I first started talking about the H r V stuff a couple of weeks ago, and uh, I mentioned on the last episode. But basically she explained to me why there's differences between these random readings that the that the watch is doing for me versus the readings that I force, and uh. and she mentioned how H r v is subject to heart rate, So like on a very simple look at it, I think that's confusing. Um, and so here's what I mean. Like if it was just based on heart rate, then you would say Okay, A slower heart rate is better. You're go to have a higher h r v. and a faster heart rate is worse. You're gonna have a lower h r V. And maybe on'm like a ten thousand foot view. That's correct. But I've always been under the assumption and I think this is right. Somebody can correct me if they're wrong, but it's heart rate variability, so my impression was always that it's the difference between individual heartbeats. So yeah, if your heart rate is going a hundred beats per minute, there's less variance between heartbeats just because it's going faster. So I, I get that correlation. Um, but, but I really thought that it maybe was more along the lines of like Okay, If you're beating sixty beats a minute, you know you might have a heartbeat that's an eight, eight tenths of a second. You might have one that nine tenth of a second. you might have one that's one point one seconds, and you might have one that's one point two seconds. And so this Appp is sort of calculating that difference between heartbeats. Um, so I don't know what is more important, So to speak, if you can even put it on a pedestal of like, Is it your actual heart rate itself? In which case like, Couldn't I just monitor heart rate? or is it more about that variance between heartbeats? That's that's Um. That's giving you this reading right, whether it is like one second, first point, eight seconds, first, one point two seconds or something along those lines, so I, I believe it's the latter. Um, but I don't fully know, but where I was going with that is that it's been taking these random readings throughout the night for me and so along with me saying that my Ap is telling me that I'm sleeping better. I'm also now seeing recovery take place incrementally throughout the night, so like I go to bed at, you know, eight or nine p. M, and the first reading that it takes randomly is usually between nine and ten, and it's pretty low. It's like call it a sixty, and then by like midnight or one. it's like um, at eighty or a ninety, and then by three a M. it's a one thirty, and then by five a M. It's a one fifty and then I take my purposeful morning reading and it's like a two hundred. So you're seeing this ascent throughout the night. of essentially. Hey you, you need to sleep because your recovery sucks right now and then as I sleep, and as I recover, the h. r V improves incrementally throughout the night. So, looking at that combined with the fact that my Ap is telling me that I'm sleeping an additional half hour of quality each night, Um, I just look at these as two signs that Uh, metabolk training has been working for me at some level.

[aaron_straker]: 45:38

Yeah, I, I mean. Oh, man, there's a lot in there. Um, I think the what you said is my understanding of it as well. That's the variation between heart beats. that being said, as your heart beats faster and faster. The opportunity for the variation. I would imagine shrinks because it. I mean, it's a smaller window. You know what I mean, Like

[bryan_boorstein]: 46:01

Yes,

[aaron_straker]: 46:01

with anything, also when you're sleeping. Obviously, we like to think that like. Oh, I'm sleeping like I'm not doing anything, but your body actually does it a lot when you're sleeping right, especially like I mean the. The. The turnover of hormones we do, we have this massive liver process that that happens like every night that I can't remember the name of off the top of my head, so I would imagine those sorts of things are why it probably will dip. and then as these things kind of complete and you move into that recovery cycle that will build again up through the morning. Um, but it. yeah, I mean, if you, there's a lot of really cool things that I've seen on like the processes that happen. you know when you go to sleep something thing like why, hey, youll go to bed at a hundred and ninety eight pounds. You wake up at like one, ninety one. You know this sort of stuff, so it's not like you're

[bryan_boorstein]: 46:44

that's big. That's a big jock.

[aaron_straker]: 46:44

just sit sitt in there waiting to die. you know, while you're sleeping like your body's doing a fuck lotad of stuff. Um,

[bryan_boorstein]: 46:50

Yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 46:51

but there was one thing I wanted to say there, too. Um, the again, tying it back to some of the things you talked about earlier. We know that testosteron right is a big driver of recovery capacity. That's why generally you're like a a. S. you know, And and people who are on exogous Aosterums can train at these enormous volumes because they can just recover from it. Whereas like us, mere mortals really can't, we would die under those volum. I mean, we wouldn't die. We would just get crushed trying to follow that sort of volume and that's why it's stupid to fall the training program of like your favorite, you know, pro or whatever, if you're you know, not on the same similar types of like you know, uh, superhuman, uh, uh, um, supplement steroids, essentially

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:32

Mhm,

[aaron_straker]: 47:33

um. but the metabolic training' is just more forgiving, right you're You're not training nearly as uh, close to failure, Obviously lighter loads. It's going to be easier from a uh, from a a centrally fatiguing standpoint. It makes sense that you would be sleeping better right because you're going to have less overall. You know, Corrd is all patterning throughout the day. that sort of thing, And then one idea that I had that could be. I mean it would be slightly, you know, potentially expensive to do, but realistic is you could take like a four point s alive, a corderzal test throughout, Like the, let's say, the final week of like your, your, um. you know, Um, a mechanical tension or whatever previous training stimulus. Seeing what that patterning looks like over the course of a day and then maybe like two weeks into your, the second week or third week of your, Um. The metabolic, uh, training, uh, block, and then seeing the the, comparing the cord is all patterning And really, see if that is a reason like a reduction, and just that stress for why you're sleeping better, and these sorts of things. So it could be a cool uh experiment to to play around with En run. but I agree essentially

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:35

Yeah, Lots, lots of different things to do. Got to get to Texas, still, too.

[aaron_straker]: 48:40

that one. Um, I, man, I just I love the deck. I think it's especially now like you can. Really, you can just compare. Hey, what is my body mass doing? Another one that I think would be really cool for you specifically From that is bone density. I would love to see where your bone density is like, Um,

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:58

I think what I'm going to do is because I miss the opportunity to to get one pre diet. I think I'm just going to wait until the end of the diet and do one and then I'll have comparison there before and then I'll get predt next year. Um, I really want to get one before the diet, but given coming back from San Diego and then starting a diet like that day, it just all happened too quickly, so Um, I think post Ee would be a good time and you know just kind of expect that Bon density and muscle mass is going to be a little lower than it would be. Obviously if I wasn't

[aaron_straker]: 49:27

muscle mass. For sure. I don't think bone. I ever, mon Mo, and myself, at least, Uh, seeing Bone dens City go down the only time I've

[bryan_boorstein]: 49:35

hm,

[aaron_straker]: 49:36

noticed like bone density was higher when I was doing a lot more power lifting, Which makes sense, right. The the the heavier you lift, the more dense your bones and uh

[bryan_boorstein]: 49:43

yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 49:44

connectle ti tissue are going to be. but I would recommend post di it at what would be like the end of your recovery diet. Wherever you want to like you know, rebound up to. so that way you can see, Hey, I lost approximately. Obviously we would have to ballpark this much lean. You know body mass during my diet and then you can kind of compare that again to then. once you are at the end of Like the diet, you know next time type of thing.

[bryan_boorstein]: 50:06

yep, yep. Uh, well, I think we have two additional Uh discussion points here, Uh, one regarding proximity to failure, and one about Uh, carbohydrate water and electroate manipulation. Where do you want to go?

[aaron_straker]: 50:20

Yeah, So what? what? I kind of wanted to talk about? So I have been um, really, and we kind of loosely talked about this. I don't know about youbine, but I'm seeing a lot of like informational posts on Insteagram from people. who are they like? They're like. Well, this study found that, like you know, this happens and this happened, so that means like we should do like ▁x y and ▁z um. And and I get it. I think it's it's It's great to begin moving in the like, evidence based space and stuff. However, for like you know, mortals like us, reading research reviews and stuff it or not, reading research reviews is pretty okay. Reading research articles is like a kind of difficult. And unless you're like, really specialized in that are very familiar with that world like I'm going to look at a research paper rate, and I'm goingnna see it at face value, and I'm like, Oh, wow, these people found this conclusion like. Holy shit. That means that that's true. But then, after listening to a little bit more people like you know, Greg Knuckles, er trexler, Eric Helms, they can like, pick apart the research review and the or not the research review, the the research study, and then we'll find something that like, Oh, they use. You know, In the example I have here from Uh, the the carbohydrate water and electrolyte manipulation for physique athletes, episode of Stronger By Science, we had this really cool you know study where they basically tested uh, um, I believe it was natural body builders. They're like, Um. They did a B, a B, I, a body impotent, I imp, impotence,

[bryan_boorstein]: 51:55

impedience?

[aaron_straker]: 51:55

analys, impedance analysis, you know, pre, pre, uh, contest A and then like on contest day and showed like these. like massive changes in, you know, intracellly, or Yeah, intracellular uh, uh, siz, and carbohydrates. So like Wow, these, you know, uh, carbohydrate loading, uh, protocols are amazing, and then they find out that like the equation used was like, really botched. and no matter what you did, it showed like these massive, you know, change, and then the type of testing methodology that the researchers used is like, very limited in its accuracy and that sort of thing. So it kind of so there was one part right, The second one was. Uh, there's a brand or not, Brandy, but very recent dative data driven strength episode Shut out. Uh, the Dayta driven Strength guys who've had on the show talking around addressing the limitations of proximity to failure. And then there is also a really really cool Um, iron culture talking around. the same thing of like defining. failure is really really difficult. So extrapolating. A lot of you know hard. That means ▁x. we should do. Why A of these can be like a bit nearsighted Because it's there's a lot of confounding variables and it's hard to bring like these, really strong conviction type things out of these. So it kind of got me thinking like I've seen this happen like so many times where I'm kind of like now. Like if it's mouse research. I'm not really interested if it's Um, in vitro, which is like the petri dish One right. I'm not really that interested like I'm waiting for. Like the meta analysis, Um, and the Um. God, there's the meta analysis and the like.

[bryan_boorstein]: 53:43

Systematic of view.

[aaron_straker]: 53:43

The S exactly systematic review. thank you, Brian to, Really before, I'm really like starting to pay attention to like any one of these things, because I feel like often they get extrapolated to much more than they were originally intended for. Just because for you know us coaches, it's very very difficult to understand the research at the level that these, like other you know researchers do. And that's part of the reason why it's like peer reviewed research is so important Because people make mistakes right. I make mistakes, but I make mistakes all the fucking time, and I think that people like on Instagram and stuff to who are trying to you know, have great intentions Are just hopping on things a little too fast. Things get extravolated and popularized, makes to a big account, and gets a skyrocketed off to things that really kind of like they might be true within a certain context, but then get misapplied and we end up with just kind of more misinformation, which we already have so much of

[bryan_boorstein]: 54:44

Yeah, For sure, I want to mostly talk about the proroximated failure stuff, but I do have a uh, uh discussion for the the topic thought on the B. I A stuff. So, uh, one of the interesting things that I learned about the the B, I, a, or is it B? I A is the same as Uh. Those like tenita scales or

[aaron_straker]: 55:03

it's the inbody, Like in the gym we stand on it. hold the handle.

[bryan_boorstein]: 55:03

like the Yeah, in body or or the scales? I mean, they're all using the same technology right. So Um, So essentially what? one of the things that that I learned either in this episode or another one I was listening to on the I on the topic. Now that I think about it, I think it was. I think it was a different episode, but it had Um, an expert on body composition. Basically, and what he was saying is that when you do those those B I. a analysis of the body, aside from the limitations that we already talk about exist in that like they're very affected by like fluid. Whether you've drank water, coffee, whether you've gone P, or poop, or um, whether you've had any food or any of these things like, I even referenced the inbody that we did Um, by the cross Fiit gym back in the day where I was, You know, eleven percent body fat. And then I went and ate like a double portion of um, uh, flame, broiler, chicken and rice, and then went back and stood on the scale like thirty minutes later, and I was now seven percent body fat, essentially because my body mass had gone up right,

[aaron_straker]: 56:04

Yeah,

[bryan_boorstein]: 56:05

Um, which is so ridiculous, but uh, but beyond that which is, which is an obvious problem, especially when you're looking at physique athletes and trying to determine how much of the carbohydrate they're eating is going into their muscles like I don't even know how you can use B. I. A, for that, but um beyond that this guy was saying that um, B, I, A basically sh, shoots the uh, the electrical stimulus or whatever it is, so like straight up your body, so it does a decent job of getting your legs and your torso, but it doesn't actually like go out, um, distily, so so you cannot actually get like your arms and your extremity measurements of your upper body. Really, Um, so it doesn't do a great job. And then I, they also said that it. it gets kind of confused with all the organs and stuff going on in your mid section, so it could be potentially that it's not even reading like your chest and shoulder mass correctly. Um, So anyway, I thought that that was really interesting and just kind of goes into the further body of literature of like, Hey, you know, single. What is the word single element B I A versus they have like, two, three or four, uh

[aaron_straker]: 57:10

I want to say it was like single channel

[bryan_boorstein]: 57:12

factor,

[aaron_straker]: 57:12

or single wave or something like that. I can't remember the

[bryan_boorstein]: 57:15

single wave or single

[aaron_straker]: 57:15

yeah,

[bryan_boorstein]: 57:16

channel or whatever, Because you can also do B. I. A where you get these little things that you stick on your arms And it actually, thens, begins signaling not just the electromagnetic signal up your torso and legs, but it also can kind of then, uh, read what's going on in your extremities, too. So, anyway, I think that that's just an awful method to be used. And then they said that if you have the science grade one that has all of the little bells and whistles and stuff, then it's better, but it's still obviously not like a dexer, and ▁ultrasound or m r. I, even you know

[aaron_straker]: 57:46

no, and one of the things that was really interesting is like it's hard. I could imagine. it's really hard to to get quality research on this. Because one. you're getting these body builders at cool. We're getting rest on Bodbuilders. But then it' saying like Hey, you've just dieed for the last like eight nine months for this you know natural contest. Let some research, potent researcher potentially fuck up your game day protocol for this, you know, research study, and like no one's going to sign up for that right, like everyone has

[bryan_boorstein]: 58:15

right,

[aaron_straker]: 58:15

their own like methodologies in in their tips and tricks or what their coach is having them do. No one's going to spend nine months of their life, you know, trying to do their best for their show. To have someone test some ontest method, you know, on them day off and then completely fuck

[bryan_boorstein]: 58:28

Yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 58:29

up their their stage appearance type thing, which I get. It makes complete

[bryan_boorstein]: 58:32

I think that's why this test specifically was done like the day. It it like

[aaron_straker]: 58:32

sense

[bryan_boorstein]: 58:37

measured them the day that they wait in for their competition before they started carloadating, and then they started car Blloadating afterwards and then they did them with the B. I. A, like twenty four hours later or whatever before they stepped on stage. So essentially what they were trying to measure was how much of that carbohydrate went intracellular versus extraceellular

[aaron_straker]: 58:56

exactly

[bryan_boorstein]: 58:56

And I don't know that that successfully, Um analyzeed that.

[aaron_straker]: 59:01

exact. Just I got from it as well

[bryan_boorstein]: 59:03

Yeah, cool, uh, well, I think the last thing to discuss today is a lot of this kind of proximity to failure stuff. And what you mentioned was that the the D. D. S guys had an episode on their channel, Um, which I actually have not listened to yet, Um. and then the Iron Culture guys had the one on their channel which I did listen to, and I also listened to the most recent one that came out on Aels channel. It was uh, almost two hours of him talking to the data driven guys about this idea of proximity to failure, and how far from failure can we really be and still be able to maximize gains, right, Um. And so I thought I always think Ael does like a really good job interviewing guests, and he asked a lot of the questions that I would want to ask to. Um. So I appreciate that, and um. Essentially, when we look at the proximity to failure, stuff it looks at this point like there's a couple of things to keep in mind. Um, First off is that you can absolutely make gains really far from failure. The compensation is that you now have to do more sets. So an example, when I put this pole on my story yesterday is you can do three sets of approximately your ten r. M. and you go mostly to failure. maybe a one rep from failure or something like that. And and that's thirty raps. hard work. or you can do six sets of five, which is with the exact same weight, So you're still going to use your ten r M. But instead of taking each set to the house, you're goingnna stop each set at five reps, So maybe that first set is a five, r i r. and then it's like a four and then a four and then a three and then a three or something like that. Right, So so you're still working relatively far from failure, but obviously it's getting a little bit harder as the sets go on. type thing. Um, yep, go ahead.

[aaron_straker]: 1:00:57

Is rest interval the same between the this pole

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:01:01

yeah. uh. that wasn't actually discussed in the Uh. in the podcast Like the day to German Guys didn't address rest time. The way that I would look at it is that the rest is probably slightly shorter. Um, I would say you know, maybe instead of three minutes it's it's two or something like that. Um, but when you're lifting at heavy loads, which was kind of that part of their argument, so so to backtrack a step. Essentially the the argument was that if you're taking a load that is a ten r m or heavier, every rep is effective, every rep, even the first one. and so ▁zach, put out an example And there was a study for this two that I actually read before listening to the episode where they compared. Uh, I believe it was thirty singles at seventy five or eighty percent. So think you know you're looking at your tenor. M. something along those lines, and you do thirty singles with a thirty second rest between each single, So none of those raps on their own are actually hard. but over the course of doing thirty raps with only thirty second rests in between, You know, psychologically is what ▁zach was saying Psychologically it's the hardest because you have to unrack the bar thirty times to just do one wrap right. Um, and so that's on like one end of the extreme, and then on the other end of the extreme, you have potentially like those three sets of ten where you're taking every set to failure. so both ways can work and I think even in that study it was relatively similar. I think maybe the three sets at

[aaron_straker]: 1:02:27

isssssss, same, just like compound barbal stuff, pretty much isssssss, same, just like compound barbal stuff, pretty much

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:02:28

ten did better than the thirty singles, but it way was close, right And then, when you take that way further and you do the six sets of five at the ten, r, m, uh, instead of the three sets of ten, then the the numbers are basically the same like hyperchrophes, is more or less even across the board, So at that point then it just becomes a decision on your part of. Do I want to do double the amount of sets, but not have to work nearly as hard, Or do I just want to do fewer sets, and and potentially work harder in each set? Um, and so beyond that. Like very specific example, it seems that this also then applies or is is affected by the type of movement that you're doing. So one thing that we have to keep in mind with the day to driven guys is that they come from a strength background, which means that the majority of the movements that they're doing or that are being tested in the lab, are these lengthened overload movements, Theirre bench presses, theirre squats. They're deadless theirre r. ▁ls, They, their overhead presses, and um, whatever, like a, a variety of different like lengthened overload movements And we know what compound Barbal freeway it doesn't have to be, though it could be a pendulum or a hack or whatever, two. and they still fit the mould of like a length and overload movement. right. So these types of movements that we know cause significantly more damage and significantly more fatigue. And that are hard from the beginning like you and I have even talked about. how like a set of ten r M on on hack squat, like by the time you get to five, you're already like Oh man, I'm in this thing like this is brutal. you know, so so like imagine doing six sets of that five versus three sets A of all out. Like both really suck. Um, but both can be effective, and then uh, the day to driven guys were kind of theorizing that. if you're going to try and apply this to movements that are short, overloaded, Um, like basically any type of back movement or a lot of arm work and shoulder work. Lateral

[aaron_straker]: 1:04:26

issssssssssssssssssssss. I mean, I see, you really hit the nail in the head issssssssssssssssssssss. I mean, I see, you really hit the nail in the head

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:04:27

raises stuff like that that. it's very likely that you can't get the same effect by being further from failure. Um that because of of where the muscle fails, because how, how much less fatigue is caused by it because of the fact that you could potentially do. Fuck in five sets of lateral raises every day for life, and you'd probably be okay like you wouldn't overtrain Um that it'. it's just different, so I think that you know when you look at these studies that are showing that you can, it is possible that you can make equal hypertrophy, being way far from failure. Those studies are done all on length and overload movements, and I'm not even here to argue with that like I think you know. for sure. there's no reason that you couldn't make progress at five or six r. i r on length and overlooad movements. It's just a matter then of like. Just because you can, does that mean you want to, And so at that point then you kind of have this this personal preference piece. Um, and then it even reminded me of of back in the day, Like twenty years ago there was a big program on Teenation that was ten by three and you would take your ten rat max and you would do ten sets of three with your ten r, M. and it's literally the same idea, Like everything seems to be thirty reps. That's like the magic number right, six sets to five, three sets of ten, ten sets of three. Whatever it is, it always somehow equals thirty reps. So it just goes to show that, like you know that ten by three protocol before the science was there to support it, it is now in retrospect being supported. But it's again that factor of like, Do you want to do ten sets, or do you just want to do three? Um, and so so From like a broad, very like ten thousand foot view, I think that that's interesting. I think that it opens up the doors of so many different possibilities of ways you can train effectively, and you know you can really begin to train for your psychology, as opposed to necessarily having to do what said influence or said Scientific study says you can kind of use the fact that hyperch you is so forgiving and find the way that you enjoy most.

[aaron_straker]: 1:06:27

there, Re know. Hypertrophy is a forgiving adaptation and there may be a most there, Re know. Hypertrophy is a forgiving adaptation and there may be a most optimal way to do things. But if you hate it and you don't want to be there, optimal way to do things. But if you hate it and you don't want to be there, optimality doesn't matter. right. Um, So like I said, optimality doesn't matter. right. Um, So like I said,

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:06:39

Yeah, I don't even know if it's optimal, though like six

[aaron_straker]: 1:06:41

well,

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:06:42

five might just be as good. you know.

[aaron_straker]: 1:06:43

I, I said. If there, if there was one

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:06:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 1:06:45

like, let's say there was one. I mean from a relative to absolute standpoint, Is it like it might be optimal, but like By what? a third of a percent that in a in an absolute standpoint, that means Fuckle. You know what I mean, so it's always really really interesting. Like the more I pay attention to the the research Like reviews in like the D D S Gues and stronger science. It. it all kind of comes back to like. How much does it really matter? I

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:07:10

yeah,

[aaron_straker]: 1:07:11

don't really fucking know. and it's really really interesting like I love it. but it always kind of comes back to. Like, uh, the kind of same big principles, right training you know with with inten with it with intent right, making sure you're covering leveraging over shortened overload stuff. Probably a little bit more of of the majority to be lengthened overload right, unless you're in like a metabolic sty, or sorry, Um, uh, yeah, a metabolic style training program like the the Ba, The Pillars are the pillars for a reason, And then we kind of just get people who go explore these things. We get these scientists and researchers provide us all this information to. I guess help continue to validate the pillars, and maybe some pillars over time will kind of decrease in importance. others will increase. Uh, and that's kind of the the beauty of science. Really?

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:07:58

y, y. I want to drop one other thing that I think you're going to find really interesting.

[aaron_straker]: 1:08:01

Yeah,

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:08:03

so it's regarding the the lengthened piece of the muscul, and I want to say I've thought about this before, but the way that ▁zach put it on that podcast just really kind of made me think even further and more inepth about it. so he said, At this point in the literature, we are quite confident that there is something about land thinned movements, lengthened overload training muscles at long muscle lengths. That that is is better

[aaron_straker]: 1:08:26

Sssssssssssssssssssss.

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:08:31

than not of for hyperchph, and he said, But what we don't know is whether it's training at long muscle lengths or it's setting the overload so that it's hardest in the length and position, And so I'll provide you an example. Um, to to kind of clarify this, so imagine if you had a leg extension machine that allowed you to get full kneeflection so you could essentially bring your heel all the way to your butt and then go through the range of motion from there, But in that example, assume the movement is still hardest in the short position, So you're taking the quad through its full range of motion. You're going heel to butt, but it's still hardest in the short position, so that would be training a muscle at long muscle lengths, but it wouldn't be overloaded in the length and position right. Alternatively, think about a regular leg extension set up where you're not getting full range of motion of the the quad, so it's stopping where your shin is may be vertical. but you can set your leg extension machine so that the bottom third of that range of motion is the hardest part. and then it sort of drops off as as you get to the short position of the movement where you, where your legs lock out. So he said, We don't know which of those is more important. Is it to overload that that bottom position and make that the hardest part? or is it that you just have to train the muscle at a long muscle length? But it doesn't exactly matter where it's overloaded. And so that kind of made me think, because I, I guess I inherently assumed that that it was. It makes no sense to me to believe that it was that it is overloaded in the lengthen position that the muscle is being stressed the most at the lengthened position when, in fact it could just be that you would just have to train the muscle through the lengthen position, Um, which would kind of change a lot of of what what we do with with length and overlooad movements It would. It would essentially negate the need for things like length and overload partials. Um, like I mean, so imagine in the in the the contrary example, Imagine that it is just that you have to overload the length and position and it really has nothing to do with with full range of motion at all. Well now, maybe the new overload becomes just like doing length and partials, like, Maybe you never do a full range of motion leg extension. You only do the bottom fifty percent because you can overload it there and it's heavy and your quads have to work harder to get out of the bottom, but you never really even have to go to the top. Um. So I think A like you could seriously, if the the research goes that way and it says that that's the case. You may have people five years from now, literally just doing length and partials only and not even doing the short position of movements, which would be kind of crazy, Um. versus experiencing. You know, it's just that the muscles to go through the full range of motion at the length and position, then that, then you still have benefit from from the short position. So I just thought that was really interesting and it kind of made my mind explode for a second.

[aaron_straker]: 1:11:43

Yeah, that's a really good way to put it Made Made my mind explode when I finallyught to what you how you were explaining. I was. Oh, oh yeah, but then like in practicality, I imagine five years in the future you're on the hack squad and you just go like asster grass to parallel back to as grass.

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:11:58

Yeah, yeah, exactly. yeah.

[aaron_straker]: 1:11:59

Talk about like a hell on earth. That would be just miserable. So so miserable. ▁zero relief, just puer pain, misery and sorrow.

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:12:10

right. but like where would it stop? Because would you just take an inclined dumbbell curl and you would just do like the bottom three inches? You know what I mean? Um like. So, so I don't know it's it's It's interesting for sure. My theory is that there is is some inherent advantage to the short position and there's probably some inherent advantage to full range of motion. But I, I don't know. it's just it's interesting the way he put it, and and I'm curious to kind of see more studies come out that that maybe me explore. that.

[aaron_straker]: 1:12:37

I agree it would be really cool to pay attention to, And it's a great. um. what's the word? I'm looking for? A great like thought. I guess by uh, by the D, D. S. guys. To just talk about that, it's something like I never even would have. I never moved across my mind, So it's just cool it did just to know people and like follow people who think of these sorts of things, So we. I can. we can just like benefit, cat, get the benefit of the of the cascade of their thoughts and stuff, which is cool.

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:13:02

Yeah, no, I love the way those guys think like. Even though they're primarily strength athletes, they have just a really good grasp on on the science and on the practicality of all of it, too. So

[aaron_straker]: 1:13:12

agreed. agreed. Yep. Anything else you want to add on this one, Brian

[bryan_boorstein]: 1:13:17

No, this turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be.

[aaron_straker]: 1:13:20

that seriously, and that always happens. Um, all right, guy. So for Brian and myself, thank you for listening is always. We will talk to you next week.