Making Gains as You Get Older | ETP#125

[Aaron Straker]: 0:30

Forget the intro again.

[Bryan]: 0:31

It's cool, you can clap and do it again.

[Aaron Straker]: 0:33

Yeah, I know. I just don't remember what the intro is. All right,

[Bryan]: 0:39

Welcome.

[Aaron Straker]: 0:39

maybe you know what? I'll just make up a new intro on the spot and maybe next week I can remember

[Bryan]: 0:43

you

[Aaron Straker]: 0:43

what

[Bryan]: 0:43

can

[Aaron Straker]: 0:43

my

[Bryan]: 0:44

remember

[Aaron Straker]: 0:44

intro

[Bryan]: 0:44

it

[Aaron Straker]: 0:44

is.

[Bryan]: 0:44

and get it right.

[Aaron Straker]: 0:45

Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, people of all ages, eat, train, prosper, proudly presents episode 125, making gains as you get older. Brian, can you kick us off with some updates, please?

[Bryan]: 1:00

That was an amazing intro. I think we should make that the standard going forward.

[Aaron Straker]: 1:09

We could do that.

[Bryan]: 1:10

Yeah. No, I actually do like the more professional one. I think we'll stick with that one if we can remember. We'll have to go back and listen. Anyway, I am full of updates today, guys. I feel like I'm overflowing with updates. We didn't have any yesterday. Or last week, we had Brandon Kempter on, which was awesome. Brandon was a great guest. Make sure you check that episode out. So my first update here is a reminder to Aaron and the rest of the ETP family that we will not have one next week as I am traveling to Breckenridge for my annual birthday trip into the mountains. This will be my third year in a row that I've gone into the mountains for my birthday in August here. And... This year I'm gonna be joined by my best friend from when I was six years old. We met when I was six, which has now got an interesting level of significance since my son is about to turn six. But I met this dude when we were six and he didn't speak any English and we became best friends through kindergarten, first grade, all the way up until 12 years old when his family moved him back to Switzerland. And we have remained in touch. I've been to Europe four times to see him. He's been back here. maybe four or five times. And he's here with his family, but he's gonna leave his family and go to the mountains with me for two days to hang out. And so I'm really excited about that. There won't be any ETP next week. And then moving on to my next update, you'll actually find this interesting, I think, Aaron, because our mutual friend, Mr. Mike T. Nelson, and I have been chatting on email back and forth. since I was on his podcast a couple months ago. And when I was on his podcast, we mostly went on there to discuss my one-arm training experiment and the results of that. But the conversation ended up meandering into cardio. Go figure. So Mike T. Nelson had a number of kind of insights. to help me along with improving the VO2 max side of my cardio since it seems like I've been quite successful at improving my aerobic base in one, two and three hour segments. I don't seem to be improving as much in the awful six to 10 minute zone, which not ironically was my worst workout zone when I competed in CrossFit. It was always that like six to 10 minute, like all out, sprint a mile, mile and a half type pace. That was always my worst. And here we are many years later, still kind of struggling with that same time domain. So Mike and I have been conversing. And as you may know, Aaron, he's a huge fan of the rower. He uses it in training. He uses it for assessments. And one of the assessments that he does on it a 2K row test. And the 2K row test is kind of unique in its ability to assess VO2 max in a somewhat accurate manner, similar to what like the one mile run test would do. But interestingly enough, I think that when you look at those two, different type of human would do better on a row versus on a run. And so I find it interesting that those two tests both can uniquely assess VO2 max. And I think there's some controversy there, at least in my case, like I went and I rode a 723, which Mike said was quite good. It puts me in about the 60th percentile of anybody that rows, like it's on the C2 rowing database or whatever. And it correlates according to their chart to a 47 VO2 max. which is like 12 points, 12 and a half points above what I scored on the actual metabolic cart, like proper VO2 max test. So that was interesting, but I do think if I were to go out and run a mile, I don't think that I would run the equivalent of what a 723 row is. Because I think that would have to be like a 630 mile or something like that. I don't know what the exact correlation would be. But anyway. That was really interesting to me. And I, actually I think it would be less than a 630 mile. Cause if you think, I don't know, I would have to look into this. Anyway, I got myself confused now. But I was thinking that like a six minute mile would be equivalent to like an eight minute pace on the rower, but maybe that's not true. Maybe a six minute mile would be like way faster than an eight minute pace on the rower for a 2K. But either way, so. Anyway, Mike may end up coaching me on cardio specifically starting in October. So this is, I went out and I bought a rower and I now own a rower. So my plan is that when it turns to winter here in Colorado and it's cold, that I won't be outside biking much and I hate biking on the trainer. It just feels so repetitive and it's just not my favorite thing to do. So I feel like I can bike twice a week, row twice a week and lift. four times a week and I'll have like a much more balanced kind of approach to fitness throughout that season. And Mike can program my cardio for me and essentially I think he's gonna use me as a case study and see if he can elicit some improvement in the VO2 max over the course of the time together. So that is two of my four updates. I am gonna take a break and let Aaron talk for a little bit and then we can bounce it back here.

[Aaron Straker]: 7:08

Yeah, so I think that's, I mean, one, I'm a big fan of coaching in general, right? I feel like I would be a little bit of hypocrite if I wasn't. I just feel like it's at the very worst case in people like you who are, you know, very well educated and have ton of anecdotal experience as well. It saves you from yourself. Right? Like it just, and I'm not saying that like you specifically Brian, I'm speaking at like a larger thing. Like we all have our own biases and especially when it comes to like coaching ourselves where, you know, like I would do things or let things slide for myself that I wouldn't with a client sort of thing because of, you know, the way we have a relationship with ourselves. And when you have a coach, it just, again, it saves you from yourself sort of thing. So I'm excited for, for once, you know, October hits, posts your, your bike race and stuff. And I'm sure we'll get tons of more updates on that. For me, kind of some training and body weight updates. My body weight is actually holding quite high, surprisingly. We did modify carbs in calories this week. Basically 50 carbs came out. We just removed them from one of the meals. But I am like subjectively leaner. And I have some potentials here. And for the listeners out there, I'm speaking like purely in my conjecture here. but I'm thinking it's potentially from pretty dramatic training volume increases in just kind of demand there. But I'm essentially not mad about it because I'm leaner, right? My waist measurement is smaller week over week. I'm subjectively leaner. I can feel it in my, with what I can pinch visually, but my body weight's really only like two and a half, three pounds down from my peak. So I'll take that. But I imagine this week or when I touch base next week, things will be a little bit different. With the training update that I kind of just said with much, I mean significantly longer training times and volumes, I'm still recovering like incredibly well. Legs will be... A little bit, I mean not a little bit, I would say like a six, six out of 10 sore for about like 48 hours and then now I have like a little bit of like lingering but I'll be fully recovered by the time we go to train legs again, upper body's recovering, you know, just as fast if not faster with a significant increase there and of course then the small caloric deficit now. That being said, taking me into my kind of second big or you know main point of the update. I've been doing the sauna every single day. 15 minutes every single day. So post-training, like immediately wrap up training, I have my post-workout meal at the gym, hang out for like 10 minutes, 15 minutes sauna, and then on non-training days are like essentially cardio mornings with sauna and like hot tub after. So I would imagine there's some impact role there with the increase in recovery capacity because of the sauna.

[Bryan]: 10:21

Mm-hmm. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, like we talked about last week, the sauna is all the rage these days. And something about that dry heat, I have a steam shower in my bathroom. Like it was built in when we bought the place, and I was obsessed with it for a while because of the benefits of heat. But I feel like it's not quite as beneficial as the sauna. I don't know. But. That's awesome. I'm glad that you've been doing that. It's kind of like a cool and of one experiment.

[Aaron Straker]: 10:53

Yeah, yeah, it has been. I was actually looking up, or actually Jenny sent me a Peter Attia post where he's

[Bryan]: 11:00

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:01

talking about like, hey, I had heard about the sauna, and what he said in this video was it'd become incredibly bullish on the sauna based off of pretty much irrefutable evidence that he felt based off that point. And what I thought was really wild was what he said was the MED, so like minimum effective dose four times per week, 20 minute sessions at 80 degrees Celsius. Coincidentally I'm like, all right, well, let me check what the sauna is at the body factory here at the gym. At the, there's like three levels you could sit. At the top level, there's two gauges about three feet apart, four feet apart. The lower ones at like 80, the upper ones at like 90. It is hot in there

[Bryan]: 11:48

Hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:48

and

[Bryan]: 11:48

Heh

[Aaron Straker]: 11:48

we're

[Bryan]: 11:48

heh

[Aaron Straker]: 11:49

doing

[Bryan]: 11:49

heh. Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 11:49

15 minutes and I don't think I can make 20 minutes. Like those last three minutes, I'm like, if I'm in there by myself, I get a little worried. Where I'm like,

[Bryan]: 12:00

Wow.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:00

if I pass out, there's no one in here to like pull me out sort of

[Bryan]: 12:03

Well,

[Aaron Straker]: 12:03

thing.

[Bryan]: 12:04

maybe move down a level. Start at like the level that's like 80, not 90, you know?

[Aaron Straker]: 12:10

Well, sorry, when you're sitting on the third tier, you're

[Bryan]: 12:13

It's

[Aaron Straker]: 12:13

pretty

[Bryan]: 12:14

like

[Aaron Straker]: 12:14

much,

[Bryan]: 12:14

half, it's half and

[Aaron Straker]: 12:15

it's

[Bryan]: 12:15

half.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:15

like halfway, yeah, yeah.

[Bryan]: 12:17

But what if you went to the second tier?

[Aaron Straker]: 12:19

then it would be under 80.

[Bryan]: 12:21

Ooh, that's a problem.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:23

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 12:23

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:23

so I was like pretty I was like damn well, I mean we've talked about this on the podcast before some of peter at is like his Recommendations or his baselines are kind of aggressive. You know, we were

[Bryan]: 12:33

Yes,

[Aaron Straker]: 12:33

talking about the

[Bryan]: 12:34

for

[Aaron Straker]: 12:34

grip

[Bryan]: 12:34

sure.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:34

strength one and I was like I cannot do that Um,

[Bryan]: 12:37

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:39

but it has been it's been i've been enjoying it let's put it that way And then the last thing I have here is my sleep has been like historically very good

[Bryan]: 12:49

Hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 12:50

Over the past few weeks and the only thing I've really I mean yes calorie deficit has come in Unfortunately, my later meals are still generally at 10 p.m. Will be it'll be after 9 when we wrap this podcast I still have a meal to eat But the sleep has been noticeably better and I was kind of like digging looking for like a mechanism there and what I found Was it it's increased melatonin production from the sauna? And another again conjecture like anecdote, I have been, while I have been sleeping really, really well, I do feel like quite groggy in the morning. And I know that's what happens when I take like a, even like two and a half milligrams of melatonin or something. And then when I got my genetic testing done, there was one of the, like my variations was like a very, very slow processing or metabolization of melatonin.

[Bryan]: 13:46

Hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 13:46

So those all do kind of correlate, but the sleep has been quite nice. And it's probably another reason my recovery has been quite

[Bryan]: 13:54

Yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 13:54

good as well.

[Bryan]: 13:55

that would be interesting to know how much your melatonin is increasing through the use of the sauna versus like taking it externally.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:04

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 14:04

But yeah, we'll never know that. I've personally never really liked melatonin either. I feel like it gives me kind of an outer body experience while I'm sleeping. I almost feel like I have removed myself from my body and I'm like watching myself sleep. It's kind of creepy. And

[Aaron Straker]: 14:19

That

[Bryan]: 14:19

then

[Aaron Straker]: 14:19

does

[Bryan]: 14:19

I wake

[Aaron Straker]: 14:20

sound

[Bryan]: 14:20

up

[Aaron Straker]: 14:20

creepy.

[Bryan]: 14:20

also feeling like very groggy.

[Aaron Straker]: 14:23

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 14:26

Cool, well should I move on to more updates?

[Aaron Straker]: 14:28

Yeah, I think that's it for

[Bryan]: 14:28

Cool,

[Aaron Straker]: 14:28

me.

[Bryan]: 14:30

I'll try to be quick here. Two of them are really quick biking updates. I did a Chapman climb a few days ago. This one is, so last week, or two weeks ago, I talked about NCAR, which was 1.2 miles and a 6% grade. Chapman is 2.5 miles and a 7% grade, and it doesn't stop. It literally just goes up at a 7% grade for 2.5 straight miles. It took me just under 25 minutes and I spent the entire 25 minutes in zone five. I actually didn't know that I was capable of doing that. So this may be like a relatively new adaptation for me. But usually I hit zone five and then I have to bounce out of it within, you know, a couple of minutes or I feel like I'm going to die. I just like sat in it. for 25 minutes and that was pretty wild and pretty awful. And then surprisingly, I had one high resting heart rate reading, like a couple hours later, I looked at my watch and it was like 54 or something like that for resting heart rate and it was 43 earlier that morning. And then the next resting heart rate reading it took. Later that evening was back to normal and like the low to mid 40s. So that was really cool. I feel like my body is really creating some adaptations to the level of stress that I'm putting it under because this is in comparison to one of the first really hard rides I did when we were back in San Diego in March. I did a long ride for me at the time that was 25 miles and my heart rate was up 17 beats for the next 36 hours. So this time my heart rate just like handled it. went back to normal and I actually felt recovered the next day and lifted and stuff like that. So, um, so that was pretty cool. Yesterday, I did my longest ride ever. It was a 40 miles, but it was super slow, steady state. I went with a buddy of mine who is doing the bike race with me in October. Um, but he has never done anything over 20 miles before. And so I've been pushing him to try to increase his mileage before we do 50 in October. And so he came out with me and I just kind of went at his pace. Uh, my average heart rate was 112. And so that was kind of cool that I was able to make it 40 miles, which took just under three hours with him and, and just kind of like chill. And it felt like nothing really. Um, so yeah, I'm really just kind of ready for the 50 mile race. I think like at this point. I'm gonna go into the 50 mile race and aside from working harder, it's just gonna feel like another day going out biking, which was kind of my goal over the last few months of doing all this preparation. So yeah, two more quick updates. My body weight is sort of stable after I talked about it last month. that it had gone down below 190. I've been able to work it back up into the 190s and it's been mostly around 191, 192. This morning it was 190.5, which is one of the lowest ones I've seen since it dropped below 190. So I'm feeling good about that. At least I've figured out my fueling and it seems like my subjective sense of satiety is matching what's actually happening. So that's cool. And then the final update, which I'm really excited about, is that I have decided to change my own training to a full body routine for the moment. This was a decision that was born out of a literal moment where I was about to do a leg workout two days ago. And I was like, if I do this leg workout, my quads are gonna be so sore for the next four days. and I'm not gonna be able to do my biking. I'm gonna be limping around everywhere. I'm gonna really just have like lower quality of life. And I feel at this point, given that I've discussed that biking is the priority until this bike race in October, that I should be training in a manner that supports my primary goal. And so in that moment, instead of doing five hard sets of quads to failure with partials and what I had on the agenda for the day, Um, I switched things up and I designed myself a full body routine, literally in like 15 minutes. I went in true coach and, and added this thing in and, uh, now, and then I did a full body workout and so now for the next, I don't know, until the bike race and whatever it's six to eight, six, seven, eight weeks at this point, um, I'm just going to be doing a three times a week full body routine and it's got one exercise per muscle group. Um, most muscle groups are hit most days, but I think some of them are hit twice a week instead of three. Like yesterday or yeah two days ago when I did this it was leg curl, hack press. T-bar row, chest, cable chest press, hammer curl, and cable lateral raise. So basically everything except biceps was hit with one exercise, and that's kind of similar to what I'm gonna do today, or I mean, except triceps. So same thing I'm gonna do today, but I think again, this time it's gonna be except biceps, and there's gonna be like a tricep movement in there. So yeah, it's cool, I did the workout, it felt great, I got a great stimulus. and I didn't get sore. And that was really nice to not have to have my quads be shattered for half the week. So that's my update at the moment. And for anyone following my program in Brian's program, the full body routine will be reflected in the new Meso. I just don't wanna stop this Meso in week four and. Whatever. So yeah, starting in two or three weeks, the app will be updated with the new full body program. We'll do that for five to eight weeks, somewhere in that range, and then move back to some sort of more hypertrophy-based split program.

[Aaron Straker]: 20:43

I think that is a, the decision you made was a victory over your own ego, which I think

[Bryan]: 20:49

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 20:49

at this point in our lives generally is a positive thing.

[Bryan]: 20:54

Yeah, for sure. No, I'm really excited about it. It kind of has reinvigorated me in training lifting again anyway, knowing I'm not just demolishing myself.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:03

Yeah, especially when the goal has shifted temporarily.

[Bryan]: 21:07

Yep.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:09

Ready to get into the episode?

[Bryan]: 21:10

Let's do it, buddy.

[Aaron Straker]: 21:12

Great. So, this episode was kind of inspired, I mean, I won't even say kind of inspired, inspired by numerous clients of mine. But the first one that kind of kicked it off, I have a very recent new client, Josh, he came to me with very explicit goals and I love that because from, you know, kind of my background, the way I am, I love when we have objective things that we can work towards. And he was like, Aaron, you know, I'm turning 50 years old and I think we have like five, five or six months or something like that still. And he's like, I want to be sub 10% for my 50th birthday, you know, and like, this is what I've been doing. This is my history. Like, can we make it happen sort of thing? And I was like, yes, I love this. He's super into it. Super diligent. He's actually coming from a more like carnivore keto background that he's been doing. And he's like, I think it potentially just kind of like run its course. in my life, I may need to start introducing some carbohydrate again, but I'm going to defer to you. So that was kind of like the kind of kickstart of it. And then through this week's check in, I've just kind of, I have a handful of clients who, like another one that kind of came to mind, who's 56. And he's like, hey, you know, job priority. took my job and career, took the priority. I let my health kinda go on the back burner. I'm ready to like change that. And he's been smashing, like training super hard. We're pushing 20 pounds down in like seven weeks. So like really,

[Bryan]: 22:49

That's

[Aaron Straker]: 22:49

really good

[Bryan]: 22:49

awesome.

[Aaron Straker]: 22:49

progress. Yeah, and tons of improvements on the health marker side of things too. And I tell them, I share this with my clients who are older, that it inspires me because that's one of my, I would say, biggest personal fears is the how much longer can I do this? Having this realization that, I mean, sure, my youth or however you want to frame it is, those years are... to my kind of, I guess I could say incorrect assumptions are going to be sun setting or off soon. And then just seeing it from these kinds of like that's but that's not the case. You know, I've seen people who are in their early 50s still in amazing shape. And I could still have 18 years of this sort of thing. And I put a story up on my socials, kind of speaking about this, and we got a really good question from someone who listens to the podcast, was like, hey, this would be awesome if you guys could talk about it on the podcast, because I'm getting into my lifting journey, or more into it now in my late 30s, and sometimes I feel like this ship has proverbially sailed on me already. So obviously we talked to Brian and we thought it would be a really good episode to cover.

[Bryan]: 24:10

Yeah, that, um, so the, the age thing, we were confused in the beginning of the show. I think you said, so you were talking about your client who was 49, but it was the Instagram person that was 39 that submitted the question.

[Aaron Straker]: 24:23

Yes, yes, sorry.

[Bryan]: 24:24

Okay. That was, okay. Got it. And I think the Instagram person also said they had a five years of hypertrophy training. Right.

[Aaron Straker]: 24:32

I don't remember off the top of my head, but

[Bryan]: 24:34

I think

[Aaron Straker]: 24:34

yeah.

[Bryan]: 24:34

that was the number or five years of training going into it or whatever. And they're worried that at 39 that they're not going to be able to make any more gains.

[Aaron Straker]: 24:41

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 24:41

And so yeah, that's, that's interesting. And I remember, I reflect back on when I was a youth, kind of what you were saying. And I was very fearful of the period of time where I believed I was going to stop making gains. I, I was so tied to this thing that I didn't know what I was gonna do. I was like, this is my passion. If I'm not making gains, like what's my purpose kind of thing. And that's like a silly thought when you're in your 20s, because as you get older, you realize that like your purpose meanders and there's many different like hats that you wear throughout the course of life. But I remember being very fearful of that time. And then I start thinking about 39 now and I'm almost 41. And it's not that I look at 39 and like, oh, this young baby over here has so much, you know, living to do or anything like that. But there are plenty of gains to be made. And especially because he's still pretty early into his journey. Coming from my perspective at 39, I had been training for 24 years. And so the amount of gains that I probably had left to make from 39, maybe we're still there. Like they're, they're probably, I don't think I, I wouldn't be comfortable saying there were no more gains to be had by any means because Alberto Nunez is my agent and he's certainly still making gains. Uh, we'll touch on Jeff Al Alberts here in a little bit as he's a bit older. Um, but you know, five years into your journey. I don't know exactly whether those five years have been as optimal as possible, but my guess is that just by more optimizing things, there's plenty of gains to be had between 39 and 49 and possibly even beyond that.

[Aaron Straker]: 26:37

Yeah, I would agree with that too, especially it really is relative to what your information sources are in as a, let's call it as a lifter, how you kind of progress through those information sources and not to kind of sound conceited or anything like that. But for people who do listen to the podcast, I feel very confident that the information and advice that Brian and I provide is like. quite sound, especially with, you know, full of context and within the proper application and stuff. But when people get into the fitness, you know, life or whatever, many, many times it's through like influencers or things like that or maybe I mean God forbid like YouTube ads or whatever and a lot like I would say 70 80 percent of the information is like piss poor you know and it takes reps in sometimes like years I mean probably I wouldn't even say often or sorry I wouldn't even say sometimes I would say often years of like sifting through poor information sources to find like decent information sources and I know that was the case for myself. So I think it's hard to say because like I said, I've been training like I've been training 20 years, right? Of those 20, maybe like nine were like really, really good and productive sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 28:08

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, it's interesting to think about the CrossFit days and whether those were productive or not, because I do feel like there was a somewhat significant strength increase for me in... the slow lifts and obviously in the fast lifts because I had never done them before CrossFit, but the slow lifts definitely got stronger over that period of time. I don't know whether they would have gotten stronger anyways just through like becoming a man, you know, going from being 26 to being 36 or whatever over that period of time. But yeah, those things, one of the main points that I was gonna make in this episode, and I think I'll just bring it up now as I think it fits, is that When we look at studies of increases as we age in the strength sport or physique sport or any of these kind of weightlifting based sports, what we see is that explosive strength slash speed tops out in your like mid 20s, maybe late 20s. But when you're talking about Olympic lifting and sprinting, like you just don't see people in their 30s. winning explosive events pretty much anywhere. But when it comes to slow strength, like deadlifts and squats and bench presses and overhead presses and things like that, or like controlled hypertrophy training type movements, you see these increase. all the way up through your 40s and even into your early 50s before those kind of like level off or begin moving backwards depending on, I guess, how you treat yourself and natural causes of aging and all these things. But I think that hypertrophy, the idea of getting bigger muscles and separating that from getting stronger. I believe that one is much more aligned with the increases in strength than the increases in explosiveness. And being able to put muscle on your frame is really just dependent upon being in the hormonal milieu of a slight surplus and optimizing some certain lifestyle variables and our muscles will hypertrophy. So I don't think that that's, you know, limited or mitigated by age up to a point that is much later than being 39 for sure.

[Aaron Straker]: 30:36

While we're on the kind of subject there, I know we're my kind of, again, this is pretty much my conjecture, things that I've seen. If you were to put some numbers or an approximation of numbers, where do you think those numbers would kind of start shifting? Where is like the cell replication speed? things, hormones decreasing, like where would you, if you had to, and for all of the listeners out there, these are just Brian and I's kind of

[Bryan]: 31:07

Mm-hmm.

[Aaron Straker]: 31:08

anecdotal kind of perceptions, where would you kind of put that? Your body really, your age really starts working against you.

[Bryan]: 31:15

Yeah, I mean, I think they happen probably at different levels and at different rates. So,

[Aaron Straker]: 31:22

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 31:23

I mean, like, there's probably, you know, some that begin to decline pretty significantly, like some aspects of fast-twitch muscle fiber response probably begin to decline in your mid or late 20s. But like that's because of that explosive, like, speed strength stuff. That doesn't really affect your ability to... make hypertrophy happen though. And we know it doesn't affect your ability to increase raw strength on like, you know, the slow lifts. So that would be like the first sign of decline is this thing happening in your like mid or late 20s in those fast twitch fibers, but it has no impact on whether you can gain muscle or not as you get older. So when you actually start seeing things that affect your direct ability to like gain muscle and things like that, you know, maybe you see a little bit of testosterone decline. throughout the decades starting in your 30s. But again, that can be mitigated through a number of lifestyle adaptations and TRT if needed. But also probably doesn't play like a huge role in the sense that it's kind of been theorized that you could go from. you know, 300 testosterone, which would be on the lower side to 800, which would be on the higher side. And you might get like two to four pounds of muscle out of it or something along those lines. So that's not going to like none of these things individually are, in my opinion, are going to move the needle so much that it either complete comp. keeps you from making progress or allows you to make progress so much more rapidly. They're all little teeny adjustments within the system as a whole. But as far as when mitochondrial function or biogenesis is unable to occur at a faster rate than it's breaking down, I would guess that's somewhere into the 50s. mid to late 50s. I don't really, that's a really random guess, I don't know.

[Aaron Straker]: 33:27

That's exactly what I was gonna say, like 50, 58 sort of thing is where I would, you know, theorize that even with a lot of the best practices and stuff, like the time is taking its toll. And that doesn't mean that like your gains are gonna like disappear, but even with like consistent, you know... um, routine and in regiment and sort of thing. Like you may just start having these like small declines and regressions as father time is kind of taking its toll. That being said, I did meet a guy here who was 60 and dude was an amazing fucking shape. He was jacked, absolutely jacked. And, um, yeah, he said he was 60. I mean, don't get me wrong. He was on TRT, but I literally thought he was maybe like 44. and he had just turned 60 years old.

[Bryan]: 34:19

Yeah, one of the most incredible things about lifting weights is I think its ability to make you look decades younger than your actual age. Once you start getting into those areas where decades become a little more ambiguous. I think at 40, it's still like, hey, you're probably not like 55 and you're also probably not 25. But I think when you get to be... Like 60. Yeah, it can be 15 years like you can be 60 and kind of look like you're in your late 40s And you kind of see that across like both genders Which is which is pretty cool, but lifting weights is one of those things where I think it really has that effect on Aging in such a way that almost nothing else does I mean? You know take the head away the head is kind of its own thing and it's hard to control exactly what's happening With your skin like weightlifting isn't gonna help your skin unfortunately at least in your face, but it does help your skin like in the rest of your body. And so it makes you look tighter and you can wear clothes that younger people would wear and you're able to kind of pull this look off that is like a really cool thing when you get older and still have people say or feel like you're young. And I've seen the same thing. There's a bodybuilder who's like a decade older than... Jeff Alberts, I think his name is Marshall Johnson, a natty. If it's not Johnson, one of his names is definitely Marshall. But this dude I think is 62, and he is still on stage competing in natural bodybuilding. And it is insane. I mean, make sure, like look this guy up if you guys haven't yet at some point after the podcast. I think it's Marshall Johnson. But it just goes to show you that it- man, you can really make gains and keep gains at any age. And he is a natural bodybuilder. He's not on TRT or anything like that. So impressive things for sure.

[Aaron Straker]: 36:20

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely people out there doing it, which is, again, you have the blueprint, you know the ability for it to happen is there, which is really the kind of the whole crux of this episode. So a couple of the notes that I have here that I wanted to transition into, the perceived difficulty for people, and I get this when I get a client application, like, oh, you know, I just... I don't have the metabolism that I had when I was 26 anymore. Insert very common sort of, I don't want to call them excuses, but like perceived obstacles, right? Or perceived physiological obstacles. But it's easy to say, hey, my metabolism did X sort of thing. But in reality, the biggest difficulty is... changing the habits that have been practiced for very long periods of time now that you're like 45 sort of thing where if we were catching you your second year out of college where you were just settling into like let's call it Like real adulthood They haven't been you know cemented but now you've literally have two decades of Coming home from work pouring the glass of scotch, you know having having disposable income because you've been successful and worked hard in going to the Italian dinner on Friday night with your husband or your wife, having two glasses of wine. Like a lot of it's effective, the spoils of Western lifestyle and financial freedom and kind of the caloric creep that comes along with that.

[Bryan]: 38:10

Yeah, no, I mean, really great point. And also, I think a perfect time to reference that long study that was done that watched people from like 20 to 60. And it was a sponsor, I believe. And found that there was no drastic or significant decrease in metabolism until you got into like your mid to late 60s or something along those lines. So it really is like any weight gain that occurs is the result of lifestyle. So yeah, that's reassuring and also kind of depressing at the same time, I guess.

[Aaron Straker]: 38:45

Yeah, because it's like you work to have these like nice things or these like, I mean, sure, let's call them nice things, but then it's these things that you work for, you indulge upon but then help to foster this maybe body image, weight, body composition, whatever you want to call it that you don't love. And then the real work is, I don't want to say like complete removal of these things, but controlled. abstinence or better, more balanced inclusion of them to then, you know, re-achieve something that you had previously had, or maybe you're doing it for the first time sort of thing. But that is like the thing that I find, you know, the most common, especially with clients who, you know, again, who have been successful and like, yeah, it's, we can't have a 2,000 calorie dinner, you know, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. and expect fat loss or not

[Bryan]: 39:42

All right.

[Aaron Straker]: 39:42

to expect fat accumulation to occur sort of thing.

[Bryan]: 39:46

Yeah, I think it's probably important to acknowledge as well that the precision by which you need to approach things as you get older probably increases. And like you and I can reflect on the days of drinking beers four times a week until you basically just stumble home and fall asleep and eating fried food and crap for every meal and still making progress. And yeah, those are the things that... that you can get away with when you're young. And maybe if that's the way you live, that might be why you're like, oh, I can't make any gains anymore because I'm in my 30s or in my 40s or whatever. But if you change the way you live, then you'll probably realize that you actually can make probably better gains because you're finally giving your body what it needs to succeed.

[Aaron Straker]: 40:37

Yeah, exactly. And that's something that we definitely wanted to cover. There, we won't lie and say they're not like physiological changes and stuff. Cell replication, you know, slows your muscle protein synthesis efficiency, wanes so you need, you know, a higher protein intake as you

[Bryan]: 40:55

Right?

[Aaron Straker]: 40:55

age because your ability

[Bryan]: 40:56

That's a good

[Aaron Straker]: 40:56

to

[Bryan]: 40:57

point.

[Aaron Straker]: 40:57

convert it, you know, isn't as good as it once was. But it's, your margins for success do get smaller, right? And what that requires is a tighter control of things. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but what you could get away with at 25 in terms of lack, or fewer hours of nights of sleep, alcohol intake, more, let's call them free meals, untracked meals, fast, whatever you want to call it, like non-optimal meals 20 years down the road, while you can obtain the same amount of results. your margins of air are significantly smaller in the other kind of like, what's the word I wanna call them, like auxiliary pieces that go into it with like diet, recovery, sleep, and those sorts of things.

[Bryan]: 41:50

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, it's also like kind of easier to be more dialed in because your life generally is going to be more structured as you get older and you're going to have more money slash resources to be able to eat better food than you would if you were like back in college. So there's certainly like these physiological things that are slightly working against you, but there's a lot of, you know, lifestyle components that can work with you if you kind of give them their due credence, you know.

[Aaron Straker]: 42:20

Yeah, I think a big proponent of it is, I don't wanna call them necessarily values, but interests in things that you value. Let's put it that way. Because for many of us, when you're in your 20s, there's still that, there's a lure to going out, potentially finding, let's call it a spouse, mate, whatever you wanna say. Those parts of life are alluring. then generally they kind of run its course and you're not as interested in those things anymore. So there does seem to be like a lower barrier to distractions in your like late 30s, 40s, those sorts of things because you feel you've lived that part of life and you're kind of moving, hopefully, potentially, moved on from it. So that does kind of lower that barrier to entry of those sorts of things.

[Bryan]: 43:15

Yep, yep. Well, moving on to kind of another, I think important consideration as you get older and you're lifting towards improving hypertrophy or strength or whatever it is, is your body does like kind of just dry up and age. And so injuries can become more common. I think you need to be a little bit more conscious of the way that you move. Warming up can help. I still am not like personally really a big warmup guy. I still show up and my warmup is the weight that I'm gonna do for, you know. 33% of the weight I'm gonna do basically is like how I start. If I'm gonna do 600 pounds, I start with 200 and I just do some reps there. Start with the 100 pound, or if you're gonna get to the 100 pound dumbbells, I start with the 30s or 40s, you know? And that's how I warm up. I'll do like 12 to 15 reps of that first movement, really kind of stretch it out, almost use the movement as mobility kind of. And so everyone has their own way that they like to warm up. I know... I've heard people that are a decade older than me talk about how they need to get their heart rate up. They need to warm their body up, like their core temperature before they begin lifting things. And so there may come a point where that becomes something that I need to do. Like maybe I need to get on the rower for six minutes or. walk some stairs or something along those lines just to get the heart rate up. But I think that how you warm your body up and prepare yourself can play a huge role in the quality of your workout, but also in the ability to remain injury free. And then this just progresses into the importance of how you perform your reps when you're doing them. Because the risk of injury increases. the closer and closer you get to failure, your central nervous system begins to fatigue and you're more likely to have a slip in your focus and execution. And so the more that you can create movement patterns that... brace you with safety at the transition point, I think is really important. And the transition point being, when you lower yourself down into a rep, the transition is as you then come out of the bottom and ascend back up. So you can think about squatting down, you're at the bottom, pausing briefly and coming back up instead of ballistically bouncing out of the bottom, which is something that we would often do in our 20s and be fine. But I could see that being an issue, and you know, as we get older. So like looking at Jeff Alberts, I keep bringing him up for anyone who isn't aware. Make sure you check him out He is amazing. He's 51 or 52 at this point. He's been lifting for 37 years incredible physique incredible success in natural bodybuilding and One of the things that keeps happening with him because I follow him pretty closely on his stories and stuff is he keeps tweaking his low back on the hackpress machine that that I have, the exact same model. So he and I have the same machine. And now twice in the last year, he's gone down to the bottom of the squat and as he begins to ascend up, something happens in his low back and he'll like kind of go into it on the story. He'll show you the video. And I don't have any great things. Like he's a veteran bodybuilder. It's not like I can be like, oh, you should do this differently or you should do that differently, you know? But like, I think Jeff Alberts is probably gonna reach a point like he has with many movements where maybe a movement just isn't worth it anymore. And so you'll hear Jeff say that he doesn't do this movement or he doesn't do that one or he's found this one to be like feels better for his body or whatever it is. And so these type of adjustments are things that just inevitably are gonna arise as you get older and you accumulate more injuries and re-injuries occur. And like, you just need to be constantly adaptable to change. you can't be tied to a movement as you age. You can't just be like, hey, I bench squat dead. Like that's what I do, you know? Because then you do end up very injured and quality of life can suffer from what I understand. Like I could imagine it being quite low if you're injured all the time. And so yeah, the great thing about hypertrophy training is that there's many tools for the job. And if an exercise isn't working for you at the moment, then you can swap it out and another one can train that musculature quite as, almost as well or as well.

[Aaron Straker]: 47:50

I'm so glad you brought that up because I do really think that right there is a massive facet to longevity and making good progress like deep into your 40s, 50s, anything. It's staying injury free so you can actually show up and train. That is where the individual variation that comes in is huge because there's going to be some people who have great femur lengths. those sorts of things where they can back squat and they feel great and it feels good on their joints like, you know, well into their forties. Like there's other people, like I haven't really back squat in like five, probably five years now, you know, outside of a handful of times. It just hurts. It doesn't feel good. You know, it hurts my knees, hurts my lower back and I don't get a good stimulus in my quads where I've just replaced it with a hack squat. And lo and behold, like I've made the best progress ever. So identifying those things for you personally, and then getting those victories over your ego, if you do have any kind of emotional or ego attachment to certain movements, because like Brian said, there's multiple, multiple exercises to target and provide stimulus for whatever selected musculature you're looking to provide stimulus to.

[Bryan]: 49:13

Yep. Cool. Well, so another point I wanted to make was just that newbie gains can happen at any age. And I know this person asked in the question has five years experience, so they would be beyond newbie gains. But for anyone that is older and considering getting started, if you don't work out, you're probably not listening to our podcast. But. But if you know somebody that works out or would like to work out and you're trying to convince them that, you know, hey, you're not too old to do this. Newbie gains really can happen at any age. And so I have two quick anecdotes or stories to share. One was, um, I was listening to a podcast where they were talking about a study done on over 70 year old women who had not lifted before. And uh, they gained like 2.5% additional lean body mass over the course of, it was pretty long either like six to 12 months, something like that. But at 70 plus years old, to be able to gain 2.5% more lean body mass is huge. And I think can change quality of life for somebody at that age. And then another one, there was, I think I've even talked about this on the podcast, but, In You Go San Milan was talking that, I think it was a Tia's podcast, talking about a guy that he knew where he was a smoker and obese until he was 40. And then he dropped the cigarettes, took up biking, and now in his 70s, his metabolic panel and his VO2 max and all that stuff is better than it was in his 40s. And so it just shows that like, you know, it doesn't, you don't have to start early to reap the benefits of exercise. And so this guy started in his 40s, those women started in their 70s, like, you know, any age is a good age.

[Aaron Straker]: 51:09

Yeah. The, well, the, do you have anything else on the back end of that one? I kind of wanted to wrap the podcast up with, uh, this particular story.

[Bryan]: 51:17

Let me, one more thing is just to add that the age groupers now is like a real thing in pretty much any sport in pursuit. So that this isn't like a discussion about how you can continue gaining muscle mass. This is literally just like, Hey, if you want to compete in something as you get older, which is can be a driving force and a motivational factor for people. You, there are age group stars as they do in CrossFit, you know, there's 35 to 40, 40 to 45, 45 to 50, 50 to 55, like all the way up to 65 plus. And they have the same thing in cycling races, in triathlons, in physique sport. Like that guy Marshall Johnson, I did confirm by the way, his name is Marshall Johnson. Look him up. He's in his sixties. He is a savage. He still wins like natural bodybuilding competitions in the masters. And so I don't know exactly how those ages are separated, but literally at any age, you can find competition for your age group. And so I know for me, that's something that I'm excited about as I get older too.

[Aaron Straker]: 52:22

Yeah, that one is it finding just it that I feel and I don't want to kind of alienate anyone that kind of potentially a little bit of camaraderie potentially a little bit of competition I feel like is just very like central to like the male kind of I don't call it ethos but

[Bryan]: 52:40

The psyche.

[Aaron Straker]: 52:41

psyche yeah sort of thing it's. Oftentimes very, very negative through like your formative years and stuff, but I feel like on the back end of that can be much, much more positive as opposed to negative there. The thing that I wanted to wrap up with, and this is my favorite story on this topic, there is a lady on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is TrainWithJoan. I'd say at the very youngest, she's like 76-ish, potentially older. She didn't get into lifting in healthy lifestyle until I believe she was like 74, something like that. And she is in an absolutely amazing shape. Like

[Bryan]: 53:25

She's jacked.

[Aaron Straker]: 53:26

she is jacked.

[Bryan]: 53:27

Yeah, yeah,

[Aaron Straker]: 53:28

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 53:28

yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 53:29

and I think like that there is the ultimate blueprint, right? This lady lived literally like six, six and a half plus decades of like not a healthy life, like obese sort of thing, or not, sorry, I'm sorry, not obese, just. overweight and then decides like to make a change right obviously she had very good help with like very knowledgeable people and stuff and it's literally like one of the most amazing things she's an incredible shape I'm pretty sure I've seen her dead lifting like 315 plus at a very you know at an age where you I didn't think that was actually possible anymore. She's amazing. That's one of my favorite Instagram accounts just to like as the algorithm will like show me stuff and I'm like, yes, what is this lady like crushing now? And it's super, super inspiring. So if you are someone who's like older and listening to the podcast, go follow along. Like that is one of my favorite stories like in this that it doesn't matter. Like you can start at any age. and improve the quality of life of the remaining, however many decades, or potentially, you know, unlock something in your life that you had previously not been able to, but there is never, it is never too late to start sort of thing and reap the benefits of the quality of life improvements in how you feel, how you sleep, and how you approach the day.

[Bryan]: 54:58

Yeah, that is well said and she has 1.8 million followers. So

[Aaron Straker]: 55:03

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 55:04

you can also grow an Instagram profile at any age.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:08

Yeah, yeah, right. Like I can guarantee you that lady's like her 70s are probably some of the most incredible years of her life. And she's

[Bryan]: 55:16

Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:16

like a, like a big Instagram influencer, like doing it well, helping people. I mean, it's,

[Bryan]: 55:23

great. Yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:24

I love that. I love

[Bryan]: 55:25

She's

[Aaron Straker]: 55:25

she's

[Bryan]: 55:25

an

[Aaron Straker]: 55:25

like,

[Bryan]: 55:25

author too. Her profile says she wrote a book as well. So,

[Aaron Straker]: 55:28

Perfect.

[Bryan]: 55:29

yeah.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:31

Anything else on this one, Brian?

[Bryan]: 55:33

No, that was fun.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:34

Yeah, this was a really, really good episode. Guys, if you enjoyed the podcast, please do let us know. You can ping Brian or I on Instagram. And with that, we will talk to you next week.

[Bryan]: 55:44

Two weeks.

[Aaron Straker]: 55:45

Ah, fu-