New Year Instagram Q&A | ETP#2

00:00:01  Welcome to the Eat Train Prosper podcast. We provide you sustainable training principles for strength and building muscle effective nutrition practices for improving and maintaining a lean physique and practical lifestyle habits for becoming a champion of your own health Fulton side and Out hosted by Aaron straker and Bryan boorstein.

00:00:24  Welcome back to episode 2 of the E train Prosper podcast today. What school is we have a little bit of a end of year 2020 Instagram Q&A. So we have some nice questions that some of her followers on Instagram sent in to us if we're going to talk over answer so that you know, you guys can have a really nice just to good set of questions or answers to questions moving into the new year about, you know, large kind of encompassing nutrition and fitness questions, but before we get into that Brian, why don't you tell me a little bit around what's new with you is training with me with your nutrition and a little bit of a year-end recap.

00:00:59  Yeah, totally. It's been a wild Year, huh? I built a home gym. So that's the the big take away from me. The biggest the biggest win of the year was a super dope home gym in one of the things that I began doing also during quarantine was training twice a day, but basically with the once a day program, so essentially taking a big compound movement body part focus and putting that into the the a.m. Session and then later on in the day coming back after had some food and doing a p.m. Session essentially. It's like to 30 to 40 minute sessions instead of one like maybe 90-minute session and I've really, you know, enjoy that and embraced it and it's been so good for me. But throughout I guess the process of implementing this, you know, beginning in March April and moving forward.

00:01:55  It just became a lot like it's a lot of there's a lot of little things that I think kind of go into into training twice a day that you don't exactly think about and that you kind of have to get like mentally up for it twice a day. There's a little bit of like warm up and ramp up that needs to occur twice a day. You have to think about your Nutrition a little bit more and how it's going to fit around your training as well. As you know, you just need two different 30 to 40-minute time slots and you know at need during quarantine with a wife and a kid two kids and and work and everything. You'll find two slots each data to train so it kind of reached a point where it just kind of began to feel like a lot and about four weeks ago. We cut my volume down and the intention was

00:02:48  To go to One A Day training with the lower volume.

00:02:53  And it's not it's not 25% less volume. It's not a huge cut. But like, you know, if we were doing three or four sets for now doing two or three sets and we also caught a little bit of isolation work. So there's less kind of focus on arms and and doubts but

00:03:09  I still do you know it interesting enough. I still ended up splitting it into twice a day. So just something about being able to put the intensity into.

00:03:21  Each set and the focus and know that I only have what is it like 6 maybe 7 sets to do in each session instead of trying to fit 12 to 16 or 14 sets into session. It just it just works for me and it's one of the things that I think has been the best addition to my training over this last year and to be where I am, you know in training for 23 years and to still be able to find kind of new and innovative ways to implement training and make it fun and keep it fun and increase focus. And yeah, it's just it's been really cool. So we cut my volume down and what that did was despite the fact that I'm still training twice a day it drastically increase my motivation and I don't know if I was never in the past is acutely aware of the way that I felt.

00:04:17  At different volumes of training I kind of just like, okay. This is what I'm doing. So I'm going to go do it but now being like hyper aware of like, okay. I was doing 8 to 10 sets in the a.m. And 8 to 10 sets in the p.m. And you know, I added I wasn't super motivated. I was a little fatigued.

00:04:36  And I just I didn't I didn't enjoy my training as much and then to to see it cut down to 6 or 7 that's in the a.m. 6 or 7 cents in the p.m. And just us small subtle change have been renewed motivation excitement the train be able to continuously see progress and that's right. It was training. I can go nutrition II if you have any thoughts on any of that, I think it's really interesting especially because like I said something you said that you've been training for you know, 20 years now and it's probably only been out on that. They probably perhaps only been the last like handful. Were you got my very very very objective with a Coke a last week was this many reps at this weight like these, you know, super super detailed notes and then being able to see those minor differences because of your so, you know objective with with your tracking with it. So that is really interesting to see in just kind of, you know, taking a step back and noticing like a while. I'm by feel better. I have more energy my motivation to train is higher because you know, it's not like

00:05:35  You know, I mean it because it happens with I know what happens with me. I'm sure it happens. A lot of people like you're the the you know, that sets and stuff you're doing like the last two things of your work out her going to be generally you just don't seem motivated with your focus isn't there anymore you're fatigued but when you're hitting everything Super fresh because your volume is down, right your intensity can obviously go up and it is really cool to see that you're getting that kind of tangible, you know feedback so early in the in the approach to it.

00:06:04  Yeah, for sure the point you brought up about, you know being his kind of diagnostic with my training I think is the right way of saying it it really is only the last three four years that I've really dug into the diagnosis and analyzed in such depths all of the different training variables. So it's weird to think that 16th of May 5th Seventeen of my 22 23 years training. I just kind of went to the gym and like Brody out and just try to win everything and there was much weight is possible that I'm really it's almost like I'm in an intermediate in training in a certain way even though I've achieved, you know metrics that would be associated with an advanced training. So yeah, I guess going into nutrition man where we're coming out of the holidays and it's funny that you posted something on Instagram the other day that you like. This is what happens when I stop tracking and you lost like five pounds.

00:07:02  Right, right and for me I gain weight, so it's really funny. How are on opposite sides of the spectrum with that? Cuz I actually think we're both kind of mesomorphic you might be a little more ectomorphic but we're neither of us are endomorphic. So I think we both definitely spent on that mesomorphic spectrum and yet my propensity is is to overeat when I'm not thinking about it and yours is Dunder, but I guess it didn't help that that we have family in town in the through cookies and cakes everything all around the holidays. So Jenny's family was in town, you know for some the listeners. I'm right now eating a lot to try and increase in body weight build muscle and it was just kind of

00:07:47  I needed a little break. I was just so I mean, it consumes me eating, you know, six seven meals a day if you include my preorder my enter workout and it's just it's a it's a lot right? And I was like, I'm just going to eat like a normal person over these, you know, like four days. They're here breakfast lunch dinner like not eat anything bad, you know necessarily, I don't deserve, you know bad. Like I wasn't like I'm going off-planet like binging or anything goes like I just I just want to have a normal meals and not be consumed by eating. That's exactly what happened. I dropped, you know, 5 lb of those four days just eating breakfast lunch dinner, but I probably you know over each of those three days ended up with like a thief in you know, 12 to 1500 calorie deficit from where I was normally at you know, so that's what happens when you have those massive me no acute kind of shifts, but I mean for training

00:08:37  I'm recently started 3 days per week training lower body having conversations with my Coach and he's like listen like we got to get that lower body up. Like you just don't need as much upper-body volume. Like we really need to the Hammer the leg so I'm excited and nervous. It's just it's a it's a lot of them except it's a big it's like, you know an increase of like 30% more mental kind of focus and stuff to train legs of third day. I have to be even more dialed in with my recovery. So I'm like looking for like a local like body body work or someone like that cuz the initial concern is if I got to keep my knees healthy enough to train three meals like 3 days per week. I'm in or modulating like volume and you know kind of some of this some of the stuff like lower volume a little bit higher weight and have another more like standard, you know are more traditional hypertrophy day, but just it's a it's a big Focus. So it's I'm excited because I obviously, you know, you know you and I've had this conversation like growing bring my legs up to my hoverboard.

00:09:37  He's definitely a big goal. It's been a goal. I'm finally making some Headway on it. So I'm excited too kind of taking up a notch, but keeping my knees healthy is going to be definitely I think would like something that I'm going to need to prioritize in order to be able to handle that moms like managing do you?

00:09:55  Have you started this yet? Or do you just say you're about to start up? I haven't hit the third day yet because we were I wasn't around on I'd like the third day fell on my Christmas last week inner thigh the day after Christmas and we were gone to a to an island where there wasn't a gym. So I haven't done it yet. This week will be the first week of the third day. Okay. Do you think there's a concern of overlapping soreness from session? This has been given that you're increasing the frequency by like 50% basic how it's actually set up is the first day is the first lower day is like a power day. So it's a little bit like have your weight lower volume. I haven't gotten sore from that session yet. The second session is like a traditional hypertrophy one.

00:10:39  And that was like higher-volume right like some some drop sets and stuff that one I actually haven't really gotten sore from that either. So I mean the one upside to eating, you know, 4000 calories a day is your recovery capacities really high so it's kind of structured it is I'm only taking one day off between the lower power and then the lower hypertrophy but then I'm giving myself a two full days before the the like the after that and that I think is the potential the potential scenarios. He were, you know, not being fully recovered after that third day heading back into the you know, that the start of the cycle again, but I haven't actually got kind of the third day like a standard hypertrophy day.

00:11:24  Picture of three movements in the last Super mean I could see that I could see that working out fine. And then especially if you like take care of whichever one hamstring or quad is the one that like tends to have to be sore longer for you and making sure that that one maybe a d prioritized in the third session before the power day again.

00:11:45  interesting cool

00:11:48  Yeah, that's awesome. Business-wise. The the only real thing that that I want to be working on right now aside from what I'm already doing is kind of looking into some specialization cycles, and I was talking about having these ready for for early 2021. So we'll see if I can get these out sometime in the early spring but

00:12:11  Basically kind of like what you're doing with your legs. It's a really good segue in because that is the general basis of kind of the design of a specialization cycle would be kind of prioritizing frequency and volume on one or two body parts and then dialing back the volume and intensity on kind of the remaining body parts. So you're just taking your legs and it's just that whole lower region is now prioritized and I'm sure that there's less frequency on the upper body little bit less volume open up some of those recovery resources and that's kind of what I want to do. I want to do 144. I think I have one of the arms went for chest and back one for hamstrings and glutes and I feel like I think I did a shoulders and no shoulders and glutes and hamstrings and quads, but I am working on those right now and I think it's a really cool. So looking forward to putting those out.

00:13:09  And then I know you have a big launch coming to and so he tell everybody about that. So on January 11th, I'll start my next nutrition coaching education. And for the first time training program the metabolic performance protocol and that is basically just my take on a kind of moving into a new space of the nutrition coaching Landscapes instead of the traditional kind of one-on-one, you know, periodic check-ins. I kind of changed into a little bit more like interactive education based as well. So I do love teaching in terms of also doing a nutrition also doing training and then have a lot of my crew calls just to just to kind of change the experience has been really awesome so far. So I've been through the 7th generation of it. So I'm super excited to get started especially the beginning of the year is always a really really awesome time to start as motivation super super high as opposed to like different parts of the year and just teach people, you know, I was like all teach people to show people short the cheat codes in making this really work.

00:14:09  Does Jesse know a lot of things are going to talk about in this podcast, if you know the the tried-and-true methods instead of looking for the shortcuts quick wins, but the things that actually, you know, produced tangible long-term results.

00:14:21  Yeah, totally. I think what you're doing is super you need to be able to combine like Hands-On nutrition coaching with the education platforms out super cool about it ready to dig into somebody's questions. Let's do it. I think the first one's for you or for you to start on. So this person is curious your thoughts on how maintenance calories should change when you're changing the sport that you're pursuing such as CrossFit to bodybuilding or more lifting Focus to more endurance Focus. So what's really interesting here is I don't think the really just because you're changing something. I don't think you were nutrition is going to necessarily need to change immediately. What I would recommend instead doing is taking like give yourself a. Maybe a safe 14 do like 20 days track changes in weight track changes in recovery capacity changes in hunger satiety cues, and then we know using like the three of those kind of Leverage.

00:15:21  So one thing that happens when people go from let's say the first example CrossFit bodybuilding thing, I need to dramatically reduced my calories, but what they're not really taking into consideration. If you're if you're moving it's like an actual true like hypertrophy bodybuilding training like you're getting a lot more like muscular kind of damage is supposed to like the like, you know that the CNS kind of stimulus or the anal cardiovascular output and not has more kind of demand from a from a calorie perspective in like the days following as opposed to like immediate so I wouldn't really change anything immediately. Let's say you're moving from like maybe a super-high glycolytic thing like CrossFit to endurance. Maybe we go from a very very high carbohydrate distribution to a little bit more of a balanced approach. Maybe we don't need as much protein, but I think if you're just likes changing, I think it would be much better to pay more attention.

00:16:21  To the signals your body is telling you and what you're picking up on as opposed to letting the change itself dictate a shift in maintenance calories in terms of level and macronutrient alikay.

00:16:34  I love what you said about giving it some time to kind of feel it out read the satiety signals and kind of see what your body wants or craves from there. I do think there probably are some like expectations that knife vacations what things that you might expect to occur for like an average person specifically thinking like more on the extreme Trail a CrossFit is kind of like the hybrid thing where you have like a little bit of bodybuilding you have a little bit of endurance and so you kind of just have to fuel it for like all these different ways. But like if someone's going from a straight-up lifting games like not even like metabolites out bodybuilding, but either call it likes this may be like powerlifting bodybuilding or power building or some like that where you're really not using a ton of carbohydrate. Are you lifting heavy weights? You set them down you rest a little bit. You don't really ever get your heart rate up too high and then you're like, you know what I'm going to go change for this like 20K or something like that. I think we can

00:17:34  Back to that point that you're going to need a shit ton more carbs and things like that. So I think they contact their butt.

00:17:43  You know without knowing you and knowing the what your current State of Nutrition is and what your body currently responds to is difficult to say how you might respond to do some sort of different type of stimulus. I think I covered that pretty good. The second question is a bit more. Let's get it to you to start and this question is what is the difference between upper lower and body part split programming?

00:18:14  Yeah, so the key to this is really frequency. I don't think there's magic in upper lower being better than body part split in any way or full body being better than upper lower full body being better than body part split. I think the key is really just making sure that you're hitting what is the necessary frequency, so

00:18:37  I talked about my my own training in the beginning and if you look at the way that a session is structions, I have an AM session and I literally just dumbbell bench press and dumbbell fly and I do like six sets of that and that's my a.m. Session. So you like I'm working chest the body part split that my p.m. Session. I have triceps and shoulders. So again, I'm doing like pushdowns and in Skull Crushers in and I'm doing the lateral raises. So I'm doing a session of triceps and shoulders. So that seems like a body part split to then the next day, you know, it's the same idea to some back exercises in the morning and then at the biceps and dealt again in the in the evening leg day same way. I'm doing like a hip hinge and a squat pattern movement in the morning and then the afternoon we're doing leg extensions leg curls. So it's an isolation and compounds blind looking at that it very much looks like a body part split routine, but because I run through that twice a week

00:19:34  Is actually like an upper lower split. This program was actually came to existence out of an upper lower split like we we designed it up or lower and we were like, okay. Well now that's way too much fucking work to do in one one sessions elf. How can I split this upper lower split into something else that I can get a little bit more out of each session and that's how we ended up at this weird crazy AMPM split thing that I'm doing now, but the frequency is still twice a week for every muscle group 4 x 4 Dallas. So I think that that's really the key when you look at it and maybe the bigger question is what are the advantages of training with a higher frequency vs. Training with a split program. We're body parts with programming meeting in a body part of the program program that may be your only training each muscle group once per week. And I think that this goes down an entirely different Rabbit Hole. So I know that you're gonna have some thoughts on it, too, but just to kind of

00:20:34  Continue real quick here. I think that

00:20:37  ultimately science has shown that you want to train with at least a two times a week frequency for body part. It's shown a small Advantage even going up to three times a week and then all the way up to six times a week and just kind of levels off till like 4 5 6 they're all just as good as 3 which is better than 2 and so as long as you're hitting them twice a week, that's really what we want here at the problem with training in a one one body-part per per day per week program.

00:21:12  There appears to be really solid evidence that you can't do much more than about 10 sets for a body part in a session without causing so much damage that you're actually not creating any benefit from additional sets that you're doing. That doesn't mean that you can't do 10 sets of chest 3 times a week if your maximum recoverable volume is $0.30 a week for chest. You just need to be really smart in the way that you implement frequency so that you can split your volume appropriately and I think that that is going to be the biggest takeaway from this is how much volume do you actually need to do for a given body part if you

00:21:54  Only need to do 10 sets per week for a body part.

00:21:57  Sure. I mean, I guess you could do all 10 in 1 test if you want but I would ask the question. Why wouldn't you want to do 5 in one session get a few days break really easily recover cuz it's just like that and then do five and another session and the same thing can be extrapolated out with with eight sets for it to eight sets of ten cents to Pence after me at some point. You just get more out of it when you're not dead dog tired from doing 5 sets of pressing and now you're asked to deposit the flies when I do two sets of presses and two sets of flies and you know a couple days later another two sets into sad, so I think that would be the main can you take away from that? What are your thoughts pretty much hundred percent agree when I was going to add on to the end is I have found personally, you know you when trying to like really load up a lot of your volume into a single session you kind of hit a point of diminishing returns and this is something that like a lot of like when you read some of your like, you know, whatever bro magazines.

00:22:57  Especially like stuff. It's okay for sets of 15 squats. Then we're going to do four sets of 15 like hack squats in like four sets of 15, you know, leg presses that by the time you get to those leg presses like your legs are worthless and you're just going through the motions and that's something like I definitely fine with certain body parts like an arm see no such luck biceps and I'll hit them hard for the only like maybe like 3 3 or 4 sets per session. And after that like they're kind of words that worthless if my output drops dramatically and I know like I'm not, you know, if if if fresh I can come in here and do the 40 and I'm using the 15s. I'm not getting too much actual like true that a patient here because I'm just really really fat eat. So I agreed a pretty much understand what they're being sent.

00:23:46  Yeah, for sure. So let's close this one to you.

00:23:52  I work out pardon track macros. What else can I do to gain muscle? This is a really interesting question because I'm the first thing I want to talk about his work out hard. So let's pick it apart just a little bit so workout hard really open-ended, right? So because the the the goal here in the question is what else can I do to gain muscle think the first thing I would say is we want to optimize the style of training you're doing right? Because your goals to gain muscle maybe, you know running like a StrongLifts, you know, five-by-five might not be the best approach right now and just doing like squat, you know deadlifting like pressing I'd probably be more advantageous to maybe move into some more and I kept our building style. If you really want to keep those primary movers in moving to you like No More Physical approach if he splits all together. So with the first part of it, you know, I would first ask yourself is the type of training. I'm doing conducive to my goals.

00:24:52  This was a big one for me personally when I got out of CrossFit, I'm really just didn't have any more CrossFit related goals and I was like, why am I kind of doing this anymore? So that's the first big question to ask yourself next time tracking macros. Are you tracking macros at maintenance? Are you at like a shallow maintenance? Are you eating in a surplus? There's a lot of considerations to make here to really make the get the most out of what your your efforts you're doing. So with the macros you want to be in a calorie Surplus. It doesn't need to be some crazy calorie Surplus where you're eating at like 30% over a true maintenance or anything like that like the dreamer bulk type of type of idea. But it also doesn't you don't want to be a little bit one year at a diminished recovery capacity or your weight isn't increasing it. Also, like let's say you were extrapolate mean of a data set of over four weeks has your weight increase that all

00:25:52  As you have your lips increased it all if they haven't he might want to tell you Noah's take a step back and then kind of re-approached a little bit differently increase your calories. Probably if I had to make a blanket statement, I would increase your carbohydrate. It's going to be probably be at the simplest are the the lowest hanging fruit in that regard and change your training approach and make sure if it's not lining up with your goals. What are you what are your thoughts on this one Brian?

00:26:22  Yeah, I think working out and working out hard and tracking macros is like the initial buying it's like great you're doing awesome. You're you got started and you're doing kind of the big rocks. But if you want to get Beyond just like the basic buying of doing a pretty good job and probably going to end up with a decent physique out of it. Then it requires you to begin to manipulate a lot of different variables, you know are in a lewd it's all of the the training and nutrition stuff but work out hard is great is your program smart. Does it align with your goals?

00:27:06  Have you pushed the boundaries of of recovery with your program? And if you did push the boundaries of recovery. Did you hit it? Did you then increase your food and see if maybe you could push it a little bit further?

00:27:20  You know, you don't have to the dreamer bulk for sure. But you do have to put in enough calories into your body that you support the process of muscle growth. You have to make sure that you aren't forcing Progressive overload, but that the food that you're putting in your body is is doing the job that it's supposed to do and that each week your lips are going up or not each week, but over the course of time they're trending up. Let me see.

00:27:51  I would also say that.

00:27:57  Your workout program is probably fine. If you're getting stronger and eating a bunch of food, a lot of different workout programs work. Like I've had people you know that follow the Mike Mentzer hit philosophy and they work out really really really hard and they go to failure past failure and they crush it in the gym. And then there's people they literally spend, you know, 30 minutes 3 times a week or something, but they were really hard and then on the other side of the spectrum you have the people that are training 2 hours 6 days a week and maybe they're leaving for 5 reps in reserve and that also works but all of it has to be supported by by a surplus in nutrition Beyond a certain level. You're just not going to gain muscle unless you're eating to support muscle growth. So I think that that would be you know step number one is just making sure that you you push those boundaries that you you push the boundaries of recovery, whether it's in the intensity that you implement in the gym.

00:28:57  Or in the total volume of work that you're doing and then when you hit that you deload and you you know where that boundary is and then the next time through eat more food and see if you can push through that boundary and get another week at quality training in before you have to deload again. Yeah. Those are my thoughts. We're pretty much on the same page there, which is awesome. So let's kick this first was next one over to you first because I have a little bit of different thoughts about how I'm going to approach it, but I'm interested in to see what you have to say. So the question is what kind of lifting to do if I don't want to add muscle until I lose weight.

00:29:42  Okay, we had two questions that were about that were about not wanting to gain muscle and for some reason I thought we were we were going to do the other one, but we ended up getting this one. Okay, cool. Regardless, I think my answer doesn't change too much.

00:30:00  So not gaining muscle is actually pretty easy if you're eating in a caloric deficit if your objective is to lose weight.

00:30:16  And you're eating 500. Mm calories below. What is your maintenance calories? You really probably won't have muscle. I mean you could train your ass off on a really intelligent program and you probably won't get a muscle unless you're a real beginner to weight training in general.

00:30:36  So yeah, I mean, I think it's a much more straightforward question when it's until I lose weight because I feel like the other question that I was thinking about was more phrases. Like I just want I would like to keep lifting weights, but I don't want to add muscle so different question slightly different answer. Maybe we can address that one. But let's get your thoughts on this one. Yeah. So what I see this question would immediately stand out to me is kind of a misunderstanding of how things work. So what what I'm thinking when I see this is someone thinks oh, I'm like bulk and I and I need less muscle so that

00:31:16  You know what my physique appears the way I want it to her whatever but would have probably is is like your muscle isn't the problem like you just have some extra fat you need to lose or you can lose so that you can get to that kind of physique having muscle is not like this trivial thing. That's very simple to do it. It's like Blood Sweat and Tears to put on muscle. It's not like you worked a couple Waits and it just jumps onto your body. If you obviously your goal is you want to lose weight. You need to be in a calorie deficit you want to continue to lift in the same way that you would so that you can preserve the muscle you do have when you as you go through that calorie deficit because the worst thing in the world is uq you go through a calorie deficit in you lose like equal amounts of fat and muscle and then you look the same way you do now, but you weigh less that's like, you know literally worst case scenario what you want is to preserve his

00:32:16  Much of that muscle mass as you can while you lose. Hey, you know disproportionately much higher amounts of fat than muscle you will everyone will lose a little bit of muscle when you dye it so that when you to reset lower body fat percentage you have that looked at appearance you want or like your muscle you can see more of your muscle because you have less body fat. So I think it's up to me to seems like a little bit this question comes from like a little bit of a misunderstanding of how how things work. So you would lift in the same way. So the kind of like wrap it up with the same way, you know, you shouldn't neglect anything unless you have like maybe from playing a sport or a certain, you know training style over a. Of time became like really imbalanced kind of like myself right my upper body like dwarfs my lower body.

00:33:06  But if I think it would be just kind of you want to continue to train in the way that you would but so you can preserve the muscle you do have while you can appeal the pill the extra body fat off.

00:33:19  Yeah, I think the point you made about the the maintenance of metabolism through the muscle mass is a huge point because

00:33:29  I feel like people forget about that like every pound of muscle that you have allows you to eat more food, which gives you more energy and keeps you healthy or throughout the dieting prod. That sucks losing muscle is like losing gold. Like you don't want that you had to work so hard to get that like, let's keep that shit. Let's do everything we can so the other question that I was thinking of I get this I get this question relatively often. So I just kind of a tangent related to this question. I get a question a lot. It's like

00:34:02  How do I how would I train if I don't want to add muscle is kind of the idea if I just if I want to continue training hard, but I die. I'm like happy if usually can females but what if I want to continue training cards, I love training but I don't want to get any bigger. Right so I think that that's where I was my head was going with this question cuz I get it so often and my answer to this is is generally one of two ways to do Low Reps without going into like what would be considered the hypertrophy zone. So something above you know, 5 6 reps all the way up like 30 is going to his really going to cause hypertrophy as long as you take sets close to failure.

00:34:47  I think training a bit more like a powerlifter or an Olympic lifter is a great way to be able to to kind of maintain weight and both of these are Sports in which athletes have to maintain weight classes. So you see a lot of people in the sport that are small and they're always small they continue to get stronger but they remain small and that's because they're doing the sets of like 1 2 3 reps. They're not going to failure is not like I don't think I would matter I was going to figure out whether you're going to gain muscle or not, but I think that it matters because you're trying to execute perfect technique all the time and your focus is in performing movement vs. In trying to contracted muscle. So training with low reps pursuing powerlifting Olympic lifting type sport is a great way to to kind of not gain and then you also have to just make sure that you're not eating excessively and that really is what covers the umbrella umbrella that covers. All of it is no matter how your training even if you

00:35:47  Training low rep Olympic lifting style or powerlifting style. If your nutrition is above your maintenance, you're you're going to gain way and you're going to gain muscle probably and if you're eating at maintenance calories or slightly below then you're probably not going to gain muscle. So that's always my answer to that and I think that there's some some value in understanding that

00:36:11  Yeah, I think you answered that one really well.

00:36:14  Fixer next question is for you importance of protein timing throughout the day. So I think the best way to answer this is there's levels right? So there are there's some do some research on it right that we can use to answer this question. But I think the the kind of creating an understanding of how your kind of approaching your day will really help. So the most kind of the largest like accepted research I would say on it is theirs, you know around 3 to or sorry like 425.

00:36:52  Protein feedings. Like I think I think for was we're like the after 4 as a kind of you still got some improvement, but it was kind of getting into that diminishing returns type of thing of at least depending on your size. So let's say of like lets his speech like maybe like a hundred 6585 lb male about 30 to 40 grams of protein over those up for feedings. And the reason kind of that is the threshold is because of the leucine content. So once you get to kind of that range of protein that loosens contents going to be high enough to kind of continue the muscle protein synthesis signal so that I think if you're trying to set your sights on something aiming for about for consistent feedings of you know that 30 to 40

00:37:41  Graham range to help you kind of hit that threshold of that loosen content, but I think would make the most sense is, you know, if you have your protein goal kind of divided the cross that or if you want to have like a snack or something like that when I'm working with clients who generally try and encourage everyone to eat for meals per day at the minimum. I don't really encourage people go past that unless their schedule is conducive to it, but I think that kind of helps the best what you really want it to end up avoiding is a very very large protein feedings all at once like let's say you're only doing like so your 200-pound male, right you're going to set your protein at 200 grams and you're going to have just do lunch and dinner and having a hundred grams of launch underground at dinner and the real reason why you want wouldn't want to approach that is protein is much harder that I guess then your carbohydrate and fat and it might just bog you down a little bit so it when you might create some

00:38:41  Erred digestion just by not necessarily the amount you're eating over the course of the day, but how you're splitting that up? So what kind of shoving it all in at? Once you just forcing your body to do, you know your digestion do a lot of work in that kind of a cute standpoint and I can kind of slow down your digestion and potentially kind of cost some issues in that regard. So in terms of the the importance it's not like the most important thing are there better approaches yessica. Obviously two feedings is better than 1/3 is going to be better than 2 for is better than 3 past 4 depending on who you talked to you. You may find yourself in that point of diminishing returns, or we just don't have anything that's very concrete past 4 is going to be like, you know.

00:39:27  Provide tangible Improvement in in a shorter. Of time or something like that anything you want to add to that brine?

00:39:35  I think you pretty much nailed all the point. I was going to make so I will offer some personal anecdote from about 2012 to 2019. I was a big proponent of intermittent fasting. It was mostly a lifestyle decision in that. I just didn't feel hungry in the morning and and I enjoyed eating at night.

00:40:01  But I will 100% say that eating a hundred grams of protein twice a day.

00:40:09  Is a lot of food to digest if a lot of food to go to sleep on it when you eat you off and drink water and even if you don't drink a ton of water, there's water content in food. So then you find that you're up at night digesting and peeing and digesting and peeing. So there's some negative consequences there to I switched off of intermittent fasting it was difficult for me, but I did it slowly over the course of over the course of time and once I finally felt confident with it, I ended up starting my diet that took me from 205 to 185. So it really is only in the last like maybe six to eight months that I even have been moving away from intermittent fasting it All Began that transition and since kind of going through that diet and implementing, you know, four times sometimes five times a day protein.

00:41:09  Consumption into much smaller doses. I feel like it has improved recovery and digestion and just overall.

00:41:20  Quality of life not eating breakfast. All the time definitely is not the best way to live. So I think there's something to be said for that too.

00:41:31  Yeah one little thing. I'll add to that is.

00:41:35  Solo so often we think of nutrition in terms of a one-day window and it's because it you know with how we Works humans ready to go to sleep. You start a new day. It kind of makes sense to think of it as that way. That's not necessarily how our body you no work for them at a metabolic standpoint. Our bodies are continuously burning fat carbohydrate and doing these things and let these micro-cycles all throughout the day. So instead of thinking about it and just go as long as I get my two hundred grams of protein in before, you know, 10 p.m. When I go to sleep whatever doesn't matter if I did it, you know, 10 times or whatever. So there it does matter but there has to be that kind of balance between what makes sense from your lifestyle or something like that as well. But what are what are your thoughts on the approach that you know, a lot of people do this now and the industry. I know Paul Carter does it John Meadows does it but like, you know, John Meadows is a proponent of 6 days of eating and then one day complete fasting Paul does it where he goes 27 days each month and then

00:42:35  3-day fast I think at the end of each month. So, you know now that we know that the body is constantly doing this and that you don't have to necessarily get protein in every day. But you know, you can make up for that through the other 27 days in the month and you have done these three fasted days. What are your thoughts on all of that? So I think it really comes back to what your goals are right? I think for people who are like eating consistently eating enough. The fasting can be a tool if it's something you want to use for like a maybe like a mental fortitude type of thing or sometimes just to take a break kind of like when I spoke about would like my Christmas Sino house from a Christmas. I was just happy to not have to be like a slave to putting food in my mouth all day long. So I think in that regard, it can be just kind of like a little bit of a reprieve. I'm sure they're you know, potentially could be some kind of small marginal benefits of

00:43:32  Oh man, the word is escaping me right now Autophagy exactly in that kind of acute scenario. But again, it's I think that comes down to like what your goals are, but I know people who do it like just as kind of like a like a monthly kind of like gold kind of reset or just something to do or if you're having like maybe some really digestion issues or whatever. It took a nice way to just let things calm down. So I think depending on what the goal or purpose you might use it for. It can definitely be beneficial within the appropriate context.

00:44:07  Cool. Yeah, I think I think it's actually pretty cool. I like the idea of it almost from like

00:44:16  Chicken mental perseverance standpoint, you know just like this is something that's not going to be comfortable. But I'm going to achieve it anyways, or even like a like a worker brain performance type thing right eye. I know there's there's generally a link with people talk about there. So few, let's say you wanted to have like a 19 hour work day and you didn't want to have to see no do anything. You can just fast and work all day. I'm sure they're you know, you might be the benefits you going to outweigh with Dino Dino crushing your cortisol Spike and be super high or something like that in Parsippany repeater for 18 hours straight, but

00:44:53  For sure. Next question is what is your take on pre-workouts? Do you use them or Nah? So in terms of what your standard pre-workout that you might buy from GNC online, you know what she like your mega pump XR. We know all these silly names. I'm not a fan of them. I think they are largely Superfluous. The main reason I'm going to be honest the main reason I don't like them. It's too much caffeine most so I have like a hard wheel no caffeine afternoon. And that is even like you like a cup of coffee like love these pre-workouts are like 300 milligrams of caffeine in them. And then you take that it let's say your Noah's standard 925 or going to the gym at 4:35 p.m. To take 300 mg of caffeine caffeine is a half life of 6 out of 6 hours later half of that is still a, you know, attached to your adenosine receptors. It's it's going to impact your sleep and then it creates his kind of vicious cycle of like old man on computer I get asked today. I need pre work.

00:45:53  But you're dragging ass because you slept for last night from the weekend or sorry from the from the Pre-Workout you took yesterday. So kind of creates this vicious negative feedback loop. I think people think that would caffeine pills work out straight what really feels workouts is carbohydrate if you want like my take on pre-workout I make sure I have a very large carbohydrate meal first some sodium on that as well. Make sure I'm hydrated in that is a fantastic work Pre-Workout in itself. So there are some things like you're in some people will use an alpha GPC for focus with pre workout or not. You like your beta alanine has likes efficacy. It's been studied. What is the other one l-citrulline and citrulline? Right but I mean deals are kind of like no maybe that you get like one extra rap on that on that, you know, leg extension or something like that over time will

00:46:53  Yeah, but I just think it's not I don't think it's necessary across-the-board but when I would so no, I'm not a a pre-workout person standard pre-workout yet.

00:47:05  I take I take one with Alpha GPC and l-citrulline. So yeah, I mean I guess.

00:47:12  Initially upon taking it. I did feel like it provided me some additional focus and I liked it. It was nice and smooth and I've been taking out for a few months now. I don't know if I really feel anything at all. I just going to take it because it's like have it and I just mix it with my protein in it. It tastes really good. So I'm probably I don't know maybe overpaying but for whatever reason I enjoy it take it and it helped initially and number customer. One thing I will add on that is if you aren't like buying a pre-workout make sure that it's Dost appropriately for effectively. I guess I should say for the things like beta alanine and citrulline malate. So I believe the dosing on beta alanine is around two grams, but you for grams or something like that and then the citrulline I think is like six five or six. We're like two studies were done at that at those rangers if your

00:48:11  Pre workouts only giving you like, you know half of that or half of each eye. You're probably look for a better pre-workout. So there are some that will only like there are pre workouts out there that will only contain like citrulline malate beat alanine like creatine of lower caffeine and with the alpha GPC the actual act study things. So those ones if you do want to go that route that is another approach to put a lot of them are kind of largely just marketing hype and lots of caffeine.

00:48:42  Cool guy with the green. All right at this next one over to you brine to to start us off last question and it is do you need to track macros to see results RP gave me PTSD. I believe in the contacts to your Affair RP is Renaissance periodization and probably their templates I would imagine is where this question Scott stomach from.

00:49:08  Yeah, for sure. So yeah RP templates in and Diet app a well-known company actually, dr. Mike, you know part of the squad there. He's been a huge influence in in, you know, a lot of my training and nutrition knowledge. So shout out to him. I will stay with you know, beyond that that I have heard from people. I don't have personal experience with the templates or with the app, but I have heard that they do take you down really really low on diets.

00:49:39  So with that said I'm guessing that's kind of where this question came from. I don't think that you have to track macros that low like you don't have to diet that hard the thing with an app is that

00:49:57  It doesn't know that you might have more time to diet. I don't know if they'd maybe you put in like hey, I need to be at this weight by this date and then it starts, you know, Doling out prescriptions for you or if you can actually manipulate that and you know, like okay, I have about 20 pounds lose. I can't tell the app. I want to lose that in 10 weeks. Maybe I need to tell the apple and lose out in 25 weeks or something like that. So that's one consideration but to the actual question as to whether you need to track macros I a hundred percent can say that.

00:50:28  I was addicted to tracking macros for 14 years and over the last five or six years. I've tracked on and off.

00:50:38  And I think that the 14 years of tracking diligently provided me with such an understanding of what I was putting in my body that it allows me to be successful without tracking now. I still have a structure in the way that I document the food that I put in my body and I use a three-part model that has my body weight each morning await under the same condition. It has a satiety rating from how I felt from my food of the prior day or whether it's underfed overfed or satisfied and then I also have how many grams of protein I can see

00:51:27  within whatever my my brain determines that range to be standard of error, so

00:51:36  following that structure I feel good and I feel significantly less pressure day-to-day and worrying about the food that I put in my body, but

00:51:46  I can't say with any confidence for sure that if I hadn't had all those years prior of tracking diligently that I would be in the same position that I am right now. I think that the knowledge is the key and when you can get to a point where you look at a steak or a piece of chicken or a piece of bread and you know within 5 grams of any macronutrient exactly what's in there, then you probably don't need to track unless your goal is so beyond the range of just mean it's right. Like, if I want to gain a little weight or lose a little way I can do that without tracking but if I want to go stand on stage at 4% body fat, or I want to go get booed up to 250 lb and make as much of it muscle as possible.

00:52:40  An extreme goal requires an extreme response and I think that tracking macros becomes a requirement of extreme Behavior.

00:52:51  Yeah, I think I mean I agree with a lot of what you said in the beginning, you know back in like 2014 when I first started really paying attention to like my nutrition and macros like RP was a great resource for me. Especially Doctor Mike. He still someone I always love to read what he's putting it out. One thing. I will say within that is

00:53:11  Within the context is question move. They're using like the diet templates or potentially the app when you use some sort of like automated pre-built system. There has to be constraints that are built into it. So it has to make the system whatever that is has to make assumptions and that makes it can lead to different things with certain people right? So I know like I remember the first diet templates from RP back in like 2014 and what I will say is there's like levels to tracking macros, right the first RP diet templates kind of jumped you into like a level 3 or level 4, where was like, okay, we're doing timing each of our meals with these things you need to have in okay seen at night before bed and like it wasn't it wasn't like step one. It was like no step for sew-in that turns I could see if you were new to it. It could be up to like you're jumping into the deep end so

00:54:04  Do you need to track macros to see results? No, I don't think you need to but like you said tracking macros helps inform you on what is in different types of food and what these types of food in certain quantities impact your body. So it kind of just gives you bigger margins because you know more of what you're doing kind of similar to what I really like always comparing the tracking macros to is tracking your finances. Do you need to track your finances to save money? But stay you make half a million dollars per year in like your house is paid off and you're just like, you know buying groceries and hanging out. It's probably going to be pretty easy to save money under those you no circumstances. If you don't if you have like maybe even more kitchen all these things in you may be your income isn't very very high. If you want to save money, you need to create better margins and you're going to do that by being more diligent with where you know the income

00:55:04  Malcolm is going very very similar in a scenario can be tied back to your nutrition when you know how much you know when like if I put it in like if I put a steak in front of you. It's like let's say it's a top sirloin. It's cooked and you can give me decent macros based on like, you know, Brian like what you said with your history of tracking for someone you now those things that you need to know it you can create better margins if you've never track your food or whatever and I put a stake in front of me like how much protein fat and carbohydrate is in that in like you're you're not even in the ballpark. It's going to be much harder because you just don't have that kind of that pre-built conditioning to lean on when you need to make decisions. So I guess the rap that up. Do you need to track macros know but tracking macros will help provide that foundational level of understanding so that you can create margins that allow you to be successful the four

00:56:04  There are sorry the closer you get to a goal the smaller those margins become so let's say you you you you know, you want to lose 50 lb what you need to do to lose a pound go from 0 to pound one is a lot different than what you need to do to go from pound 49 to 50. So I think you know the context of where you are in your kind of Journey and what you know, and how confident you are in those decisions is what ultimately going to really help you out in that in that regard.

00:56:38  That was super well said I like that cool.

00:56:43  I got that so that was it from the Instagram Q&A. I thought it was really cool. Especially said heading into the new year nutrition in Nino. Jim really becomes the focus for so many people. I was really cool. You know ask people what question they actually do have heading into the new year. So you can provide you know who play some really tangible contacts and things that people can Implement to help set them off on the right path. Anything else you want to add Brian.

00:57:12  No that's sick. We have a bunch more questions too. So we could come back and do another one of these in a couple months ever in stay tuned. All right. That's all from us. Have a good happy New Year guys and we'll talk later.

00:57:25  Maybe I'll thank you so much for listening to eat train Prosper. If you found this episode valuable, Please Subscribe or share this with your friends, you can find more from Aaron at StrakerNutritionCo.com and more from Brian at EvolvedTrainingSystems.com. Talk to you guys next time.