Part 1: Eric Rawson on the Power of Resistance Training for Longevity

You can find Eric on Twitter/X at @EricRawsonPhD

Prepare to transform your perspective on exercise as we delve deep into the world of 'exercise snacks' with expert exercise physiologist, Eric Rawson. Discover how brief, frequent bouts of movement throughout your daily routine can substantially boost your health. We'll debunk misconceptions around the need for high volume resistance training and shed light on the potent benefits of manageable doses. Even with an unexpected power outage cutting our conversation short, we managed to pack in a wealth of insights on incorporating resistance exercise into your lifestyle, plus the truth about creatine supplementation.

We then navigate through the importance of physical activity across all life stages - from the playground to the golden years. Learn why resistance training is a crucial shield for our health, how establishing an exercise habit can create a ripple effect of positive health outcomes, and how our modern environment impacts physical fitness. 

Brace yourself for a deep dive into the symbiotic relationship between resistance training and cardiorespiratory fitness. We'll reveal how a modest resistance exercise regime can significantly enhance your VO2 max and overall fitness levels. Eric will also explain how resistance training can serve as a motivational tool to inspire more active lifestyles. Don't miss out on our myth-busting session about body weight strength training and creatine supplementation, where we unravel their true benefits and recommended dosages. This episode is overflowing with actionable gems that can guide you towards a healthier, more active lifestyle.

Episode Transcript

Jerry Teixeira (00:00):
In this episode, I talk with Eric Rawson.
Eric's an exercise physiologistwho studies healthy human aging
.
In this episode, we dig intothe concept of exercise snacks
and how short, frequent balanceof movement dispersed throughout
the day can lead to big changesand improvements in health.
We also talk about themisconception when it comes to
resistance exercise, wherepeople think that you need a

(00:22):
large dose to elicit aneffective response, which is not
the case.
We also dig into creatine.
We talk about its applications.
We also talk about potentialside effects and, toward the
very end, as I was about tothank him for coming on the
podcast, we lost power.
So there's an abrupt end andthe parade of storms the West

(00:45):
Coast weather phenomenon that'sapparently once in multiple
decades was going on at the time.
We lost power for a minute.
It knocked out the internet andwe lost Eric, but we did get
everything that we wanted to getinto the episode, so you're not
missing anything other than methanking him.
I was extremely grateful thathe gave some of his time to the
podcast and so, without furtherado, please enjoy my interview

(01:07):
with Eric Rossin.
All right, today I'm talking toEric.
Eric, I'm happy to have youhere.
This is Eric Rossin.
He is a PhD researcher.
He's a doctor, but the goodkind, because he researches
hypertrophy and strength and howit relates to healthy aging and
other topics that I'm superinterested in.
Now, this is a field that Ibelieve is understudied.

(01:28):
There's a couple guys and girlsout there that are researching
this, trying to elucidate thebenefits, but, again like I said
, I think it's superunderstudied, so I'm really
happy to have you here.
So yeah, welcome to the podcast, man.

Eric Rawson (01:43):
It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm thrilled with theinvitation and I'm quite happy
to finally meet you outside ofthe wonderful world of Twitter.

Jerry Teixeira (01:53):
Yeah, likewise.
Likewise.
It seems like for a long timethere was this the gym bros that
are into strength training andhypertrophy type goals and
people commonly associated thatwith, like it's vanity, it's I
just want to look good orwhatever.
But I think we're starting tofind out more and more that

(02:15):
that's not necessarily the case,that there are our health
implications to having musclemass building strength.
So I just wanted to highlightthat I think the work that
you're doing is important andthat's why I think it's
understudied is because we don'tappreciate at least it may be
my bias, but we don't appreciatethe role that this can play,
and I think some of it's becausethe negative connotation from

(02:37):
the bodybuilding click and theInstagram weightlifting crowd
and that type of thing.
So hopefully we can dispel somerumors and educate people.
Now, how did?
Because it's such anunderstudied area, I'm really
interested in what brought youto where you are.
Like, how did you get from highschool?
You had to choose a clear pathand that arc happened.

(02:58):
So what brought you around towhere you are today?

Eric Rawson (03:03):
That's a great question and we'd have to go
back to even before high schoolto figure this out.
And I think we'd have to go allthe way back to when I was a
young child and the men in myfamily were prolific readers.
They read everything lots ofscience fiction, classic books

(03:26):
and I really couldn't stopmoving.
I was perpetual motion.
I was constantly physicallyactive.
I would ride my bike eight or10 hours per day, skateboard
eight hours on the next day,throw a baseball up and down in
the yard for 10 hours, and theonly reading I really did was
comic books and things aboutsports.

(03:50):
And in hindsight, what I figuredout was that I have this
incredible interest in humanperformance.
I just find making peoplebigger, faster and stronger to
be an incredibly exciting thing,and even as a young child, I

(04:11):
very, very much remember alwaystrying to exceed my previous
record in something, and itcould have been how long I could
hold my breath, it could havebeen how long I could ride a
wheelie on my bike, but it wasalways a performance improvement
.
And, in addition to thephysical aspect of that, I was

(04:37):
always interested in what Icould possibly put in my body,
meaning food and nutrients thatwould help me to achieve my best
possible performance.
And over the years I've had thegreat opportunity to meet
different athletes from a wholevariety of sports and a lot of
them had that same childhoodexperience they were interested

(05:00):
in making themselves bigger,faster, stronger and achieving
their best in just across theboard.
The comic books were interestingto me because these superheroes
, they embodied these fictionalcharacters.
I was a huge fan of theIncredible Hulk, a bit of a fan

(05:24):
of the Flash, mostly the Hulkand a few other superheroes, and
at one point in time theystarted running in the backs of
the comic books advertisementsfor training programs, in
particular Charles Atlas'sDynamic Tension Programs, and it
led me to the world ofbodybuilding and powerlifting

(05:46):
and Olympic lifting and Idiscovered that to my eye, you
could actually become this typeof superhero.
So my interests since the verybeginning have been anatomy,
physiology, nutrition and humanperformance.
It was just always there.

Jerry Teixeira (06:04):
That's interesting.

Eric Rawson (06:08):
So back in the 80s, when I was finishing up high
school, it seemed like all of myfriends were headed off to
college.
They were studying engineering,they were studying computer
science and I was the onlyperson interested in studying
the human body and I had no ideahow to turn that into a career
or what the profession would be.
I just knew I wanted moreanatomy and physiology.

(06:31):
I didn't know there was anutrition profession.
I didn't know there was acourse called Exercise
Physiology and I started out inphysical therapy and I learned
that there's a rehabilitationside of the fence and there's a
prevention side of the fence.
There's a huge amount ofoverlap, particularly with

(06:52):
Americans today in terms oftheir health.
But I really didn't belong inrehabilitation and I was in
physical therapy.
That was the wrong place for meand discovered exercise science
accidentally and I thought Iwould be the world's greatest
personal trainer.
I thought I would own at leastone gym and eventually I

(07:13):
encountered a woman namedPriscilla Clarkson who taught me
about how to be excellent as aneducator, as a mentor, and she
taught me about research and howsomeone like me could

(07:35):
contribute to research, togenerating new knowledge.
So it's always been the samething how do I make people
bigger, faster and stronger?
Except, I started out withapplying this to myself.
Now I'm applying it to otherpeople and, in particular, I've
grown an interest in applyingthat type of thinking to older

(07:55):
adults.
So, any type of exercise, anytype of nutritional intervention
that promotes human health andin particular, I've always been
fascinated with skeletal musclemuch more than the
cardiovascular system, it'scooler.

Jerry Teixeira (08:12):
I mean, come on.

Eric Rawson (08:13):
Well, I've always said anything that lasts longer
than 30 seconds.
I'm just not gonna do it.

Jerry Teixeira (08:20):
Well, the reason I think this is great is
because I'm sure that listenersare aware we have a rapidly
aging population.
The baby boomers are gettingolder.
I read a statistic that 10,000baby boomers retire every day
and almost exactly 10,000 babyboomers also die every day, and
so it's sad in a sense, becausewe are increasingly the

(08:46):
unhealthiest generations thatour species has ever produced,
and it's long and storiedhistory, you know.

Eric Rawson (08:53):
Yes, I've come around at a very early age and
I've come around at a veryinteresting time where, when I
started all of this and this isa long part of the discussion,
but when I started all of thiswe weren't talking about obesity
and we weren't talking aboutdiabetes, not as researchers,
not as Jim Brose, not as parents.

(09:15):
There just wasn't the emphasis.
And throughout the 90s, fromchildren all the way up to
adults and older adults, theincrease of lifestyle diseases
has been shocking.
The increase in obesity hasbeen shocking.
The increase in physicalinactivity has been shocking and

(09:39):
, coming from someone who lovesmovement, it's been incredible
to watch how fast these changeshappened.
And, of course, this changedresearch funding.
It changed research interests.
For me, at this point, I thinksuccessful aging is probably the

(10:01):
most important thing we couldbe studying.

Jerry Teixeira (10:03):
Yeah, and one of the things that I find
particularly interesting when itcomes to aging is that when we
look at the poor metabolichealth, you look at insulin
resistance, type 2 diabetes.
It in many respects, at acellular level, mirrors
accelerated aging.
So when you're doing researchinto the one, you are kind of by

(10:24):
default also doing researchinto the other, and so I
definitely think that whatyou're doing has a direct
application to even someone whois aging healthily, has a
benefit to them.
But this also has a benefit andapplication to those that are
younger, who are experiencingaccelerated aging, even though
they may not see it as thatbecause of the insulin

(10:46):
resistance to diabetes I meaninsulin resistance it begins
inside the muscle.
So that's an area where weoften talk about how diet is
fundamental to fat loss and thatpeople need to fix their diets
first and absolutely.

(11:07):
When you look at theproliferation of ultra-processed
food and how our diets gottenso far off track, I think that's
fair.
But because insulin resistanceand these things begin inside
the muscle before you can evensee them on regular blood work,
what or how strong of aprotective role do you think

(11:27):
physical activity plays inpreventing these types of
diseases the insulin resistance,the type 2 diabetes, outside of
diet.
So I know that exerciseimproves insulin resistance or
insulin sensitivity, ratherindependent of diet.
But how strong do you thinkthat signal is?
Like?
What do you think?
I guess what I'm getting at is,provided the same terrible food

(11:52):
environment, provided the sameenvironment that we're in take
the physically active kid versusthe inactive kid, or the person
who's exercising versus not,and strip away weight loss.
Like how important is thatexercise?
What do you think that's doingon a cellular level to help
prevent the poor metabolichealth that we're seeing?

Eric Rawson (12:09):
That's a great question.
The short answer to me is it'sa robust signal and it's
incredibly important to maintaina level of respiratory fitness,
of muscular fitness and ofhabitual physical activity
levels, even if you'restruggling to maintain a healthy
body weight.
I think the signal, the benefitof being physically active, is

(12:35):
absolutely protective againstdisease.
I think where the conversationhas to go is well a few places.
One is how are we defininghealth?
Because your question was aboutcardiometabolic disease or
metabolic disease.

(12:56):
There are other types ofdiseases.
We're interested incardiometabolic disease, we're
interested in mental health,we're interested in cancer.
One part of the question iswhere does physical activity fit
in in terms of creating asignal to reduce our risk of

(13:19):
disease?
Then the other half of thequestion is should it be aerobic
endurance training or should itbe resistance training or
should it be both?
That's something I've been veryvocal about and you've been
vocal about in the past fewyears.
That is, we're underselling thebenefits of resistance training
in terms of protecting ourhealth.

(13:43):
I think you mentioned somethingelse, and that relates to age.
This is not just a discussionthat starts when you're over the
age of 75 or 65 or 45.
Young people today have muchlower levels of muscle strength.
They have many moredistractions to prevent them

(14:04):
from being physically active.
It's very much a toxicenvironment in terms of being
physically fit and physicallyactive.
This is a lifespan discussionand we're talking about maybe
successful aging, but we shouldstart the discussion with
children really.

Jerry Teixeira (14:20):
Yeah, I think for most people they don't
actually think about aging andits impact on them until they
start to get to maybe thatmidpoint 40 years old or they
start feeling some physiologicalchanges.

Eric Rawson (14:34):
Until they get sick .

Jerry Teixeira (14:35):
Yeah, or even sick.
Coincidentally, I went into theMarine Corps right out of high
school and I wasn't a very fit.
I mean, I wasn't lazy, I livedon a dairy farm but I wasn't an
athlete I should say.
I went into the Marine Corpsand that was my first hard
structured physical training.
I think what helped me was wehad to be physically active at

(14:56):
your morning PT five days a week.
It wasn't like you had a choice.
I've learned later, as a littleolder, as an adult, that we are
the product of our habits.
Because people grow up wherewe're in an environment that's
not forcing physical activityanymore, we simply don't do it,
so we never build a habit to doit.
Then we transition.

(15:17):
As we get older and older,those things start to take their
toll on us and, to your point,there's already damage being
done.
That entire time of inactivity.
Where I got lucky was, I think,going into the military.
I was forced to build thishabit that I just carried on
after I left the military.
So even when I got fat, at onepoint I was obese, I was 50

(15:37):
something pounds overweight.
I'm not the tallest guy in theworld.
I'm five nine.
It's a tall five nine, but it'sfive, nine nonetheless, and so
you know, gaining 50 pounds ofnot muscle was significant, but
I kept exercising through allthat and so I've always felt
that the physical activity thatI've engaged in because my blood
work was still good during thattime, even though my doctor was
concerned with the weight gain.

(15:58):
So I do think that beingphysically active, in my own
experience and based on aliterature as well, it's
definitely, I think, protective.
But to me it just comes back tothe modern environment, from
from technology impacting foodpreservation and the
availability of these terribleultra processed foods,
ubiquitous of food in general,everywhere screens, remote

(16:20):
controls for TVs, everything'sautomated.
Now there's Uber they bring youyour food like we.
We don't have to do much toexist, and throughout the rest
of human history, just to existand and you know, not die you
had to be physically active,which is why modern hunter,
gatherer societies are veryinteresting to me, not because I

(16:42):
think we should do everythingthey do, but because they have
to exert high levels of physicalactivity just to exist.
And then when we look at theirmetabolic health, it's quite
high.
There's there's no obesity,they're not overweight, and you
know, everybody focuses on dietand I do think diet's very
important, but it almost seemslike I I get engaged in these

(17:04):
debates where people are talkingHunter Gathers and it's almost
all like 90% of its diet, youknow.
Or you look at the blue zonesand it's everything.
Everybody focuses on diet andI'm and I'm looking at the blue
zones and I'm like these peopledon't drive cars, they walk
everywhere, they live in thehills, like they go to bed on
time, they don't have screens,like they have strong family
ties and there's all these otherfactors and I think, because

(17:25):
our diet's so terrible here inAmerica, in America and some of
the West, that we, we, we harpon that, but I almost feel like
we're we're just forgettingeverything else and we just
shoot straight straight to dietlike that's everything.
And I even see it on,especially on twitter.
You got tons of people and theythey really struggle to exercise
and and they Like endlesslymanipulate and tinker with their

(17:48):
diet and adjust all theselittle things and all the while
still are not physically activeenough.
So I I don't want to I guessI'm on soapbox for a second here
just because I I feel like wereally do hammer Diet,
justifiably, like I said,because how things are in the
West.
But I think we need to alsostep back and realize that the

(18:09):
other side of that coin Isgetting people physically active
, getting them to like we talkedabout resistance train If they,
if they love doing cardio.
Ball means go do cardio.
I'm not I mean, I do it myself.
I'm not an anti cardio guy, um,but, and actually on that same
token, resistance training iscardio.
So one of the things I hate isthis but we refer to exercise
and it's like okay, you gotstrength training and then

(18:31):
you've got your cardio.
And I'm like last time Ichecked, my heart rate was up
pretty well during my strengthtraining.
So maybe you can elucidate thelistener to how strength
training is cardio.
And especially, I think, ifyou're sedentary and you're
coming off the couch, it's greatcardio, like just getting
physically active and and so.
So if you can just kind of digin that a little bit, that'd be

(18:51):
awesome.

Eric Rawson (18:53):
Absolutely, and if you have some some room up on
your soapbox, I'll come right upthere with you.
We it's wonderful that we talkso much about nutrition, but we
talk about nutrition at theexpense of physical activity.
I have happened to live incentral Pennsylvania and I am
surrounded by Uh the Amishpopulation, and I have to tell

(19:16):
you that their diet could not bedescribed as vegan or low fat
or any any popular diet.
They're not ketogenic, they'renot carnivore.
If anything, they probablyconsume more butter and more
salt and more gravy than istypically recommended.
But their rates of obesity areincredibly low and I would

(19:40):
connect that to their musclestrength, which is incredibly
high, and their Daily physicalactivity.
They get three or four timesthe steps that a typical
American does.
You know they're physicallyactive and See, I believe
physical activity modifies ourdietary behaviors and I think

(20:01):
one of the reasons that they caneat Three meals per day and not
snack is, one, because that'sthe habit they built, but two
it's easier to do that becausetheir body is regulated in terms
of energy intake by their highenergy output.
I think physical activity verymuch regulates Our energy intake

(20:23):
, our calorie intake, and andthere are data from Gosh, six
decades ago, showing that um, invery active populations it's
it's quite easy to achieveenergy balance, and this was
before apps and no one did dietrecords back then, right?

(20:44):
So people who burned the mostcalories ate the most calories,
but they only ate enough tomaintain their body weight.
People who burned the fewestcalories Mismatched their energy
intake, and over eight.
So we really can't talk aboutnutrition, whether it's carbs,
fats or protein or calories.

(21:06):
We really can't talk aboutnutrition without that direct
connection to physical activity,because I'm I'm quite sure our
physical activity levels helpmodulate Our dietary behaviors.
So I'm up on the soapbox withyou.
I love that we talk aboutnutrition so much, but not at
the expense of physical activityand physical fitness.

Jerry Teixeira (21:25):
Yeah, and and it makes sense because from an
evolutionary standpoint likethere there's never been, except
for maybe a few in thearistocracy in most recent four,
four thousand years or so.
But there is no physicallyinactive human.
It couldn't have existed before.
Right, I would have resulted inyou expiring and you would have
been selected.
You're gone, you know soexactly.
To me you feel like it's.

(21:46):
One of the arguments that I havesometimes on social media Is
like I don't ever want to shameanyone who's sedentary.
I don't want anybody to feellike I'm putting them down if
not being physically active,especially because historically
we would have simply had to bephysically active to survive.
We weren't choosing it, it wasjust what you had to do.
Now, because we no longer inthat environment, we have to
choose it, so, so I want to becareful to make sure people know

(22:09):
I'm encouraging people to bephysically active, but I'm not
trying to shame anyone.
I don't think that's that's theright approach.
But but yeah, to your point.
I People often look at my bloodworks great or my labs are
great and I lost weight, whichis awesome, all that stuff's
awesome.
But to me, if you're notphysically active, I don't care
how good A health you thinkyou're in like.

(22:30):
You're not in that good health.
You can look at the data, evenwhen they control For obesity
and and and waste circumferenceand everything else.
If you're sedentary it'sliterally like smoking.
The correlation to To mortalityincreases like smoking, even
after controls.
So you know, to me it's likeit's a false sense of security

(22:50):
to think that you're physicallyinactive yet You're.
You're actually healthy.

Eric Rawson (22:53):
You may be, you may be free of disease, or at least
observable disease, but that'sa different thing than being
robustly healthy to me, Right, I, I agree and and our own
personal experience is valuable,but it's a, it's a snapshot,
it's a single time point type ofyou know sample size of one
study.
I can tell you, you know, whatI'm doing right now in terms of

(23:17):
nutrition and exercise and myblood work, but that doesn't
mean that this will be thesuccessful plan 10 years from
now or 15 years from now, and Ithink that's part of what what
people are missing is we'retalking about, you know, years
of health, what we're talkingabout successful aging and not

(23:40):
just being able maybe to getaway with being less active
Because you're only in your 20sor your 30s or you're you're in
your early 40s.
You know things will start toaccelerate after about the age
of 40 or 45 in terms of declinesin fitness and declines in
muscular strength, and that willmake it harder to develop the

(24:03):
physical activity habit.
Again.
I want to touch on on somethingyou said about resistance
training being aerobic or cardiorespiratory training.
This is actually a questionthat I include in one of my
exercise physiology labs everyyear.
When we do laboratories for, youknow, musculoskeletal strength,

(24:26):
we tend to separate those fromthe laboratories on cardio
respiratory fitness.
But but I like the students torealize there's so much
important overlap there.
We tend to teach the componentsof fitness separately and we
tend to teach the metabolicsystems separately.
That's how we have to teach it,but there is a lot of overlap
there.

(24:46):
So one of the questions Ialways pose to the students is
it's quite simple, it's you know, does resistance training
increase your vo2 max or yourmaximal cardio, or your maximal
cardio respiratory fitness?
And so many of them are shockedto stumble upon that research
to show that, in particular, ifyour fitness is low, you will

(25:08):
have an increase in VO2 max andmaximal cardiovascular fitness
from a very modest resistanceexercise program.
Now, that's improvement.
That's important for a fewobvious reasons.
One is that it works right.
Resistance training canincrease your cardiorespiratory
fitness.
Two, cardiorespiratory fitnessis an incredibly good predictor

(25:31):
of mortality, right?
So if we're increasing VO2 max,then we're having beneficial
effects on mortality.
But I think you know the realbenefit here is that it reaches
people who maybe will not doaerobic type exercise training,

(25:53):
or they cannot do it or theydon't enjoy it or they find it
painful.
You know a lot of.
For a lot of frail elders,getting in a treadmill is a very
scary experience.
For a lot of large people whohave arthritis and pain, doing

(26:14):
cardiovascular exercise isnightmarish.
It's you're offering thempunishment to improve their
health and I think a lot ofthese people could really
benefit more if the startingpoint was resistance exercise.

Jerry Teixeira (26:30):
Yeah, I agree with you 100%, and even with my
own clients, which I mean I dohave a knowledge of
cardiorespiratory gearedexercise, I mean I can coach
that.
It's not what I.
I don't take people on for thatpurpose, because there's there
are people way more qualifiedthan me.
If you want to go run a marathonor something, that's not you
know, that's not not my jam, butI find that when people start

(26:53):
out and you focus on resistanceexercise and I tend to take
people that are novice and wereduce their rest period, so we
keep the the sessions brief, wekeep the intensity up, we keep
the pace up, what happens isthey do improve, like, like
you're talking about, theirconditioning improves, all their
overall fitness levels increase.

(27:14):
And a perfect example is I haveone client that we've been
working together for maybe likenine months now and at first it
was just resistance exercise andthen she started walking.
I encourage people to walk.
I mean, walking is incrediblefor us.
It did for tons of differentreasons, we can dive into those,
but but anyway she started outwalking and then from walking it

(27:34):
was well, I feel like joggingnow.
Like she lost weight, she builtup quite a bit of muscle mass,
she had a strongermusculoskeletal system and then
and then I actually feelcomfortable saying have at it.
If you feel like a go run man,that's great, right, like when
people are weak, you know whenthey're musculoskeletal system
overall is weak, and then youtake it and you place this

(27:55):
demand of repetitive.
You know whether it's runningor whatever the case is, you're
going to make adaptations andyou're going to get stronger
even in response to that, but Ifeel like strengthening the
musculos, skeletal systemthrough resistance training
first and then adding in theadditional cardiovascular
training.
I find that that works well fora lot of people, especially

(28:16):
when they're coming off thecouch.

Eric Rawson (28:17):
Yes, we would never discourage people from doing
aerobic exercise training.
I strongly encourage everyoneto increase the amount of
walking they do.
But you know, if you look atthe data on, you know how
physically inactive we are.
You realize that we're notgetting people to exercise.

(28:41):
And never saying, you know,don't walk, don't do the
treadmill.
Never saying don't do the stairmaster.
But really you know, looking atpeople as individuals and saying
what can I do to help thisperson develop an exercise habit
?
And, like I said, for a personwho's frail and they're
concerned about a fall, maybethe treadmill is more anxiety

(29:04):
than benefit.
Sure, right.
And for a large person, youknow, even the seat on an
exercise bike could be painfuland if they have arthritis, then
walking isn't what to startwith.
And I've always believed thatif you, if all you can do is sit
in a chair and I can hand yousome dumbbells and you can do

(29:26):
presses and you can do curls andyou can do a variety of
different exercises, In my ownexperience in working with
people, they feel better andthey make progress quickly,
progress that they can see bynumber of repetitions, by the
weight they're lifting, and it'sreally hard to see that

(29:47):
progress on cardiovascular typeexercises when your fitness is
very low or when you're very,very large.
So I've always thought that,you know, getting people engaged
in resistance exercise is agreat starting point that will
spontaneously lead to morephysical activity, more walking,

(30:09):
more walking briskly andpotentially even jogging.
You know things like teamactivities, things like pickle
ball.
I think the foundation ismuscular strength, yeah, and I
often ask people I say, when yougo to the airport, what do you
see at the escalators?
And they say huge line of peoplewaiting at the escalators.

(30:29):
And I say, what do you see atthe stairs?
And they say what do you see atthe stairs?
The stairs are empty.
I say, okay, is no one in ahurry?
Everyone is, you know, on timeand has plenty of time.
Why are they waiting for theescalator when the stairs are
open and they could just cut theline?
And you know, if you're in anairport, you're surrounded by

(30:53):
thousands of people.
Don't you want some space?
Why is everyone all crowdedaround the escalator and waiting
?
And I take the stairs.
You know, I take the stairs onpurpose, because I've been
sitting on an airplane, right,and I want to use my muscles, I
want to use my body, but I thinkone of the reasons that my

(31:15):
brain will tell me to take thestairs is that the stairs are no
more difficult for me than theescalator, and that's not
because of my cardio.
I think that's from years ofsquatting Right, right.
I think my muscular strength,even with my luggage, gets me up
the stairs and it's just aseffortless as standing on the

(31:38):
escalator, whereas in my opinionand it's only my opinion, I
think most people, theirmuscular fitness is so poor,
combined with maybe heavier bodyweights, that the escalator is
really a lot easier for themthan the stairs.
The stairs will be a difficultchallenge for them, so they
don't take it.
And I look at that and I thinkthat's an opportunity for a

(32:01):
resistance exercise interventionto help these people.
I think that's.
I think the activities that Ichoose to do are based on my
muscular strength, not my cardio.

Jerry Teixeira (32:13):
Yeah, I think in day to day life my experience
is similar.
So like we moved from a onestory to a two story recently
specifically because we had tomove anyways and my youngest had
always wanted to live in a twostory house.
He's eight now.
Well, he'd be eight shortly.
And then my daughter, she's 16.
And when she was younger shealways wanted to live in a two
story house.
So we thought, hey, let's,let's do it, you know.

(32:34):
So we move in and my wife hatesthe stairs.
She was like, oh my God, whydid we do this?
But the funny thing is what Ido, so our stairs are like
halfway up, then you turn, youflip it, you turn the rest of
the way up, so it's like a twopiece staircase, Right so at the
bottom.
Almost every time I'd say 95%of the times I've gone up that
staircase, I literally take twoto three stairs at a time and I

(32:54):
run up it as fast as I can, LikeI make the turn as quick as I
can and I like fly up it.
You know it almost like I'mdoing step ups and it's not hard
at all for me.
But it's like on the one handit's kind of fun, you know.
But also I've come to realizeearlier on in you know, just my
fitness journey or whatever youwant to refer to it, as I had
the training bout.

(33:15):
So you're going to go to thegym or you're going to train at
home, whatever it is, but you'vegot your structured exercise
session and I used to think,okay, well, I'm working on the
computer, I'm sitting a lot, butI'm working out, so I'm good,
right, Like it counteracts thephysical inactivity.
And recently a lot of data arecoming out that suggests that,
hey, be inactive for 30, 45minutes a day is great, but it's

(33:36):
not undoing that nine to 10hours of sitting around.
Yes, you need to break up thatsitting around and and have
physical activity forcirculation of lymphatic fluid
and blood and everything elseyou know, getting your muscles
moving.
So when I do have to goupstairs for something and I'm
home, I take that littlesprinting up the stairs as, like
a way to help break up myperiods of inactivity.

(33:58):
And similarly, when we go tomalls or anywhere else where
there stairs, I'm like you, I'lltake the stairs.
But I think part of that'sbecause mentally I understand
the benefit and I think, oh,that's good for me, I'm going to
go ahead and do that and Ithink a lot of people they don't
.
Like we hinted on earlier, Ithink resistance exercise being
such a boon for health isunderappreciated and so some

(34:19):
people don't realize that.
I think if more peopleunderstood it, more people would
actually go through the troubleto do it.
They just don't know.

Eric Rawson (34:26):
Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both.
I think resistance training,that the research is lagged
behind aerobic exercise training, but I do think a lot of people
know that moving is is betterthan sitting.
I think they know that thestairs are better for them than
the escalator or the elevator.
Perhaps they perhaps they don'tknow that you know, one sprint

(34:51):
up the stairs can have realhealth benefits.
I would imagine most peopledon't know that and we call that
in research exercise snacks.
So there's some wonderfulresearch where they have people,
you know, go for a five minutewalk every hour on the hour or,
you know, climb a flight ofstairs, you know, a few times

(35:12):
per day, and there were realcardiometabolic benefits,
measurable cardiometabolicbenefits which, given how
variable the response is toexercise, to how we all improve
differently, that's phenomenal,that just a tiny bit of exercise
throughout the day can havereal measurable benefits.
But we're fighting against.
You know how automated ourlifestyles have become and you

(35:37):
know I'm at a standing deskright now.
I have a standing desk at theoffice and that will burn
probably an extra nine caloriesper hour, which is better than
zero.
But I could, you know, easilyoverwhelm that with, you know,
just one bad dietary choice orone slip.

(35:59):
So we're trying to overcome avery toxic environment and I
think you know developingexercise habits we have to be
very smart.
It's much more nuanced thaneverybody go jogging right that
we know that's not going to beeffective.
One thing I'll share with you,and I guess I'm not sure how old

(36:25):
your, your followers, are, butif they're around my age,
they've lived through aninteresting time when it comes
to exercise, in particularresistance training.
So when I started all of this,it wasn't okay for old people to
lift weights.
Right, it was unsafe.

(36:46):
And it wasn't okay for childrento lift weights because it was
unsafe.
Because it was unsafe anddangerous.
Now both of those things haveno evidence.
They had no evidence then.
They have no evidence now.
This is all silly.
And when I started all of this,athletes did not lift weights,
with the exception of maybe somelinemen in American football

(37:08):
and shot putters, throwers andtrack and field.
If you were a gymnast and yougot caught lifting weights,
you'd probably get thrown out ofthe weight room and threatened
with the loss of yourscholarship.
Golfers didn't lift weights.
Women, of course, didn't liftweights, right, so I've lived
through all of this.

(37:29):
You know ridiculousness.
None of it was evidence based,but I've watched the research
kind of catch up.
And that goes for women, itgoes for older adults, it goes
for children, it goes for obeseadults, people with stable
medical diseases, it goes forathletes.
Think of the whole field ofstrength and conditioning not

(37:52):
existing.
That wasn't that long ago.

Jerry Teixeira (37:55):
Yeah, you're right, it's pretty crazy if you
think of, I mean, tiger Woods.
I remember when Tiger Woods wasyoung and he was a rookie and
people were literally like, whyis he lifting weights?
Like that's, he's a golfer.
Like what's he in?
the weight room for the Williamssisters play in tennis and
people were like shocked thatthey're like weight training
hard, like that.
And then you're like, oh,granted, it's skill.
I'm not saying she's the mostdominant female tennis player
ever because she's jacked, butmy point is the power that she

(38:18):
has and the strongmusculoskeletal system that she
developed certainly improved hersport.
She was able to use herstrength to her advantage.
So now you see it in everysport, even the.
I think it was last to breakinto the high socioeconomic
status sports for whateverreason, or at least it seems
that way.
And it also seems that when itcomes to endurance training

(38:41):
endurance training almostuniversally, I've noticed, like
attorneys and doctors and your alot of researchers they
gravitate, I would say peoplewith a higher education level,
higher socioeconomic status,they kind of gravitate to
resistance, I'm sorry, endurancetraining.
And only recently and I knowmost runners now I see they're
starting to strength train twodays a week.

(39:02):
They're doing these things, sothey've learned and they're
accepting that, but it seemslike, for whatever reason, there
was a long-term disconnectwhere it was.
Your blue collar blue collarguys are in the gym slinging
weight and then your whitecollar guys are riding bikes and
running marathons, and it'slike we're finally seeing an
amalgamation of these thingscoming together.

Eric Rawson (39:24):
Yes, it's evolved right.
So at the beginning of mycareer, the only people who were
supposed to be lifting weightswere linemen and football shot
putters and weight lifters, andeveryone else was supposed to
avoid it.
Again, no evidence behind theridiculous concept of getting
muscle bound and we got throughthat and people would talk about

(39:46):
loss of flexibility.
No evidence behind that.
We talk about increased risk ofinjury which no evidence behind
that, right.
So today, if you think ofLeBron James without lifting
weights, if you think of TigerWoods, if you think of Serena
Williams, if you think of anyathlete in any sport not lifting
weights, that almost seems likenegligence on the part of the

(40:09):
athletic trainers and thecoaches, because, in addition to
the strength, in addition tothe power, we have a reduction
in injuries, we have protectionfrom injuries, and we've gotten
to a place now where, when weteach you about the benefits of
resistance training, we'vegotten through the myths, right.

(40:31):
We've gotten through the musclebound stuff and the injuries
and all the things that werenever really true, but we tend
to teach the benefits ofresistance training in a very,
very limited capacity.
We talk about increasedstrength, we talk about
increased power.
Once in a while, we get to thepart about.
You know protection from injury.
We've all signed on toresistance training as part of

(40:55):
rehabilitation from injury.
Right, but we're still nottalking about the protective
effects of resistance trainingagainst cardiometabolic disease.
We're not talking aboutresistance exercise improving
quality of life in cancerpatients.
We're not talking aboutresistance training and there's

(41:15):
research to support this.
You know resistance trainingreducing your risk of mortality.
No aerobic training at all,just resistance training twice a
week.
You know improved mortality,and we're getting better at
talking about it.
For me, the one thing that noone's talking about and I've
tried to be loud about it is Ithink we can use resistance

(41:37):
training to modify behavior.

Jerry Teixeira (41:39):
Okay.

Eric Rawson (41:40):
I think we live at a time where it's very difficult
to develop healthy habits,where it's very difficult to
become physically active, and Ithink there's some evidence that
resistance training willimprove many other systems in
your body and also potentiallyspontaneously increase your

(42:04):
physical activity.
So probably the first and mostimportant resistance training
article on resistance trainingin older adults was from Maria
Fiat-Aroni in colleagues, and itwas published in our most
prestigious medical journal andit showed remarkable increases
in muscle strength in old peoplelifting weights.

(42:26):
Everyone was shocked that theydidn't just die, right, you know
, the mean age in the articlewas over 90 years old, you know.
So they weren't old like 55,they were old like 95.
Right, they lifted weights,that massive improvements in
strength and walking speed.
But the part of the articlethat no one read was the part

(42:46):
that shows a really largeincrease in habitual physical
activity.
They made frail elders liftweights and they got more active
in their free living time.
And then, a few years later,also from the same group at
Tufts University, miriam Nelsonpublished a 12 month resistance
training paper and it wassupposed to be about bone, which

(43:10):
we always talk about, right,but in the paper the part that
no one read was that the groupwho didn't lift weights had a
spontaneous reduction inphysical activity and the group
who lifted weights for a year,again only about two days per
week minimal they increased theamount of physical activity they
did outside of the gymspontaneously.

(43:30):
It wasn't part of the study andthere's been several
investigations.
They've used all differenttypes of ways to measure
physical activity.
It's a small body of literaturebut it includes overweight
people, older adults,middle-aged adults, young adults
and we keep seeing thisspontaneous improvement in

(43:51):
physical activity outside thegym once we get people stronger.

Jerry Teixeira (43:56):
Yeah, it makes sense and it kind of aligns with
so.
One thing I often say on socialmedia is movement begets more
movement and I found that it'sthe gateway drug Right and I
found it to be true, like, timeand time again.
There's one guy I follow whostarted out just walking right,
that was his.
He was super overweight,started walking every day.
Next thing, you know, he'srunning triathlons.

(44:16):
I mean, obviously there was ajourney there, but it began with
walking and then, once he waslike actually starting to be
physically active, he keptbecoming more physically active
over time to the point where hewanted to challenge his body and
gravitated toward triathlons.
Some people, you know, theygravitate more and plug into
resistance exercise or whetherit's taking your kids camping,
whatever, like I've seen thatexperience play out in my own

(44:41):
life.
I mean, the other day my kidand I were playing is it
pickleball, it's a junior tennisin the backyard and he hit it
over our block wall and so we'dgo around the neighborhood.
I was like, no, I'll just jumpover the block wall, I got it.
So it's not like I'm that old,but I'm 43 and I'm scaling the
block wall and grabbing a thingand jumping back over and
totally fine.
Well, I mean, I guess,theoretically, if I'm super

(45:03):
worried about getting injured,yeah, me jumping off a six foot
wall into my grass is gonnaincrease my injury risk, but I'm
confident that my training andmy musculoskeletal system are
perfectly adequate to handle it.
So I still do stuff that mostpeople my age probably wouldn't
do.
They would just walk around andgo get it.
But I'm not.
You know what I mean.
Like that stuff just comessecond nature.
Like I still do everything Idid when I was 20, but I'm 43.

(45:24):
I just do it like run up thestairs.
I do like all that same stuff.
But my first apartment was asecond story apartment when I
was 21.
And I used to come home fromwork and I would run up the
stairs every time.
And I still do that.
So that's like I'm saying.
My experience mirrors exactlywhat you're saying, with clients
who start off with a simple twoday week strength training
program and then it grows fromthere to running and whatever

(45:48):
else they wanna do.
But yeah, even myself I see thesame things and as I'm getting
older my daughter's friends asshe's 17,.
Like my daughter's friends,parents and other people I start
seeing the chasm between thestuff I normally do and the
stuff they normally do justkeeps widening.
And I think it goes right backto what you're saying.

(46:08):
It's just the fact that I keepmoving, keeps me moving.
I don't consciously force it,it's just.
It's not hard for me, like it'snot hard for me to do.

Eric Rawson (46:16):
I think your brain knows that that's not a big deal
.
Carry your groceries, walk uptwo flights of stairs, walk up
two stairs at a time, jump overthe fence or the wall in the
yard.
I think your brain does a greatjob telling you what your
limitations are.
It's really a cycle that we gettrapped in and no one knows

(46:37):
exactly where it starts.
But we gain weight, exercisebecomes uncomfortable, so we do
less of it, and when I sayexercise, I mean purposeful
exercise and also physicalactivity of our daily lives.
We do less of it, we move less,we get in that chair quicker

(47:00):
and we think about walking to astore or parking far away.
We think about it less and lessas we become heavier and we
become more tired.
We become more fatigued, so wemove less and that feeds into
becoming heavier, which makes itless likely to move.
And the cycle goes around andaround, with low energy leading

(47:24):
to less physical activity andleading to a higher body weight.
And we're fighting against avery remarkable food supply
Plentiful food supply and foodthat has been engineered to
taste much, much better than thefood did 50 years ago.

(47:45):
So it's created to overeat,it's not created to satisfy, and
it's tough to break throughthat.
With physical activity, I thinkvery few people will be able to
just start jogging and startrunning triathlons and get
control of all of this.
I think it has to be nuancedand we have to ask ourselves

(48:08):
some questions.
If the only thing you had atyour, if the only option was
running, would you run or donothing?
Right and a lot of people wouldsay I won't run, I'll do nothing
, Okay, well, what do we do withthem?
Let's find some resistanceexercises for them.

(48:30):
Let's start them on the pathway, but with a different starting
point, and for some people, Ithink that's really the way.
I think they can feel theirstrength increase.
I think they can see it aroundthe house, whether it's dragging
out the trash barrel orreaching for something on a
shelf or opening a jar.

(48:50):
I think people can see theimprovements in strength with
their own two eyes.
Their fitness is improving andI do believe that muscular
strength is the foundation andresistance exercise is the
gateway drug to get peoplemoving more in the 23 hours a
day we aren't in the gym.

Jerry Teixeira (49:10):
Yeah, when I first started to grow on social
media which is quite by accident, I never planned for it, I
wasn't trying to, but I was onTwitter to follow mostly
researchers so I could learn toapply things to my own training.
And then I had there was adoctor who had an issue with the
wrist and I posted a quickvideo showing some wrist
strengthening exercises shecould do at home using a wall,

(49:32):
and she was like, oh, this isgreat.
And she retweeted it andstarted to grow.
Some people ask questions.
I started making videos and therest is history.
But one of the things that Inoticed is that we need to
remove the barriers to physicalactivity for people to the best
of our ability, and so,especially early on, I stopped
going to a commercial gym andlifting weights almost entirely

(49:55):
of when my son was born, whichis eight years ago now, and I
decided I was gonna switch tocalisthenics as a discipline and
I was getting burned out withweight training.
So that's why, for me, it waslike going through the motions
and I was finding I was havingto force myself to do it and, my
daughter being a gymnast at thetime, I'd seen male gymnasts, I
saw these awesome physiques andI was like you know what, I can

(50:16):
do this.
Let me take the principles ofhypertrophy and strength
training and just look atcalisthenics and let's structure
it so that I'm still doing thethings I know need to be done to
make this an effectivemethodology.
And then what I found is thatresonated with people because
they were like, oh, I can dothis in my living room.
I'm self-conscious, I don'twant to go to the gym, or I'm a
single mom, or even notnecessarily being single, hey,

(50:38):
I've got three kids.
It's really difficult to packthem in the car, take them to
the daycare, go to the gym.
So I think, to your point,removing barriers and making
people understand that themental model that we have about,
okay, what is resistancetraining?
Well, you picture barbells anddead lifts and like, yeah,
that's one way to do it, forsure, but your body provides

(51:00):
adequate resistance.
You don't have to necessarilyuse weights.
So if someone's listening tothis and you think, okay, I know
I need to resistance exercise,I know I need to include
resistance exercise, you guysare saying two days a week, well
, what I encourage people is allyou need is a floor in your
body and you can get a chair.
I mean you can utilize a chair.
There's different ways you cando it, but you can get

(51:22):
phenomenal results with noequipment at all.
So I think a lot of people alsohave that mental disconnect
where what they think isrequired to engage in successful
resistance exercise Just likeyou said with running people are
like well, if I have to run,I'm not going to do cardio.
For a lot of people it's likewell, if I have to drive to the
gym, I'm just not going tostrength train them.
And so I think it's importantfor people to realize like it's

(51:46):
so and I get I still not so muchnow because I think I've gotten
people to come around to this,but I still get pushed back
sometime on social media wherethey're like you can't get just
as good a results with bodyweight training as you can with
using weights.
And my my retort to that is yes, you can incrementally,
progressively overload easierwhen you've got two and a half
pound plates, one pounddumbbells and all this stuff.

(52:07):
Yes, that there are advantages,but your muscles don't have eyes
where they go.
Oh, he's got a barbell, let'sgrow.
Oh, it's a push up, let's notgrow.
I mean so maybe you can, maybeyou can back me up or tell me
I'm wrong, but you know, when itcomes to strength and
hypertrophy development, itdoesn't matter what implement
you use.
It really doesn't.

Eric Rawson (52:26):
Right.
And you know, one of the thingsprobably the original thing
that attracted me to yourTwitter account.
You know I tried to keepTwitter, you know, is close to
99% professional development aspossible, you know.
So I'm following otherscientists, I'm sharing new

(52:48):
research, and then I like tokeep connected to the fitness
community and I discovered youraccount.
I said, look at this stuff thisguy's doing with body weight
exercises and it's, it's, it'sreal exercise, it's.
He's not selling anythingexcept real exercise here and

(53:09):
progress.
And that's why I startedfollowing you, I don't know how
many years ago.
And the thing about resistanceexercises we've over complicated
it.

Jerry Teixeira (53:20):
Yeah, 100%.

Eric Rawson (53:22):
Right and we've scared people away.
Okay, on the one hand we'retelling people, just go outside
and walk, and people can do thatMany people can't, not
everybody.
But then when we advertiseresistance exercise, we show
pictures of lat pulldowns andsquat machines and leg presses
and you know that that's not thesame approach we've taken to

(53:45):
trying to get people to movemore.
So you know, like you said, youjust need a floor and you need
gravity and it might be easierto throw a, you know, a two and
a half pound plate on the end ofyour barbell.
But just slight changes inposition can really overload the
muscles.
And you made a comment aboutgymnasts earlier.
If you go up to anyone in a gymand show them a picture of a

(54:10):
gymnast Olympic level, collegelevel, probably, even you know
high school level and say isthis a physique that you admire,
is this a good physique,everyone will say that's, that's
fantastic.
Look at the development, lookat the muscular development.
And it's not from heavy squatsand it's not from heavy bench

(54:31):
presses, it's from primarilybody weight, resistance exercise
and lots and lots ofrepetitions.
So you know, hypertrophy cancome from what you do in the gym
.
If you have, if you can affordthe gym.
If you will go to the gym, thengo to the gym.
But if you can't afford the gymif you, if it doesn't fit into

(54:51):
your lifestyle right now, thenthere's so much you can do at
home to improve your muscularstrength and your muscle mass,
men and women, and get all thehealth benefits of resistance
exercise with what we used tocall calisthenics.

Jerry Teixeira (55:08):
Yeah, that's actually why I called it body
weight strength training, sopeople would grasp, because so
my experience was.
I went into the Marine Corpsand it was high rep.
I mean hundreds of push-ups,hundreds of everything, you know
they're trying to just wear youout and I didn't gain a bunch
of muscle mass because I wasbeing ran ragged.
You know I'm going to gain some, but it was when I came back
around and I looked at gymnasthave like mentioned having

(55:29):
screws on me.
Oh, did I Nope you're back.

Eric Rawson (55:32):
Oh okay.

Jerry Teixeira (55:34):
So my experience with with calisthenics as a
strength discipline, it seemslike there's a natural
gravitation toward strengthendurance.
People look at push-ups and youknow, non-weighted dips and all
that kind of stuff.
They look at it as like andmore toward the endurance side

(55:56):
of resistance.
You know, when you are, whenyou're setting up your strength
training, you've got purestrength, you've got strength
hypertrophy right, and thenyou've got your strength
endurance and as you optimizemore for one you can pull a
little bit away from the others.
For example, if you're, ifyou're training in very, very
low rep ranges, the hypertrophymay not be as good as going a

(56:17):
little higher.
You know you're talking one,two, three reps per set, going
up to say five or six.
Or as you get to the extremehigh rep ranges, you start
moving away from hypertrophy,although interestingly, you know
, in the last few years researchhas come out that shows that
you can accomplish hypertrophyjust function like creatinine

(56:40):
excretion under most cases.

Eric Rawson (56:43):
So much to do about nothing.
And I always ask people at mytalks you know we're talking
about adding enough creatinineto your diet.
That equates to like an extrahamburger a day.
Are you really that frightenedby an extra hamburger a day that

(57:03):
you think your kidneys wouldjust collapse?
It doesn't make much sense.
So it took us 10 or 15 years ofgood, good quality studies to
say that this case study thatstarted at all probably
shouldn't have been publishedand certainly spoke beyond the
data that were available at thattime.
So there's no recommendationfor anyone with normal renal

(57:27):
function to have any sort oftesting or talk to their doctor
or any such thing before taking,you know, recommended doses of
creatinine supplements.

Jerry Teixeira (57:39):
Yeah, which would be five grams a day.
That's all I think anybodyreally needs to take.
Yeah, what do you think aboutfive?
So if somebody eats meatregularly, two and a half a day,
do you think would besufficient?

Eric Rawson (57:50):
Yeah, so if we're talking about muscle creatinine,
you know elevated musclecreatinine levels remain that
way for weeks and weeks afteryou stop taking the supplement.
So if you take, you know, onescoop per day the manufacturer
scoops are typically five gramsIf you take one scoop per day,
grade.
If you take a half a scoopevery other day, fine.

(58:13):
If you forget to take it andone day you have a big steak
which is loaded with creatinine,fine.
You know your muscles are supersaturated with creatinine.
There's a limit, there's aceiling.
You're up around that ceilingand if you stop taking
creatinine, you're not gettingback down to normal for about
six weeks.
So if you want to drop it downto three grams per day, you know

(58:35):
, go ahead.
It's a bit related to how largeyou are.
Sure, If you're a 300 poundoffensive tackled, and maybe
five grams per day If you're mysize, then you could probably,
you know, get away with threegrams per day.
But I've not seen any data tosuggest that anything bad would
happen by taking five grams perday.

(58:55):
You would just, you know,absorb it and excrete the excess
.