August 24, 2023 • 48 mins
What if your everyday tasks could turn into opportunities to build your muscles? What if the secret to muscle hypertrophy isn't just tons of weight and low repetitions, but lighter resistances and higher repetition schemes instead?
Together with Eric Rawson, an expert in muscle hypertrophy, we unravel surprising truths and debunk traditional beliefs surrounding muscle growth and fitness. We offer practical ways to make "exercise snacks" a part of your daily routine, thereby transforming mundane tasks into fitness opportunities. Regardless of your age or lifestyle, it's never too late to start integrating these habits into your routine to see impressive improvements in your strength and fitness.
We often get lost in the maze of fitness do's and don'ts that it becomes easy to fall for misconceptions. One such misconception is the belief that muscle fitness demands countless hours in the gym. Eric and I challenge this notion, emphasizing that just a few days of half an hour workouts per week can yield significant results. We delve deep into the importance of recovery, the role of genetics, training, and even pharmaceutical assistance in muscle growth. The negative influence of photoshopped images on our fitness goals and the positive mental health effects of resistance training also form part of our discussion.
Lastly, we focus our attention on the often misunderstood world of creatine supplementation. We explore how vegetarians, aging and sleep-deprived individuals, and those recovering from illnesses or injuries could harness the potential cognitive benefits of creatine. Eric provides invaluable insights into creatine dosage, its relationship with body size, and common misconceptions. If you're curious about the potential benefits of creatine supplementation or eager to maximize your muscle fitness, this episode promises to be an enlightening and informative guide. Join us for this thought-provoking discussion!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jerry Teixeira (00:01):
This is part two of my interview with Eric
Rossin.
This is a portion of theinterview that I thought I lost
due to losing power thanks tothe California Storm and, as it
turns out, I was able to recoverit.
Rookie podcast or mistake.
If I had more experience Iwould have known that initially,
but I was able to get it.
You guys are going to get tocheck it out, which I'm glad,
because it was some really goodcontent.
(00:21):
At the end of this there is thefinal wrapping up of the
interview that I did lose due tothe power.
That's not recoverable, but itwas right as I was about to
conclude, so you didn't missanything.
So please enjoy the rest of theinterview with Eric Rossin.
If you're training in very, verylow rep ranges, the hypertrophy
may not be as good as going alittle higher.
(00:43):
You're talking 1, 2, 3 reps perset is going up to, say, 5 or 6
.
Or as you get to the extremehigh rep ranges, you start
moving away from hypertrophy,although, interestingly, in the
last few years, research hascome out that shows that you can
accomplish hypertrophy just aswell with low weight, high
(01:06):
repetition training or low loadhigh repetition training,
provided those loads are above,I think it's about 30 or 40% of
one rep maximum.
So as long as the loads aren'ttoo small, if they are effective
for hypertrophy, what do youthink about that?
Eric Rawson (01:19):
Yeah, and I think that's great research.
The extremely heavyweight, lowrepetition type of programs are
wonderful for developingstrength and they develop
strength better than they woulddevelop increases in muscle mass
or muscle hypertrophy, becausestrength is a bit of a skill.
(01:43):
You can practice the deadliftand get stronger by learning how
to deadlift better.
So strength at that level is askill.
Adding muscle mass can comefrom much lighter resistances
and much higher repetitionschemes than anyone ever thought
(02:04):
before and research that'sconsistently shown.
That is very high qualityresearch from some great labs
and I like it because it hasallowed people to consider that
pushups at home could reallyimprove the muscle mass of your
(02:24):
upper body.
Don't write off pushups in favorof.
You have to do bench presses,and I think people sometimes
conflate what they see in thegym with different types of
goals.
So when someone says you can'taccomplish that with higher
(02:44):
repetitions or bodyweightexercises, what's your goal?
Is your goal to increase yourbench press strength?
Is your goal to compete inpowerlifting?
Okay, you need to bench press.
Is your goal to compete inpowerlifting and break a record
in the squat?
Okay, then you need to dobarbell squats, because that's
(03:05):
the event.
But if your goal is to increasethe size and strength and
endurance and overall muscularfitness of your body, then you
can attack that in a number ofdifferent ways, and that
includes going to the gym and italso includes doing pushups and
pullups and bodyweightexercises.
(03:26):
And there's all sorts of spacesin between too.
I have a weighted vest in thisoffice that, for one piece of
equipment, it can completelychange what I can do around the
house.
So I can squat wearing the vest, I can do pushups wearing the
(03:47):
vest, I can do pullups wearingthe vest, and that increases the
load dramatically.
I can also go for walks withthe vest on and really increase
my energy expenditure, or I canwear the vest around the house
while I do housework and burnmore calories that way, place an
extra load on my bones that way.
(04:08):
So there's a lot of interestingthings we can do in between
going to the gym and just a purebodyweight routine with very
modest equipment, some of whichcan be homemade.
Jerry Teixeira (04:24):
I think even people who start out walking, if
you take a weight and yousuitcase carry that weight so
you hold the weight to one sideof the body, start with
something that's not very heavyfor you so you can build the
stabilizer muscles and build thebase level of strength doing
Then you overload over time.
But to me, just alternatinghands with a suitcase carry
around the neighborhood evenwould be great for somebody.
(04:46):
Maybe you're going to.
Don't worry about what you looklike.
Most people don't exerciseanytime you're outside doing
something.
You look like you're an outlierthese days, but you know to
your point it doesn'tnecessarily have to be the
dedicated strength trainingsession and then whatever else
you're doing, you can combine itwith your working around the
house.
And one thing that I'll behonest about my training my
(05:11):
training sessions are no longer.
I'm 43, I got kids, so it's notlike I go okay time for me to
train everybody leave me alone.
I need my hour or whatever thecase is.
So my a lot of days I'mliterally in front of my trigger
, like putting stakes on orwhatever, and I'm literally
doing like lunges at the trigger, or I'm inside, you know,
helping my one of my sons, myson's home school.
(05:33):
So I'm inside the house and I'mlike helping them with the
schoolwork and like, in betweenhim, answering problems.
I'm literally doing exercisesets on the floor.
So my, my personal training isnot this glorious.
Going to battle with the gym,or you know this.
This, this session, that peoplesometimes think is what is
required to build a greatphysique or get results.
Eric Rawson (05:55):
Yeah, and you know what you're doing exercise
snacks.
The cardiometabolic benefits ofthose are documented.
You're improving your healthand you're also maintaining your
muscular fitness at a very,very high level.
You know, I have an expressionwhen we were young we planned
(06:17):
our lives around our workouts.
And when we get older, we hadto plan our workouts around our
lives.
That doesn't mean stop moving.
It might mean that when I getto the office in the morning I
do push-ups before I do email,and that you know when I work in
the yard I you know when I'mpushing the wheelbarrow uphill,
(06:41):
I sprint.
You know, or I take the longway around the house, or I do
lunges when I grill or whatever.
Whatever it is, whatever worksfor you, you can really make
remarkable improvements inmuscular fitness.
And, like I said, if you'rechallenging your body several
times throughout the day, theyou kind of get a burst like an
(07:05):
improvement in in health everytime you exercise.
And you know there are the thebeneficial effects of chronic
exercise training.
You know working out for anhour hard every single day works
.
But there's also the benefitsof you know doing a five minute
exercise snack, a five minuteblast of exercise, a couple
(07:26):
times per day and stringing allthose metabolic improvements
together throughout your life.
And I personally find fittingin cardio to be the hardest
because I dislike it and and itjust takes time right.
Jerry Teixeira (07:40):
Yeah, you can't do that, plus other stuff for
the most people.
You can't go on a treadmilldesk, but it's limited.
You can't go on a three milerun while you're helping your
kid with his homework.
Eric Rawson (07:50):
Whatever the case is, you have to get yourself to
that thing so that's a difficultone to fit in, but I find that
fitting in snacks of exercisethroughout the day.
You know, consciously, you knowtaking the stairs and moving up
the stairs quickly is is theway at least at this point in my
life that's become the way isnot to be idle is to keep moving
(08:15):
and to not convince yourselfthat what you're doing is not as
productive as what you could bedoing in the gym by staying in
the elliptical for an hour yeah,well, there was recent research
in out of London I think Ican't remember the university,
but they they took officeworkers and they had to do all
out sprints on a cycle for threeminutes of active I mean that
(08:36):
you have.
Jerry Teixeira (08:37):
It was.
It was like 30 second burst andthen a few minutes slow pedal
30 second if I remembercorrectly.
But they were doing threeminutes a week of active bursts
and it made significantmeasurable improvements in in
their their.
You know, when they did lipids,I'm sorry, when they did um,
biomarkers from like bloodpressure, they did blood work
and they looked at all thesevarious things and they saw
(08:58):
improvements across the board.
So I thought it was and I did avideo about the time that I was
like man, three minutes a week,like literally you can move
three minutes a week withintention.
I mean it was intense movement,but that's if three minutes a
week can improve your health,then you know, and you're
talking about doing these thingsthroughout the day, so you're
doing them several times a dayand then that many days, even if
(09:19):
you never had a structuredexercise session like that's
going to have a huge impact onyour health yes, and, and it's
you know, we're at the pointwhere all of the physiology that
we've studied and all of thephysiological knowledge we've
acquired, it's it comes down tohuman behavior.
Eric Rawson (09:37):
So how can I modify my behavior, how can I help you
modify your behavior?
And if some of these thingsappeal to you, then, uh, what
you know, we're on the rightpath.
So, something like you get tothe office and before you check
your email, you do push-ups.
They could be modified push-ups, they could be five push-ups,
(09:58):
they could be a hundred push-ups.
What you know, we're working atyour level.
But the habit becomes before youget stuck in your computer,
before you get in your chair,you do your push-ups.
Or or maybe at the end of theday, before you get in your car
for your commute home, you do,you do push-ups then, or you do
10 squats, you know, before yougo to lunch.
(10:19):
For me, personally, I find thatmost of the time when I think
I'm hungry, I'm just bored.
And if I can discipline myselfinto doing some sort of movement
before I eat, I never, I neverwant to eat after that.
You know.
So, for me, if I, if I say okay, I'm going to go upstairs and
look for peanut butter.
Um, if I drop on the floor anddo 20 push-ups and I stand back
(10:44):
up the craving if there, ifthere was a craving, it's gone
now.
So those little exercise snacksthroughout the day, those little
exercise breaks are areenormously beneficial and I
think they fit better into mostworking people's lives and and
most parents lives yeah.
Jerry Teixeira (11:01):
Well, I think what goes along with what you're
saying is and this is somethingthat when I was younger I
didn't.
I wasn't in this camp, and asI've gotten older I kind of
switched sides as more research,you know, came to light.
But the amount of resistanceexercise volume that is needed
to elicit a good response is nothigh.
(11:23):
And one of the things I seehappen online is there's a lot
of arguing and bantering aboutoptimal, like this is the
optimal retching or this is not.
A volume is optimal and thething is and I think this is a
really important part and maybeyou can kind of chime in being
being the expert the amount oftotal volume.
So let's talk sets per week,let's talk hard sets per week,
(11:43):
the amount of hard sets per weekper muscle that someone needs
to perform to get a, a greatresult or an optimal result.
You can still get that greatresult, if not optimal, on way
fewer sets than the optimal.
So online I see a lot of arguingover what's optimal and then
people want to structure theirresistance training for optimal,
(12:04):
but for most people it you knowyou can do half the number of
sets per week or less and getthe majority of the possible
gains in the bodybuilding world.
People are willing to train anhour and a half or two hours
every other day or every day tosqueeze out that extra five
percent, and I think it'simportant for the normal person,
the average listener, torealize that I'm going to get
(12:26):
most of the benefits ofresistance training.
I'm going to build most of themuscle mass from doing a few
hard sets per muscle two times aweek.
I don't need to.
So can you kind of just talkabout the difference between
optimal and good and and whatthe disparity in the amount of
volume that's required to get toreach those things?
Eric Rawson (12:45):
sure, and and I think this is one of the things
that hasn't changed about theresistance training game over
the years, is that we're allchronically over trained and
we're constantly comparingourselves to the wrong person
which is bad enough inindividual or the wrong groups
(13:06):
of individuals.
So if you're comparing yourselfto a competitive bodybuilder, a
competitive physique athlete,first of all they're already
bigger and stronger and leanerthan 99 percent of the
population there.
There could be something verydifferent about that person.
(13:27):
Second of all, that could betheir full-time job.
Right, training is theirfull-time job.
Training and eating andsleeping is their full-time job,
and you have a other things todo.
And and third, you know they'regifted.
That's their full-time job.
And part of that full-time jobis of recuperation and, and my
(13:49):
guess is, for most of us, we'renot getting the amount of sleep
we need, you know, whereas someof these athletes who are
training 90 minutes a day, sevendays a week, are getting eight
hours of sleep a night, plus atwo hour nap.
So it's recovery as well, notjust the training, but part of
the equation.
So it's genetics, it's trainingand recovery, and then it's
(14:12):
pharmaceutical assistance, right, right, and I suppose I should
add the fourth one would bephotoshop, although that hasn't
been historically there, but youknow if you're comparing
yourself to someone who's youknow got space alien genetics.
And they have no stress intheir lives.
Their only job is to train andeat and sleep uh in their, their
(14:34):
, you know, not admitting ituntil they get caught that
they're using drugs that willassist them to recover, that
will increase muscle hypertrophy.
That's a terrible thing to doto yourself.
That's a terrible comparison.
Uh, you know all of theresistance training research,
like some of those early studieson older adults, those were,
(14:56):
you know, two days per week,about 30 minutes of resistance
training and that there's been areal movement to study minimal
amounts of resistance training.
And with, you know, two days aweek, 30 minutes a session, we
see improvements in hemoglobina1c we we see improvements in
(15:17):
strength.
We see improvements in walkingspeed.
We see improvements in habitualphysical activity, obviously
improvements in strength andbone density and the usual
things we talk about, but it's alot less than people think.
So if you're comparing yourselfto a professional athlete, you
just have to stop that, unlessyour goal is to be that
(15:38):
professional athlete.
If you're talking about, youknow, getting from where you are
up to, you know better than 90%of the people in your age group
.
It's two or three days per weekfor about a half an hour.
It's a much lower volume, sofar fewer working sets and then,
(16:01):
if you prefer, your reps up inthe 15 to 20 range.
That's fine.
You could be down around 8 to12 or you could be up around 15
to 20 and you're still receivingthe same benefits in strength,
muscular endurance and musclehypertrophy.
So we haven't done a good joband the science is young and the
(16:22):
body of literature is not aslarge as with aerobic exercise
training.
But we just haven't done a goodenough job getting the word out
that a little bit of resistanceexercise goes a long way.
And if you look at the big, bigstudies and you know the
ultimate question would bemortality If you do this, are
you less likely to die?
You know no proxy marker likelipids or blood sugar or body
(16:47):
fat.
If you do this, you're lesslikely to die.
If you look at those studies,you will find that under an hour
of resistance training a weekit dramatically reduces your
likelihood of dying.
So we have to think carefullyabout our goals and we have to
(17:10):
kind of shake out what sort ofbad influences are in our head,
what sort of severelyphotoshopped individuals you
know.
I certainly appreciate howdifficult it is to come up with
reasonable goals when socialmedia has changed the game so
(17:30):
much.
You know what we can do withpictures on Photoshop is
incredible.
But what we can now do withbasically photoshopping videos,
which no one really ever thoughtwe could do, you know, not with
an app on your phone where youcould, you know, make waistlines
(17:51):
, you know, ridiculously small,impossibly small shoulders,
impossibly wide, you know,change the lighting, change the
filter, and we're not reallylooking at any good examples of
human potential anymore.
We're looking at somethingthat's like the comic books that
inspired me a long time ago.
(18:12):
You know, so it's.
We're frightening people awayfrom resistance training by
overcomplicating it and by notgetting them the message that
two or three times a week, for30 minutes and you can make
fantastic gains.
And that's muscle, that's bone,that's every system in your
(18:34):
body.
You know, I think some of themost impressive research on the
benefits of resistance exerciseis the stuff we don't talk about
at all and that's theimprovements in mental health.
Right there there are twoincredible meta analyses.
So, remember, a meta analysisis a collection of every
(18:55):
research study that's ever beenpublished and then it's
mathematically analyzed.
So when we collapse all thesedata together, we can say here's
the size of the signal, here'show well this works.
And if you look at the metaanalyses on resistance exercise.
Not walking, not cardio, justresistance exercise on anxiety
or resistance exercise onsymptoms of depression.
(19:17):
It's phenomenal, the signal isso large it almost makes me
think that not prescribingresistance exercise to improve
mental health is almost it'salmost negligent.
It should be standard.
It should be standard of careand, and you know, I think
(19:40):
resistance of exercise should bestandard of care.
When you know someone's leavingthe hospital, I think there
should be an exerciseprescription.
I think it should be part of alot of treatment plans, but it's
a lot lower volume than peopleactually think and I think
social media has made thatmessage harder to get out there.
Jerry Teixeira (19:58):
Yeah, that's one of the things that I try to
stress and I mean I postedsomething this morning on
Twitter and I already got peoplelike kind of fired up a little
bit.
But I basically said I saidthat you're because I've looked
over the various data that areout there and you know, not a
scientist, but what I'm lookingfor in this particular instance
is when they take a study andthey look at people performing
one set of an exercise and Iwant to make sure these are high
(20:21):
intensity sets, that they'refor high effort sets rather.
So these are, like you know,hey, one set to failure versus
three sets, versus five sets, orat least close proximity to
failure.
You can.
You can see where set one, sothe group that performed one set
, they'll yield like somewherein the mid 60s to 70% At the end
of the study term.
They'll say, oh, they gain thismuch muscle mass, right.
Then they'll compare it to settwo, group two, which is, say,
(20:43):
three sets, and they'll findthat group one gained almost 70%
of the total possible or themuscle mass that the highest
gaining group did, which maybeis the five sets per exercise
group.
So it's like, okay, you can dofive times the volume of this
other group and you can gain 30%more muscle mass.
But for a normal person to net70% of the total possible gains
(21:06):
in one set, it's like, dude, youcould live for 15 minutes.
You could literally do let medo my push ups, let me do my, my
pull ups, if I can.
If I can't do pull ups, let'sdo something with a resistance
band, doesn't matter.
But it's like I could just gothrough into a circuit of these
eight exercises and I couldliterally be in and out in 15
minutes and I could net 70% ofthe gains.
And like that's the message Itry to get across.
Like my own mother, she passedaway two years ago and she was
(21:31):
76.
So not old to die, you know.
And she retired in her early60s and after retirement she was
a hairdresser, stood on herfeet all day long, she became
very sedentary and it was arapid decline in musculoskeletal
health, shed osteoporosis, andshe ended up having to go
through like multiple marathonback surgeries was all bad and I
(21:51):
told her for years after sheretired because I could see it
happening Her posture wasfalling apart.
I was like mom, you have to bephysically active, you cannot
just lay around all day likethis and I saw her literally go
from this strong woman to justfrail, frail you know, and then
ultimately, like I said, shepassed away of pneumonia.
She wasn't strong enough tobeat it but she had this script
(22:16):
to go to physical therapy and itwas like not close to the house
and all this stuff and I wastrying to tell her I was like no
wall push-ups right there athome, like it can be so, so
simple to institute and I justsee all these barriers.
So that's one of the reasonswhy I try to help people realize
like no one set is great Ifthat's what you got time to do
(22:37):
Two sets.
When I look at these studies, ifyou do too high effort sets, so
try hard, get close to failure.
I mean, you got to put effortinto these sets but you do two
sets per exercise and you getlike 80% of the total possible
gains.
So let's take a year.
Somebody trains for a yeardoing five sets or whatever of
you know the optimal quote,unquote optimal exercise
prescription and they gain 10pounds of muscle in a year.
(22:58):
Another person does the firsttwo sets, yield 79, 80% of the
gains and they gained eightpounds of muscle.
And then we can see adifference.
Like, yeah, technically theperson with the optimal program
got better results, but itwasn't that much better.
Like you could have done twosets and you could have got
great results.
So that's you know.
I think the overarching theme Ithink for this conversation for
(23:19):
people is like don't erectthese walls in your mind about
why this isn't going to work orthat's not going to work or my
program is not the best, likethat it doesn't even matter.
Just put a high effort into acouple of sets two times a week
and you're going to get thelion's share of the progress.
If not optimal, it's going tobe damn good.
Eric Rawson (23:38):
Absolutely, and you know.
And consistency.
You do it and you keep doing itand that's why another reason
it has to be it enjoyable orbearable.
But you know we have to designexercise programs that are
sustainable and a very smallamount of work offers major
(24:00):
results.
And it really reminds me of ofthe you know, the protein
discussion, which is, you know,should I have way protein
concentrate or way proteinisolate?
And if there's a differencethere, it's tiny.
The difference is betweeneating enough protein and not
(24:21):
eating enough protein.
So if you eat enough protein,that will help augment the
resistance training response.
And if everyone's arguing aboutprotein quality and protein
timing and protein supplements,just eat enough, I promise
you'll get 95% of the way there,if not more.
You know, and it's the sametype of thing with the exercise
(24:44):
program.
You know, if you work hard, ifyou're consistent, two to three
days per week, hit every majormuscle group, you'll make the
progress you want.
You know.
But but assess your goals.
You know, if the goal is tobreak the you know the record in
the squat, then you have to gosquat.
If your goal is to havemuscular strength and muscle
(25:05):
mass in your lower body so thatyou can ski or mow your lawn or
golf or carry your kids, thenyou can accomplish that with
much, much less work than youthink.
Jerry Teixeira (25:16):
So along those lines, we're talking about
resistance exercise as itrelates to healthy aging.
I understand you have a newpaper or a couple of new papers
that you've worked on, so do youwant to fill us in on what
those are about?
Eric Rawson (25:34):
Well, I think we've touched on a bit of it already,
and that is that we're tryingto bring people around to the
concept that we shouldn't berecommending people do aerobic
exercise training and alsoresistance training.
Right now, I understand when,when you're talking about two
(25:56):
different things, you have tolist one first and you have to
list the other one second.
That's how language works,right?
But there has not been Reallyin emphasis on the benefits of
resistance exercise from themajor public health
organizations, from the majorsports science and sports
(26:17):
medicine organizations.
It's always Do your cardio, doyour aerobic exercise training
and also Lift weights, and Ithink people feel that messaging
and I think you know there'ssome biases in there.
But the fact is there's amassive amount of literature on
the beneficial effects ofAerobic exercise training and
(26:41):
improved cardio respiratoryfitness and there is a much
smaller, although rapidlygrowing, body of literature on
resistance exercise and thebenefits across organ systems.
You know, across all systems.
You know and and you know forthe past 25 years we've just
been talking about resistanceexercise and muscle and maybe
(27:02):
bone once in a while, but butwhile we've been quiet, all of
this information has accrued.
Resistance exercise improvedsymptoms of depression, improves
anxiety, improves quality andquantity of sleep, you know.
Improves cardio metabolichealth, reduces, you know, your
risk of premature death as wellas makes you stronger and gives
(27:24):
you strong bones Right.
So now we're we're we're in theconversation with aerobic
exercise training.
So some of the projects I'minvolved with now are, I hope,
helping to get the message outthere that we shouldn't be
saying either, or we shouldnever be saying, just do
resistance exercise or just doaerobic exercise training.
But we really shouldn't bebrushing off Resistance exercise
(27:48):
as it only is good for muscleor muscle and bone, because I
think there's a lot more overlapbetween the beneficial effects
of aerobic and resistanceexercise training than people
think.
And for aerobic exercisetraining, increases in muscle
mass and increases in strengthand power are extremely unlikely
(28:09):
.
You need the weights to do that.
So it goes back to one of thefirst things we said.
If you have an individual who,for some reason, is not going to
walk they're not going to getin the treadmill, they're not
going to get on the ellipticalor the stair master and they
want to improve their health,start them with some resistance
(28:31):
exercise and it can lead like agateway drug to greater things
and an increase in differenttypes of physical activity.
We really should be thinkingabout resistance exercise on par
with aerobic exercise trainingas the data emerge, like I
mentioned earlier, with qualityof life for cancer patients.
(28:52):
We're thinking differently nowand we're speaking more openly
about it.
You know I had said earlierthat it's been.
It's an interesting to be thisage because of how I've watched
resistance training change fromjust linemen to now everyone in
the world should do it Right.
(29:13):
There was a time when cardiacrehabilitation If you had a
heart attack, they told you tostay in bed and rest and then
you're conditioning plummetedright.
And then it became okay, getout of bed and we're gonna get
you walking, which is wonderful.
And then it became get out ofbeds, walk to the gym, lift some
(29:33):
weights and then walk back.
So resistance training wasincorporated into cardiac
rehabilitation.
Now we're incorporatingresistance training into cancer
rehabilitation.
The field of exercise oncologyis growing rapidly and we're
really thinking about thingsdifferently.
So go ahead.
Jerry Teixeira (29:53):
Especially with catechia right Cancer.
You have this wasting.
That happens.
That is brutal because, as thathappens, it limits standard of
care.
How much chemo can you get orwhat drugs can you take?
You have to maintain a certainlevel of health in order to
withstand some of thesetreatments.
Eric Rawson (30:07):
Right side effects of the cancer and side effects
of the treatment.
Jerry Teixeira (30:11):
Right and I think you're right.
I've noticed that there arepapers coming out now where
exercise and it can beresistance or this extends into
both types of exercise, but justphysical activity in general
improves health outcomes inalmost every case, in almost
every disease.
So it's definitely somethingwhere I know dealing with a
disease or being in a diseasestate can make being physically
(30:34):
active more difficult for you.
But when you look at theoutcomes, it's something where
you've gotta figure out how toget it in and I feel for people
going.
I have an uncle right nowdealing with cancer, I feel, for
I can't imagine what it's liketo be in issues.
But yeah, it's one of thosethings where, again, because
from an evolutionary perspectivewe never could have been sick
(30:56):
or not, you gotta be active andbecause you would have had to
just survive.
Eric Rawson (31:02):
Yeah, and cancers can be very different different
types of cancers and thenegative effects of the
medications can be very, verydifferent between individuals.
So we can't just say everyonewho has cancer will lift weights
.
But we're no longer reallyafraid to study it and we
(31:24):
actually have exercise oncologydegrees, graduate programs
popping up.
We have certifications forpeople to work with as exercise
cancer rehabilitationspecialists.
So it's fantastic to watch usgrow right.
One of the things that I askpeople, because it's a pet peeve
(31:46):
of mine, is, if we're takingprevention seriously, if we're
taking exercise seriously as amedicine, why isn't exercise
included in your discharge notesfrom the hospital?
How many people are leaving thehospital?
Who that's there?
(32:06):
One time they're gonna havecontact with a provider, with a
health expert.
Why are they leaving withoutany advice on how to become more
physically active?
And to even add to that,there's some wonderful research
where they sent fitnessprofessionals, physical
therapists, into the patient'srooms and, depending on their
(32:27):
medical condition, they had themexercise in the hospital.
Why aren't we talking aboutinpatients doing resistance
exercise in bed?
If they're in the hospital fora period of time, that loss of
muscle mass is ultimately goingto be the reason that they can't
hang on.
So we're getting closer, but Ithink I'd like a much more
(32:51):
serious discussion about are wereally thinking about exercise
as a medicine, such that we'llprescribe it to inpatients and
we'll make it part of thedischarge notes when people
leave their doctors?
Jerry Teixeira (33:06):
I have big dreams, I agree, because
survival of the fittest is notjust a meme or a saying.
You don't need to be abodybuilder, but the more part
of your musculoskeletal systemis in that health extent.
Very few people are gonna havea robustly strong
musculoskeletal system and thenweak organs.
There's an improvement inoverall systemic health that
(33:31):
happens with exercise.
I know, I know.
I know I know there's animprovement in overall systemic
health.
That happens with exercise.
Eric Rawson (33:38):
Sick.
Your ability to survive theillness or survive the side
effects of the medication couldbe improved from a physical
activity program.
So even if you got sick anyway,the exercise would help you
maintain your quality of life asyou fight for your health.
(34:00):
I just have.
I'm an unbelievably biasedexercise physiologist.
I have nothing but good thingsto say about exercise.
Jerry Teixeira (34:08):
I mean it's side effect free.
Eric Rawson (34:09):
So can't help it.
My students, I'm sure, are sickof hearing it day after day
that every lecture winds upcoming back to exercise is good.
Keep doing it.
Jerry Teixeira (34:21):
Yeah.
So one of the things I wantedto touch on before we wrap up is
so I think people are nowkeenly aware that creatine
benefits your resistancetraining pursuits.
Right, if anything you do thatis explosive.
The nature creatine is going tohave, or strength based in
nature creatine is going to havea benefit.
But I've also seen someresearch to show that endurance
athletes who supplement withcreatine, their performance at
(34:43):
endurance sport doesn't improve,but their recovery from
endurance sport actuallyimproves, so they're able to get
back to train more quickly.
So which I found that to beinteresting.
But also there's emerging datashowing that there are cognitive
benefits to creatingsupplementation and these things
may not.
If you eat meat, if you have acertain base level of creatine
(35:03):
your diet, perhaps those thingswon't actually apply to you.
But for people that arevegetarian or an aging
population and maybe that's tiedto them not Not eating as much,
so they're not consuming asmuch animal based protein.
But can you maybe touch on thebenefits to creatine outside of
strength training, because Ithink people understand that,
hey, I'm strength trainingconsistently creating will
(35:23):
benefit me, but in what otherways might create team benefit
somebody based on on yourresearch?
Eric Rawson (35:30):
Sure, and we can come back and do a whole couple
of hours on creatine.
There's always more to talkabout with creatine.
So your you know your musclesare already filled with creatine
.
You consume creatine in yourdiet.
Your body manufacturers it to.
If you take creatinesupplements, you can increase
your muscle creatine levels.
(35:50):
And then any sort of exercisechallenge that resembles high
intensity sprinting so it couldbe a set of push ups or it could
be an actual sprint or it couldbe, you know, a team sport
activity, intermittent activityany of those things can benefit
from having more muscle creatine, which you can achieve with
(36:12):
supplementation pretty easily.
The brain is a little bitdifferent, because the, whereas
the muscles don't manufacturecreatine and it's really easy to
get creatine into your musclesthe brain manufactures its own
creatine, but it's the same typeof principle that your brain is
(36:33):
going to rely on creatine toproduce energy during during
stressful times, and potentiallyyou could supplement with
creatine and increase your braincreatine levels and then any
type of stressful task that youwere engaged with could benefit
from having this, this increasedbrain creatine levels from the
(36:53):
supplementation.
So there are a few studies nowshowing that in different
populations.
So some of these studies werevegetarian.
Some of them were older adults,some of them were younger
adults, some of them werestressed with sleep deprivation,
some of them were stressed withexercise.
(37:14):
So a whole mix of differenttypes of studies.
When you put them all together,there's a really consistent
improvement in cognitivefunction or cognitive processing
in people who've gone throughjust a standard creatine
supplementation protocol.
This is, you know, good newsfor young people and certainly
good news for older adults aswell.
I think it might beparticularly valuable for people
(37:37):
who are going through some sortof stress, which could be
disease.
It could be, you know, diseasethat results in remarkably low
physical activity, like ifyou're bedridden.
It could be stress, it could besleep deprivation, it could be
all of the above that I thinkthe benefits are likely to be
(38:00):
even more pronounced.
But it's a very consistentresponse in the literature that
regular creatine supplementationdoses appear to improve brain
function in all different typesof populations.
Jerry Teixeira (38:14):
Now with creatine supplementation, by way
of how it works, there is asmall increase in total body
water.
So when you take creatine it'scommon to see the scale go up a
pound or two.
I encourage people not to getdiscouraged.
I have clients sometimes intheir training they want to lose
weight.
So we say, hey, let's trycreatine.
But if you notice a little bitof a small fluctuation of weight
(38:38):
, don't stress.
Right, it's not body fat and atsome point in the future, if
you stop taking it, thatinvariable will go away.
But are there any other sideeffects?
I mean, I've heard your hairfalls out and I've been taking
creatine since I was 20 and 43and my hair hasn't fallen out.
So at least for me I'm not tooworried about that.
But there's people that yourhair falling out and increases
(39:00):
DHT like is it bad for yourkidneys?
Maybe you can just run throughthose.
I know a lot of those are justurban legends.
But maybe you can kind of talkon the next one.
Eric Rawson (39:10):
A group of us actually got together and wrote
a scientific paper addressingthe like the top 10 urban
legends, which I'll send you acopy of.
You can share it with yourlisteners and your followers
because We'll make it into aninfographic.
That's fine.
Hey, when there's somemisinformation that gets out
there in the world of nutrition,it lasts at least 30 years.
(39:33):
I mean, I'm getting questionsthat I thought we resolved with
research, you know, 20, 25 yearsago, but the misinformation is
still getting to the athletes,still getting to the parents,
even the physicians, coaches aswell.
So I don't mind answering thesequestions, but it's incredible
how long lasting misinformationis in this business.
(39:55):
A lot of it starts off with amisinterpretation or a mistake,
or a single paper is a goodexample.
So science is not about asingle paper.
It's not about the most recentpaper.
It's about a collection ofresearch studies and some
(40:16):
research studies will just finda result by sheer luck.
So if you do 100 studies, 99 ofthem might get the same result,
but one of them, just randomluck, might get the complete
opposite result.
So when we look at all 100 ofthose papers, we realize that
overwhelmingly the evidencesupports this particular effect
(40:38):
and this one study.
We don't know what happenedthere.
That's just kind of howresearch works.
And you know, as an example,one person or one group did a
study on creatininesupplementation and they
measured DHT,dihydrotestosterone levels, and
dihydrotestosterone levels areloosely connected to hair loss.
(41:00):
It's not a completely unanimousfinding or unanimous thing that
your dihydrotestosterone levelswill equal your hair.
You know your hair health oryour hair growth.
So we have this one study andthey show an increase small
increase in dihydrotestosteronelevels with creatinine
(41:21):
supplementation.
If you go back and look closelyat that paper you'll find a
couple of things.
One is that the increase in thecreatinine group was small.
This is the danger of onlyusing percent changes and not
looking at the absolute values.
The increase was small, itremained in the normal range and
(41:42):
the placebo group had areduction in dihydrotestosterone
.
And statistically, when onegroup goes up and one group goes
down, that's kind of where thestatistical finding comes from.
Like if the placebo group hadstayed the same, like it was
supposed to, there probablywouldn't have been a statistical
effect, or they may not havebeen.
(42:03):
So you know, changes in theplacebo group confound the paper
.
You know, not exceeding thenormal range confounds the paper
.
The fact that no one has beenable to reproduce these results
in years compounds, you know,confounds the paper.
(42:23):
And you know, theoretically I'mnot sure why we would be
looking at creatinine anddihydrotestosterone anyway,
because there's about a dozenpapers that have measured
creatinine supplementation andtestosterone and they found
nothing.
Jerry Teixeira (42:39):
Right.
Eric Rawson (42:40):
Right.
It's not going to alter yourendocrine system.
It's a nutrient that's involvedin energy metabolism in your
muscles and in your brains.
If you ate an extra hamburger aday, I don't expect that your
testosterone levels would changedramatically, and I think your
testosterone levels are thefeeder for your
dihydrotestosterone levels,right?
(43:00):
So how did dihydrotestosteronelevels go up but not?
How did DHT go up but nottestosterone?
I don't know why didn'ttestosterone go up in any of
these other studies.
Probably because it doesn'tmake any sense that it should.
So the data were alwaysinteresting for that brief
period of time.
(43:20):
But here we are, years laterand we have enough data to say I
don't really believe there'ssomething happening here.
I know there's an ongoing studythat's supposed to be
addressing this actually from ahair perspective.
However, one measures hairgrowth or hair loss.
That's outside of my domain,but really the whole creatinine
(43:44):
hair loss thing is, as far as weknow now, based on many studies
.
It's much ado about nothing.
One study, that that you knowgave us some interesting
findings but has never beenreplicated and on its own
doesn't make too much sense.
Jerry Teixeira (44:02):
And then the creatine and kidney damage or
whatever.
Eric Rawson (44:06):
Yeah and another, you know, another bit of
misinformation.
So sometimes misinformationcomes from social media,
Sometimes it comes from the newsand sometimes it comes from
medical journals.
So two investigators publisheda case study.
Now, case studies can be veryimportant, but a retrospective
(44:27):
case study, where someone showsup in the emergency room or they
show up in your office and youkind of backtrack and try to
figure out what got them there,what happened that's generally
considered the weakest form ofscience.
Right, you know, a case studyshows that someone had elevated
creatinine levels.
The person already hadcreatinine disease.
(44:49):
Excuse me, the person alreadyhad renal disease.
They were taking a medicationthat's incredibly nephrotoxic
and they want creatininesupplements and their urine
creatinine levels increased,which would happen if you ate a
big steak.
Jerry Teixeira (45:06):
Right.
Eric Rawson (45:08):
So that turned into this guy with kidney disease.
Taking this awful medicationwas on creatinine supplements,
and creatinine supplementscaused his kidney diseases to
get worse.
When you look back at that casestudy you'll think, wow, this
is really not the highestquality science we can do here.
Jerry Teixeira (45:28):
And, of course, how did they make that jump?
Eric Rawson (45:30):
So since that time there has been multiple clinical
trials on all different typesof populations patient
populations, athleticpopulations, general population
to show that creatininesupplementation does not cause
renal dysfunction.
Creatinine supplementation doesnot Does not even increase
(45:53):
markers of kidney dysfunctionlike creatinine excretion under
most cases.
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.
(46:16):
Are you really that frightenedby an extra hamburger a day that
you think your kidneys wouldjust collapse?
It doesn't make much sense.
So took us 10 or 15 years ofgood quality studies to say that
this case study that started atall probably shouldn't have
been published and certainlyspoke beyond the data that were
(46:37):
available at that time.
So there's no recommendationfor anyone with normal renal
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 (46:57):
Yeah, which would be five grams a day.
That's all I think anybodyreally needs to think.
What do you think about five?
So if somebody eats meatregularly, two and a half a day,
do you think would besufficient?
Eric Rawson (47:09):
Yeah.
So if we're talking aboutmuscle creatinine, you know
elevated muscle creatininelevels remain that way for weeks
and weeks after you stop takingthe 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.
(47:31):
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
(47:52):
, go ahead.
It's a bit related to how largeyou are.
If you're a 300 pound offensivetackled and maybe five grams
per day If you're my size, thenyou could probably, you know,
get away with three grams perday.
But I've not seen any data tosuggest that anything bad would
happen by taking five grams perday.
(48:13):
You would just, you know,absorb it and excrete the excess
.
Jerry Teixeira (48:19):
And this is the part where the power went out
and I did not get a close, soI'm going to have Eric back on
for around two.
The guy's just phenomenal.
We could talk for hours Priorto having him back on.
I'll make sure to reach out onall my social media channels and
get questions.
I can do a good Q&A with Eric,so stay tuned for that and if
(48:41):
you have questions, I will makesure to get to those when we do
a part two.
This is part two of my interview with Eric
Rossin.
This is a portion of theinterview that I thought I lost
due to losing power thanks tothe California Storm and, as it
turns out, I was able to recoverit.
Rookie podcast or mistake.
If I had more experience Iwould have known that initially,
but I was able to get it.
You guys are going to get tocheck it out, which I'm glad,
because it was some really goodcontent.
(00:21):
At the end of this there is thefinal wrapping up of the
interview that I did lose due tothe power.
That's not recoverable, but itwas right as I was about to
conclude, so you didn't missanything.
So please enjoy the rest of theinterview with Eric Rossin.
If you're training in very, verylow rep ranges, the hypertrophy
may not be as good as going alittle higher.
(00:43):
You're talking 1, 2, 3 reps perset is going up to, say, 5 or 6
.
Or as you get to the extremehigh rep ranges, you start
moving away from hypertrophy,although, interestingly, in the
last few years, research hascome out that shows that you can
accomplish hypertrophy just aswell with low weight, high
(01:06):
repetition training or low loadhigh repetition training,
provided those loads are above,I think it's about 30 or 40% of
one rep maximum.
So as long as the loads aren'ttoo small, if they are effective
for hypertrophy, what do youthink about that?
Eric Rawson (01:19):
Yeah, and I think that's great research.
The extremely heavyweight, lowrepetition type of programs are
wonderful for developingstrength and they develop
strength better than they woulddevelop increases in muscle mass
or muscle hypertrophy, becausestrength is a bit of a skill.
(01:43):
You can practice the deadliftand get stronger by learning how
to deadlift better.
So strength at that level is askill.
Adding muscle mass can comefrom much lighter resistances
and much higher repetitionschemes than anyone ever thought
(02:04):
before and research that'sconsistently shown.
That is very high qualityresearch from some great labs
and I like it because it hasallowed people to consider that
pushups at home could reallyimprove the muscle mass of your
(02:24):
upper body.
Don't write off pushups in favorof.
You have to do bench presses,and I think people sometimes
conflate what they see in thegym with different types of
goals.
So when someone says you can'taccomplish that with higher
(02:44):
repetitions or bodyweightexercises, what's your goal?
Is your goal to increase yourbench press strength?
Is your goal to compete inpowerlifting?
Okay, you need to bench press.
Is your goal to compete inpowerlifting and break a record
in the squat?
Okay, then you need to dobarbell squats, because that's
(03:05):
the event.
But if your goal is to increasethe size and strength and
endurance and overall muscularfitness of your body, then you
can attack that in a number ofdifferent ways, and that
includes going to the gym and italso includes doing pushups and
pullups and bodyweightexercises.
(03:26):
And there's all sorts of spacesin between too.
I have a weighted vest in thisoffice that, for one piece of
equipment, it can completelychange what I can do around the
house.
So I can squat wearing the vest, I can do pushups wearing the
(03:47):
vest, I can do pullups wearingthe vest, and that increases the
load dramatically.
I can also go for walks withthe vest on and really increase
my energy expenditure, or I canwear the vest around the house
while I do housework and burnmore calories that way, place an
extra load on my bones that way.
(04:08):
So there's a lot of interestingthings we can do in between
going to the gym and just a purebodyweight routine with very
modest equipment, some of whichcan be homemade.
Jerry Teixeira (04:24):
I think even people who start out walking, if
you take a weight and yousuitcase carry that weight so
you hold the weight to one sideof the body, start with
something that's not very heavyfor you so you can build the
stabilizer muscles and build thebase level of strength doing
Then you overload over time.
But to me, just alternatinghands with a suitcase carry
around the neighborhood evenwould be great for somebody.
(04:46):
Maybe you're going to.
Don't worry about what you looklike.
Most people don't exerciseanytime you're outside doing
something.
You look like you're an outlierthese days, but you know to
your point it doesn'tnecessarily have to be the
dedicated strength trainingsession and then whatever else
you're doing, you can combine itwith your working around the
house.
And one thing that I'll behonest about my training my
(05:11):
training sessions are no longer.
I'm 43, I got kids, so it's notlike I go okay time for me to
train everybody leave me alone.
I need my hour or whatever thecase is.
So my a lot of days I'mliterally in front of my trigger
, like putting stakes on orwhatever, and I'm literally
doing like lunges at the trigger, or I'm inside, you know,
helping my one of my sons, myson's home school.
(05:33):
So I'm inside the house and I'mlike helping them with the
schoolwork and like, in betweenhim, answering problems.
I'm literally doing exercisesets on the floor.
So my, my personal training isnot this glorious.
Going to battle with the gym,or you know this.
This, this session, that peoplesometimes think is what is
required to build a greatphysique or get results.
Eric Rawson (05:55):
Yeah, and you know what you're doing exercise
snacks.
The cardiometabolic benefits ofthose are documented.
You're improving your healthand you're also maintaining your
muscular fitness at a very,very high level.
You know, I have an expressionwhen we were young we planned
(06:17):
our lives around our workouts.
And when we get older, we hadto plan our workouts around our
lives.
That doesn't mean stop moving.
It might mean that when I getto the office in the morning I
do push-ups before I do email,and that you know when I work in
the yard I you know when I'mpushing the wheelbarrow uphill,
(06:41):
I sprint.
You know, or I take the longway around the house, or I do
lunges when I grill or whatever.
Whatever it is, whatever worksfor you, you can really make
remarkable improvements inmuscular fitness.
And, like I said, if you'rechallenging your body several
times throughout the day, theyou kind of get a burst like an
(07:05):
improvement in in health everytime you exercise.
And you know there are the thebeneficial effects of chronic
exercise training.
You know working out for anhour hard every single day works
.
But there's also the benefitsof you know doing a five minute
exercise snack, a five minuteblast of exercise, a couple
(07:26):
times per day and stringing allthose metabolic improvements
together throughout your life.
And I personally find fittingin cardio to be the hardest
because I dislike it and and itjust takes time right.
Jerry Teixeira (07:40):
Yeah, you can't do that, plus other stuff for
the most people.
You can't go on a treadmilldesk, but it's limited.
You can't go on a three milerun while you're helping your
kid with his homework.
Eric Rawson (07:50):
Whatever the case is, you have to get yourself to
that thing so that's a difficultone to fit in, but I find that
fitting in snacks of exercisethroughout the day.
You know, consciously, you knowtaking the stairs and moving up
the stairs quickly is is theway at least at this point in my
life that's become the way isnot to be idle is to keep moving
(08:15):
and to not convince yourselfthat what you're doing is not as
productive as what you could bedoing in the gym by staying in
the elliptical for an hour yeah,well, there was recent research
in out of London I think Ican't remember the university,
but they they took officeworkers and they had to do all
out sprints on a cycle for threeminutes of active I mean that
(08:36):
you have.
Jerry Teixeira (08:37):
It was.
It was like 30 second burst andthen a few minutes slow pedal
30 second if I remembercorrectly.
But they were doing threeminutes a week of active bursts
and it made significantmeasurable improvements in in
their their.
You know, when they did lipids,I'm sorry, when they did um,
biomarkers from like bloodpressure, they did blood work
and they looked at all thesevarious things and they saw
(08:58):
improvements across the board.
So I thought it was and I did avideo about the time that I was
like man, three minutes a week,like literally you can move
three minutes a week withintention.
I mean it was intense movement,but that's if three minutes a
week can improve your health,then you know, and you're
talking about doing these thingsthroughout the day, so you're
doing them several times a dayand then that many days, even if
(09:19):
you never had a structuredexercise session like that's
going to have a huge impact onyour health yes, and, and it's
you know, we're at the pointwhere all of the physiology that
we've studied and all of thephysiological knowledge we've
acquired, it's it comes down tohuman behavior.
Eric Rawson (09:37):
So how can I modify my behavior, how can I help you
modify your behavior?
And if some of these thingsappeal to you, then, uh, what
you know, we're on the rightpath.
So, something like you get tothe office and before you check
your email, you do push-ups.
They could be modified push-ups, they could be five push-ups,
(09:58):
they could be a hundred push-ups.
What you know, we're working atyour level.
But the habit becomes before youget stuck in your computer,
before you get in your chair,you do your push-ups.
Or or maybe at the end of theday, before you get in your car
for your commute home, you do,you do push-ups then, or you do
10 squats, you know, before yougo to lunch.
(10:19):
For me, personally, I find thatmost of the time when I think
I'm hungry, I'm just bored.
And if I can discipline myselfinto doing some sort of movement
before I eat, I never, I neverwant to eat after that.
You know.
So, for me, if I, if I say okay, I'm going to go upstairs and
look for peanut butter.
Um, if I drop on the floor anddo 20 push-ups and I stand back
(10:44):
up the craving if there, ifthere was a craving, it's gone
now.
So those little exercise snacksthroughout the day, those little
exercise breaks are areenormously beneficial and I
think they fit better into mostworking people's lives and and
most parents lives yeah.
Jerry Teixeira (11:01):
Well, I think what goes along with what you're
saying is and this is somethingthat when I was younger I
didn't.
I wasn't in this camp, and asI've gotten older I kind of
switched sides as more research,you know, came to light.
But the amount of resistanceexercise volume that is needed
to elicit a good response is nothigh.
(11:23):
And one of the things I seehappen online is there's a lot
of arguing and bantering aboutoptimal, like this is the
optimal retching or this is not.
A volume is optimal and thething is and I think this is a
really important part and maybeyou can kind of chime in being
being the expert the amount oftotal volume.
So let's talk sets per week,let's talk hard sets per week,
(11:43):
the amount of hard sets per weekper muscle that someone needs
to perform to get a, a greatresult or an optimal result.
You can still get that greatresult, if not optimal, on way
fewer sets than the optimal.
So online I see a lot of arguingover what's optimal and then
people want to structure theirresistance training for optimal,
(12:04):
but for most people it you knowyou can do half the number of
sets per week or less and getthe majority of the possible
gains in the bodybuilding world.
People are willing to train anhour and a half or two hours
every other day or every day tosqueeze out that extra five
percent, and I think it'simportant for the normal person,
the average listener, torealize that I'm going to get
(12:26):
most of the benefits ofresistance training.
I'm going to build most of themuscle mass from doing a few
hard sets per muscle two times aweek.
I don't need to.
So can you kind of just talkabout the difference between
optimal and good and and whatthe disparity in the amount of
volume that's required to get toreach those things?
Eric Rawson (12:45):
sure, and and I think this is one of the things
that hasn't changed about theresistance training game over
the years, is that we're allchronically over trained and
we're constantly comparingourselves to the wrong person
which is bad enough inindividual or the wrong groups
(13:06):
of individuals.
So if you're comparing yourselfto a competitive bodybuilder, a
competitive physique athlete,first of all they're already
bigger and stronger and leanerthan 99 percent of the
population there.
There could be something verydifferent about that person.
(13:27):
Second of all, that could betheir full-time job.
Right, training is theirfull-time job.
Training and eating andsleeping is their full-time job,
and you have a other things todo.
And and third, you know they'regifted.
That's their full-time job.
And part of that full-time jobis of recuperation and, and my
(13:49):
guess is, for most of us, we'renot getting the amount of sleep
we need, you know, whereas someof these athletes who are
training 90 minutes a day, sevendays a week, are getting eight
hours of sleep a night, plus atwo hour nap.
So it's recovery as well, notjust the training, but part of
the equation.
So it's genetics, it's trainingand recovery, and then it's
(14:12):
pharmaceutical assistance, right, right, and I suppose I should
add the fourth one would bephotoshop, although that hasn't
been historically there, but youknow if you're comparing
yourself to someone who's youknow got space alien genetics.
And they have no stress intheir lives.
Their only job is to train andeat and sleep uh in their, their
(14:34):
, you know, not admitting ituntil they get caught that
they're using drugs that willassist them to recover, that
will increase muscle hypertrophy.
That's a terrible thing to doto yourself.
That's a terrible comparison.
Uh, you know all of theresistance training research,
like some of those early studieson older adults, those were,
(14:56):
you know, two days per week,about 30 minutes of resistance
training and that there's been areal movement to study minimal
amounts of resistance training.
And with, you know, two days aweek, 30 minutes a session, we
see improvements in hemoglobina1c we we see improvements in
(15:17):
strength.
We see improvements in walkingspeed.
We see improvements in habitualphysical activity, obviously
improvements in strength andbone density and the usual
things we talk about, but it's alot less than people think.
So if you're comparing yourselfto a professional athlete, you
just have to stop that, unlessyour goal is to be that
(15:38):
professional athlete.
If you're talking about, youknow, getting from where you are
up to, you know better than 90%of the people in your age group
.
It's two or three days per weekfor about a half an hour.
It's a much lower volume, sofar fewer working sets and then,
(16:01):
if you prefer, your reps up inthe 15 to 20 range.
That's fine.
You could be down around 8 to12 or you could be up around 15
to 20 and you're still receivingthe same benefits in strength,
muscular endurance and musclehypertrophy.
So we haven't done a good joband the science is young and the
(16:22):
body of literature is not aslarge as with aerobic exercise
training.
But we just haven't done a goodenough job getting the word out
that a little bit of resistanceexercise goes a long way.
And if you look at the big, bigstudies and you know the
ultimate question would bemortality If you do this, are
you less likely to die?
You know no proxy marker likelipids or blood sugar or body
(16:47):
fat.
If you do this, you're lesslikely to die.
If you look at those studies,you will find that under an hour
of resistance training a weekit dramatically reduces your
likelihood of dying.
So we have to think carefullyabout our goals and we have to
(17:10):
kind of shake out what sort ofbad influences are in our head,
what sort of severelyphotoshopped individuals you
know.
I certainly appreciate howdifficult it is to come up with
reasonable goals when socialmedia has changed the game so
(17:30):
much.
You know what we can do withpictures on Photoshop is
incredible.
But what we can now do withbasically photoshopping videos,
which no one really ever thoughtwe could do, you know, not with
an app on your phone where youcould, you know, make waistlines
(17:51):
, you know, ridiculously small,impossibly small shoulders,
impossibly wide, you know,change the lighting, change the
filter, and we're not reallylooking at any good examples of
human potential anymore.
We're looking at somethingthat's like the comic books that
inspired me a long time ago.
(18:12):
You know, so it's.
We're frightening people awayfrom resistance training by
overcomplicating it and by notgetting them the message that
two or three times a week, for30 minutes and you can make
fantastic gains.
And that's muscle, that's bone,that's every system in your
(18:34):
body.
You know, I think some of themost impressive research on the
benefits of resistance exerciseis the stuff we don't talk about
at all and that's theimprovements in mental health.
Right there there are twoincredible meta analyses.
So, remember, a meta analysisis a collection of every
(18:55):
research study that's ever beenpublished and then it's
mathematically analyzed.
So when we collapse all thesedata together, we can say here's
the size of the signal, here'show well this works.
And if you look at the metaanalyses on resistance exercise.
Not walking, not cardio, justresistance exercise on anxiety
or resistance exercise onsymptoms of depression.
(19:17):
It's phenomenal, the signal isso large it almost makes me
think that not prescribingresistance exercise to improve
mental health is almost it'salmost negligent.
It should be standard.
It should be standard of careand, and you know, I think
(19:40):
resistance of exercise should bestandard of care.
When you know someone's leavingthe hospital, I think there
should be an exerciseprescription.
I think it should be part of alot of treatment plans, but it's
a lot lower volume than peopleactually think and I think
social media has made thatmessage harder to get out there.
Jerry Teixeira (19:58):
Yeah, that's one of the things that I try to
stress and I mean I postedsomething this morning on
Twitter and I already got peoplelike kind of fired up a little
bit.
But I basically said I saidthat you're because I've looked
over the various data that areout there and you know, not a
scientist, but what I'm lookingfor in this particular instance
is when they take a study andthey look at people performing
one set of an exercise and Iwant to make sure these are high
(20:21):
intensity sets, that they'refor high effort sets rather.
So these are, like you know,hey, one set to failure versus
three sets, versus five sets, orat least close proximity to
failure.
You can.
You can see where set one, sothe group that performed one set
, they'll yield like somewherein the mid 60s to 70% At the end
of the study term.
They'll say, oh, they gain thismuch muscle mass, right.
Then they'll compare it to settwo, group two, which is, say,
(20:43):
three sets, and they'll findthat group one gained almost 70%
of the total possible or themuscle mass that the highest
gaining group did, which maybeis the five sets per exercise
group.
So it's like, okay, you can dofive times the volume of this
other group and you can gain 30%more muscle mass.
But for a normal person to net70% of the total possible gains
(21:06):
in one set, it's like, dude, youcould live for 15 minutes.
You could literally do let medo my push ups, let me do my, my
pull ups, if I can.
If I can't do pull ups, let'sdo something with a resistance
band, doesn't matter.
But it's like I could just gothrough into a circuit of these
eight exercises and I couldliterally be in and out in 15
minutes and I could net 70% ofthe gains.
And like that's the message Itry to get across.
Like my own mother, she passedaway two years ago and she was
(21:31):
76.
So not old to die, you know.
And she retired in her early60s and after retirement she was
a hairdresser, stood on herfeet all day long, she became
very sedentary and it was arapid decline in musculoskeletal
health, shed osteoporosis, andshe ended up having to go
through like multiple marathonback surgeries was all bad and I
(21:51):
told her for years after sheretired because I could see it
happening Her posture wasfalling apart.
I was like mom, you have to bephysically active, you cannot
just lay around all day likethis and I saw her literally go
from this strong woman to justfrail, frail you know, and then
ultimately, like I said, shepassed away of pneumonia.
She wasn't strong enough tobeat it but she had this script
(22:16):
to go to physical therapy and itwas like not close to the house
and all this stuff and I wastrying to tell her I was like no
wall push-ups right there athome, like it can be so, so
simple to institute and I justsee all these barriers.
So that's one of the reasonswhy I try to help people realize
like no one set is great Ifthat's what you got time to do
(22:37):
Two sets.
When I look at these studies, ifyou do too high effort sets, so
try hard, get close to failure.
I mean, you got to put effortinto these sets but you do two
sets per exercise and you getlike 80% of the total possible
gains.
So let's take a year.
Somebody trains for a yeardoing five sets or whatever of
you know the optimal quote,unquote optimal exercise
prescription and they gain 10pounds of muscle in a year.
(22:58):
Another person does the firsttwo sets, yield 79, 80% of the
gains and they gained eightpounds of muscle.
And then we can see adifference.
Like, yeah, technically theperson with the optimal program
got better results, but itwasn't that much better.
Like you could have done twosets and you could have got
great results.
So that's you know.
I think the overarching theme Ithink for this conversation for
(23:19):
people is like don't erectthese walls in your mind about
why this isn't going to work orthat's not going to work or my
program is not the best, likethat it doesn't even matter.
Just put a high effort into acouple of sets two times a week
and you're going to get thelion's share of the progress.
If not optimal, it's going tobe damn good.
Eric Rawson (23:38):
Absolutely, and you know.
And consistency.
You do it and you keep doing itand that's why another reason
it has to be it enjoyable orbearable.
But you know we have to designexercise programs that are
sustainable and a very smallamount of work offers major
(24:00):
results.
And it really reminds me of ofthe you know, the protein
discussion, which is, you know,should I have way protein
concentrate or way proteinisolate?
And if there's a differencethere, it's tiny.
The difference is betweeneating enough protein and not
(24:21):
eating enough protein.
So if you eat enough protein,that will help augment the
resistance training response.
And if everyone's arguing aboutprotein quality and protein
timing and protein supplements,just eat enough, I promise
you'll get 95% of the way there,if not more.
You know, and it's the sametype of thing with the exercise
(24:44):
program.
You know, if you work hard, ifyou're consistent, two to three
days per week, hit every majormuscle group, you'll make the
progress you want.
You know.
But but assess your goals.
You know, if the goal is tobreak the you know the record in
the squat, then you have to gosquat.
If your goal is to havemuscular strength and muscle
(25:05):
mass in your lower body so thatyou can ski or mow your lawn or
golf or carry your kids, thenyou can accomplish that with
much, much less work than youthink.
Jerry Teixeira (25:16):
So along those lines, we're talking about
resistance exercise as itrelates to healthy aging.
I understand you have a newpaper or a couple of new papers
that you've worked on, so do youwant to fill us in on what
those are about?
Eric Rawson (25:34):
Well, I think we've touched on a bit of it already,
and that is that we're tryingto bring people around to the
concept that we shouldn't berecommending people do aerobic
exercise training and alsoresistance training.
Right now, I understand when,when you're talking about two
(25:56):
different things, you have tolist one first and you have to
list the other one second.
That's how language works,right?
But there has not been Reallyin emphasis on the benefits of
resistance exercise from themajor public health
organizations, from the majorsports science and sports
(26:17):
medicine organizations.
It's always Do your cardio, doyour aerobic exercise training
and also Lift weights, and Ithink people feel that messaging
and I think you know there'ssome biases in there.
But the fact is there's amassive amount of literature on
the beneficial effects ofAerobic exercise training and
(26:41):
improved cardio respiratoryfitness and there is a much
smaller, although rapidlygrowing, body of literature on
resistance exercise and thebenefits across organ systems.
You know, across all systems.
You know and and you know forthe past 25 years we've just
been talking about resistanceexercise and muscle and maybe
(27:02):
bone once in a while, but butwhile we've been quiet, all of
this information has accrued.
Resistance exercise improvedsymptoms of depression, improves
anxiety, improves quality andquantity of sleep, you know.
Improves cardio metabolichealth, reduces, you know, your
risk of premature death as wellas makes you stronger and gives
(27:24):
you strong bones Right.
So now we're we're we're in theconversation with aerobic
exercise training.
So some of the projects I'minvolved with now are, I hope,
helping to get the message outthere that we shouldn't be
saying either, or we shouldnever be saying, just do
resistance exercise or just doaerobic exercise training.
But we really shouldn't bebrushing off Resistance exercise
(27:48):
as it only is good for muscleor muscle and bone, because I
think there's a lot more overlapbetween the beneficial effects
of aerobic and resistanceexercise training than people
think.
And for aerobic exercisetraining, increases in muscle
mass and increases in strengthand power are extremely unlikely
(28:09):
.
You need the weights to do that.
So it goes back to one of thefirst things we said.
If you have an individual who,for some reason, is not going to
walk they're not going to getin the treadmill, they're not
going to get on the ellipticalor the stair master and they
want to improve their health,start them with some resistance
(28:31):
exercise and it can lead like agateway drug to greater things
and an increase in differenttypes of physical activity.
We really should be thinkingabout resistance exercise on par
with aerobic exercise trainingas the data emerge, like I
mentioned earlier, with qualityof life for cancer patients.
(28:52):
We're thinking differently nowand we're speaking more openly
about it.
You know I had said earlierthat it's been.
It's an interesting to be thisage because of how I've watched
resistance training change fromjust linemen to now everyone in
the world should do it Right.
(29:13):
There was a time when cardiacrehabilitation If you had a
heart attack, they told you tostay in bed and rest and then
you're conditioning plummetedright.
And then it became okay, getout of bed and we're gonna get
you walking, which is wonderful.
And then it became get out ofbeds, walk to the gym, lift some
(29:33):
weights and then walk back.
So resistance training wasincorporated into cardiac
rehabilitation.
Now we're incorporatingresistance training into cancer
rehabilitation.
The field of exercise oncologyis growing rapidly and we're
really thinking about thingsdifferently.
So go ahead.
Jerry Teixeira (29:53):
Especially with catechia right Cancer.
You have this wasting.
That happens.
That is brutal because, as thathappens, it limits standard of
care.
How much chemo can you get orwhat drugs can you take?
You have to maintain a certainlevel of health in order to
withstand some of thesetreatments.
Eric Rawson (30:07):
Right side effects of the cancer and side effects
of the treatment.
Jerry Teixeira (30:11):
Right and I think you're right.
I've noticed that there arepapers coming out now where
exercise and it can beresistance or this extends into
both types of exercise, but justphysical activity in general
improves health outcomes inalmost every case, in almost
every disease.
So it's definitely somethingwhere I know dealing with a
disease or being in a diseasestate can make being physically
(30:34):
active more difficult for you.
But when you look at theoutcomes, it's something where
you've gotta figure out how toget it in and I feel for people
going.
I have an uncle right nowdealing with cancer, I feel, for
I can't imagine what it's liketo be in issues.
But yeah, it's one of thosethings where, again, because
from an evolutionary perspectivewe never could have been sick
(30:56):
or not, you gotta be active andbecause you would have had to
just survive.
Eric Rawson (31:02):
Yeah, and cancers can be very different different
types of cancers and thenegative effects of the
medications can be very, verydifferent between individuals.
So we can't just say everyonewho has cancer will lift weights
.
But we're no longer reallyafraid to study it and we
(31:24):
actually have exercise oncologydegrees, graduate programs
popping up.
We have certifications forpeople to work with as exercise
cancer rehabilitationspecialists.
So it's fantastic to watch usgrow right.
One of the things that I askpeople, because it's a pet peeve
(31:46):
of mine, is, if we're takingprevention seriously, if we're
taking exercise seriously as amedicine, why isn't exercise
included in your discharge notesfrom the hospital?
How many people are leaving thehospital?
Who that's there?
(32:06):
One time they're gonna havecontact with a provider, with a
health expert.
Why are they leaving withoutany advice on how to become more
physically active?
And to even add to that,there's some wonderful research
where they sent fitnessprofessionals, physical
therapists, into the patient'srooms and, depending on their
(32:27):
medical condition, they had themexercise in the hospital.
Why aren't we talking aboutinpatients doing resistance
exercise in bed?
If they're in the hospital fora period of time, that loss of
muscle mass is ultimately goingto be the reason that they can't
hang on.
So we're getting closer, but Ithink I'd like a much more
(32:51):
serious discussion about are wereally thinking about exercise
as a medicine, such that we'llprescribe it to inpatients and
we'll make it part of thedischarge notes when people
leave their doctors?
Jerry Teixeira (33:06):
I have big dreams, I agree, because
survival of the fittest is notjust a meme or a saying.
You don't need to be abodybuilder, but the more part
of your musculoskeletal systemis in that health extent.
Very few people are gonna havea robustly strong
musculoskeletal system and thenweak organs.
There's an improvement inoverall systemic health that
(33:31):
happens with exercise.
I know, I know.
I know I know there's animprovement in overall systemic
health.
That happens with exercise.
Eric Rawson (33:38):
Sick.
Your ability to survive theillness or survive the side
effects of the medication couldbe improved from a physical
activity program.
So even if you got sick anyway,the exercise would help you
maintain your quality of life asyou fight for your health.
(34:00):
I just have.
I'm an unbelievably biasedexercise physiologist.
I have nothing but good thingsto say about exercise.
Jerry Teixeira (34:08):
I mean it's side effect free.
Eric Rawson (34:09):
So can't help it.
My students, I'm sure, are sickof hearing it day after day
that every lecture winds upcoming back to exercise is good.
Keep doing it.
Jerry Teixeira (34:21):
Yeah.
So one of the things I wantedto touch on before we wrap up is
so I think people are nowkeenly aware that creatine
benefits your resistancetraining pursuits.
Right, if anything you do thatis explosive.
The nature creatine is going tohave, or strength based in
nature creatine is going to havea benefit.
But I've also seen someresearch to show that endurance
athletes who supplement withcreatine, their performance at
(34:43):
endurance sport doesn't improve,but their recovery from
endurance sport actuallyimproves, so they're able to get
back to train more quickly.
So which I found that to beinteresting.
But also there's emerging datashowing that there are cognitive
benefits to creatingsupplementation and these things
may not.
If you eat meat, if you have acertain base level of creatine
(35:03):
your diet, perhaps those thingswon't actually apply to you.
But for people that arevegetarian or an aging
population and maybe that's tiedto them not Not eating as much,
so they're not consuming asmuch animal based protein.
But can you maybe touch on thebenefits to creatine outside of
strength training, because Ithink people understand that,
hey, I'm strength trainingconsistently creating will
(35:23):
benefit me, but in what otherways might create team benefit
somebody based on on yourresearch?
Eric Rawson (35:30):
Sure, and we can come back and do a whole couple
of hours on creatine.
There's always more to talkabout with creatine.
So your you know your musclesare already filled with creatine
.
You consume creatine in yourdiet.
Your body manufacturers it to.
If you take creatinesupplements, you can increase
your muscle creatine levels.
(35:50):
And then any sort of exercisechallenge that resembles high
intensity sprinting so it couldbe a set of push ups or it could
be an actual sprint or it couldbe, you know, a team sport
activity, intermittent activityany of those things can benefit
from having more muscle creatine, which you can achieve with
(36:12):
supplementation pretty easily.
The brain is a little bitdifferent, because the, whereas
the muscles don't manufacturecreatine and it's really easy to
get creatine into your musclesthe brain manufactures its own
creatine, but it's the same typeof principle that your brain is
(36:33):
going to rely on creatine toproduce energy during during
stressful times, and potentiallyyou could supplement with
creatine and increase your braincreatine levels and then any
type of stressful task that youwere engaged with could benefit
from having this, this increasedbrain creatine levels from the
(36:53):
supplementation.
So there are a few studies nowshowing that in different
populations.
So some of these studies werevegetarian.
Some of them were older adults,some of them were younger
adults, some of them werestressed with sleep deprivation,
some of them were stressed withexercise.
(37:14):
So a whole mix of differenttypes of studies.
When you put them all together,there's a really consistent
improvement in cognitivefunction or cognitive processing
in people who've gone throughjust a standard creatine
supplementation protocol.
This is, you know, good newsfor young people and certainly
good news for older adults aswell.
I think it might beparticularly valuable for people
(37:37):
who are going through some sortof stress, which could be
disease.
It could be, you know, diseasethat results in remarkably low
physical activity, like ifyou're bedridden.
It could be stress, it could besleep deprivation, it could be
all of the above that I thinkthe benefits are likely to be
(38:00):
even more pronounced.
But it's a very consistentresponse in the literature that
regular creatine supplementationdoses appear to improve brain
function in all different typesof populations.
Jerry Teixeira (38:14):
Now with creatine supplementation, by way
of how it works, there is asmall increase in total body
water.
So when you take creatine it'scommon to see the scale go up a
pound or two.
I encourage people not to getdiscouraged.
I have clients sometimes intheir training they want to lose
weight.
So we say, hey, let's trycreatine.
But if you notice a little bitof a small fluctuation of weight
(38:38):
, don't stress.
Right, it's not body fat and atsome point in the future, if
you stop taking it, thatinvariable will go away.
But are there any other sideeffects?
I mean, I've heard your hairfalls out and I've been taking
creatine since I was 20 and 43and my hair hasn't fallen out.
So at least for me I'm not tooworried about that.
But there's people that yourhair falling out and increases
(39:00):
DHT like is it bad for yourkidneys?
Maybe you can just run throughthose.
I know a lot of those are justurban legends.
But maybe you can kind of talkon the next one.
Eric Rawson (39:10):
A group of us actually got together and wrote
a scientific paper addressingthe like the top 10 urban
legends, which I'll send you acopy of.
You can share it with yourlisteners and your followers
because We'll make it into aninfographic.
That's fine.
Hey, when there's somemisinformation that gets out
there in the world of nutrition,it lasts at least 30 years.
(39:33):
I mean, I'm getting questionsthat I thought we resolved with
research, you know, 20, 25 yearsago, but the misinformation is
still getting to the athletes,still getting to the parents,
even the physicians, coaches aswell.
So I don't mind answering thesequestions, but it's incredible
how long lasting misinformationis in this business.
(39:55):
A lot of it starts off with amisinterpretation or a mistake,
or a single paper is a goodexample.
So science is not about asingle paper.
It's not about the most recentpaper.
It's about a collection ofresearch studies and some
(40:16):
research studies will just finda result by sheer luck.
So if you do 100 studies, 99 ofthem might get the same result,
but one of them, just randomluck, might get the complete
opposite result.
So when we look at all 100 ofthose papers, we realize that
overwhelmingly the evidencesupports this particular effect
(40:38):
and this one study.
We don't know what happenedthere.
That's just kind of howresearch works.
And you know, as an example,one person or one group did a
study on creatininesupplementation and they
measured DHT,dihydrotestosterone levels, and
dihydrotestosterone levels areloosely connected to hair loss.
(41:00):
It's not a completely unanimousfinding or unanimous thing that
your dihydrotestosterone levelswill equal your hair.
You know your hair health oryour hair growth.
So we have this one study andthey show an increase small
increase in dihydrotestosteronelevels with creatinine
(41:21):
supplementation.
If you go back and look closelyat that paper you'll find a
couple of things.
One is that the increase in thecreatinine group was small.
This is the danger of onlyusing percent changes and not
looking at the absolute values.
The increase was small, itremained in the normal range and
(41:42):
the placebo group had areduction in dihydrotestosterone
.
And statistically, when onegroup goes up and one group goes
down, that's kind of where thestatistical finding comes from.
Like if the placebo group hadstayed the same, like it was
supposed to, there probablywouldn't have been a statistical
effect, or they may not havebeen.
(42:03):
So you know, changes in theplacebo group confound the paper
.
You know, not exceeding thenormal range confounds the paper
.
The fact that no one has beenable to reproduce these results
in years compounds, you know,confounds the paper.
(42:23):
And you know, theoretically I'mnot sure why we would be
looking at creatinine anddihydrotestosterone anyway,
because there's about a dozenpapers that have measured
creatinine supplementation andtestosterone and they found
nothing.
Jerry Teixeira (42:39):
Right.
Eric Rawson (42:40):
Right.
It's not going to alter yourendocrine system.
It's a nutrient that's involvedin energy metabolism in your
muscles and in your brains.
If you ate an extra hamburger aday, I don't expect that your
testosterone levels would changedramatically, and I think your
testosterone levels are thefeeder for your
dihydrotestosterone levels,right?
(43:00):
So how did dihydrotestosteronelevels go up but not?
How did DHT go up but nottestosterone?
I don't know why didn'ttestosterone go up in any of
these other studies.
Probably because it doesn'tmake any sense that it should.
So the data were alwaysinteresting for that brief
period of time.
(43:20):
But here we are, years laterand we have enough data to say I
don't really believe there'ssomething happening here.
I know there's an ongoing studythat's supposed to be
addressing this actually from ahair perspective.
However, one measures hairgrowth or hair loss.
That's outside of my domain,but really the whole creatinine
(43:44):
hair loss thing is, as far as weknow now, based on many studies
.
It's much ado about nothing.
One study, that that you knowgave us some interesting
findings but has never beenreplicated and on its own
doesn't make too much sense.
Jerry Teixeira (44:02):
And then the creatine and kidney damage or
whatever.
Eric Rawson (44:06):
Yeah and another, you know, another bit of
misinformation.
So sometimes misinformationcomes from social media,
Sometimes it comes from the newsand sometimes it comes from
medical journals.
So two investigators publisheda case study.
Now, case studies can be veryimportant, but a retrospective
(44:27):
case study, where someone showsup in the emergency room or they
show up in your office and youkind of backtrack and try to
figure out what got them there,what happened that's generally
considered the weakest form ofscience.
Right, you know, a case studyshows that someone had elevated
creatinine levels.
The person already hadcreatinine disease.
(44:49):
Excuse me, the person alreadyhad renal disease.
They were taking a medicationthat's incredibly nephrotoxic
and they want creatininesupplements and their urine
creatinine levels increased,which would happen if you ate a
big steak.
Jerry Teixeira (45:06):
Right.
Eric Rawson (45:08):
So that turned into this guy with kidney disease.
Taking this awful medicationwas on creatinine supplements,
and creatinine supplementscaused his kidney diseases to
get worse.
When you look back at that casestudy you'll think, wow, this
is really not the highestquality science we can do here.
Jerry Teixeira (45:28):
And, of course, how did they make that jump?
Eric Rawson (45:30):
So since that time there has been multiple clinical
trials on all different typesof populations patient
populations, athleticpopulations, general population
to show that creatininesupplementation does not cause
renal dysfunction.
Creatinine supplementation doesnot Does not even increase
(45:53):
markers of kidney dysfunctionlike creatinine excretion under
most cases.
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.
(46:16):
Are you really that frightenedby an extra hamburger a day that
you think your kidneys wouldjust collapse?
It doesn't make much sense.
So took us 10 or 15 years ofgood quality studies to say that
this case study that started atall probably shouldn't have
been published and certainlyspoke beyond the data that were
(46:37):
available at that time.
So there's no recommendationfor anyone with normal renal
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 (46:57):
Yeah, which would be five grams a day.
That's all I think anybodyreally needs to think.
What do you think about five?
So if somebody eats meatregularly, two and a half a day,
do you think would besufficient?
Eric Rawson (47:09):
Yeah.
So if we're talking aboutmuscle creatinine, you know
elevated muscle creatininelevels remain that way for weeks
and weeks after you stop takingthe 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.
(47:31):
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
(47:52):
, go ahead.
It's a bit related to how largeyou are.
If you're a 300 pound offensivetackled and maybe five grams
per day If you're my size, thenyou could probably, you know,
get away with three grams perday.
But I've not seen any data tosuggest that anything bad would
happen by taking five grams perday.
(48:13):
You would just, you know,absorb it and excrete the excess
.
Jerry Teixeira (48:19):
And this is the part where the power went out
and I did not get a close, soI'm going to have Eric back on
for around two.
The guy's just phenomenal.
We could talk for hours Priorto having him back on.
I'll make sure to reach out onall my social media channels and
get questions.
I can do a good Q&A with Eric,so stay tuned for that and if
(48:41):
you have questions, I will makesure to get to those when we do
a part two.
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