Dynamic Resistance Using Tonal vs. Free Weights for Muscle Gain (Troy Taylor) | Ep 268 - Wits & Weights | Fat Loss, Nutrition, & Strength Training for Lifters

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
New research shows that dynamic digital resistance
feels up to 26% heavier thanfree weights, but does that
translate to better musclegrowth?
Today we're getting into thescience with Troy Taylor, who's
analyzed data for over 200billion pounds lifted.
As the Senior Director ofPerformance Innovation at Tonal,
you'll discover the latestresearch on muscle activation,

(00:23):
learn how dynamic resistanceadapts to your strength curves
and understand exactly when touse each training method for
optimal gains, even if you'recurrently all in on free weights
.
If you're curious abouttechnology and optimizing muscle
gain, you'll really enjoy thisepisode.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the podcast that blends evidence

(00:48):
and engineering to help youbuild smart, efficient systems
to achieve your dream physique.

(01:10):
I'm your host, philip Pape, andtoday we're examining the
science behind dynamic versustraditional resistance training
with Troy Taylor.
Now Troy leads performanceinnovation at Tonal, where his
team analyzes millions ofworkouts.
Understand the effectiveness ofdynamic resistance.
As the former high-performancedirector at US Ski and Snowboard
, he helped athletes secure over500 international podiums using
traditional methods.
Now this experience lets himevaluate where each training
modality might be most effectivefor muscle development, and
today you're going to learn whatresearch shows us about muscle
activation in these dynamicversus free weight training.

(01:33):
You're going to look at thescientific mechanisms behind
things like perceived effort andactual gains and understand how
to optimize your training usingone or both approaches.
Troy, welcome to the show.

Troy Taylor (01:45):
Thank you so much for having me on.
I look forward to ourconversation.

So I wanted to kick off with a study that hopefully
I have my facts right 2021 atthe Human Biomechanics and
Physiology Lab at High PointUniversity and they compared the
muscle activation in Tonal'sproduct to free weights, which
is the main point of skepticismfor many of us, of not only
feeling the load and feeling theheaviness of it, but actually

(02:09):
getting the result and gettingthe muscle growth.
And I think they foundsomething like 23 or 26% heavier
it felt heavier based on RPE.
So what's actually going onthere?

Yeah, so it was Kevin Ford's lab out of High
Point University.
He's an awesome biomechanicsresearcher.
200 plus peer-reviewed papers.
And so what we heard from ourcommunity hey, I can curl
20-pound dumbbells in the gymall the time, but 18 or 17
pounds on tonal feels reallydifficult.
What's going on?
And so we basically wanted tocommission peer-reviewed

(02:42):
research to be able to look atthat.
And so what we did, or whatthey did, it's an independent
study, I just get the results.
It looked at four differentmovements.
I know there were curls inthere, there was deadlift in
there, there was a couple ofother movements and they did two
things.
Number one, they worked outthey took 15 or so subjects,
moderately trained, and tookthem to an estimated one RM and

(03:04):
free weight and an estimated oneRM on tonal and compared the
two.
And what we found out is rightin that 20, 25% range is tonal
feels 20, 25% heavier than freeweight, and we'll talk about why
that might be in a second.
But essentially they werelifting for the same maximal
effort.
They were lifting less on tonalthan they were on free weights.

(03:24):
And then they did a back-offtraining session where they
looked at 10 reps at, say, 70%of your 1RM.
I'm pulling this from memorybut I think it was right around
there.
And then they looked at surfaceEMG for muscle activation and
what's happening at this lowerresistance, because 70% at lower
1RM is a lower weight.
What's happening with themuscle activation from a surface
EMG point of view?

(03:45):
And in that they foundbasically the same EMG
activation at the same relativepercentage of 1RM, but an
absolute lower muscle mass andsurface EMG.
It's got its pros and cons.
It's very good.
It gives us an understanding ofthe muscles activated.
Emg does not equal hypertrophynecessarily, but it does give us
an indicator that the musclesare activated at lower weights.

(04:05):
So the question would be why?
I think it's probably thequestion that you asked me and I
took a long way of answering it, but I think we didn't start
like.
This is not studied in theresearch necessarily, but like
from our own internal data,we've been able to analyze this.
A vast majority of it comes downto moment of inertia and the
impact of inertia.
When you're lifting with a freemass, it's Newton's second law

(04:28):
Once it moves it wants to carryon moving.
How we can clean and jerk andsnatch is the bars going up and
it gives me time to get under it, and so once you're putting
speed into a free weight bar, itwants to carry moving up fast
for a little period of time.
That doesn't exist as much ontonal.
It's not that there's noinertia, but there's much less
inertia.
The motor, as soon as you startpushing or stop pushing against

(04:49):
, it essentially stops veryquickly.
So you have this lower level ofinertia.
Therefore you have to pushthrough the entire range of
motion for every movement, whichmeans that your estimated or
your 1RMs and your muscleactivation essentially can be
reached at a lower weight.
I'd say that's some made uppercentage, but 70, 80, 90% of

(05:10):
the variation is based on that.
There's also a component ofstability, depending on the
movement pattern.
On deadlift it doesn't reallymatter Deadlifting on tonal and
deadlifting in free weight,stability doesn't really come
into it.
You're lifting a heavy objectoff the ground but say something
like bicep curls, it's a cablemachine.
That's what tonal is, and soit's slightly different.
Right, there's a bit morestability in going on in terms

(05:31):
of variations of shoulders andsort of your shoulder girdle and
stability around there,potentially within the sort of
the wrist and also the elbow,and so you might get additional
activation.
I think they probably looked atbicep brachii or something like
that in the research study ofthat stabilization component
which would add to a slightlylower estimated 1RM but
potentially increased or similarmuscle activation.

Yeah, okay.
So there's a lot to unpack anda lot of really cool things I
want to touch on, because I wasjust talking to a friend of mine
just before this call.
He was showing off some of thenew equipment that his YMCA has
that introduces instability,such as water-based weights
things like that, perturbation,training type kind of
Perturbation training, yeah, andwe talk about how there's pros
and cons, depending on what yourgoal is right.
Sometimes you want a ton ofstability if you're trying to

(06:16):
target a muscle group, andsometimes you want instability,
which then tends to reduce theoverall load, but then
systemically you get somebenefits.
So you're kind of touching onthose things.
And the thing with tonal and Iknow we haven't even, like,
exactly said what it is Peoplecan Google it.
We're going to talk about it,Is it?
It does remind me of a cablemachine and it reminds me
specifically of like, when mycable machine sometimes needs to

(06:38):
be oiled up or like has morefriction than I intended in the
pulley and so you notice it getseven more.
You know more of thatresistance through the range of
anyway, bad analogy.
The point is it's very differentthan just a free weight, like
you said, because of the um, thestrength curve and the momentum
and all of that.
So I'm trying to think of wherethe best place to start on this

(06:59):
is.
I think our audience is peoplewho are used to traditional
lifting and I want to understandwhat's similar, but then also
what makes Tonal unique andmaybe an advantage over
traditional lifting.
I just threw like a bunch ofstuff at you.
Go ahead, man.
Yeah, no.

I'm not sure my product marketing would love the
analogy on the stickiness.
But it's extremely smooth, butyou do have to pull through the
entire range of motion.
There's no freebies.
That's the way I can think.
You imagine a rotational chopor something on a cable machine.
If you get that moving in thefirst quarter of it you don't
really have to pull because themomentum is taking you.

(07:34):
The rest, with tonal, it'salmost like working with chains,
which we can talk about.
It's maintaining the load, it'snot increasing the resistance,
but it's maintaining theresistance through the entire
range of motion, which makes itfeel different and technically
harder.
So let's get there.
So where to start?
I would say what is Tonal andthen we can go from there.
Tonal my VP of product, farman,gave me this because I struggled

(07:55):
to give an elevator pitch it'san entire gym that fits in your
space with the options ofpersonal training.
So what makes it an entire gym?
About it yes, it's a cablemachine.
It's a dual stack cable machinein that there's two arms that
come out.
You can do 250 plus movements,from deadlifting and squatting
and bench pressing to flies, toattach a barbell, to attach

(08:16):
ropes, to attach handles If yousee on my Instagram to attach
any other accessory that youmight want to attach a cable
machine, even things like sleddrags and stuff like that, if
you want to get a little outsideof the box so you can replicate
many, many, many movementsmaybe not all, but many
movements from a gym.
It fits in your space.
If you're watching this onvideo, it's behind me.

(08:38):
It attaches to your wall.
It's about five inches thick.
It looks kind of like a bigscreen TV.
To some extent it's designed tobe in your home, whether it's a
home gym or in your living roomor your spare bedroom.
It can go in your garage, butthe idea was to kind of make it
aesthetically pleasing so morepeople can put it in, because we
know the more obvious it is,the more likely you are to use

(08:58):
it.
It's good for us from anengagement point of view.
It's good for the consumerbecause, from an engagement
point of view and with personaltraining, yeah, we have 300 or
so programs and adding everymonth 5,000 workouts.
Myself and my team write a lotof those along with coaches,
from everything from I want tobuild muscle mass to I want to
lose fat, I want to do strengthtraining where I want to do yoga

(09:20):
or I want to do all thesedifferent variations.
So it's got a whole kind ofcomponents there, and then we
have, you know, virtual coachesthat are on screen that can show
you the technique.
And then we use technology bothtable position data and also AI
, pose estimation models from acamera to be able to tell you
are you doing that movement well, and give you coaching cues of

(09:40):
yeah, hey, we've noticed that,you know that shoulder stability
on that overhead press seems tobe a little off, or you seem to
be moving really quickly on theeccentric and not controlling
it, and we can give you coachingcues for that.
So it's that, and it providesresistance via a motor rather
than through iron or traditionalweights, and so I think the
easiest analogy for people toget their heads around this is

(10:02):
it's the Tesla or electric carto a combustion engine in some
aspects, and there are peoplethat love both, and there are
pros and cons to it ordifferences between them the
fact that it's electromagneticwe have that lack of inertia we
talked about.
So it's a motor that'sproviding it, but also that
allows us to one monitor highly,highly in detail 50 Hertz,

(10:23):
hertz, 50 times a second, everyposition, every force.
Imagine you've used a gym awareor a linear position transducer,
or sometimes an imu attached toa bar that measures your bar
speed.
We do that every rep, everyexercise, every person, close to
10 billion reps or somethinglike that.
But you can also as, as well asmonitoring it it's closed loop

(10:44):
you can change that resistancein real time.
So an example of that might behey, chains, I want to hit the
chains mode.
As you increase, as the cablesextend, we can make it linearly
heavier.
Touch of a button, you want toadd an eccentric, accentuated,
eccentric loading.
Touch of the button, you canadd eccentric loading, and so
it's 100 pounds going up, orconcentrically, 125 pounds

(11:08):
eccentrically.
And it allows us to build AIalgorithms like, say, a built-in
spotter mode.
So if we detect you arestruggling, you're halfway up a
bench pressure, you're in yourhome gym, you're shouting for
your wife or your husband orsomeone to come and help you, we
can peel the weight off.
We can do one of two thingsPeel the weight off one pound at
a time until you move it, so itautomatically allows that.

(11:31):
Or two, just switch the weightoff if you're not moving,
automatically done, it's gone,disappeared.
You hurt yourself.
Done, there's no resistanceanymore, immediately.
So those are some of the waysand changes that we take
traditional training and makesome things better.

Yeah, no, I love.
I'm a huge fan of technology.
I mean I have I always have thelatest Oura Ring and Apple
Watch and like phone and tablet.
I just love that stuff.
So it's really cool to see howyou're using things in very
creative ways like that, withthe real-time resistance, for
example, like there's no way youcould do that unless you had
this kind of system or just themonitoring.
I mean, I'm a huge fan oftracking and monitoring.

(12:09):
We talk about it all the time,and to do that with a
traditional gym would requirelots of extra equipment and
expertise to even do thatproperly.
And then the spotter as well,because people with home gym
safety is huge.
And again, when I hear peoplebenching without spotter arms,
I'm like what are you doing,Right?
So one question that comes upthen when we compare to
traditional load is those of usthat are trying to build a big
base of strength and we like topush big lifts and high loads,

(12:31):
something like a squat, andyou're a 300, 400 pound squatter
or you're a four or 500 pounddeadlifter.
I know the limits, just purenumbers wise are like 200.
And maybe that's going up inthe next version.
Um, how does that compare andhow can you?
Can you replicate that, or isthat just a different use case?

Yeah, so as we record this podcast, 200 pounds
is the max limit for Tonal.
We talked about how that feels,20, 25% lighter, so it feels
like 250 pounds of free weight.
And as of the 8th of January weannounced because this podcast
will release after then Tonal 2,which goes to 250 pounds.
And so if you think about that,times by 20 or 25%, you're now

(13:11):
over 300 pounds of equivalentresistance from a mass.
That's, I think, the limit ofwhere you can go.
And then it's like if you'retraining 1RMs and you can 1RM
500 pound deadlift, are yougoing to do your max strength
training on top?
No, we're not that use case.
The number of people that arelifting 500 pounds on a deadlift

(13:31):
are probably not that many,while it's feasibly technically
to do that.
On electromagnetic resistanceyou start making trade-offs,
mainly price and cost, becausewe have to have bigger motors
that draw more power.
You need special voltage inyour house to be able to power
that and then we have to beef upevery single component to not

(13:51):
be able to lift 500 pounds.
But you have to make safetyfactors, factors of safety 3.75
times the amount of weight youcan lift.
So you have to make all thecomponents 15, 16, 1700 pounds
and so it just exponentially isnot worth it.
So if that's your goal andyou're trying for one RMs and
that's where you're not, thentone is probably not the product
for you, for that circumstanceDoesn't mean it can't be a good

(14:12):
product for accessory trainingand other things.
I'd also say if we say we're at300, 315 pounds of free weight
equivalent, if you're trainingyou're a 500 pound deadlifter or
maybe slightly less, but you'retraining, you know you're a 500
pound deadlifter.
Or you know maybe slightly less, but you're training 6, 8, 10,
12 rep petitions.
You're probably right in thatkind of range.
It's probably your 1RM workthat we can't do or your very

(14:33):
low rep work, but you know lowerpercentages of your 1RM.
You're probably out.
So we're really excited aboutthat change in that you know
there's only 10% ish of ourusers that actually max out the
machine.
But I'm one of those 10% ondeadlifts and some of our other
community, and so we wanted tobe able to raise it up to 250,
which subjectively I've neverhad no research on this Like,

(14:57):
yeah, I can deadlift 350.
I can just about get 250 for asingle on total.
It's maybe a bit skill trainingtoo and your ability to do that
, but it feels pretty heavy.

That's cool, yeah, no, I mean, I can definitely
imagine, even for the strongestfolks.
And again, you're not talkingabout competitive power lifters
or anything here.

Let's start with the population.
But even those- 35,55-year-olds is target audience.
We have definitely 18 to80-year-olds, but it's probably
people like me and you who arerelatively strong, but not
necessarily I'm mentioning youin my level of strength, which
is probably not fair butrelatively strong, but not
competing on the powerliftingstage.

Yeah, yeah and for sure.
Given my own experience withrunning all sorts of programs,
probably 80, 90% of the workyou're going to do would fit in
that envelope.
For tonal, if not moreespecially hypertrophy work, you
know bodybuilding type splitsand whatnot, working out in the
eight to 12 rep range and stuff,I definitely see the benefit.
And for developmentalvariations, like you said, maybe
you go to the gym once or twicea week to get the big heavy

(16:00):
stuff and then you've got yourtonal.
For everything else it'sconvenient as a home gym option.
I do yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, that makessense.
Yeah, and I even have clientsthat don't have tonal on this.
Still, they'll go to the gymfor this and they'll have the
home gym for this.
So it's a very common thing tokind of split that up, since you
have all this data, and notjust data in the moment for the
lifter, but all the I think you200 billion pounds of lifts or

(16:24):
something like it's a reallyamazing number.
What kind of patterns are youseeing that?
I don't know what we shouldtalk about specifically, but
either progression ratescomparing to traditional
resistance insights that arethat surprise you guys, and
maybe we're like are informingthe future of the product.
You know, tell me about some,some of what you learned from
the data.

Yeah, and so, yeah, I think it's where we really
support.
Last year, the state ofstrength that I think was we
were around 200 billion pounds,then it's more now.
I don't even know how manybillion, but it obviously
increases every time anyonelifts, and so you get both just
the amount of lifted, and thenyou get to track people
longitudinally anonymously.
But we first released theproduct late 2019, not a ton of

(17:04):
users back then.
You're a small startup, but aswe add more people and more
things, that data set grows, butalso the longitudinal tracking
we forward another five or 10years.
You're like okay, I got adecade worth of data from
someone that transitioned frombeing well, not someone from

(17:31):
tens to hundreds of thousandpeople that transitioned from
being 30 to 40 year olds.
What can I learn?
And so I would say right nowwhat are some of the key
insights?
I think a lot of them, I wouldsay, are proving out what
research studies is generallyshown in short term 12, 16 week
studies, but maybe in slightlydifferent populations and over
longer times and also assessingsome of the epidemiology

(17:56):
research, so likecross-sectional, where I take a
bunch of 34 year olds and I lookat a bunch of 40 year olds and
see what's the differencebetween them, and so some of the
things that I really like outof that is number one.
We see changes in strength aredramatic with people that train.
That's not new.
We know people get trained,they get stronger, but they get
stronger and it's not just.

(18:16):
It doesn't stop at 12 weeks.
We're seeing consistentincreases over the first year,
two years.
After two years it does startto plateau, for sure.
You still make incrementalincreases, but looking at tens
of thousands of people who arelooking at the mean increases in
terms of that, you'redefinitely seeing these
increases.
We're talking 70%, 75% I wantto say average in the first year

(18:37):
increases in strength acrossthe general population.
This is not a well-trainedresistance population, this is
not a beginner population.
It's just looking at tens ofhundreds of thousands of people
and what kind of changes theyseem to make.
Those changes regardless of age.
And actually our55-plus-year-old members seem to

(18:57):
make relatively largerincreases in strength than our
younger population, which Ithink is a great message for me
as a 45-year-old and they startat a lower baseline, for sure,
but relatively, and I think theresearch again shows this that
we can build strength at any age.
But we're seeing they can buildstrength as fast, if not faster
, than our younger populationand for significant periods of

(19:19):
time.
We're seeing that our femalemembers particularly are lifting
heavier year over year, weekover week.
They're relatively individuallygetting stronger and making
those same changes, but they'realso as a cohort of a population
.
If you got to look at, say,25,000 females that joined in

(19:39):
2020 and compare it to 25,000females that joined in 2020,
people are getting stronger overtime that join our product,
both as they join and theirincreases once they get there.
So I take that as a really goodmessage for the message that
strength training for female itseems to be getting out there at
least taking this data and kindof interpolating or
extrapolating it a little, whichI think is super cool.

(20:01):
And then one of the things thatI think we have a unique vantage
point because of the data iswhat is associated correlation,
not causation, with markers ofconsistency, like.
So maybe most of your audienceactually probably just works out
, because they're intrinsicallymotivated.
It's part of their identitythat we're in the autonomy stage
.
I'm going to work out if noone's looking, no one's

(20:23):
monitoring.
It's just who I am.
It's what I've done always andI will always do the average
person.
Cdc says what 30-somethingpercent of Americans self-select
that they resistance traintwice a week and I think that's

(20:44):
probably self-selected, so it'sa little high.
So most of the population isn'ttraining.
So what can we see in the datathat looks at consistency and
what is correlated again, notcausation with consistency.
And we see people that joinprograms are more consistent
than people that just do one-offworkouts.
Makes a ton of sense.
You've got a bit of a plan.
You've got a commitment devicefrom behavior science.

(21:05):
You're signing up to something.
So maybe there's actuallyreverse causation, a bit of like
people that sign up forprograms are more likely to
intend to do that.
But we'd certainly see theincreases there.
People that check their statsand their progress tonal tracks
every rep every time.
You get to see your volume,your power.
You get to see progress.
Strength training changes areslow, sometimes they take a

(21:25):
while, but with Tonal, with onepound changes you can get to.
Oh, I've got a new estimatedone RM.
I lifted more volume than ever.
My power on this move is higherthan it's ever been.
People that check their statsare more consistent.
And then some of the other datais right, like consistency of
timing of training and havingthe same window.
People that train in themorning are slightly more
consistent than those in theafternoon, and so these other

(21:51):
data is around consistency,which we can either use to build
into the product to make itmore sticky pretty freaking
sticky already, but more stickyand help people there or things
that we can share with thebroader fitness population.
Hey, from this unique vantagepoint of data, maybe
incorporating these things intofitness training program might
help clients be more consistent.

I'm smiling because you should just be the co-host
with me, like you're justselling every point that I want
people to hear about trainingevery time on this podcast.
I mean I want to summarize someof what you said for folks just
so they drill it in.
But like the fact that you getso much stronger in the first
year or two, no matter your age,is super empowering, right?
Because the kind of the I liketo call it the number one cause

(22:28):
of death is frailty, which leadsto falls, which leads to a lot
of the other metabolic diseasethat ends up being heart disease
or this or that.
It's all tied together tostrength muscle, you know and
that.
And so in one to two years,having 75% growth in year one
not uncommon, you know.
When I tell people in three orfour months, you can like I'll

(22:51):
say I'll say double.
But I say double too.
It's easy to remember.
But yeah, you know, but likenewbie, get it brand new People
can really double it.
So you're talking about theaverage 75% in one year and then
another, probably another 50%in the second year.
It's massive and most people arefar from their genetic limit at
any one point and that lifeinterrupts us and we detrain and
so train for the rest of yourlife and you'll always probably
improve in some sense.
And then the rates of gain.
Yeah, I've, I've seen that aswell, troy, lately.

(23:12):
How, for example, you know,women and men gain at roughly
the same rate.
Women often think they'redisadvantaged.
The only disadvantage is theyhave less muscle mass to start,
but the rate is the same.
And what you're saying is thatit might even be faster when
we're older, potentially.
I mean, what's the theory there?
That we're detrained, we'velost muscle mass and it kind of
comes back faster, somethinglike that.

Yeah, potentially guesstimation here, but yeah,
potentially.
Our users are people thattrained in high school and
college and then stoppedtraining for a long time.
The data also points they'remore consistent and this data
doesn't normalize and so they'retraining more frequently and
more consistently.
Therefore they get better gains.
They have more time.

(23:53):
Maybe the young kids or thebusy job or whatever it might be
.
Not many 55 plus year olds haveboth of those, but as a cohort
population they train a littlemore consistency, which I think
is probably also driving it Okay.

So, yeah, we're taking more of the retirement
age as well, and, yeah, okay,got it.
And then females women liftingheavier yeah, that's a big
message we have here, and I tryto get a lot of guests on, also
experts who are women in thatsphere, to talk about that,
because there are a lot ofmisconceptions about what women
can't do, which most of them arefalse at any age, especially

(24:24):
peripost-menopause, where someof these myths start to come up,
and we know it's just like withmost people.
It's the loss of muscle massand the increase in body fat,
and you just have to flip thataround.
And then I love the stats aboutconsistency because you hit on
a couple of things.
One that tracking.
I love tracking and measuring.
People complain about trackingbeing obsessive or whatever.

(24:45):
But all evidence about trackinganything food, lifting,
whatever, food doesn't mattershows better results, at least
for a period of time, at leastfor a period of time.
So you train yourself right andthen you can get off that if
you need to.
But the fact that you have theability to see wins at a more
granular level, I think isimportant, right?
It's why, when we talk aboutyour lifting, you know you

(25:06):
should track as many measures asyou care about, that will
change fairly frequently, sothat you can see the progress
and you're doing itautomatically for folks.
And then the morning trainingguys listening, if you've
already listened to this show, Italk about it all the time.
There is a difference forpeople.
The morning is just you getgoing.
It creates consistency.
Don't say you're not a morningperson.
Stop saying that.
Just try it out for a while.

Anyway, Troy, yeah, I have empathy.
I never thought I was a morningperson, but I have a couple of
young kids and a wife.
That's morning personal.
I'm a morning person now, uh,but I, some people.
It's not feasible, right I?

got my job for sure , and that kind of thing.

So I don't want to like and it's, it's.
The data from ours is not likeit's all if I don't go down in
the morning I shouldn't work out, but I think what it is is less
stuff comes up during the daythat derails you, and so I think
that's primary is my hypothesisof what drives it, and and so
you can do that.
And then number two is like,yes, if you do do it, the kind
of the rest of your day goesbetter.
We know the impact of you knowtraining on BDNF and mood state

(26:07):
and you know selective attention, executive function, all these
other like emotional and mentaland cognitive functions, in
addition to the physiology.
I feel more energy in those.
But yeah, we definitely seethat.
In addition to the physiology,I feel more energy in those.
But yeah, we definitely seethat.
And I personally I just said Ijust finished my workout, like
10 minutes before this.
I finished my 10 minute workout.
I just exercised snack, I gotsomething in.

(26:28):
It started my day right.
I didn't have long.
I had a podcast.
I probably should have tried todo my hair a little better, but
I'll go back after this podcastand try and get another 10
minutes in.
And then you know, thisafternoon I'll go and get, and I
got 30 minutes of training, butit was in three 10 minute
blocks, um, and that's how Istructure my day.
I don't do that first one, Idon't do the other ones.
It's like this like you've gotto get that breadcrumb going.

Yeah right, there are a lot of benefits to morning
training if you can do it.
Another one is, I think, stressmanagement we're seeing when
you look at cortisol and stufflike that.
So, okay, you talked a lot, soyou mentioned strength a lot,
which is music to my earsbecause I always start from that
.
But strength and hypertrophy,although they're somewhat

(27:12):
proxies for each other, they'realso not always correlated.
So when it comes to hypertrophy, how are you measuring your
population on that likecircumference?
Measurements and such we arenot not directly.

We have a beta of a computer vision-based
estimation.
I'm an applied scientist atheart and that kind of thing, so
I want to be able to doeverything really accurately.
If I can't give you a goodnumber, I don't want to just
give you a number.
My take on what the data sayson a lot of that even I would go
to bioelectrical impedance andarguably even something like

(27:46):
DEXA on an individual level.
It's at a population level DEXAis great, but an individual
level, those variation chartsare pretty significant Correct.
So no, we haven't.
I can take a lot of my guidancefrom some of the influences and
researchers in this space.
I feel most of them are moresubjective on a lot of those
measures.
Yes, if I could measure yourbicep girth or your waist girth

(28:09):
or your hip to waist ratioreally accurately, I would.
I don't think that thetechnology is there right now.
We don't measure hypertrophydirectly, but certainly we have
indirect measures, whether it'sstrength or volume lifted and
things like that.
And then we have a community60,000 or so in our Facebook
community and you get to seetheir transformations.

(28:31):
I wouldn't say we're like atransformation tonal brand.
That's not really what we do.
We don't do before and afters.
Try and sell you gimmicky,right?
Uh, that's not a time but.
But people want to post theirprogress, which is awesome until
you get to see.
So we don't.
I would say.
Also, muscles no tension, right, tension is what drives
mechanical tension is whatdrives hypertrophy, and I think
we have extremely strongevidence that tonal drives the

(28:54):
same, if not more, mechanicaltension yeah, for sure
additional training.
Therefore, you you can get thesame kind of hypertrophy and I'd
say it's.
It's interesting because Iwould love to be able to measure
it.
It's what the vast majority ofour users select as their goal
right 40 something percent ofour members say they want to
build muscle.
I have that goal as a 45 yearold kind of things.
Um, we have, we are seeing anincreasing uh number that say

(29:16):
they want to move, work,movement, quality, function,
strength, basically this bucketof goals that lead to longevity,
health, span.
But the largest cohort ofpeople, particularly our male
population, say they still wantto build muscle and that's where
we focus a lot of ourprogramming and time and
attention for sure Got it Got it.

Yeah, and I only ask as a nutrition coach who
helps clients track these things, and we just do classic tape
measure and then use somethinglike the Navy formula.
It's not difficult to do thaton your own.
I just was thinking like theZozo suit and things like that,
where they've got the imagingand can kind of measure your
circumference and then you know,I assumed you could do
something like that Fast forward18 months, two years, I don't

(29:54):
know the timeline.

I don't, like I told you, we have a beta product
.
That's just within our internalstaff.
I probably shouldn't sharethose things, but the technology
will get there.
If you think about the advancesin pose estimation models and
advances, I don't doubt,particularly for girths, it will
get there.
Body fat, muscle mass I thinkyou're stretching.

I agree To do girth measurements.

do it with accuracy , in my opinion, is a matter of
time before it can get to thatlevel, and I think that'd be
awesome that we can do that andtrack those progresses.

Yeah, Cause once you have that, now you can.
You've got things like the Navyformula as well as the new body
roundness index, and I don'tknow if you're familiar with
that.
Yeah, Okay.
So I did want to ask about okay, let's run it, run us through a
single lift.
So let's say the overhead press, one of my favorites.
It's one of my favoritesbecause I've always loved it,
but also I had rotator cuffsurgery last year and I couldn't

(30:43):
do it and I've been working onmy shoulder a lot to get back.
So if you just want to getbetter at that, you want to
improve your shoulder health andyour shoulder size, what would
the progression look like?
What does the machine look likefor an overhead press?
Like what does the machine looklike for an overhead press?
Just with that example so folkscan visualize this.

Yeah, so myself and the team, the performance
innovation team, so my team, mybackground is mainly from
Olympic sport, but we've gotpeople that spent a decade or so
at Exos, one that did their PhDat P3, p Performance Project in
Santa Barbara, which shows alot of the basketball players
and around there.
What my team basically said howwould a coach, how would a

(31:20):
world-class hopefully coach,address those?
And so, if we're takingsomething like an overhead press
, we would split our libraryinto some buckets of movement
patterns, right, what is aregression or a beginning
movement pattern that we mightbe able to do?
That that is likely smaller inrange of motion, potentially
maybe lower resistance to startwith, and then have progressions

(31:43):
both in the movement patternand in the resistance and the
range of motion so we can buildthat up strength over time.
And so, depending on what thespecific case might be, we might
have some quote-unquoteremedial internal and know
internal and external rotationalwork in there that will be
programmed into that.
We might have, you know, youknow, a high base of support in

(32:05):
a on a overhead press, you know,maybe a barbell versus a handle
or something like that.
Or maybe we go a handle withlower resistance, so it's a
lighter weight.
So you can work on themechanics of doing that and then
increase the range of motionthat you can move that over time
to progress it into somethingthat would be more, more where
you want to work, but dependingon whether you're, you know,

(32:26):
want to do that movement pattern, to be stronger at that
movement pattern, you want toincrease your 1rm or you, you
know, want to build more musclemass around that.
Then we change the rex andschemes you know, obviously
relatively increase, relativelyload more on for a strength
parameter, probably bias, moreproximity to failure and volume
for hypertrophy outcomes, andtypically we would progress.

(32:49):
I would say every program is alittle different or can be a
little different.
I would say our default patternis to more build from
hypertrophy into strength thanthe other way around.

Okay, tend to go higher rep ranges.
Wrap the reps as you go.

Yeah, higher rep ranges closer proximity to
failure into morestrength-biased work.
Lower rep ranges strength.
It gives us the hypertrophytraining and the generally
slightly higher rep training.
It doesn't have to be very highbut slightly higher.

Rep training doesn't have to be very high,
but slightly higher.

Rep training allows us repetition of practice and
skill.
Yeah, that's huge, which itselfis a component of that strength
.
Skill acquisition is somethingthat we want to install.
We know the drivers of ummotivation.
We talked about intrinsicmotivation before.
I like competency.
I want to feel good aboutthings like and then autonomy
and connectedness, butself-determination theory, but
competency.
We want our members to feelcompetent, that they have the
ability to do this lift well.

And then on that progression, since it has all
the data and it knows you, let'ssay it's a I don't know
three-day program, four-dayprogram and the next time you
overhead presses, four days fromnow, does the program tracks
like your calendar?
What if you miss a workout?
Is it going to somehow test youinto the new load?

Yeah, it has a has a calendar where you can
self-select it.
It knows when your last workoutwas.
As long as it's within a normalsort of range of window, um, it
doesn't change anything, but ithas muscle utilization.
So we estimate the muscleutilization and fatigue for
every movement.
So, like you know, if yourprogram was three days a week,
say, but like hey, uh, the broscalled me and we went and we

(34:22):
benched super heavy on a Tuesdayand like it wasn't part of the
program on tonal, we'll trackthat data and say you're
fatigued?
Um, like we wasn't part of theprogram but we know that you did
it and therefore we will, youknow, say that you're fatigued.
You get to be able to see thatdata of muscle utilization and
muscle fatigue.
Um, and, yeah, we can, we canadapt around that no, no, that's
good.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm just it's.
It's pretty cool when you can.
I'm thinking again ofconsistency one, because people
always have roadblocks, like nowI have to think about my next
workout and then how much weightdo I lift the next time, and
all these things.
I was gonna say that we.

We suggest every weight for every movement.
We do a movement calibration ora strength calibration.
At the start it's only fourmovements and essentially it
takes you up to an estimated,probably like it's 10 or 8 RM,
and then we estimate up fromthere.
But from there we can estimatewith an AI algorithm every
single movement for every singlepattern, so you get the right

(35:21):
suggested weight.
And then we have anotheralgorithm that has progressive
overload built in it.
If we sense those last two reps,you're not in close proximity
to failure.
We're going to increase thatweight by one or two pounds for
the next workout and we do thata little more.
Let's say I'm going to say theword aggressive, but a little
faster earlier in your progress,because we know you're going to
be making progress quicker anda little slower once you've been
established lifting hey, I surehas been lifting for a while

(35:43):
now on toner.
I'm not increasing the loadevery single time, even if I say
I've got like two reps infailure.
I'm going to shoot like themachine's going to want me to
show that to it a couple oftimes.
Yeah that this wasn't just afreaky strong day and he slept
great, ate great, took all thestress out of his life.
Then he hit PRs.
But I need to do it multipletimes to do that.
But essentially there's aprogressive overload algorithm,

(36:09):
so you're constantly beingchallenged in that variation.

Yeah, I love that.
And another thing that came tomind when you were talking about
the shoulder pressing it soundslike you can have therapy and
recovery programs as well.

Right, yeah, we have a recovery like default
recovery weight mode.
So super easy.
You can just add recoveryweights to any workout, any
program.
Hey, today I don't feel it.
I slept terribly, you know, buthad more alcohol than I
probably should have.
Whatever the reason is, hitrecovery weights, everything
drops to 80% so you can still dothe training session again.
Consistency Don't want to losethat habit, kind of things, but

(36:40):
everything's a little dietthings.
And then the next time you cango back to your full weight.
And then we have, like morespecific programs where we will
reduce the weight from your likewhat an estimated you know, one
RM for that particular movewill be for specific kind of
purposes.
Sometimes it might be for morelike I don't know, a hypertrophy
.
We want to do myoreps andtherefore we need to reduce the

(37:02):
weights, or something like that.
Or it could be for atherapeutic situation where
someone you know we had someprograms that are intended for
absolute beginners and we don'twant to push you we know
enjoyment is super important.
We know, um, we know that domsare a challenge to building
consistency early.
So let's try and take away thatoption to start with.

Jerry (37:26):
Hey, just wanted to give a shout out to Philip.
I personally worked with Philipfor about eight months and I
lost a total of 33 pounds ofscale weight and about five
inches off my waist.
Two things I really enjoy aboutworking with Philip is number
one he's really taken the timeto develop a deep expertise in
nutrition and also resistancetraining, so he has that depth.

(37:48):
If you want to go deep on thelies with Philip, but if also if
you want to just kind of getsome instruction and more
practical advice and a plan onwhat you need to do, you can
pull back and communicate atthat level.
Also, he is a lifter himself,so he's very familiar with the
performance and body compositiongoals that most lifters have.

(38:08):
And also Philip is trained inengineering, so he has some very
efficient systems set up tomake the coaching experience
very easy and very efficient andyou can really track your
results and you will have realdata when you're done working
with Philip and also have accessto some tools likely that you
can continue to use.
If all that sounds interestingto you.

(38:30):
Philip, like all good coaches,has a ton of free information
out there and really encourageyou to see if he may be able to
help you out.
So thanks again, philip.

I was even thinking if someone, let's say someone
had had surgery and they neededrehab obviously there's a
medical kind of scope ofpractice issue involved as well.
But do you like, could I go inthere and say give me a shoulder
internal rotation mobilityprogram.

Number one.
In that scenario your therapistcan write a custom workout, a
custom program, or you as anindividual to for your very
specific individual, for yourvery specific, and then you can
add recovery weights to thatkind of thing, so it's going to
give you a lighter.
We have an algorithm that ifyou've been off the machine for
a while, we will reduce theweights because you're probably
detrained.
I think in therapy situationswe certainly have a number of

(39:18):
therapists that utilize tonal intheir rehab process and in
their small group trainingprocess.
I would say that's mostly donevia a custom basis where just a
trainer goes in or a coach goesin or a therapist goes in.
Hey, this is my specificshoulder rehab program for you.
You can do it in my clinic onmy tonal or you can do it at
home on your tonal and we getthe data.
Either way, yeah.

And what about somebody's phase of nutrition,
like if they're dieting, they'recutting heavy versus they're
bulking?
Do you just account for thatwith the progressive overload
detection or do you program thatin?
Do you say like I'm actually ina fat loss phase now, so you
got to account?

for that you would get to choose from your goal and
therefore the workouts orprograms that would better align
to your goals.
We know that diet is mostlynutrition-based.
Our philosophy from a trainingperspective during periods of
fat loss or weight loss isgenerally to make sure you have
enough stimulus to maintainmuscle mass.
I don't think anyone that dietswants to lose muscle mass.

(40:18):
So we know that proximity tofailure and volume are important
to maintaining muscle mass.
So we'll that proximity tofailure and volume are important
to maintaining muscle mass.
So we'll be thinking aboutthose in a program and we do
have an element of work in there.
Right, burning extra calories isnot going to be the difference
maker between losing 20 poundsand not losing 20 pounds.
But if I can give you a bitmore compound high movements,
bit more volume, we measure work, so we measure force over

(40:41):
distance all the time.
If I can bias the movementstowards those big compound
movements rather than a ton ofisolation exercises, yeah, I'm
going to try and leverage that alittle bit and maybe that will
be a couple of hundred calories,that additional burn that you
might get.
But I'd say that's our kind ofapproach is to mostly focus on
the maintenance of muscle massand making sure we're getting
stimulus and secondary to workabout with work during those

(41:03):
periods.

Okay, cool, yeah, just throwing a lot of these
questions are just literallyselfish questions.
For me wondering about thisstuff Because another one comes
to mind is there's a lot of talkin the research about range of
motion and lengthened partials.
What's better, what's not?

Milo Wolf.

Yeah, yeah, exactly , milo Wolf right, and there's a
lot of.
I guess the general consensusright now is look, just use a
diversity of movements.
We're talking about traditionaltraining, Use full range of
motion by default, but then youcan play around with different
ranges as finishers andbodybuilding, because you have
this different strength curve.
How does that equation change?

Yeah, good question and one I would love to
investigate when I get someresearch time.
I know we have a Toner, bradSchoenfeld out of Lehman College
, big hypertrophy researcher,milo and Pat.
Dr Pat are both involved withLehman College.
They're visiting profs overthere so they both have
experienced Toner.
So we've had some conversationsaround how we might do that.

(42:05):
I think there's a couple ofthings, my take on that research
and I think this is emergingand so I don't think there's an
absolute consensus.
The evidence-based communitysays this is the way.
But I think what it seems clearis you need to do the
lengthened portion of the rep ifthat is whether it's part of a
full range or a dedicatedpartial in that.
So when we're talking about thelengthened partial, imagine a

(42:27):
fly and it would be thisextended part.
My peg is most stretched out,that portion you should probably
, if your hypertrophy is yourgoal, not just ever do a partial
in the short one range ofmotion.
I think the research is veryclear in that, whether the
lengthened partial to full rangeor whether it's just the length
and partial to half range ismore hypertrophic or not, I
think there is evidence tosuggest in some muscle groups it

(42:48):
looks like it is, whetherthat's based on only in new
lifters and novice lifters,whether it's based on sarcomere,
genesis or myofibril or hyper.
I don't know if I have a strongopinion on that and I think we
could probably get debated byexperts much better than me in
that space.
But definitely you need to dothe full range of motion or you
need to do the length andportion of that.

(43:11):
Total has two things.
Number one we apply consistentresistance throughout, so it
doesn't really matter.
So if you imagine, yeah, sothat'd be number one.
Number two we can emphasizemore resistance on the long
muscle length, partial portionof that.
So imagine a pull down.
This is where it's stretchingof the lat.

(43:32):
You can make it heavier hereand lighter here.
Reverse chains you know chainslike you.
You can't do change pulling downuh, but you would imagine as
the cable extends chains wouldmake it heavier.
Reverse chains we call smartflex essentially matches the
strength curve of the movement.
Say it's 100 pounds here, 99,98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, maybe

(43:54):
it's 80 at this bottom range.
So I'm actually taxing thatlong muscle length which is
where I'm strongest right, thatlong muscle length which is
where I'm strongest right andthat might, might lead to more
hypertrophy growth because you'dbe maxillizing, getting maximum
mechanical tension in that longmuscle length.
I think that's pretty cool.
We haven't researched that in apeer reviewed randomized

(44:16):
control trial.
I would love to at some point.
But theoretically, as Iunderstand the mechanisms, you
can any row based exercise,particularly, or any any chest
based exercise you can overemphasize that that strength
curve, uh, which I think ispretty cool.

I think that's really cool too.
And then it it brings up youmentioned chain, so like
accommodating resistance.
That makes me think of.
Let's take a bench press soundslike you can.
Then because of the curve, youcould emulate chains or bands
and you could even do anoverload right like an eccentric
overload.
You have that mode.

You can do it both at the same time if you want um
right yeah you don't need aspotter to like take off the
first time you do it you're likeoh, but like it's potentially
very beneficial.
Uh, so chains my take on theresearch, for you know, louis
Simmons and all back in thepowerlifting days in the West
Side really good forpowerlifting right or for power
development.
As we extend.

(45:11):
We are generally, you know, weare most powerful at that end
range of motion.
Chains overloads that end rangeof motion, so we're getting
constant resistance.
With Tonal we already said thatwe don't get that freebie
anyway and if you add chains toit it could be really, really
beneficial for power training.
And so I think about that forpeople that want to get strong
or do powerlifting things.
I actually think about it forthe 55-year-old female that

(45:33):
wants to maintain deadlift power.
Power is the ability to get outof the chair, to walk up the
stairs, to have gait speed, todo all those activities.
Those are power exercises.
And so I love to add chainsbecause it's a touch of a button
to a 65-year-old,post-menopause female program.
Because, yeah, it's lighter atthe bottom and as you come up

(45:53):
and you're stronger at that topmotion, it accommodates the
resistance to get that powerkind of emphasis.
And, yes, accentuated eccentricloading probably good for
strength development, maybe forhypertrophy.
I think the research is outthere.
But you could add 100 pounds onthe way up, 125 pounds on the
way down and you can literallydo those two together on tonal,
which is, I don't know of anyevidence to say that's

(46:14):
beneficial.
But you can if you want to,it's awesome.

Yeah.
And one last question relatedto that.
Then if you have a stickingpoint, so again just saying
bench press and you.

You have a sticking point two inches up the chest,
if you're me, yeah does tonaldetect what that is based on
your velocity or something we wecan't.
We will detect the velocitychange and so that's where I use
with that burnout mode, so thatwill be where it decreases one
pound resistance.
So I get continual progressiveoverload of that.
In that it will be, you know,200.
I can't bench 200 on tonal.
It's too hard for me.
I can bench significantly moreon a freeway, but on tonal I'm
kind of like sets of eightaround 180.

(46:49):
180 here and I get to get offtwo inches off my chest and then
it will go 179, 178, 176, 175,and then I can move it again and
then it can go back to 200.
I can either leave it so itdoesn't increase or it goes back
to 180 pounds at the top andevery time I get to that
sticking point it reduces alittle bit and I get to work on
that sticky point overload.

So cool man.
No, I'm glad you came on.
I'm glad we had you on to talkabout this.
It's just fascinating.
I go on all day.
I know we're short on time, soI do.
Is there any question?
You wish I had asked that Ididn't, and what is your answer?

Not really, I will say, because when this is
releasing, tonal is home gym,that's what I think.
We are in some personaltraining studios and some
physical therapy clinics.
In January February in New Yorkwe are opening the Tonal
Training Lab, which is likesmall group boutique fitness
training based on Tonal.
So if you're hearing this andyou're in the New York area and
this comes out around that kindof time from January into

(47:43):
February, you can try tonal notjust in a showroom and a retail
but based on a a sort of aboutique fitness uh work, small
workout class which is projecttime, and even I'm kind of super
excited to see how that goes.

Yeah, that's awesome.
So that's a, basically a gym iswhat you're saying with.

Yeah, Imagine imagine a small group.
There's, I think, eight to 10tonals in the room.
It will be a standardized groupclass but all the advantages of
tonal plus real life coaching,Nice.
So you get the kind ofcombination of this tech enabled
in-person class, all right,troy.

Well, yeah, thanks for coming on, man and letting
us.
I mean, I really want people toopen their mind to these
possibilities because Idefinitely was skeptical a
couple of years ago when I firstheard about you guys.
I think I heard, I saw, I thinkyou were on Mind Pump and I was
like starting to warm up andthen had some clients start to
use it and start to research itmore.
This is interesting, especiallyas part of, like, your overall
package here for training andwhat the options are out there.

(48:33):
So keep doing what you're doing, man.
I'm excited for the nextchapter and thank you so much
for coming out.

Oh, and where do you want people to reach you?
Cause I want to throw those inthe show notes.
Oh, yeah, so, uh, my Instagramis strength science Troy.
Uh, you'll see lots of tonal,some evidence-based fitness, but
lots of tonal uh.
And you know, non non-officialsaccessories uh for for fun ways
to train uh on that.
Obviously, tonalcom is the maintonal website and that tonal
training lab, uhlabcom, is thewebsite for the New York pop-up
gym.
Those are probably the bestplaces.

I'll throw those in there.
And again, thank you so much,man, for coming on.
Thank you so much for having me.

All Episodes

Dynamic Resistance Using Tonal vs. Free Weights for Muscle Gain (Troy Taylor) | Ep 268

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dynamic Resistance Using Tonal vs. Free Weights for Muscle Gain (Troy Taylor) | Ep 268