Barbell Shrugged - Science of Growth, Hypertrophy and Building Muscle w/ Brad Schoenfeld - 289

Episode Date: November 29, 2017

Brad Schoenfeld, PhD, CSCS, CSPS, FNSCA, is an internationally renowned fitness expert and widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on body composition training (muscle development and fat loss).  Brad is a best-selling author of multiple fitness books including The M.A.X. Muscle Plan, which has been widely referred to as the “muscle-building bible,” and Strong and Sculpted, which details a cutting-edge body sculpting program targeted to women. Brad also has authored the seminal textbook Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy, which is the first text devoted to an evidence-based elucidation of the mechanisms and strategies for optimizing muscle growth. Brad earned his Master’s degree in kinesiology/exercise science from the University of Texas and his PhD at Rocky Mountain University, where his dissertation focused on elucidating the mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed research articles on exercise and sports nutrition, many in high impact factor journals, as well as several textbook chapters. In this episode, he shared with us scientific insights on gaining muscle and strength. We covered pre and post workout nutrition (including protein intake benefits, optimal time window, amount, and type), the relationship between training frequency and muscle gainz, between keto diets and muscle gainz, recommended rest periods during training, and more. Amazing episode, hope you enjoy! -Mike, Doug and Team Barbell Shrugged   ► Download our free 54 page Olympic Weightlifting Training Manual at:   http://www.flightweightlifting.com  ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Barbell Shrugged helps people get better. Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT Weightlifting, Barbell Shredded and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast.. Find Barbell Shrugged here: Website: http://www.BarbellShrugged.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast Twitter: http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged Instagram: http://instagram.com/barbellshruggedpodcast Find Barbell Business Here: Website: http://www.BarbellBusiness.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/barbellbusiness Twitter: http://twitter.com/barbellbusiness Instagram: http://instagram.com/barbellbusinesspodcast

Some people don't want to be in the gym longer. I was going to say, I like quick workouts. This is it, right. So how much of that, so can there be a trade-off? It's not substantial. It doesn't mean you're going to not get gains. It's just that it does attenuate. If you're looking to maximize gains, we've kind of pinned two minutes as a good rest interval

for compound movements, for like squats, rows, presses. We also do think, and this still needs to be, we need more evidence, but that doing like bicep curls, your single joint movements, probably you can get away with resting short or without detriment. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and Dr. Andy Galpin. And we're here in Las Vegas, Nevada at the NSCA National Conference.

And they keep shuffling us around to different rooms. So if you're watching, we have this beautiful backdrop in the Paris Hotel. And we're here with Dr. Brad Schoenfeld. We're really excited to talk to him because not only does he have tons of experience in personal training, but you're actually the premier leading researcher on muscle hypertrophy. It means muscle growth. So you were a personal trainer for a long time, then went and got your PhD. And from what I understand, you're doing more research on hypertrophy than anybody else. I try. That's my passion. And my goal at some point is to have a full understanding of how we can maximize gains.

With a Z. I'll go even further to say that those of us within the industry, it's unquestionable that Brad is the world's premier expert in all things muscle hypertrophy. So it's a real pleasure to have you on. Thank you. I'm very excited. A lot of people have ideas around how many sets, how many reps, what the rest intervals are supposed to be like, how much volume to do, what percentage of their max they should be lifting at to like achieve optimum hypertrophy. But they've never actually looked at any studies that show, you know, is three sets better than five sets or what have you.

So I'm really curious today to hear from you what the science and the research and the evidence actually shows for what is optimal for increasing muscle mass and hypertrophy. Cool. And along the same lines, one of the things that I know, one of the first things I remember noticing about what you write is the idea that can you actually add muscle mass without adding fat mass? Can you add lean mass or do you have to add both and where we go there? So I'm very interested for you to talk about

that sure yeah and uh the window of gains that that post-exercise anabolic window curious about how how much that actually does make an impact I remember reading in magazines when I was in my teens that I had 20 minutes after I worked out to get I had to get some protein in me and things like that and you know I've been doing that ever since. So I'm curious if that's as helpful as I thought it was. One of my favorite topics. Yeah, well, let's start there. Is there anything happening right after you work out

that you have to get a shake or a specific type of shake? Now be careful, because you're gonna break some hearts right now. So do this softly. Well, actually the answer is somewhat it depends. There is not a clear window. Certainly it is not like your gains just fall off after 45 minutes or an hour. But certainly muscles are more sensitized post-exercise to protein intake.

Now that sensitivity has been shown to last at least 24 hours. Does that mean you could just wait 24 hours to take in your protein? Probably not. And as a matter of fact, most of the research shows not. But the research really does not also show that taking it in immediately after benefits you more than waiting an hour and a half, two hours. And then it starts to get fuzzy. So really what we've come up with, the working hypothesis, is that it depends on when your pre-workout meal, the extent of when you really need to take in post-exercise protein depends upon when you took in protein before you work out. And the anabolic effects of protein last somewhere around four to

five hours, somewhere in there, assuming it's in a whole meal. If you take a whey protein shake, it's a very fast-acting protein, and that's going to oxidize quickly, and that will not last. But assuming you're eating a steak with some potatoes or whatever, eggs with oatmeal, it will last over a period of four to five hours. That means that, let's say you're going to take in a meal two hours before your workout, do an hour workout, then you'd have roughly a two-hour window. And again, it's not just a fall-off. It's not a clear cut before you really start to need protein to keep your anabolism spike up. With all that said, there is really no detriment to taking it in

quickly. So I generally recommend that you do take it in as quickly as you can. And the other thing we don't know because of the way research is structured, is could there be very slight gains that we're not able to really pick up with current technology, and that if you're a bodybuilder, so meaningfulness depends on the person. If you're the average Joe Stockbroker, the difference between a quarter pound of muscle

spread out over your body isn't gonna mean much, but that could be the difference between taking first or second in a competition for a bodybuilder. So again, you have to look at things in context and the more important it is for you to maximize every ounce of muscle, I would say probably the more important it is to ensure that you get that early protein feeding in. Yeah. So two questions. One, I want to know how much protein in this, but in addition, let me see if I've put this into practice. So, for example, if I work out in the morning and I work out fasted, in that case, is it fair to say

it's probably more important that I get my protein in sooner? Absolutely. But if I work out in the afternoon and I've had two or three meals already, then it doesn't necessarily matter. Exactly. Okay. And by the way, if you're taking in, let's say, three, four meals spaced out over the course of a day, you're going to be hitting that window. No matter if you're taking in, let's say, three, four meals spaced out over the course of a day, you're going to be hitting that window. No matter where you're working out, it's going to, unless you're working out after your last meal, and then probably you should have one before you go to bed. But if you're doing it any time within the four meals before that last one,

you're going to hit your anabolic window. So what would the numbers be then? Is it true 20 grams of protein is the most? How much to a day? What are the numbers be then? Is it true 20 grams of protein is the most? How much to a day? What are the numbers? The newest research shows, and this study just came out about three months or so ago from Kevin Tipton's lab. He's a premier researcher in protein. What they showed, because the early study showed it was like 20 grams is all you needed.

And really the confounding issue was they did like a leg extension workout there. With 170-pound people. Right. So your protein needs aren't nearly as much. When Kevin Tipton's lab did it, they used a total body workout, and they found that a 40-gram dose produced significantly greater gains than a 20-gram dose. So within that, these are means. So remember that a study is going to report the averages,

and that means that some people might need a little more. When you're getting this 40 grams, it's going to have a confidence interval around it. Could you maybe do better? And it might depend. They found no effect of body weight. I still am a little hard-pressed to believe that the amount of muscle that you're carrying. So, you know, 40 grams seems like a good overall number. But I would say someone who's heavier with more dense muscle, Brett Contreras, if you know, 40 grams seems like a good overall number, but I would say someone who's heavier

with more dense muscle, Brett Contreras, if you will, he probably would want to go up to 50 grams. He's an older. So, you know, these are all things that there's no research gives you guidelines, but it's not going to tell you exactly what to do. And certainly you can't have a cookie cutter prescription that's going to work for everyone. Well, in this case, we're talking about protein protein and that's a very broad subject in itself. Are there types of proteins?

Is there certain types of proteins that are more favorable for muscle growth than others? Absolutely. So all the studies are done with animal type proteins. Usually they're whey, they're milk based proteins, either whey or casein, but I mean soy has been used. A vegetable protein, now soy is a higher quality vegetable protein, but it's still lower quality than some of the animal based proteins. If you're taking an animal based protein, there's going to be no issues.

If you're with vegetable based proteins, then you have to start to get into combining foods properly. Bottom line is you want a full complement of your essential amino acids. All the essential amino acids have to be provided within adequate amounts post-workout. So if you're going for a vegan protein, you need to make sure that it has the full amino profile. Correct. So can you actually explain that?

Because some people don't understand the difference between what's protein and essential amino acids. I got my 20 grams of protein in, what's that mean? So proteins, a whole protein is comprised of amino acids. We're actually still discovering amino acids. But there's eight or nine essential amino acids depending upon, histidine is sometimes considered conditionally essential. But anyway, I don't want to get too technical there.

But the point is that there are certain amino acids that are essential, meaning they cannot be made from other amino acids. Your body can't make them. Right, your body cannot make them from other aminos. That means that you need to get them from foods. When you take in these essential amino acids, the other amino acids can be made within your body endogenously from the other, from the essentials. So assuming you have these essentials, that really is what is important.

There is also something called a leucine trigger. So leucine is one of your essential amino acids, and that is thought, and there's pretty good evidence of this, that it kickstarts the muscle building process, and that if your leucine levels are low, or lower than what is adequate within that dose, then you're not gonna have full muscle protein synthesis. So any good quality protein is gonna have adequate leucine,

assuming you're taking in the right dose. Whey is replete in it, and so is casein. So about- Are there benefits to doing a BCAA in that, Chris? So, great question. You're about to break some hearts right now. Well, this I will break hearts. So assuming there that you have adequate protein intake, BCAA in that Chris? So great question. You're about to break some hearts right now. This I will break hearts.

So assuming that you have adequate protein intake, essentially that have quality protein. So you're eating animal protein. Correct. You have enough leucine. There is zero benefit to taking in BCAAs and they're actually, at least theoretically, there might be a detriment in that when you take in isolated amino acids, there's a competition for absorption. And there is at least, it's been shown. Now, it's kind of hard to know with taking in just the BCAA supplement that it's going to happen.

But theoretically, they can compete with other essential amino acids and they can end up being kind of kicked out of the muscle building process. The more I learn, the more I realize that most pre-workouts are not necessary. Well, when you say pre-workout, it depends. If they contain BCAAs, but pre-workouts usually are caffeine. They're more for energy. That's what I'm saying. I'm already like, caffeine's not as important as I once thought. BCAAs aren't as important as I once thought.

I'm starting to believe that the pre-workouts are fading. I would disagree and say that caffeine is a very well-studied ergogenic aid. Now, it depends on the person, too. It's always going to be a defense. But there's even new evidence that people used to be thought you had to be caffeine naive, meaning that you don't drink coffee to achieve these ergogenic benefits. There's been some new research showing that even those who consume, let's say, a cup of coffee in the morning and every day,

that they still benefit, they get an ergogenic benefit from taking in caffeine, and how much that's gonna build muscle. Certainly it enhances performance. I've not seen good evidence muscle building, but if you're gonna enhance the performance of your workout, you would at least have the assumption that's gonna have a beneficial effect.

I guess my personal experience, 200 milligrams of caffeine is just way too much. Way too much? I thought maybe you were one that needed like a huge overdose on the espresso. So you mentioned that BCAAs might not be essential. I mean, they're essential amino acids, but they're not essential to take as a supplement, assuming you're getting enough protein throughout the course of your 24-hour day. So that begs the question, how much protein do you really need during a 24-hour period? A lot of people make the recommendation of ground protein per pound body weight or something

similar. Is there any science that backs a claim like that? I'm glad you asked. So we just collaborated on a study that was just published this week with Stuart Phillips Lab out of McMaster. They spearheaded this systematic review and meta-analysis and we did made a regression with it and my colleagues Alan Aragon Eric Helms was really good scientists James Krieger were also on it so what we found this is the largest made analysis of its kind we had I think there was a totalist 40 over

40 studies that were factored into this, that 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight was the average, was considered sufficient, the average daily intake. However, here's the but, when you have, when you actually read, don't just read the abstract and you read the whole study. There's something called a confidence interval, a 95% confidence interval, which is, again, without trying to get too scientific or statistically scientific here, it gives you the range of values of all the subjects

that you're gonna, of all the studies within this, and in a single study, it would be within the subjects, the experiences that they'll have the responses and the higher confidence interval was 2.2 grams per kilogram which is one gram per pound of body weight so again as I said before no detriment to taking in post-workout protein immediately versus delaying it certainly no detriment to taking an extra protein it doesn't it's not gonna make go make you go into kidney failure or anything.

And there is potential benefit, at least for certain people. So you might say that half the people might say 1.6 or 70%, we don't know what the actual range is. And you also have to remember when you're doing a meta-analysis, they're pooling people of non-resistant, most of them were not resistant strain. We did seem to see a benefit, extra benefit for resistant strain subjects to taking in higher protein intakes, which is actually counterintuitive to some of the earlier research, acute studies, showing there might be a desensitivity.

So anyway, just a lot of interesting data from this, but I think the take home is that taking in roughly a gram per pound of body weight is the sensible thing if your goal is to maximize gains but if you're just your average guy probably is not going to make much of a difference if you're in that 1.6 1.8 can you address the the kidney thing because that's the thing that I hear most and I I have always come back with, if you don't have kidney problems already, I don't think it's a problem,

but I don't have a better answer other than that. Well, that's exactly it, is that the studies that were done showing a detriment to kidney function were done in dialysis patients. Right. People with kidney failure. Right. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah, so if you have kidney dysfunction and then you have a high protein load, and by the way, some of that data has even been questioned, and there's been other research that's been done in dogs. The other aspect of that was animal studies that were used, and it was called the Brenner hypothesis. It was Dr. Brenner, who was, I think, at Mass General, was a physician at Mass General, who came up with this hypothesis based on working with dialysis patients and people in failure. And that does not necessarily translate to healthy human beings. And some good work out of Joey Antonio's lab, out of NOVA in Fort Lauderdale, showing that even with very high protein intakes,

there were no markers. He did blood markers after, I think it was six months or a year, of very high... He was talking like four grams per kilogram, very high protein intakes. Wow. Yeah, and it was a very long term. I think it was six months, right. Relative to six weeks. Some people also of course are going to say, well, if you extrapolate over 20 years,

six months is nothing, you need to, well. That's very long for where we're at standard wise. Right. Exactly. So you're talking about you know again i think you already covered this but i want to get clarity on it is a lot of times people are saying you can't you can't absorb 20 to 25 grams of protein per sitting you're now suggesting 40 grams and it's sitting so how much how much protein can we consume at one time and then and what's ideal and

then um is it okay that half of it's coming from whey protein versus real food? So you have to look, first of all, the word absorption is misinterpreted. So you absorb everything. The question is do you end up oxidizing? How much of it do you actually use for tissue building purposes is really the question. So it's not a matter of absorption. That's a silly thing. But there is something to be said.

How much of it can you actually use for tissue building? First of all, over the course of a day, which we've already established, is about 1.6 on a mean, probably one gram per pound on your upper confidence level interval. The other question, though, is on an individual sitting. So it used to be 20 grams was thought to be a high marker and now it's 40 grams is kind of being given you have to remember number one these the studies that we're looking at use a whey protein which is readily oxidized it's a fast-acting protein so if you take a bolus of that that's going to be readily oxidized when you take in

a whole meal that has let's say you're eating turkey with potatoes and green beans and some other cranberry sauce exactly that's gonna take a lot it's gonna sit in your gut a lot longer be introduced into the body so the assimilation is gonna be different in the way your body then uses it if you get a quick bolus that your body can't use like a way it can get oxidized quickly and the other side of the coin is it's not just about the synthetic muscle protein synthesis, it's two sides of the equation,

so we also have to look at breakdown. And there's been, right, and there was a study out of Wolf's lab, Robert Wolf, fairly recently, that showed that a 70 gram bolus, it actually had somewhat even greater effects than a 40 gram bolus on protein synthesis, but it was small.

But it had much greater effects on the protein breakdown. Some people will also say, and it has been questioned, that it's not muscle breakdown, that it's your whole body breakdown and gut breakdown. It's mostly coming from the gut. But there is evidence that the proteins in the gut that have been broken down can be reabsorbed and be utilized for tissue building purposes so these are all things we don't know much about um it's hard there's been some studies that have shown that taking protein as a large bolus basically gives you the same results as splitting it up there's been other studies that have counteracted that my general at this, because of the discrepancies in research,

my general thought at this point is that if you're gonna spread out protein and take roughly evenly over three meals, so let's say you're a 180 pound guy, you're gonna take in 180 grams of protein a day, if you do three 60 gram boluses versus six 30 gram boluses, it's not gonna make any difference. Okay, and so I don't really need whey in that case.

No. If say whey doesn't agree with me for whatever reason. Not a, you don't need any, all you need is a quality protein. Now whey makes it easy to get. I love whey protein because it makes it easier to get in protein and a lot of people have trouble consuming enough protein, particularly women by the way. Deficiencies in protein intake are predominant particularly women, by the way. Deficiencies in protein intake are predominant in women even more than men.

But even with men, a lot of them find it hard to take in enough protein. I've done, oh, God knows how many studies that have used MyFitnessPal to track dietary intake and we're always seeing very small or large differences in what they should be taking in. They'll be at like 1.2. These are resistance-strain subjects, too, who should be knowing better. What about a beef isolate powder versus a whey protein? It doesn't matter.

Yeah, again, if it's an animal protein, I think all that is noise. Gotcha. Now, you keep using this term. And I just want to clarify quickly, quality protein. Now, you are using that synonymously with complete protein? Or is that something different? Correct.

So, quality has to do with the complete intake of amino acids. So, does it have all those essential amino acids? All the essential amino acids in there. Right. So, you get your total protein. Complete complement of amino acids. This is where I think, Mike, you were talking about earlier, one of the problems with other forms of protein is you may get your, say, 20 grams in, but it may not have all those essential amino acids. And that is arguably more important if we're talking about maximizing growth.

In fact, we have a number for how many grams of the essential amino acids you actually want to get to. And some would actually argue that number is more important than the total protein content, right? It is, but if you're taking in a complete meat protein, then it's moot. Yeah, because that's going to... I get asked a lot. A lot of people are adopting vegan lifestyles and whatnot. And a question I get is, you know, how much of this do I need?

And I've looked at vegan bottles and looked at those proteins and they actually look pretty good on amino profiles. They're combining five different types of plants to get there. Correct, it would be dependent on the actual powder that you're gonna get. So I couldn't comment that you'd have to look at the label and make sure that the amino acid profile is complete.

And the number we're usually shooting for is about six grams of the essential amino acids, is that right? Dr. That's with the 20, it's really higher. So yeah, you're talking almost double that now. So if you're getting a protein, say one of these ones you're talking about where you're drinking 40 grams of protein and only getting three grams of essential amino acid, that number that Brad gave, you're going to have to go way up in total protein intake. Dr. That's problematic.

Correct. Yeah. I mean, well, yes and no. It just means you're going to have to get way up in total protein. Your total protein is going to have to be much higher. Yeah. So you really need to pay attention to that. Exactly. And like you said, if you're just eating animal, then you're probably fine, so you

don't have to worry about that equation. So it's possible with those vegan, vegetarian diets, you just need to do your due diligence. How much higher protein? Yeah. You were taking higher protein intake. Right. Correct. Exactly. And move up. Okay. So that also kind of being said, what I was interested in is the idea of, I've had my students bring this up a lot in class. They call it like the dirty bulk, right?

And things where it's like, hey, you're bulking. Eat as much as you can. Don't worry about quality. It's all about total numbers. And so that really leads to the conversation about, is it possible to put on muscle mass, lean muscle mass, and not put on fat? Or if you gain muscle, you're going to have to gain some fat.

What's the research say on that? So it is absolutely possible to recompense your body, that body recomposition. Yeah. Meaning that you're losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. Now, it is much easier when you are overweight and untrained. So certainly, I mean, I have studies in untrained subjects that clearly show that you can. It becomes harder in trained subjects.

We have a study just coming out that I'm collaborating on with Dr. Bill Campbell where we showed recomposition in elite, well, we don't want to say elite, but competitive, aspiring competitive women physique athletes where they gained lean body mass and lost fat. Here's the kicker, though. You are not going to maximize muscle gain unless you are certainly at maintenance, but generally gaining some degree of fat.

If you really want to maximize, you're going to have to gain some degree of fat. I would say that the dirty bulk, where you're just eating everything, is counterproductive. Because you will gain more muscle, but then you're going to want to bring it back down and you're going to lose... You're going to end up... The more fat you have, you're going to end up just having to lose more muscle with that. Sounds more fun, though.

If you want to go for the pure fun, if the goal is pure fun, then I would say go dirty bulk. That's a Denny's big breakfast. That's a Breckenridge breakfast. It's better to play the slow, consistent, steady games rather than going up quick and then having to cut? That's correct. I generally recommend don't go above 250 to certainly 500 calories per day over your maintenance surplus.

But I generally say try, if possible, keep it like in the two to 50 range and then see if you're not gaining muscle. That's gonna be an individual. I can give general recommendations, but some people even at 200 calories, they're just not gaining muscle. So it's really an individual thing.

Everything we talk about will have inter-individual differences and you're gonna have to take this as guidelines and then play around with that based on individual response. So most people aren't going to know what their maintenance level calorie number is, and they're not going to know what 250 beyond that is. So is that, to make it easier on someone who's new to this and just doesn't really know what that means,

is that like the half pound a week type game as far as the scale goes? I'll give you general guidelines that I use. It's somewhere between 14 to 15 calories per pound, so not per kilo, per pound for losing. If you want to lose body fat, 14 to 15 calories per pound of ideal body weight, which you're going to be at like 10% body fat or so. Roughly 17 or so calories for maintenance per pound and then about 20 plus calories so hard gainers are going to be up higher 20 calories per pound for muscle gain so let's say your let's say your ideal body weight is 200 pounds for a guy well you'd want to

be at roughly 4,000 calories for your you know for your bulk and if you want to lose it's going to be somewhere like 2800 but. But then you got to play around. I mean, some people at 2,800, they're not losing, certainly, in appreciable amounts. But yeah, if you want to talk about how much you can gain, that's going to be dependent on your training experience. If a well-trained subject is not gaining a half pound of muscle per week. You've actually done a bunch of like eight, mostly eight-week training studies. What's a normal amount of muscle mass gain and fat loss to be expected from an untrained person?

Because you've done this so many times. What's reasonable to expect? So usually we're doing ultrasound measurements and we'll look at roughly somewhere between five to 10% gains in muscle thickness for the biceps triceps and quads somewhere in there when you're talking about total lean mass it's been somewhat variable we use a BIA which again how much of that is is actual water it does give you a water component but how accurate the assessment is is somewhat but we're talking a few pounds you know over the course in a well-trained subject, you're talking, for the course of eight weeks, two to three pounds.

Unless you're taking HMB, then it's like 20. Insider joke. Don't do that. That is not true. That can be kind. That's an insider joke. So you would gain, in eight weeks, you would gain, I know we're going to take a break here in a second, but. Yeah.

Okay, sorry, so quickly, Brad. You would gain maybe two, three pounds of muscle in eight weeks and then lose five, six pounds of fat? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's with, I mean, some people can lose. So with your well-trained subjects, usually they're not losing. There will be some that do. But again, if you're, because we're talking about averages, so you're going to have some that are gaining 5, 6 pounds. Generally, they're the ones that are not losing any fat.

And then if you're at the lower end, they might be losing fat. So no, no, usually their body weight is staying roughly there. I mean, their body weight is actually increasing a little, so they're not losing any fat. They're just gaining some mass, or sometimes they're even gaining a little fat. So those are all things. But it's generally either stable as far as their fat mass or a slight increase in fat mass that we're seeing. Awesome.

Yeah, thanks for filling us in on everything nutrition. I want to get in the second half. Absolutely. I want to get into that, talk about training. Absolutely. Yeah. All right, we're back with Brad Schoenfeld here in Vegas at the NSCA conference talking about muscle hypertrophy. That's putting on gains the uh with a z

with a z absolutely i don't think our audience knows it any other way um actually before we get into training because we definitely want to go down that track uh role of carbohydrate with with protein synthesis because that's one of the things that actually 10 years ago i was sitting in a room watching that was like my first introduction to you combine protein with a carbohydrate post workout and that's what that that's the perfect shake and i know we already covered like you know you just need enough protein for throughout the whole day but so again somewhat of a murky question answer there's certainly no benefit post-workout for spiking muscle protein synthesis. It was often talked about the need to, the role of carbohydrate, as far as its anabolic role,

was thought to be through its insulin properties, that it increases insulin. However, what a lot of people don't know is that protein is an insulinemic nutrient. So if you take in, let's say, a whey protein immediately after training, your insulin levels are going to spike to a degree that maxes out insulin, your insulin response for a anti-catabolic. Insulin, by the way, is not really an anabolic hormone at physiological levels. When you get into superphysicio, when you talk about bodybuilders who are using it for, yeah, exogenously, then that's a different animal. But for all practical purposes, it's an anti-catabolic hormone, meaning it suppresses protein breakdown. And just taking in the...

We're good. Keep going. Okay. Maybe we won't let him hear it. Sorry about that. That just distracted the hell out of me. But taking in enough... Should I start over again? Yeah,. Keep going. Okay. Maybe we won't be able to hear it. Sorry about that. That just distracted the hell out of me. But taking in enough, should I start over again?

No, no, no. Just keep going. So taking in enough, as long as you take in enough protein after the workout, taking in carbohydrate will not enhance that effect. And that doesn't mean that carbohydrate might not play an anabolic role. It actually could in the sense that it helps you so studies show that ketogenic diets are catabolic because carbohydrate actually enhances your ability to train harder and that there is also some evidence that when your glycogen levels are depleted dr.

Galpin here can speak to this your AMPK the your glycogen levels are a sensor energy sensor for AMPK. And this is kind of a cluster you know what, in terms of trying to tease out these signaling responses. But it does show that it has catabolic effects because AMPK antagonizes mTOR. How this plays out in practice is somewhat difficult to know, but we do know that carbohydrate fuels performance,

especially in bodybuilding-style training. So there does seem to be a role, as long as your basic carbohydrate needs are met, that's going to enhance anabolism to the extent that you're going to need. Based on time, I know we want to move on and talk about training prescription stuff, and so I'm just going to throw this out to you right now, and I'm going to throw one name at you, and I know I think you're going to figure out where I'm going at. Sugar and Gary. And we'll have to maybe tease this for another episode, but the insulin fairy, does that really kill us?

So you're talking fat loss now. You've got a minute. No more than a minute. The insulin fairy is there is no evidence that insulin is the evil hormonal driver of fat accretion. Right. And actually what the studies do show is total energy balance and total protein intake that are going to be the main drivers of whether you're... Body copper.

Right, whether if you're gaining fat mass or losing fat mass. And ultimately what it comes down to and the issue with carbohydrates and the studies that have been done that show a benefit to ketogenic diets is they did not match energy intake and or protein intake. So there's been a wealth now of studies showing that if you match the number of calories that are taken in between groups and the protein intake between groups, fat loss is almost identical. identical and some studies actually recent made analysis by Kevin Hall I'm somewhat skeptical of the meaningfulness but shows an effect a beneficial effect to lower fat versus lower carbs and it was slight it was a small I'm not convinced that that's anything of meaning but it just shows that certainly it's not necessary to go keto to maximize fat you're welcome to jump on Brad's Facebook page and you can read much, much, much more about sugar.

I'm happy to engage. If anyone can come to me and show me, I'm always willing to change my opinion, you come and show me controlled studies. These were metabolic ward studies, by the way, in the Hall, in the Kevin Hall meta-analysis. He looked only at fully controlled feeding studies that went into metabolic wards where they gave them the food physically. It wasn't just self-report and said, yeah, I ate chicken and rice when they're scarfing down Doritos.

You know, so anyway, these are really controlled studies and there's zero evidence I've seen that would show any benefit to a ketogenic diet. It doesn't mean a ketogenic diet is bad also, I don't know, or at least for fat loss. I do think there is enough evidence, at least now, that it probably is not great for maximizing muscle. Although there is a few studies that have, or at least one now, or two kind of studies that have come out showing potential even gains between the non-keto versus

keto. Especially maintaining muscle. So let's take one more break. Sure. And then we're going to jump in the train. Absolutely. All right. And we're back.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld again. The things here at the conference just keep changing. Things have changed. Things have changed. Yeah, people keep coming. Well, I've been coming in, breaking things down. So the world is falling down around us, and we're still talking

about muscle hypertrophy we got enough protein so it's not breaking down in me that's right that's right it's crumbling not in those pecs you know so let's dig into training uh you know i think it's commonly you know i grew up going okay between you know eight and twelve reps you know do three sets one week four four sets the next week, five sets. And that was kind of it. That's what we knew. Is that accurate? No, it's a lot more complex than that. And when you say is it accurate, is that going to make gains for you? Yeah, I mean, it will. Is that going to maximize gains? No, probably not. So what we found, there's the old hypertrophy rep range and bodybuilding style workout,

much of what we thought has been challenged. So number one, well, some of it has been actually supported now by data, like the higher volumes. We actually published a meta-analysis earlier this year showing a clear what's called a dose-response relationship. So as the dose goes up a volume, so does the hypertrophy. So the more reps you can get in, the more sets you can get in for the week, the more you're going to gain. Well, up to a certain point.

So there's a threshold. The dose-response is not forever. But what we showed was that four sets or less per week got around 5% muscle gains over the course of the study. Five to nine sets per week per muscle. This is a per muscle per week. Got about 7%, and then when you went up to 10+, it was around 10% gain. So roughly double the gains at 10 plus sets per week versus four or less sets per muscle

per week. So there's a clear dose-response relationship. There is also, it's clear that that won't keep going up in a stepwise linear fashion like that. I figured that out, I've been training for 20 years. You're smaller now than you've ever been. So at some point that's gonna level off. We were not able to establish anything above 10,

so could it be 15? We don't know. Could 10 be the threshold? Could, could more be the threshold? But at some point it's going to level off. And at some point, certainly there will be an overtraining response where you just keep training. If you're training, if you spend eight hours in the gym every day, we know that there's going to be an overtraining response.

Andy's done some work on that. So within that, it gives me the hypothesis that there's a benefit towards pushing the body towards an overreaching without delving into overtraining. And that would be periodizing volume over time where you're doing graded increases. Let's say doing eight sets per week or let's say 10, whatever, eight sets per week, one month and going up to 12 and 15, something like that. And it would be different for everyone. These are averages. So some people might need less, some people might need more. I can't give an exact number,

but where you're actually just looking on an individual basis to push that volume response over time. So that's volume. What about reps per set? Reps per set, it used to be thought there was that hypertrophy range of eight to 12, clearly debunked in the sense on a whole muscle level,

at least clearly debunked. We have hard data now, and we have a main analysis and review showing really no differences between 65% and above of intensity of percent 1RM versus 60% and below. So your lightweights, 20 to 30 reps versus your 8 to 12 reps versus your 3 to 5 reps, zero, really, zero difference. As long as you have roughly, as long as you hit a volume threshold, you're going to get roughly equal gains on a whole muscle level. There is some evidence I wanted to hopefully one day get with Andy and look at a fiber type response, but there is some evidence, particularly out of Russia, they now have I think five studies that I've seen showing that the higher reps seem to target hypertrophy in the type 1 fibers and that the moderate to lower reps seem to target hypertrophy in the type 2 fibers. What is the range of higher reps?

What qualifies as a higher rep range? 50% and below. So you're talking like over 15, 20 reps. For this conversation, it's important to point out that we're talking about hypertrophy specifically, gaining muscle mass specifically. We're not talking about strength as well. And I will qualify that for strength, there is also a clear benefit to doing heavier loads. Yeah, so in those same studies, they all got equally the same gains in muscle mass,

but the 3 to 5 rep ranges got way stronger than it's set to 20. And even the 8 to 10 reps got substantially stronger than the 20 to 30 reps. And our meta-analysis, which was now it's the largest meta-analysis, it's again in review, hopefully will be published soon, but we had 21 studies and there was a clear difference in strength. There was a significant and marked difference in dynamic strength. Yeah. If this sounds familiar, this is exactly what we talked about on episode 234? 243? 243 or something like that.

The three mechanisms of hypertrophy? Yeah, that I was on, and I opened up that show saying, like, I'm stealing all this stuff from Brad Schoenfeld. Like, hopefully one day we'll get him on. Well, here he is. Here's the day. So I'm glad I didn't screw too much of that up, because I think that's what I said in that episode before.

So that was total volume reps. And we got rest intervals. So we actually now have shown that somewhat longer rest, it used to be thought resting shorter because it would elevate hormonal levels, like your acute anabolic hormonal response, which really has not been shown. If anything, we don't think it has well certainly there's no evidence it has a substantial effect and probably it has minimal to no effect what you're saying there is the post exercise induced bump in testosterone that's correct not chronic doesn't

actually lead to any more growth that's correct right so we're not told it doesn't mean that testosterone levels which obviously are important on a chronic basis but that this spike basically after a workout when you do a moderate to higher reps it's been shown to spike hormonal levels really there is little evidence that that is a significant driver of hypertrophy and thus we actually have shown that longer we showed that three minutes rest versus one minutes rest had greater effects on muscle growth with the longer rest interval. Now, that said, we also have made a systematic review that was published showing that the

effects seem to be specific to more trained subjects and that with untrained subjects, they respond to almost anything and that has less of an effect. Again, these are things that need to be teased out more. But bottom line is you don't need to do quick workouts. Look, there's also the tradeoff. Everything is cost-benefit. Some people don't want to be in the gym longer. I was going to say, I like quick workouts.

Right. So how much of that? So can there be a tradeoff? It's not substantial. It doesn't mean you're going to not get gains. It's just that it does attenuate. If you're looking to maximize gains, we've kind of pinned two minutes as a good rest interval for compound movements, for like squats, rows, presses.

We also do think, and this still needs to be, we need more evidence, but that doing like bicep curls, your single joint movements, probably you can get away with resting shorter without detriment. Because you don't see, the real issue seems to be a drop off in volume load that when you do a squat and then you rest 60 seconds your squat the number of reps you could do is like half so if you did 12 reps you're down like six or seven whereas if you do a bicep curl 12 reps you might be down to 11 and that's not the loss of

reps doesn't seem to have compromised gains to that effect. So is that a good way to test to see without actually timing your rest interval to see if you had a full recovery? Can you actually get back to almost the same amount of reps you did the first set? Or close to it. Yeah. If you're slightly off, it probably is not going to. Let's say you go from 12 reps to 11, the reduction of 10, even the reduction in volume probably isn't going to have much of an effect, assuming you are doing a sufficient volume to start with. And by the way, the other thing you could say is,

we equated volume on these. If you did an extra set by resting shorter, could that then make up for it? Those are all things that we don't know, and these are limitations to research. Well, that's actually something you mention all the time, is one of the things you should be doing with all this money is having a variety in your training. Correct. You should do not just, I'm going to do three sets per body part. So I get 10 sets per week into the same exercise. Like this is not a good approach maybe for a month, but then eventually we need to have a lot of variety. So this is when a lot of stuff plays in. And to finish up the variety, um, what's pretty clear is that to maximize gains, you should have at least some rotation of exercises that are targeting different areas of the muscle.

So if you keep doing, let's say, a flat chest press, what's targeting the same portion of the chest? The chest is, first of all, two heads. It has a clavicular and a sternal head. And even with that, there's differences in how the fibers are, the direction of the fibers, which by changing around from a decline to an incline, perhaps a fly, it hits the muscle differently. It provides a novelty to a stimulus. It doesn't mean you need to be doing a muscle confusion, a P90X workout. I've got a new system that's for fat confusion, though.

Right. So you rotate different foods in, and that's... Definitely.... fat cells don't understand the difference between cheesecake and tiramisu. They have no idea. They have no idea. I like that. Cheesecake one day, tiramisu the next and the fat cells just get...

They're all fucked up. I like that. Yeah. They don't know where to go so we just shit them out. I smell a new book. I smell a bestseller. And the final... I mean there's other variables we can talk about, but the final variable that seems to be of high importance is frequency. How often should you train frequency of muscles? And what the literature shows, and we published a meta-analysis on this,

is that two days a week is better than one day a week per muscle group. Not training total, that means training one day versus two days. It means that hitting your muscles a minimum of twice a week seems to have a better effect than the typical bro split where you're trying for chest one day and shoulders the next. Now, actually, I remember when you published that, I think, this may be wrong, but there was a survey done of high-level bodybuilders who actually still do the normal split, right? Yeah.

Like biceps today. And I think one of your conclusions was even though these guys are the best at it that doesn't necessarily mean they maybe know what's optimal correct especially when you consider the extra advantages they have over the general person so if even you're trying to grow as much muscle mass as possible it's better to instead of just crushing the muscle once a week doing half the workout splitting it up over two days because you equated volume in those studies that's correct and one thing you also have to consider though with the typical bro who might be working at six days a

week if they're doing chest one day and then they're doing let's say shoulders another well the triceps are getting work they might be actually working their triceps but then they have an arm day they're working their triceps three days a week really so you have to consider the frequency aspect there, but legs are not getting hit with ancillary exercises. So if you're just doing your legs once, you might want to, if you want to work out with a bro split and factor in that aspect, consider the legs are not getting the ancillary workouts. You should never be doing legs only once.

That's correct. Like ever. True that. Mostly. Yeah. Brad, thanks for joining us today. Oh, my pleasure. I really enjoyed it. And I think the big takeaway for me on this was just get enough protein throughout the entire day, and you're going to be fine. Worrying about all these little special supplements and stuff may not around protein.

For the most part, again, now, I always want to phrase it, it depends. So that's the general guidelines. If you're an elite bodybuilder, might. This is where we have to start looking at it in different contexts. When I'm giving advice for the average person, the masses, that's definitely the case. You hit your target protein, try to space it out over at least three meals. It doesn't matter. But for your elite bodybuilder, could there be other benefits?

I can't say no because there just aren't studies in these individuals. We don't get the subjects. I guess what I would caution against is maybe we don't need to worry about the post-workout shake if we're not already getting the amount of protein total throughout the day, day after day after day. Absolutely. Yeah. Cool. Thanks for joining. Yep. Yeah. Cool. Thanks for joining us today.

My pleasure. Where can people find more about any of the research you're doing or follow you? Wait, you have a massive Instagram account right here. So, first of all, yeah, I have several books. My new one. You have the worst titled book I've ever heard, by the way. I'm sorry. But the Mitogen Activated Extreme Training Program.

It's max. Oh, whatever. It's awful. It's a good book, but the title just breaks my heart. So, Max Muscle Plan is one of my books. I have a new textbook out, which really is the culmination of my career's work, called The Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy. Both are all published by Human Kinetics.

I have another one called Strong and Sculpted, which just came out last year. I have a website called Look Great Naked. That is not look good naked. I deal in website called Look Great Naked. That is not Look Good Naked. I deal in superlatives, so it's Look Great Naked. I have all my articles are on there, and I have a blog on there. And I'm all over social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You're very, very active on Facebook. Correct.

And on your blog, you take any of your studies that you do after they're published, and you break them down for the practitioner and put them up on lookgreatnaked.com. So it's really helpful, actually. Cool. Excellent. Thanks for joining us today. All right, guys. Enjoyed it.