Barbell Shrugged - Sports Nutrition and Performance Enhancement w/ Dr. Jose Antonio, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Flavia Pereira #773

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Dr. Antonio is Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, an academic nonprofit dedicated to the science and application of sports nutrition and supplementation. In addition, he is the Co-founder and Vice President of the Society for Neurosports, an academic nonprofit with a focus on sports neuroscience. Dr. Antonio earned his PhD and completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers as well as 15 books. His current areas of research include: dietary supplements (e.g., creatine, protein, etc.), sports neuroscience and human performance. He is currently a Professor at the Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida and serves on the Advisory Board of Forbes Health. - www.sportsnutritionsociety.org Work with RAPID Health Optimization Links: Dr. Jose Antonio on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Flavia Pereira on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Dr. Jose Antonio. He is the co-founder and CEO of ISSN, which is a massive sports nutrition company. Actually talk a little bit about that in the show, how he got his start with it, how that led from kind of like the normal population of nutrition and supplementation, and how he started to relate all of those things into the sports and performance world, which then allowed him to go create one of the largest conferences

in the nutrition space every year, which is a very, very well-known and respected conference, ISSN, which you should absolutely go to if you have the time. As always, friends, make sure you head over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where you can learn all about the lab lifestyle and performance testing that we do here at Rapid Health Optimization. Schedule a call, come and hang out with us. That way you can feel and perform

at your absolute best. You can access all of that over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Flavia. I know you have a last name, but you're just Flavia to me. It's such a good first name. Dr. Jose Antonio, welcome to the show, man. You are the co-founder and CEO of ISSN. That is like the largest nutrition conference every single year. How long have you been, has ISSN been around? We, let's see, we founded it in 2003. So we're having our 21st, 22nd conference this, well, next year, excuse me, next year. And if you live in South Florida, it's Delray Beach, beautiful beach, got to make it, June 23 to 25. So, yeah, two decades of this.

I'm the co-founder, Doug Kelman, who also lives in South Florida. It was he and I that really did all the heavy lifting with ISSN. The journal itself was initiated by one of our good friends at Texas A&M, Rick Ryder. So really between the three of us, we kind of pushed it along. Now, I'm going to digress a bit here to tell you guys a story. So people ask, well, why the hell did you form ISSN? And the question was, and the answer is because pretty much every other academic organization at the time really sucked when it came to sports, nutrition and supplements. When I was doing my Ph.D. in the late 80s, early 90s, Flavia, were you alive?

83. Why are you asking my age already? So so you were a toddler as I was finishing my PhD and, but before I started my PhD, I always had an interest in sports nutrition. However, at the time, if you ask someone, Hey, I want to study sports nutrition, people would laugh at you like, that's not a real field. None of that shit works. And I'm thinking, well, some of that shit's got to work because mainly bodybuilders because that's who I was around at the time they sure take a lot of this shit now notwithstanding the PEDs but still protein amino acids etc etc and I said some of it has to work we just don't have enough research so

so I couldn't really do one in nutrition which is ironic because now so many students now do sports nutrition doctoral dissertations. So I ended up doing muscle physiology. I studied muscle fiber hyperplasia using animal models. And I chose that really pragmatically because I knew I would get a degree. You know, my advice to Flavia is don't do a perfect dissertation do one you can finish um so I did one I could finish but I knew once I got a PhD I'm going to pursue sports nutrition so after that slowly but surely I started to do more research in sports nutrition but really most academic organizations the American College of Sports Medicine the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics back then it was called the ADA um American Dietetic Association. They thought sports nutrition was just bullshit.

They're like, nah, supplements, none of it works. All this stuff's bullshit. Who needs all this protein? And here's the thing. There was about 12 of us, I'm not kidding, who said, you know what? We think they're all wrong. So all these people who are saying all this is bullshit. There's like 12 of us like, you know what? I think we're right and they're all wrong. So literally we were going against the grain. And so push comes to shove. In the 1990s, you're still hearing supplements, stupid sports nutrition, stupid. So in the year 2000, right around that time, my good friend Jeff Stout, he's at University Central Florida, we gave a talk at the American College of Sports Medicine. And it was the first talk ever on supplements. In fact, I was kind of shocked that they

approved the talk because they never had a talk on supplements because supplements according to acsm was a waste of time so i thought huh this is kind of weird okay so we gave a talk um dr stout jeff stout he covered the history of supplements i covered the scientific evidence which at the time there wasn't that much we had creatine some protein stuff, maybe vitamin C, maybe ribose. There's a sugar that's kind of disappeared. And I thought after the talk, I'm like, man, Jeff, this is the most boring ass talk I've ever given. This is just boring. However, the audience didn't look at it that way.

In fact, once we were done, if you've ever been at ACSM, they put a microphone in the middle of the hallway, the middle of the walkway. Once we were done, we were viciously attacked. And it was like, whoa, what the hell's going on? In fact, I remember a guy from University of I don't know if it's North or South Dakota. He basically got up there and he said, you guys, I cannot believe ACSM allowed this. This is bullshit. You guys sell snake oil. And it was just on and on and on. Another person go up, say the same shit. Another person go up, say the same shit. But this is where it got kind of funny. We soon realized half the audience actually loved us. And it was mostly bodybuilders. In fact,

a bodybuilder stood up and he said, you know, I'm really glad ACSM actually allowed a talk on supplements because they never talk about supplements. And so we had sort of half loved us, half hated us. And I remember there was a scientist who came up to the podium. Let's just say his body mass index was like three. Okay. That's how big he was. So I want you to visualize and he's criticizing us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this bodybuilder stands up. It's kind of funny. At the time, I'm like, holy shit. He points to the scientist whose body mass index is three. And he says, it's obvious you've never taken creatine.

And I was like, holy shit. He just made fun of his size. And so the bodybuilder goes into the aisle where the microphone is next to the scientist, who's, you know, quite small. And I would say nose to nose, but it was more like nose to chest. And I look over at Jeff. I'm like, are they going to fight? Is there going to be a fight here in a science conference?

First, I'm like, wow, this is crazy. And then I'm thinking, oh, this could be kind of fun. I want to see what happens. And, you know, it'd be two hits. The larger guy would hit the smaller guy. The smaller guy would hit the ground. That would be it. And so that was the nature of that talk.

But it gets better or depending on your point of view, it gets worse. After the talk, Jeff Stout and I, we go to a cocktail party. It's like, OK, we'll might as well go get a drink because, my God, I guess half these people hate us. But who really cares? I mean, in a way, I was like, wow, we really we really got our, you know, a reaction from people. And so we were at this cocktail party. The president of the American College of Sports Medicine walks up to us, a rather diminutive lady. And I paraphrase because at the time when she said it, I was like, is she saying what I think she's saying? She walks up to

us and says, boys, if you want to have a career, don't do research on supplements. And when I heard that, I was like, wait a minute, she didn't, she said that. And, and I look at Jeff, he looks at me. I said, so you don't, you shouldn't do research on supplements, even though that's what science is. She said, yeah. Now, why did that piss me off? It pissed me off because she was getting money from Gatorade. Gatorade is a supplement. It doesn't grow on trees. It's not on a bush. It's sugar and electrolytes.

It's a supplement. And this is where things started to turn. So remember the year 2000, around that time, before the year 2000, sports nutrition, it's bullshit, snake oil, at least in the academic in within academia that's how it was used after the year 2000 with the advent of the issn people started look at it differently and literally in just the last two decades there is a sports nutrition course in almost every college before the year 2000 you would be lucky if there was such a thing as a sports nutrition course. So really within the, just from the year 2000 to now, it has changed

completely. So now, now sports nutrition is, Hey, that's what the cool kids study. It's like, Hey, let's study sports nutrition. It's so cool. Um, but at the time when you're living it, you can't believe what you're hearing. Another quick story. I was at University of Delaware for just one semester prior to moving to South Florida. And to make a long story short, I was told it would be best that I just don't do research on supplements. And I'm thinking, what? What? Okay.

I would say what is wrong with people, but here's the thing. It's not just, I'd say people in general, but you see it in academia. There is a group think that happens and then probably happens in every profession. There's sort of this, I guess, established class of people who say, this is the way to think. And then you have other people who are like, I don't really like the way that is. I you're wrong and those people tend to be ostracized at first and then it just takes years and years and it's a little slow but eventually it's like whoa we were right all along the 12 of us who got together it's like wow we were right but at the time it's like no you're full of shit you're full of shit. You're full of shit. So yeah. If you're doing some polarizing, isn't that like a clear sign you're onto something?

If some people hate it and some people love it, there's like there's something there to grab onto. And in fact, I think that's what attracted it, attracted me to it because because precisely because two sides can't be both right. So one of us is wrong. Either sports nutrition is a legitimate field of study or it's just total bullshit. And I'm thinking, oh, it's clearly legitimate. And most people at the time thought it was total bullshit.

And I wonder, have those people ever apologized to me? No, they never have. But it doesn't matter because, you know, I lost a few battles, but I won the war. So I would love if you could draw kind of a bit of an understanding of go and perform at your best, uh, whether that is through sports or just whatever you want to be good at. Um, where, where does that specific, uh, I guess what, what is kind of the difference that allows you to have an expertise in that specific field? Okay. Are we comparing, just so I understand your question, are we comparing general nutrition to sports nutrition? Yeah. And supplementation. I guess they would kind of fall into the same buckets just in the Delta as far as like the goals of the sports side versus

performing at life and living a healthy, long, fun life? I think, and I'll break it down because for instance, I'll look at the college level. There are courses on just nutrition. They call it general nutrition or human nutrition. And then we have courses on sports nutrition. And I've always viewed general nutrition as just the basics, i.e. the physiology and biochemistry of vitamins and minerals, carbs, fat, protein, without really setting a specific goal. With sports nutrition, there is a specific goal. In fact, when people ask me what they should do vis-a-vis sports nutrition, first thing I ask is, well, what's the goal? Are you trying to run faster? Is it a 100

meter dash faster or a 5k faster? You're trying to lift more weights. Do you play a complicated sport like tennis where you might be on the court for four hours running forward, running backward, running laterally. So to me, sports nutrition is really much more goal oriented. Now with that, with that said, I think the people who are general nutrition could learn a lot from sports nutrition because our goal is to, and I hate the word optimize, but I'll use it anyways, to optimize performance of a person, whether or not they're a strength power athlete or an endurance athlete. So to me, goals, your goals determine all of it. It determines all of it. Now, ironically, here's the thing. I didn't study sports nutrition formally ever. I taught myself all of it. And this is where I think a lot of students sort of miss out. They think

they learn stuff in school when in fact, most of what you learn is actually out of school. Hopefully, school is what teaches you how to critically think. And then once you get out, you teach yourself. Because remember, you get out, you teach yourself because remember the year 2000, when sports nutrition made, it started to make waves. All of the people you see published today in sports nutrition and supplements, they're all self-taught. None of them, nobody taught them this stuff. We basically taught ourselves this stuff. Wow. We do studies, read the literature. And eventually you have this body of literature where, okay, so this is what creatine does. This is what whey protein does this. I mean, all of this stuff, it's, I mean, now I teach a course in it, but I didn't take a course in it, which is kind of

ironic. It's like I teach it, but I never actually took it. Yeah. What is the general structure of that course? Well, sports nutrition, the way, the way, the way I look at it is I try to teach principles. If you know principles, you don't necessarily have to memorize. Let me backtrack. For instance, let's take exercise training. People say, well, what's a good program to get me to run a 5K faster? Let's say your personal record in a 5K, 20 minutes, you want to run 19 minutes. Well, first you have to understand what are the, what are the, do a needs analysis of the sport. And we do this similarly in sports nutrition. It's what makes that sport different than let's say another sport. And that's, you know, for instance, if you take the extremes of strength and power and endurance, you'll notice that one, you have to know the

energy systems. So what are the predominant energy systems when you're dealing with strength, power versus endurance? Two, what are the movement patterns? I mean, obviously you have complicated sports like fighting and tennis and less complicated sports like distance running. So you have to look at that as well. but i think until you understand the bioenergetics of the sport it's hard to give recommendations for that sport in terms of sports nutrition so you got to understand and i know a lot of students hate the part where i go over and bioenergetics a lot know the energy systems know which predominate you know during um during certain certain events and also it's it's kind of hard people students

like to memorize stuff and i say the weird thing about sports nutrition and this is what makes it different than other sciences you have to do a sport it doesn't have to be the sport that you're studying but you have to do a sport to get an understanding of what's going on um people outside of sports, when they try to understand sports nutrition, you know, I tell them, well, maybe if you ran a half marathon, you have a better understanding of what it takes vis-a-vis sports nutrition. Now, you don't have to be able to run a half marathon. Maybe you've run a 5K once in your life or something. But I think what makes sports nutrition hard or harder than other fields

is that if you know nothing about sports and you don't exercise, it's going to be, it'll be completely mysterious to you. So I'd say everyone I know who works in sports nutrition, they train for something, whether it's bodybuilding, whether it's running, whether they just want to lift weights and get stronger, they are training for something. And I think that's what makes it so unique compared to all the other sciences. I mean, it's not like if you're studying, let's say neuro neurophysiology, you can't buy out to your own brain. I mean, right. So at least in sports, you can try stuff on yourself. And I tell people, treat your body as an experiment, play around with it, see what it could do. Try, try supplement a or supplement B, see what it does. Because at the end of the day,

you are your own experiment and there's a lot of good information that could come from it. Why do you think that bodybuilders, I feel like that, that group of people, maybe they like to experiment with things. Yes. Um, but it totally caught my ear when you said that they were the ones that loved your talk. They were also the ones that kind of like invented strength training. Maybe not like invented it, but they were doing strength training

and like Arnold made it very popular, which then carries over into all of the other sports and how they can take this thing that bodybuilders are doing and use it for their specific sport. Even if it's, you know, long distance running or whatever it is, but bodybuilders seem to be this like group of people that are just ready to

try anything and see how it works. That is true. They will try anything. Now I think anything with a capital A maybe. Now what's really cool about bodybuilding is, and I've never engaged in bodybuilding. A lot of my friends, in fact, a lot of my friends who work at universities, they still bodybuild. But if you go back historically, you go back to the strongman days of Bob Hoffman, you go back to Jack LaLanne. Jack LaLanne, he wasn't a bodybuilder, but he trained like crazy. And then Joe Weider back in the early 1900s and him and him, you know, through media, through his magazines, promoting bodybuilding. So really, it was it was this interest in physique that sort of

pushed, I guess, the cult, the American culture to look at bodybuilding, i.e. weight training, as a way to get fit and healthy. Now, the irony of that is that the biggest, and it seems like this happens a lot with not just bodybuilding, but with new ideas in general. The biggest hindrance to the idea that weight training was good for you were doctors and scientists in fact if you go back to when jack lillane was saying that lifting weights was good for you and we're almost going back 70 or 80 years people said well what do they say about weight training it'll make you muscle bound you'll get stiff it's bad for your heart um and just all these things and what the irony is that kids kids now are like well of course weight training is good for you we already know they're jacked these days right but they are super jacked but you don't have to go but

half a century to realize most people did not think that um so there's always this push against new ideas now let's go to the late 60s sorry for the history lesson but i like history so i like it okay so you go back to the 60s and 70s a guy named kenneth cooper uh said that if you do aerobic exercise it's good for your heart and of course we know it's good for your heart but back then when any were any of you alive 60s and 70s? No. Okay. So this is what I like. When I give talks, I think people are alive when I was alive and it's like, no, you weren't alive. Okay. So back then people were like, oh my God, if you run, I remember hearing this. If you run, you will run out of heartbeats because you only have X amount of heartbeats.

I love that thought. I love that idea. Hopefully I was born with a big box of heartbeats. And then you run out because if you run, your heart rate goes up and it's like, yeah, you got to keep it down. You don't want to use them all. Maybe I should just lay down all day you know

so okay so he said i wish we had a podcast in those days like how many you got left oh my god that'd be a million maybe a million i don't know so so his biggest the biggest detractors of cardio is good for your heart or other physicians and scientists so you see this kind of clash. Someone comes up with an idea. It seems kind of weird. Everyone's like, no, no, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. Now move forward to by the week, by the time we hit the seventies and eighties aerobic exercise, like, you know what? It's good for your heart. However, still at the time, weight training was not accepted. Now, Flavia, you're a 1980s child so just think 1980s weight training was like yeah i don't know i mean maybe good for you maybe not i remember this i remember

going to an acsm conference in the 1980s a guy put a picture of a bodybuilder on the screen and he said they like making fun of bodybuilders back then by the way just so you know and he said they're still easy they're still easy well i mean guess you could, they're easy to pick on, but the speaker said nobody's ever died of small muscles. Now, you know, there's that thing called sarcopenia, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. But he was basically making fun of the fact that at the time in the American College of Sports Medicine, they viewed aerobic exercise as the only exercise you need to do. The only exercise. And I'm thinking, and I'm just a dumb college student. I'm like, that just seems wrong. I mean, not that I had data, but I just thought, that just seems wrong.

All these bodybuilders, lifting weights, even the strong men, I think there's something to it. And so what happened? There was an organization called the national strength and conditioning association that formed i believe in the 80s and there just was hey we think weight training is good for you that was basically it because acsm was saying no weight training is a waste of time and i remember at acsm the the culture of it was so weird at the time that there were people literally saying making fun of the the NSCA, and they would say, oh, those guys, all they do is eat protein and lift. It's such a waste of time. So just think about that. All those guys do is eat protein and lift. And I'm thinking, what's wrong with these people, ACS? Why are they so narrow minded? But again, I can't really blame ACSM per se, because I think people in general are very narrow minded. They hear a new thing and

they're like, I don't know if I believe that. So just think about this. Aerobic exercise, introduce the guy in the 60s says it's good for you. People are like, no, you're full of it. Wasn't until the 1980s that weight training anderobic exercise was good for you. In fact, I think you have to go into the 1990s before college football players were implementing weight training regularly. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I was going to say, that's why they won all those national championships back in the day. Right. They were all lifting. Everyone's like, these guys are huge and they're strong. What the hell are they doing? Well, a guy named boyd epley introduced weight training to nebraska and guess what even the golf team now lifts weight so everybody lifts weights but think

of this 1990s most athletes did not lift they did not lift yeah so so much has changed from 1990 to 2024 that it's when you think, it's kind of mind blowing. I mean, whether it's weight training, whether it's the supplement, the use of dietary supplements, so much has changed so fast. You know, it's kind of amazing, to be honest. But when you live through it, you're like, God, how can all these people just be narrow minded and wrong? I mean, during the time, I'm just thinking, this is weird. I don't get this anti-weight training. And it wasn't even like I was a weight training guy. I just thought,

I like cardio, but I'm like, you can't just tell me lifting weights is bad. It just makes no sense. So yeah, it's also, I feel like there's like the, there's these certain like lines in the sand that we have to cross over. Um, and I feel like the, the almost like the newest wave. And if you've been lifting and running and training and sprinting and like doing all the things, the idea that you're like losing muscle mass. And if you go for a run, all of a sudden you lose your muscle mass immediately. And there's just, you know, you never need to go run if you want to be strong. I feel like that's the most recent one. And now being a hybrid athlete is like the coolest thing that you can do on

the internet. Is that what they call it now? Hybrid athlete. Yeah. It used to be CrossFit, but now it's just running and lifting. They got rid of all the other stuff. So you don't have to do the hard stuff.

You don't have to do like the Olympic lifting and all the other pieces, but if you can just do the running and lifting, if you run a long ways and lift, you're a hybrid athlete. You pass. We just call that being an athlete for the record. Right. Isn't it what Jack LaLanne did?

I think Jack LaLanne did that. No, you guys are both wrong because you're not on the internet. Have we reached, have we crossed all of the lines in the sand? Have we broken through all the barriers? And like, if not, where is the friction now that we need to get through to it? So it's like, lifting is good. Running is good. Doing all the sports is good. Being an athlete, good. Where do we get to break into next? Well, I think with the advent of social media, a lot of people I notice are focusing on the minor things while not necessarily ignoring the big things. But the things that move the needle are training, sleep, good diet, and maybe take a few supplements depending on your goals. But I see people focusing on, well, how long should I cold plunge? How long

should I sauna? Should I wake up and look at the sun? Should I wait two hours before I drink coffee? So they do this, they focus on these minuscule things when that might, you might be lucky if that contributes 0.5% to what you're trying to achieve. When in fact, we all know, okay, if you want to be good a great athlete in what sport you know it's it's it's repetitive repetitive repetitive i mean there's only so many ways you could be good at beach volleyball and it's not because you're on a bike and it's not because you're rock climbing you got to play volleyball and you got to do it all the time right right so it's repetitive and people hate tedious and repetitive, but that's, that's really, you

know, the key. Cause we put those in the category of lifestyle supplements at this point where it's almost like a similar argument to where, where you were 20 or 30 years ago, where like sports, nutrition and supplements don't work. And your understanding, since you, since you know, the resources that you can make the same argument for all those things that training and sleep and all the basics are really best. And then if you take beta alanine, yeah, it's going to help a little bit. It's just a supplement. So depending on your needs, then maybe an ice bath or meditation or mindfulness or whatever you're doing, again, it's going to be that 1% that only certain people need depending on their situation, but maybe just put them in the category of lifestyle supplements. We're not throwing the baby out the

bathwater, but we also know that the basics really are the foundation of any solid program. I think for the vast majority of people, the basics will cover you. Now, if you're a competitive athlete, whenever a competitive athlete asks me what they should do, I tell them to do everything, even if it has only a minor effect, because that minor effect might mean the difference between first and second place. So if you're a competitive athlete, I would tell them never take a minimalist approach. You got to do everything possible. And my philosophy with supplements, at least for that population, is if it helps or has a neutral effect, do it. Now,

Flavia, you play beach volleyball, right? How long is the match loss? 40 minutes. Okay. Do you think you produce a lot of lactate, jumping up and down, diving? Yes. Okay. So in addition to training, nutrition sleep i would say hey you should take beta alanine maybe even play around with sodium phosphate and sodium bicarbonate because if you could just mitigate a little bit the change in ph of skeletal muscle maybe in that last set you won't be quite as tired as you would without it so with her i would have her take everything especially if you

know if if if you're someone who will either win place or show if you're just you know someone who's like hey let's play beach volleyball and you suck at it it's like just shut up drink some beer and have fun you know but if you're good at it do all the things and i'm sure flavia doesn't like to lose so i would assume she's doing i do all the things that i can for sure um yeah i love the perspective and i try to follow that as much as i can with my beach volleyball um athletes what i run into is um they can only afford so much right so then we start putting in a you know what's more important and all this so we end up choosing two to three supplements and then making sure they are consistent with the basics right like you talked about but um yeah if i could i would take

15 supplements probably yeah you're right there is that money there is that cost involved so um that's always an issue but like for professional athletes it would be like just take everything that might he might even have a tiny effect a tiny positive effect because the difference between first second and third place in some of these events is like nothing. It's like nothing. So, yeah, what was your – wait, what was the question again? Yeah, go ahead. I was just playing devil's advocate and saying that should we treat those unique things that people are – everyone's trying to carve a place for themselves on social media, being super niche, talking about this one thing,

just so they can get some traction and run a business or whatever they're trying to do and so it kind of overemphasizes these very unique things on social media because talking about the basics is only so sexy and only get you so much attention online uh so we all know the basics are best but i was wondering if we should put those you know red light therapy and all those types of kind of biohacking things like under the category of of lifestyle supplements that might move the needle, maybe depending on your situation, but obviously everyone should focus on the basics. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't know if I would put them under lifestyle. Honestly, I'm not sure what I would put them under. There are people who swear by cold water immersion and to them, I say, just keep doing it.

If it makes you feel better, keep doing it. Others swear by sauna. I mean, we live in South Florida, so it's a sauna anyway. So maybe we're getting lots of sauna benefits. I mean, there's a woman, I forget which Scandinavian country she's based in. Her whole business, she's a PhD, is cold water immersion. All she posts about is cold water immersion. And I was reading this laundry list. It was like this list of 40 things it does and i'm thinking this is fucking horseshit i mean

one of them one of them was improved athletic performance i'm like so you're telling me if i just sit in a cold freaking tub my performance will go but what happened was she clarified it with well you got to be training. And I'm like, okay, so it's not the cold water stuff. It's the training part. Now, I did want to say, and in response to, I think, one of your questions beforehand, I think the category now that will be somewhat controversial is the use of performance. I was about to say PEDs, but I'm going to instead use the term PES, performance enhancing substances, as it relates to anyone who wants to just get better at a sport. That sounds like UAP versus UFO. It's still just stuff flying in the air. It rains the last letter on me, so I'm not thinking about

drugs, but I'm definitely thinking about drugs. I still use UFO. I'm not used to UAB. I'm not into that UAP crap. I want an old school alien. Big eyes, green head, the whole thing. Monstrous Martian looking people, just like my drugs. I do want to see those aliens. Actually, that intrigues me. But no, it's funny you say that. I think part of it is PEDs. And again, we're playing around with language.

We're trying to soften the blow a little instead of saying drug use. Trust me, I don't want my kids, I don't need my six-year-old going, Dad, it's performance-enhancing substance. Drugs. No, you're on drugs. So just so you guys know, I'm on the medical and scientific advisory board for the enhanced games. Yeah.

The enhanced games is, is, well, actually it's, it's two parts here. And the part that most people think about is the actual athletic events, which is track and field, swimming, fighting. I think that those are the basic ones, track and field, swimming and fighting. We say fighting, is that boxing or more UFC? MMA, it's mostly MMA, but there would probably be a combination of both. So the idea is that athletes can choose to use any performance enhancing drugs or substances and take part in the games. Now, there's actually a separate part, the part that I'm going to take that I'm involved in, because you're talking about there's an athletic event.

And then there's a part where we're actually going to study the use of these drugs in athletes vis-a-vis doing it as a clinical trial, a series of case reports. So let's say, let's say, Doug, you're a world class or you used to be a world class fighter. And you're like, you know what? It currently is. Yeah. I wouldn't mind making a comeback, right? You want to make a comeback. And you're like, but I'd like to take some EPO, maybe some testinanthate, maybe some Anivar, but it would be under, you'd actually sign a consent form like we do for studies. This is what you're taking. These are the dose. We know the exact dose. These are the potential adverse events. You sign off it like you would volunteering for any study. You are monitored pre, during, and post, and then you compete in the games

and the beauty of that is it will be the first time we'll ever have data on men and women who want to take and it's a list of mostly androgens or anabolic steroids although androgens really is a correct term it's a list of androgens and epo and i think growth hormone but i don't think growth hormone is that great a thing but bpo erythropoietin, which I think is, that probably is the drug that helps most people. And we can monitor it. Does it affect liver? Does it affect kidney?

Is it dose dependent? I'm going to guess that because the population we're studying are in such great shape, I mean, these are elite elite athletes that we can come up with a protocol that has no side effects now people like no okay why is that why is why would that that's going to be a challenge to the establishment why because from the time i was small going through the um when congress was i don't know if you remember when Congress was grilling Major League Baseball players about drug use.

I forgot everything. Yeah. Barry Bonds. Sammy Sosa. All these guys taking drugs. They were hitting the ball like 400 feet. The use of these drugs have always demonized meaning they're bad for you.

Now, okay, well, I would pose this question to the four of you, or three of you, because I know the answer. Are you more likely to overdose and kill yourself from water or from testosterone? Water. Water. In fact, I can't think of an instance that there's such a thing as od on testosterone you can't od them so it's very hard to at least acutely to cause what's the highest number you've seen um well but you ever seen somebody like tested like like 4 000 you're like nope you can't

die there are guys taking two yeah two to four grams a week grams that's a shit that's enough freaking power a rhino um but i bet you they're their recovery is amazing and this is what's interesting i'm just sorry for the digression on androgens or anabolic steroids they're not technically performance enhancing so if your son says hey, hey, I want to take some steroids, they're not performance enhancing. They are a recovery drug because technically they help you recover and you recover like Superman or Superwoman or Wonder Woman. You recover like crazy. And that's why you can train so much harder because you recover like crazy. And EPO though, EPO is a performance enhancer because red cells go up hematocrit goes up your o2 carrying capacity goes way up epo would probably be the quickest way to

improve performance in fact floppy epo that would help you with beach volleyball yeah oh well are you are you adding that sport to the enhanced games? I wish they would add beach volleyball. That'd be kind of fun, but you know, they're swimming. Maybe next, next year, since you're on the board now, you know, I have a quick question about what you were saying with the enhanced games. Cause I think it's really interesting to you that we're actually going to have data and you have real elite athletes to have data on um is there a limit on how many they can take because you do have the

dosages but is there a certain number you can only take three at a time at this dosage or you can take all of those like how are you guys controlling for that? Well, the way it works is each individual will have their own, I guess, for lack of a better term, their prescribed dose. And so, and that's part of the beauty of this. We, nobody really knows what the, if there's such a thing as an optimal dose. We'll go back, like, if you go back to the literature, you'll see like, for instance, testosterone and anthate, the dose that works in just normal guys is 600 milligrams a week, which is actually pretty good. I mean, 600 milligrams a week, every guy is going to put on muscle. Every girl will get absolutely jacked on 600 megs a week. And the side effects were like minimal. I mean, actually the initial studies on 600 megs a week,. And the side effects were like minimal. I mean, actually, the initial studies on

600 mg a week, there were no side effects. And people were like, whoa, no side effects, no negative effects on cardiovascular function, no negative effects on blood lipids, like nothing. And here's the kicker, because what's the biggest myth around androgen use is that you get angry. There was no effects on mood. So guys didn't get angry. They weren't pissed off. Nothing. It was weird.

Well, to me, it wasn't weird because I predicted it. A lot of people who thought you get roid rage from it. Now, there are guys who act like jerks around androgens. And what some psychiatrists or psychologists think is that all the androgen does is amplify what their behavior normally is if they're a prick normally there's it's going to be a bigger prick you know on androgen yeah so yeah if if they normally are angry and it's just part of their you know behavior it might amplify that behavior but it's not going to turn someone who's calm and collected into someone who's like raging. It just doesn't happen. Yeah.

The illegality of it as well. Self selects for people who are willing to break the law. Right. That's a different that's a different kind of person on average. Yeah. Well, maybe. Here's the thing. There was a study published. It might have been 15 years ago, Rick Collins was, I think, the lead author, where they basically interviewed guys and girls out at gyms, why they were taking androgens.

And almost, well, the general profile was Caucasian, highly educated. They worked out regularly and their goal is just to look better that was the primary primary sort of description of of who was taking it now with the enhanced games what's interesting is that these are these are individuals who have a specific goal and if they can get on a on a certain cycle of androgens and EPO here's the thing I don't understand why people have an issue with that per se because it doesn't harm anyone it's like okay well it's just their body but I guess people view it as it's not it it violates the spirit of sports well i guess it depends how you define the spirit of sports because i'll tell you this if you don't think anyone's doping at the olympics you're naive if you don't think anyone's doping in in any of the professional sports in the u.s

you're naive because when there's that much money involved like you said doug guys and girl and girls too will be taking that risk it's like you know what this is how i make money if i can do this and be better i'm gonna try there's a lot of money to be to be won in it as well especially when you're like in track and field track it feels like one of the biggest sports in the olymp but I couldn't tell you who finished second place in the 200. But if you win it, your name's Gabby Thomas, and you're like on the cover of everything now. Yeah.

It's wild, the difference between first and second in these sports that aren't, and maybe internationally they're a little bit bigger, but in the States, if you are in second place, you're the second best person in the world. And nobody knows. Yeah. I would totally take a shot. Now, what's interesting about the enhanced games is they will actually pay athletes.

The Olympic Games, almost all those athletes are poor. We're just exposed to the ones who make money through sponsorships. And it's almost, it's usually Americans because that's where the sponsor dollars come from and a few europeans but like you said the gabby thomas's of the world the noah lyles of the world and track and field you're right no one can who second place god i don't know but we know no idea the people who won are the ones making money what about the guy who's world class who finished didn't get to the finals but world-class and made it to the semis? How does he make a living? Oh, you know what?

He probably, maybe he works as a waiter. Oh, maybe he personal trains. These guys are not rich. I mean, people think, oh, you're in the Olympics, you're rich. No. Most of these people are actually pretty poor. And that's sort of what's weird. People think, oh, you're on TV.

You must be rich. It's like, no. We were down in Jamaica and saw they're like living in the gym. I mean, they're 17, 18 years old, and they're all running sub-10, hundreds, and they sleep on essentially like wooden bunk beds and eat rice out of the rice cooker. That's like what they do. And then they train. That's it. That actually reminds me

of some of the mixed martial arts fighters down here in South Florida that basically sleep in the gym. They live in the gym. And people think these fighters are rich. No. There's like 10 fighters that are rich. There's like 100 that are

scraping by just to make a living. Yeah. One thing that interests me about the enhanced games, I didn't know that MMA was a part of it or even boxing. Well, I know it's combat sports. So either one, there's this physical, one person will be punching another person yes um when you're running track if you run the hundred you're not gonna hurt the person next to you i know where

you're going when you are a almost bare knuckle brawler and an octagon you're gonna put your fist through someone's head at concussions are already a massive thing doesn't the liability change in that sport drastically as we add physical contact because the body's no matter how there's no like there's no like amount of testosterone that you can take. That's going to protect your brain from bouncing off your skull when you get punched by some guy that's fully juiced. No, that's a, I think that's a good point. But again, these athletes are consenting to it. This is voluntary consent.

You could actually could argue the O and D line of football. They're, they're head to head collisions. How many times a game? Terrifying. That's another whole CTE. Scaryte scary gigantic human beings colliding so again it's it's voluntary they this is what they choose to do who knows what their brains will be like when they reach 60 um yeah i'm just intrigued here's the thing a lot of people have asked me you think anyone will break records and my quick answer is no you know why because they're already competing in track and field world championships um the

olympics and the ones who are really good the problem if they ever admit to using peds they can no longer compete in those events so once you get into the enhanced games you won't be able i can't see it go over to these other athletic events now the gist is the enhanced games they're going to pay you so that's the question and we don't yet know how much they will pay an athlete to compete in the games and i'm sure they'll give incentives for sending a vr or winning first place uh first second or third so the incentive structure is there because one of the I think the big criticisms of the Olympic Games is they make a shit ton of money and they pay nobody. They pay nobody. And we know cities that host the Olympics. They lose money. You lose money.

The only I think the only games that actually broke even or made money was los angeles 1984 all the cities lose a shit yeah it's a mess i feel like yeah i i've watched many many shows on the finances of the olympics and like the world cup and all this stuff and there's it's kind of like the athletes there's a massive amount of people losing tons of money, but there's 10 people at the top that make it all. And the organizers of the event. Yeah. They're making it.

FIFA is like terrifying when it comes to the World Cup. They are scary how much money they, the rest of the people don't make when the top board members or whatever, however it's structured. The corruption at that level is so high. the people don't make when the top top board members or whatever, however it's structured. The corruption at that level is so high. It's, I mean, the Olympics is, is, might be the most recognizable brand in sports. How come the athletes make no money and how come, how come they put up,

put them up in these shitty dormitories and give them crappy food? Well, they, they, they do all right in those dormitories. Four years of sleeping in the gym, they make their money creeping around those, knocking on doors in the dorms. They're all right. I think that the NLI, though, what's that? It's a lot of fit people hanging out together.

I know what you're talking about, you guys. Tens of thousands of the best breeders in the world just showed up at a horse farm to breed away. I feel like the NLI in college is like the first domino to fall in some sort of way that all of the people will soon be getting taken care of because it's the exact same scenario, right? The NCAA has essentially free labor that they're making hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars every year in revenue, TV contracts, all of it. But now there is a way and there has to be a model there because it really is sad being an athlete and fencing may not be the best. All those people are all in La Jolla. It really is sad being an athlete and like, and fencing may not be like the best that those, all those people are all in La Jolla, but like, what makes you think of fencing? The sports that nobody cares about. There's so many of them. It's like, even the, even the,

like the shot putter, like the best in the world. Like if you're, if you're on the shop, what, how do you feed yourself? Making $0, but you gotta eat like 8 8 000 calories a day to be that size um there's got to be a path and maybe the enhanced games is it like maybe maybe paying the athletes and actually having a a governing body that allows some sort of protection to the athletes financially medically like you imagine how many of those people are living without health insurance and training at that intensity? Oh yeah. I mean, when I opened my gyms, someone was like, do you guys have health insurance? And I was like, what? If I die right now, I lose $84 and my mom's happy that I won't have to move back

in when this gym goes under. No, it's, it's, I think it's interesting. You mentioned NIL money, name it, name image likeness for these college athletes. And, and actually I'm always shocked how much, a lot of these mostly male football players, let's face it. There's a few like really attractive women in gymnastics. And I think in track that are making a lot of money, but really it's mostly guys who play football, millions of dollars it's like whoa it's like part of the deal now right and in fact it's like hey how much can you pay me okay i'll play quarterback at your school now is there a way is there a way to somehow get that in the ioc and it's so many people though it's like the difference between a hundred football players and maybe some

like downrange stuff to tens of thousands of athletes. That means that's a, that's a, that's, that goes into the expense category in a way that is going to be a hard, hard push. Right. Right.

No. Yeah. I think it seems like it wouldn't be feasible. And then you're talking about, okay, what are the high profile sports track and field, of course, would be one. What about, you know, what's that sport where they do the broom on the ice? Curling. Curling, yeah. They dominate daytime TV. They might actually be the biggest revenue producers and all of advertising for the Olympics in the winter. I, are you serious? Oh yeah. I'm positive of it. I'm totally guessing, but I'm positive of it.

They put curling on from like 10 to 4 PM all day long. Well, their NIL money has got to be worth at least a hundred bucks. Their NIL money is in like Northern Canada. It's like 12 people. I think it's mostly a drinking game. I think curling is like mostly like mimosas. It's like a sport you can play with a half hammer. It's like cornhole for frozen people.

Yeah. Oh my God. Jose, it's been fantastic, man. We're going're gonna have you back this has been too much fun where uh where can people learn more have all these fun jokes told to them well hey um i think what i would like most people to do is go to the issn conference again next year it's in Delray Beach. The website is ISSN.net. That's ISSN.net. The date is June 23 to 25. So hopefully you guys can make it. Also, you can find me mostly social media.

I'm actually mostly on X. My name on X is JoseAntonioPhD. And sometimes on Instagram, but really mostly on XR, formerly known as Twitter. It's the only place. It's the only place where you can tell the truth about steroids, about being censored. You know what? Actually, that is true. Yeah.

In fact, speech is so free on X that I'm like, whoa, I can't believe what he just said. Right? When that algorithm talks back to you, you're like, wait a second. How did I get here? Who is doing this? No, but it's great. You guys, if you're not on Exalot, you got to get on it because it is a free for all. And that's the best part of it.

I like the free for all part. I'm with you. Flavia, you get one minute to tell the people about the paper you just researched and the top supplements for athletes. Set, go. Go. The paper that we wrote together, the top five? Yeah.

Yeah. So I wrote about beta alanine. We had Cassie, Jose Rojas, and Jose Antonio, and Jason, Dr. Curtis on. So we talked about creatine protein, which some people don't see as a supplement, but as a supplement, beta alanine nitrates, which Cassie wrote about like beetroot powder and oh, caffeine.

Yeah, I was like, I forgot the last one. Caffeine, Dr. Curtis wrote about caffeine. Yeah. Love it. Oh, caffeine. I forgot the last one. Caffeine. Dr. Curtis wrote about caffeine. Yeah. Love it. So, yeah, I mean, Jose Antonio has helped the field so much with so many supplements. Right. But when I met him and I started reading about his papers, I don't know how many seconds I have, but I think he really helped the field progress with protein, caffeine, and creatine. You know, he has thousands and thousands of citations, 19,000 about that, right? Citations.

Apparently, I've been cited 19,000 times. Yeah. That's huge. That's a lot of citations. So we had to pick the top five that we feel like i was talking about like if you're an athlete and you don't have the means to buy everything you know those are the top five that we think you should consider to start with depending on the type of energy system for your sport so yeah i think i would go way over a minute to talk about them, but check it out the

paper. I love it. Top five most, top five. What is that? You just wrote the paper. Top five can't miss supplements. Can't miss supplements. This is like you asking me about business courses in college. I don't know. Top five. I mean, you think about what's in the i don't know top five can't be hd though i mean you think about what's in the paper not the title right top five can't miss supplements google your name yes there you go doug larson you bet my instagram douglas larson uh flavia thank you for joining us dr antonio i've been looking forward to this for a long time um crushed him i really enjoyed the conversation so thank you. We're going to do this again soon.

I am Anders Varner at Anders Varner, and we are Barbell Shrugged to Barbell underscore Shrugged. And make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where you can find out about all the lab lifestyle performance analysis and testing that we're going to be doing. Schedule a call so you can start to work with us. And you can access all that over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.