Barbell Shrugged - [The Enhanced Games] Redefining Athletic Boundaries w/ Dr. Guillermo Escalante, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #757

Starting point is 00:00:00 Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Dr. Guillermo Escalante is coming in and we are talking about this new cool sport that's launching right after the Olympics to see the craziest levels of when they take the governors off of performance, essentially, and things might get a little wild. We might see lots of world records dropping. It's also just a really cool time in this day and age. There's large investors behind this thing. Peter Thiel is buying into it. There's big money backing it. I think that they might be able to make a real run at this and see what the public opinion or the public attraction is to something like the enhanced games where we get to see the Olympics in 2024. And then a year later, we get to see all of the non-drug tested athletes going at it and see what the difference is between kind of the freaks of the freaks with

Starting point is 00:01:02 the governor on and what it looks like a year later when they take them off and they're able to actually use some of the banned substances that the Olympics does not allow. We actually have back-to-back interviews. So this week and next week, we're going to be talking about this because it's kind of a brand new thing that has hit the world. And it's really exciting. I say it's exciting, not because I care so much about people doing performance enhancing drugs, but i've always just kind of wondered what would happen if they didn't have the regulations like what does the the top of the top do when they are allowed to also take the performance enhancing drugs and see how freaky we can make human beings it's all kind of their personal their their personal conquest to be at the the very tip top of the the sphere when it comes to our human performance and if you

Starting point is 00:01:45 bring in exogenous substances to enhance your performance i guess we get to go see what the fastest man and woman in the world is without the limitations so it kind of it piques the interest on my meathead self of what the answering the big question of kind of like what does it look like if we if we are allowed to do everything and there are no rules? It also is kind of a new angle on sports. And with this all coming around the Olympics time, it's kind of a hot topic.

Starting point is 00:02:14 So this weekend, next week, we're spending a little time talking about steroids and EPO and performance enhancing drugs with some pretty high level experts and people that are close to the enhanced games and the sport of it. So I'm very excited about it. And as always, friends, make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com.

Starting point is 00:02:29 That is where Dr. Andy Galpin has a free eight-minute video on the exact three-step process that we use to unlock your true physiological potential. That way, you know what it takes for us to make the best of the world better. You can access that free video over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Warner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Dr. Guillermo Escalante. How did I do on that? That pronunciation, right? Do I need to roll an R or anything? I got you. All the way from CSU Santa Barbara. Today on Barbara, I'll shrug. You have you just came back from the conference.

Starting point is 00:03:08 And I believe you listen to the people from the enhanced games, which is as soon as I think these guys were on Rogan pretty recently. I haven't listened to the show. And that's much better because now you get to tell us all the things. But before we dig into this, I'd love to kind of get a little bit of your extensive academic career as well as a little bit of your meathead story. I know. He's got all the titles. For those of you that have not seen him posing on stage, this dude is jacked. Jacked, doctor. Take it away. Take it away.

Starting point is 00:03:43 I wish someone would say that about me. Do you know Anders? He's jacked. You're Jack. Dr. Jack. I appreciate you. You invited me to be on here. You know, I've obviously listened to your podcast and I love the content you put out. But yeah, it's exciting to be here. And yeah, my background is pretty diverse. So I I've definitely blended my passion for health, fitness, and the physique sport, and then really just studied it to a very high level and enjoy preaching about that. So I've been a bodybuilder. I'll give you my main head side first.

Starting point is 00:04:19 So I've been a bodybuilder for over 20 years. I was a high school athlete and played a little bit in college as well. But after I finished competing, wanted an outlet and bodybuilding, a friend got me into bodybuilding. And that was 24 years ago. And I got the bug. So I dieted down from 160 pounds, 64 pounds down to 144. And that was my first show. And then ever since then, I just progressively gotten bigger and competed all the way. I think the heaviest spin is a light heavyweight but usually i compete as a middleweight in in bodybuilding uh and i've competed at some pretty high level shows so uh usa championships national championships teen universe uh and i've

Starting point is 00:04:58 placed top five and a few of those been been the bridesmaid really close to that pro card uh a few times uh but i've competed with some really good competitors over the years, including even Danny Hester at the 2013 L.A. Championships, who was the first classic physique Olympian. So I actually beat him at the 2013 L.A. Championships at a local show. But I had never beat him before. He's just a really top competitor. But that day I was better. And, uh, but I've, I've competed with some really good guys over the years and it's, it's been a good journey. Uh, alongside of that, I, I got into the medical providing component of a physique sport and in the,

Starting point is 00:05:36 the bodybuilding coaching, as well as in the, in the, um, judging component of things as well. So that, that's been a another component that I've done as well. But my academic background, I studied athletic training and I'm a certified athletic trainer. I'm also a strength and conditioning specialist and I'm a certified sports nutritionist. So my undergrad was in athletic training and bio. Then I got a master's in business administration and then my doctorate yeah my doctor is in athletic training too uh so uh i kind of combined the the science of things uh over the last you know uh gosh uh well 20 some years really but but really in academia for the last uh 12 13 years i've been in academia now

Starting point is 00:06:19 and uh really uh uh endeavored into the components of researching, physique science, sports medicine, biomechanics, performance enhancement stuff, dietary supplements. So I'm really studying the questions that I wanted answered and I continue to seek that part. And now I get the opportunity to kind of speak to different places of the world and be able to just talk about science and talk about meathead stuff in a scientific way. You also owned two world gyms, right? I did. So back in the mid-2000s, I owned a world gym in West Covina, and we had one in Rialto.

Starting point is 00:06:56 And then I owned an outpatient physical therapy personal training studio as well. So I did the business thing for a while as well before I got into academia. You don't own the world gym? It's very unique, by the way. So I did the business thing for a while as well before I got into academia. It's very unique, by the way, like the breadth of your experience and the academics and entrepreneurship, competitor, etc. Like not many people can can play all sides of the game there. Yeah, it's been a fun experience. You know, I started as a as an entrepreneur when I left a steady job working in a physical therapy clinic. And I learned the business side of things and I wanted to launch my own thing. And it really just kind of mushroom into other opportunities that presented themselves. And then, yeah, then I went back into academia. When I finished my doctorate, it was really not for I didn't I never thought my thought of myself as a researcher, as an educator.

Starting point is 00:07:43 But it was something that I had a passion for. I wanted to do myself. And then as I went through the process, I really enjoyed that component of it. So that's what lured me back into academia in 2012, I guess, was when I started my venture there. And I've enjoyed it. I used to have. I think that's what we need more more is application and, you know, because forever when we were younger, you had all the people doing the research and then you had all the people doing the thing. And there was such a disconnect, which is the reason why I want to go back to school as well.

Starting point is 00:08:14 So it's just we need more people like you who are doing or have done the thing and then understanding the science so we can bridge those gaps. Super important, I think. No, I totally agree. And I think, and I think one of the mistakes that a lot of academic, they still make that today. I think sometimes they're, they're still self-righteous and then they, they think it's like, well, it hasn't been studied. It doesn't work. And I'm with the opposite. You know, I'm like, no, you know, success leaves trails. So to me, like,

Starting point is 00:08:40 you know, like you're a world-class power lifter, power lifting coach. Like I want to learn what you're doing and you're implementing because it obviously works and then apply the scientific lens to it and understand that, you know, so why is it working, you know, and what things are creating those things and, you know, maybe why does it work well for some and not for others? Exactly what I was going to say. Why does this work for some people, but not for others? Like, I love it.

Starting point is 00:09:03 Yeah. So I love that piece. We're going to, yeah, we're, uh we're gonna dig into the enhanced games here but i have to tell you i live like a mile away from a world gym in san diego like the one that you can see going down the five and they had at least 200 different back machines it was my favorite place to go because that's how the bodybuilders, they don't just deadlift. They do back and it's like a four hour long process. They got to eat meals in between doing back. There's so many machines in the world, Jim. It's like the bodybuilding haven. I had so much fun working out there. Shrug family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to

Starting point is 00:09:49 rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. And then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of

Starting point is 00:10:30 your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program, and we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over

Starting point is 00:11:06 to rapidealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidealthreport.com and let's get back to the show. That's in Pacific Beach, right? Pacific, that's the old Pacific Beach World Gym, right? Yeah. It changed names to something. Now it's just called the gym gym it's just called the gym it's called the gym that's right that's right but they um i used to there's there's like there's like the i'm strong amongst my friends and other people that do functional fitness type things like the general population i'm a little bit stronger than and then you go into world gym and you see some boys getting after it.

Starting point is 00:11:45 And you're like, right. That is like pro lifting over there. They're lifting for big weights, long sessions. And they've only done like the top half of their back today. I used to love watching them. It's so good.

Starting point is 00:12:00 Um, I'd love to, I'd love to kind of dig into the enhanced games. I had, I didn't even know that this was a thing until it showed up on Rogan. Like I said, I haven't listened to the show, so I'd love to just kind of hear your overall thoughts. And I believe you're at a conference and heard them speaking recently. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm the vice president for the International Society of Sports Nutrition.

Starting point is 00:12:23 And we just had our international conference last weekend in Florida. In Florida. And there were a couple guys that were there, which is Dan Turner, Dr. Dan Turner and Dr. Mike Singelman. And they are part of the Enhanced Games. So I had talked to Dan periodically for maybe three weeks before, four weeks beforehand about the enhancers. I, like you, I learned about the enhanced schemes just kind of through, I think the news, social media that, you know, there was an investor going on and putting, putting this idea together. So I heard about it a couple of years ago, but more recently I saw it gaining some momentum. There's been some,

Starting point is 00:12:57 some funding and significant amount of capital going into the games. And then I learned recently that Dr. Turner was basically made the director of athlete safety. I'm not sure if that's his exact title, but I reached out to him and we started talking. And of course, we headed off very well. And then I learned that Dr. Singerman was going to be at the conference. And at the conference, he spoke about basically the history of doping in sport. And, you know, he gave a very, very cool talk, you know, going back hundreds and hundreds of years ago, where even, you know, in the gladiators and, you know, this was essentially anything that gave you an edge in sport was basically allowed and in fact, encouraged.

Starting point is 00:13:42 And in fact, in some of these gladiator times, I mean, it was a life or death situation. So anything that would give you an edge or belief to give you an edge was definitely something that was welcome. And then he kind of talked over the years, you know, the initial like Tour de France type of things before it was called the Tour de France,

Starting point is 00:14:02 he gave some history of that. And then you go into, you know, when all of a sudden doping kind of became taboo, which is not really- Alco Labs. Yeah. Not until about the 60s, you know, 70s, you kind of start seeing that. And then you start seeing these organizations coming along. And then, you know, I feel we see this disconnect between, you know, what I think that the general public has an opinion and, you know, a lot of these sponsors have an opinion of, you know, clean sport and it's an idealistic type of component. And not that there's anything wrong with that.

Starting point is 00:14:37 You know, I'm not against clean sport if that's what you want to do. But what I find is there's a lot of competitors that, you know, want to want to compete, not clean and claim to be clean, but they're really not, you know, and those are the ones that drive me nuts. And it's gotten to the point where at some of these higher level ways, like even even at the Olympics, right, where there's millions of dollars in line in terms of sponsorships and other things. I mean, the athletes, they can't possibly say that they're enhanced in any way, shape or form, because the public is not going to take that and they're not going to they're not going to they're going to lose those sponsorships. So it's a very fine line. And I think it puts us between between a rock and a hard place. And it was interesting because he he gave a perspective of,

Starting point is 00:15:28 you know, he put Lance Armstrong on one slide and then he put The Rock on another side. And, you know, he was saying that one of his patients came in and said, oh, well, Lance Armstrong is a cheater, right? But The Rock, like, he's an all right guy, right? Oh, no, no. And then, yeah, when you see the amount of people that are potentially enhanced, even in Hollywood.

Starting point is 00:15:47 Right. That that are, you know, all of these these heroes that we're seeing that that the kids aspire to be like, you know, the reality is, is, you know, we don't know their story. But the reality is more than likely they're they're they're they're using some sort of a. Sure. Yeah. And then lastly, he tied the piece together of, you know, it's okay to get enhanced. Like we can get our lips enhanced. We can get breasts enhanced. We can get our butts enhanced and that's okay. But, but, but now we want to enhance our performance and now that's an ethical conflict and like, what's the difference, right? Like getting your Lasix, like that's a vanity decision, right? Getting a Las procedure. Um, but, and that's okay. Uh, but if I want to be bigger, faster, stronger, that's not okay. Yeah. It's interesting. When Balco labs all went

Starting point is 00:16:32 down, do you guys remember the public opinion? Probably the majority of people don't really care. It's the 30% though, that are the loudest. But I remember, I remember watching and looking at lots of like statistical analysis where most people just want to, they're just wanting to enjoy something. They want to see some craziness, you know, but then there's the people who get super mad,

Starting point is 00:16:52 but like, it's not like everyone agrees. It's like most people just want to watch it's enjoyment. You want to watch the Olympics and have a good time, see people run 9.4 second hundreds. And you want to see people jump to know to amazing heights and so like you know and like honestly the only fair games in my opinion is going to be the enhanced game because everyone's taking here we go now we're fair because right now i'm competing i'm competing

Starting point is 00:17:17 against people who i know to be on drugs you know how i know they'll tell you they'll you know it's their whole country is behind them it It's a national sponsored program, and they want to show the world how awesome they are, so they're going to take. The government's going to say you have to take. So the only way for it to be fair is enhanced, in my opinion. I looked up on the website. There's real money behind this thing.

Starting point is 00:17:42 Peter Thiel is an investor in this thing. This isn't a casual thing where a bunch of amateurs are trying to just see what's possible. There's real money and real organization behind all this. Absolutely. And at first, they're going to start off with basically five major sports or five major events per se. So they're going to do- what are those? Do you know? I, I'm going to say I do, but, but don't quote me because I, I didn't take notes on this as I was going through this was a conversation. So they're, they're all going to be basically initially power, power strength based sports, right? So they're going to have like maybe a hundred meter dash for, for, for, for track.

Starting point is 00:18:23 They're going to have some sort of, uh, sprint type of activity in swimming. So maybe like a 50, a hundred, maybe 200 at the most. Um, they're going to have, uh, some sort of, uh, of combat sport. Um, they're going to have some sort of weightlifting sport. And I can't remember the fifth component, but, but all of, all of those are going to be, uh, that's going to be sick, the games that they're going to do. And it's going to be for men and women. And there is going to be real money for the people that are entering, not only for the winners, but actually for the people that are just competing in general. And, and of course the, the, the caveat, and I think that the part that's really difficult to navigate is, you know,

Starting point is 00:19:04 they don't want to be prescriptive. So they're not prescribing any of these things. The athletes are just like, you can take what you want, but they are going to be monitoring their health. So they want to make sure that this is an important piece that they want to make sure that, you know, this person is not putting their health at risk. So this is the part that we're kind of, I was talking to them about, and it's interesting is, you know, what kind of tests are they going to do? You know, maybe echocardiograms, maybe EKGs, blood work, you know, and what other biomarkers are they going to look at?

Starting point is 00:19:35 So that way you can make sure that these athletes are going to be not putting themselves at risk when they're actually competing and having a clean bill of health per se so that they're able to compete. I'd actually love to dig more into that. Like what are the specifics with regard to the testing that they'll be doing to ensure athletes are doing this in a healthy way? And just if we can rewind the clock a little bit, like what are just like the general potential downsides of doing anything enhanced in the first place. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think one of the things that to your question is I think people sometimes have a, um, this idea that, that let's, I'm going to just take, because there's a lot of performance enhancement substances, right. Um, we, we, but let's take anabolic steroids, right. That's one of, one of the pieces that we can pieces that a lot of people can understand. But there is potential detrimental health issues long-term, after long-term exposure,

Starting point is 00:20:33 super physiological dosages. But it's not something like some of these drugs that you can actually take and you can overdose and die right away. So it's like cardiac rem know, cardiac remodeling is not going to take place, you know, within one month of, of taking testosterone or other anabolic steroids, right? You're going to, you're going to see cardiac remodeling potentially not always going to take place, potentially take place in some individuals over a period of, you know, years with, with high super physiological dosages.

Starting point is 00:21:06 Same thing with blood pressure or triglycerides or HDL, LDL levels, atherosclerosis, any of those cardiac changes are going to potentially take place later on. And you look at things like ejection fraction in the heart, you know, and there is literature that actually shows like, yeah, long term drug users or anabolic steroid users do have lower rejection fractions than than people that are not enhanced in terms of weightlifting. But it's higher. So just to expand on that for people that aren't familiar with that terminology, like you take steroids, your heart's a muscle, your heart grows, that muscle grows. So your left ventricle gets thicker and the amount of blood that can go into that left ventricle to be pumped out of the blood goes down.

Starting point is 00:21:52 So your cardiac output decreases because your heart got bigger, but in the process of getting bigger, it closes down the chamber size. And so it can't squeeze as much blood into it. So it can't squeeze as much blood out of it. Is that more or less the gist of it? Yeah, that's actually a really good, you actually good you actually you explained this to a lot of people this is

Starting point is 00:22:09 actually a very good representation that was excellent how do you know so much doug yeah how do you know i heard that somewhere over there yeah but yeah that's that's one of the long-term potential downsides of long-term super physiological doses of testosterone and whatever else. Exactly. And we do see that. And we, there's some studies that actually have studied like, you know, after people that are on cycle using high dosages, you know, you actually see that ejection fraction level decrease. And then when they come off, it actually does go back, maybe not necessarily back to normal, but it does go up and it improves. And then what you see when you look at some of the data with the distribution, just like anything else, I always like to give this example. You know, we all know that that lady who lived to

Starting point is 00:22:53 be 100 years old, who ate like crap, smoked, drank, ate whatever she wanted, and it didn't affect her. And likewise, we sometimes see individuals who take a ton of drugs in this regard, and it doesn't really affect them. Of course, we see some people, they take a little bit and it affects them significantly. So I think there's a lot of caveat, because when you look at the data points, you know, there are some general means, but you see some outliers kind of in both directions, which is, again, the individualization of, uh, and of these effects is very important to identify. Well, this, this will also open the doors to actually do some research,

Starting point is 00:23:31 you know, and like do it in a, you know, in a way that would be, uh, open to the boards where they'll let you do that. You know, the, what is the way I went before? It'll just be more, um, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually really curious. I'm curious of your opinion on why the line is drawn in the sand where it currently is. Like nobody cares if you have a cup of coffee and then go run the hundred.

Starting point is 00:24:06 Nobody's, there's many things that are legal um and you could go all the way to like medical marijuana or things that this you know for recovery and uh appetite improvement and things like that like there's so many things that are legal and then for some reason if we if we if we have a needle and inject all of a sudden we're like whoa whoa whoa whoa settle down but there's there's such a range and do you think that that's like a a moral compass line in the sand where it's like we don't want we want to be able to compare Barry Bonds to Babe Ruth to see who hits the baseball the hardest or is it um more about how that specific performance enhancement drug is used or implemented that we go, well, we can't use needles. That's for sure. Like that's that's how we decide if it's good or bad. How do you feel like we came to those lines in the sand to say this is good and OK and that's bad?

Starting point is 00:25:04 We don't want to do that. Yeah, I think that's a really good question. And honestly, I don't really know the answer to that because I, the, the answer is, I don't, I mean, to your point, you said caffeine, for example, like that, it, there was a threshold for caffeine. And if you took too much caffeine, you know, back several years ago, like literally be disqualified so i mean you could have had four espresso shots and it's like oh levels are too high you're done right yeah that's that's not they took the gold medal away for having marijuana in the system and you're like yeah we're snowboarding yeah sean why you're like we're snowboarding what are you

Starting point is 00:25:42 those things like have you ever met a snowboarder yeah that's the thing with lance armstrong i i feel sorry for some of these dudes like barry bonds lance armstrong and the way that the people will just shred them in the media and like did you go drug test all their competitors because if you did right now the whole world would be shocked it would not be but now we can point out a monster oh lance you're a monster is he because i guarantee if you if you drug tested the top 30 you would have 30 lance armstrongs yeah like that sport isn't designed to do what they do right it's correct i just hate the way they do that without you know you don't know what the other people were doing it's just those guys got ratted out and found out.

Starting point is 00:26:26 You don't know the other people. So you can't say that. And I guess you can. And to add to that point, you know, how many drug tests did Lance Armstrong pass when he was in Good Graces for years and years? All of them. All of them. Yeah. I think everybody everybody wasn't the cycling movie that came out where the guy uh actually hired uh

Starting point is 00:26:48 i can't believe i can't remember the name of the movie right now um but he he hired the doping guy from russia that was part of the usa or part of the uh world anti-doping so he made the test and he made the cheat code to pass the test brilliant hired the guy to like blow up the whole thing uh what happened at the sochi games that was right there that was an unbelievable documentary i could not believe the length that they went through it's called this is where the public i think uh sometimes that that aren't in the field that have this, again, very, I'm going to say, idealistic type of thought processes. They don't understand that this is happening anyway. And just because they pass a drug test or, you know, doesn't mean that they're not taking, I mean,

Starting point is 00:27:37 the drug tests are not difficult to pass the reality. I mean, now it is more difficult to pass them now the way that they do some of the drug testing, but it's not impossible. And at the end of the day, athletes have money and money buys scientists and scientists are innovative and they're very, they're very much able to formulate different things that are 20 or 30 steps that are not detectable. Right. Yeah yeah when you take a use side of agent getting paid like i don't know say they get paid 50 000 a year and you say look i'll double that okay you know what i mean now i'm now i'm negative baby you know like it's also an arms race it's also an arms race of sorts where it's like we're doing a lot of this good good all right

Starting point is 00:28:22 everybody's so excited to talk about steroids um no how it's almost like the progression of the conversation like barry bonds is on steroids or the clear the cream you know the the the the the names for these things that just get blown up in the media the clear now um i feel like every successful 55 year old male is on TRT, but nobody wants to call it steroids. It's not, what do you mean? The entire like industry has somehow made the conversation. Okay.

Starting point is 00:28:57 And health. And it's all centered around. This makes you healthier. Where a decade ago it was, it was the most illegal, scariest thing to talk about. The devil's soup is ago it was it was the the most illegal scariest thing to talk about the devil's soup is what it was the yes and and all that kind of comes to uh really the question of do you think that the public is actually like ready for something like this to to take off like

Starting point is 00:29:18 an entire sporting organization around it yeah i think that think that part is to be determined. As I was talking to Dan, I think there's definitely going to be, over the next 10 years, perhaps a shift. I think it's one of those things where the shift is coming. I think whether we're ready today or not, I think we'll see. But I think people are potentially going to be more open. I think at the end of the day, once we start kind of talking about it and people start understanding it potentially, especially that that lay person, I think people that are in sport already, they already kind of understand it. It's you know, it's just that that person who's just sitting back watching the Olympics, watching some of these other games that, you know, I don't think they're they don't necessarily understand that component of it um you know and again and there's nothing wrong to me there's nothing wrong if you want to compete all natural and compete with all natural organ like do that absolutely and have those organizations do it but but don't be that jerk that's going to be saying that i'm all natural and then now ruin those competitions with these people that want to be all natural that's what

Starting point is 00:30:24 drives me nuts is totally like a physique bodybuilding world. Then compete in all natural organizations. And if you want to get some help, then compete in the organizations that don't test or where that's kind of the accepted norm. Now there's no excuse. Yeah. It's perfect. Because at that point, it's cheating. I don't say it's cheating when when that's the accepted norm

Starting point is 00:30:46 where everybody's doing it yeah it's not an ethical question that way yeah i feel like that's all very possible say in bodybuilding where you can be obviously enhanced or or you can be obviously natural and there's like these two different places you can go but if you're like in the nfl then you can't really you can't really say anything and you also know at some level all the other people are doing it and something i was going to say a few minutes ago it's like it's an arms race of sorts like if you're going into battle and you guys all have swords and you know everybody else has guns then you you need guns or you're going to die and so it's like everyone's doing it it's like you have to you have to make the decision of like do i want to be in the nfl

Starting point is 00:31:19 or do i want to go work at home depot and maybe maybe i should go to the nfl even if i make it for two years and then get popped for for taking. And then and then. But I still get to say the rest of my life I was in the NFL. I'm still that guy at the party for the next 20 years that was in the NFL. And I'm still now I'm like a somebody versus like the Home Depot guy. Yeah. And there's many more scenarios than that. But there's there's that kind of decision making. I feel like it's happening on a, on a regular basis. Yeah. I'd love to dig in. First, do you work with people on kind of like making plans and, and whatever kind of their supplement slash enhancement routine would be?

Starting point is 00:31:58 So I did at one point, I don't coach people anymore. I provide more educational content, but I did coach for many years. Even after I sold my business, I would do some some online consulting. But, yeah, I don't I don't coach people individually anymore in that regard. But I did for a long time. Yeah, I I'm super interested in like the health testing side of that thing. Mostly because I feel like once you remove the governor everyone's going to take this thing to level 12 but i i don't know man after reading i just look you know looking at their website and the the fact that they're really wanting these athletes to maintain their health i disagree i think um because nobody wants to die you know you just want to do what you can

Starting point is 00:32:42 do to be as good as you can be and if you have someone guiding you you'll make proper decisions to you know to just you know just to to enhance there's a million dollar bounty the day you set a world record but here's what i know anders and here's what you don't know is that more is not better i watched out of the thing and i watched people take tons and never win a thing and i saw people take enough to optimize performance and win and live to sit to tell about it and have children and to do all the things and i've also known a bunch of my buddies who are dead now who did what you just said and still didn't win you know and no chance of winning because more is not better you know that was that was one of the topics of conversation that we had that really the people that kind of do best in some of these,

Starting point is 00:33:28 any of these sporting activities that they have. I mean, at the end of the day, genetics do matter, right? And it's genetics for training. And, you know, are they hyper responders in terms of training, hyper responders in terms of nutrition, you know, and what they eat in terms of minimizing risk? Like think about power lifter. That's another big part, right? You guys have to be able to keep your body healthy week in and week out,

Starting point is 00:33:49 year in and year out. And there's going to be guys that can lift a lot of heavy weight, but they can't sustain that for three, five, 10, 15, 20 years, right? It's not possible. So that component and same thing to the drug component, like the ideal individual would actually be someone who you give a little bit of drug to, right. And it is a hyper responder to that. And it, and it, and it gives a minimal side effects. So, and if you add all of those components together, you have the genetics for training, the genetics for nutrition, you have hyper-responding, you have the optimal performance on all of a sudden, like that, that that's, that's the world champion.

Starting point is 00:34:26 That's the guy that the people I was, that I was beating could have taken a truckload and I was still going to beat them. They had no chance to beat me. So like, and they did, they tried to take all the stuff and you weren't going to beat me, man. It's like,

Starting point is 00:34:37 you need to go home and you need to go back to when you were born and change your parents. Then you might have a chance, but like take all you want. You weren't going to be me. So anyway, this is a good talk so he essentially said the same thing he said that he was not taking near what a bunch of other guys were taking and he still was right there at the top for so many years yeah i got four children to prove i wasn't doing that taking a bunch

Starting point is 00:35:00 so like so a lot of people now who are sterile who used to try to beat me um should have should have saved your eggs boys you know well and if you see some of these these really talented individuals i just recently saw a transformation of a gentleman who was all natural and when you look at him all natural i mean he was already like phenomenal phenomenal and then and then you see him uh four years into now using performance enhancement substances. And then, I mean, he's just a beast, right? I mean, somebody like that, he probably doesn't even need to take a whole lot. And if he were to tell you what he's taking, you'd probably say, he's like, Oh no, you have to take, you know, 10 times more than that.

Starting point is 00:35:40 But the reality is, is probably not, not you know when you look at his before picture i mean there's there's people that are taking a ton of stuff that will never look like him before he took a single performance enhancement substance never right sure i mean i just i just mentioned phil heath like if you look at him playing college basketball i think it was college college college or high school basketball whatever like before he was even in the lifting game and he looked pretty fucking good yeah absolutely yeah absolutely they call him the gift for a reason i mean that's he's very i would have just stayed right there i've been like man i'm i'm just completely shredded at 23 years old here we go and like ed cohen he was jacked from birth 16 years old he was stronger than everybody else. And he wasn't taking anything. Add a little bit.

Starting point is 00:36:26 Now he's a freak of nature, you know? Right. I think what would be very interesting to find out as we go and create this brand new league where everybody can do whatever they want. And then essentially all the numbers stay the same. So we realized that everybody's sort of already doing this stuff. That would be crazy. And it just uncovers like nine, eight.

Starting point is 00:36:43 Did some guy run 9.8 yesterday? Yeah, they just ran it on Sunday. 9.83 was the qualifier for the winner for the Olympic trials. And then 9.85 and 9.88, I think, something like that. Still nowhere near both. It's like three-tenths off. 9.59, yeah. 9.58, I think, is the world record, yeah. Something like that. It was definitely three tens off. Nine, yeah. Yeah. Nine, five, eight, I think is the world record.

Starting point is 00:37:05 Yeah. Something like that. It was definitely nine, five, something. And then the second would be our boy Johan, who Anders raced. He looked like a baby. Going back to your point, Travis, you can give me all the drugs you want. And me, man. Johan is going to take my lunch money every day of the week.

Starting point is 00:37:22 Every single day. Me too, man. Yeah. Well, and then you go back to, you know, Ben Johnson in 1988, right? I mean, he ran a 9.79, which was just unheard of. Got a raw deal. And then in that whole field, I mean, how many guys broke 10 seconds in that 100-meter dash, right? But, of course, the only one that got busted was him, right?

Starting point is 00:37:43 Yeah, there's a lot to that story. Like, come on guys. Yeah. I watched that documentary again the other night. Um, are they going to have female divisions? They will. They're going to have females competing as well. Yes. What are your thoughts on that one? Outside of the personal choice to go and do whatever the hell you want. Cause I feel like those, those drugs do affect women in a very different way.

Starting point is 00:38:08 But when you say those drugs, you got to think about what drugs are they taking. That's the key. He's like, you know, a girl doesn't want to necessarily take. And if they do take testosterone, they wouldn't take as much. I think that this enhanced games, if they're monitoring these women, it's going to change your mind about a lot of stuff is what I'm going to think. But yeah, I mean, we see a lot of that now in some of the female sports. I mean, like divisions in bodybuilding that never used to do performance enhancement substances for women, like bikini, you know, women didn't need to in bikini, didn't need to do those things. But now

Starting point is 00:38:43 a lot of women in the bikini division are actually using performance enhancement substances and and to travis's point is again they do utilize a lot of the same compounds but in just much smaller quantities microdosing testosterone um or or testosterone derivatives uh but and and what what what we lean on there in terms of the medical literature is if we're looking at women who are trying to to be trans men. Right. Their their their whole goal of the drug that they the drugs that they take is to create a side effect of virilization. Right. Deepening of the voice. They, they want, they want those, the quote unquote symptoms. The symptoms is actually their desired outcome because they're trying to change sexist. So you can actually read the literature in, in, in those journals and see at what threshold are these women now kind of crossing over to seeing some of that. So you can ride, you can ride the red line. And then you know that once you start crossing some of these thresholds, now you're going to have clinical manifestations of virilization

Starting point is 00:39:49 and some of these unwanted side effects if you're a female that does not want to have those male type of characteristics. Yeah. Where do you think this kind of affects maybe like the future of drug tested sports? Obviously, they're starting in with these kind of like five major events to start things off. But if you were to look into your magic eight ball of what baseball, where more athletes are looking at kind of like the more mainstream sports than track and field? I feel it's going to, it's going to take some time because at the end of the day, I think it's going to be, you know, if it's a big if and when the general public is going to be willing to accept those individuals and what they have to do to perform at that level. And if sponsors can can accept that and individuals that are that, you know, I'm going to say fans, the average Joe fan, and they can accept those individuals for what they're like, ah, OK, that's just part of the game. I mean, to me, Dr. Dr. The doc at the conference did he put a

Starting point is 00:41:06 really cool video together or slide together. And one of them was like, if you're a videographer, right, and like, you're going to want the best camera with the best lighting with the best, you know, and that's what it takes for you to do the best job as a photographer. So their job as an athlete requires them to do get proper sleep requires them to do, get proper sleep, get proper training, get proper nutrition and potentially proper supplements and potentially these performance enhancement substances, because why wouldn't you have these extra things if, because that's their job. So I think when people can understand that, that's going to be the key. I know it'll go really well.

Starting point is 00:41:49 Is that also a misconception with kind of the general population is that you just take steroids and then all of a sudden everything is easy for you. You don't need to do anything else. You took steroids and so now you're jacked and they're not thinking about you. You're doing all of the other things right. You're sleeping and eating well and training really hard and recovering and on and on and on. And then you're also doing steroids just to optimize one more thing. You're optimizing a highly effective thing, but it's not like you're just doing everything. You're not doing all the other hard work. And then you take steroids and all of a sudden you're a world champion. It doesn't work like that. You're just,

Starting point is 00:42:17 you're just doing everything possible in the case of taking performance enhancing drugs on top of all the other best practices that you need to do in order to be the best. Yeah. I mean, if you guys remember in the late nineties, when you had Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds, people were going crazy about crazy. Like I couldn't highlight in my childhood.

Starting point is 00:42:37 Correct. When people start dropping bombs like that, people are going to watch it. I mean, it's awesome. I love baseball then. Now it's boring so i don't know one baseball player in the whole country you know but like back then i watched

Starting point is 00:42:50 all the games because you see crazy stuff people want to see crazy stuff that's why the gladiators was awesome they want to see someone's head get chopped off i mean yeah match you got to wonder though do they want to see crazy stuff under the illusion that it's real no people don't care i don't think they care i mean they don't care they're just like show me see crazy stuff under the illusion that it's real? Nah, people don't care. I don't think they care. I mean, they don't care. They're just like, show me some crazy stuff, man. Yeah. Well, I think that we, we spend a lot of time talking about like the top 0.001% of the best in the world. When I feel like the bigger issue is, or maybe not issue,

Starting point is 00:43:21 but the most widely used places for performance enhancing is like going to your local marathon or just the person that has enough money in their amateur career that they have a doctor that's doing all these things. It's not even about the highest 1%. It's about kind of having a better conversation about the whatever performance enhancing drugs you're using, because the general population likely doesn't have a good education around how they would use them themselves. And if you go to a triathlon, or you go to a amateur bodybuilding meet, you've got people that are on everything like you're talking about and doing it in the most unhealthy ways. They don't have the brains around it that they can't afford the top scientists to dial

Starting point is 00:44:09 everything in perfectly. And that's probably where a lot of the stigma comes from. Yeah, Anders, I'm glad that you said that. I was actually going to say it specifically because Doug had a point that there's this misconception that, you know, you take these substances and all of a sudden you're the superhero. And the reality is, you know, the majority of people that are actually are using performance enhancement substances are not even competitors. And actually, the literature actually shows this in the medical literature. We actually see it's actually the average gym goer. Actually,

Starting point is 00:44:41 there was a study done not too long ago that the most avid user of anabolic steroids is a male in his early 30s of a higher than average income, higher than average education. And the only reason he's taking it is not even to compete. It's just to look good. Look good. He's trying to get a girl, man. That's it. That's all he wants to compete. It's just to look good. Look good. It's trying to get a girl, man. That's it. That's all he wants to do. He wants to be jacked. And there are a lot of people that are out there.

Starting point is 00:45:09 I mean, if we do surveys in a lot of these local gyms, I mean, you'd be surprised how many individuals, men and women at this point, are taking performance enhancements and substances in same way, shape, or form. And you're right. Often ill prescribed, you know, usually from some, from some other person in the gym or some bodybuilder that they know, who knows where they're getting it from, right? Some underground laboratory. You don't know the purity or the, those particular substances. And they're perhaps not doing health monitoring. They're not monitoring their blood pressure, their blood sugar, their heart rate, their their blood biomarkers, not getting echocardiograms, you know, that there's a lot of variables that are that are there, they may be getting infections from from impure compounds, you know, abscesses from from those things, because they're you don't know

Starting point is 00:46:01 what's in that substance, you don't know how it's compounded so there's a lot of variables that are that are there and the reality is is when you look at most of these people you could never tell that they're taking yeah it's not that sad yeah it's not that easy you know what they are monitoring don't you that biceps are conference. That's what their minds are. That's the most important thing, man. Or lack thereof. Well, this whole idea does seem to be getting more and more acceptance. Like I'm wearing an ADCC shirt right now, which is essentially the no-gi grappling world championships. And this is openly, you know, it's not specifically enhanced,

Starting point is 00:46:40 but there's no rules or guidelines around what you can and can't take. I went to one of those. it looked like a powerlifting competition it smelled like one i don't know why you're purple man yeah but yeah everyone knows that everyone's doing it and so everyone does it because there's no rules to not do it awesome go for it as long as everyone as long as everyone's doing it that's the fairest competition absolutely um i like the free market of it. We should definitely throw it out there. I feel like this idea actually – I interviewed somebody that got busted for something.

Starting point is 00:47:13 I can't remember what it was at the CrossFit Games. And immediately somebody reached out. It was like the superhuman games, something along those lines. Oh, yeah. I remember this a couple years ago and um but they it was like they were trying to make a crossfit for peds like it kind of they wanted people basically like deadlifting thousand plus pounds and then also looking like bodybuilders um and it I don't think it had the athletic appeal

Starting point is 00:47:46 that it sounds like this is going to have. I like the idea of the performance side and not just like the freak show. Yeah, try to take care of them. If we're going to talk about what is the highest level of human performance, we should have a place where we can go have a free market and say,

Starting point is 00:48:02 we'll get after it. Everything's allowed here. Come play. It's going to be fun to watch for sure. One thing I'll be curious is how many athletes decide to cross over. Of course, right now, a lot of them, because it's Olympic year and we got Paris coming up, like none of those people right now are going to say anything.

Starting point is 00:48:17 Can you imagine one of the top potential people that's going to win, right? Favorites. They're not going to come out and say, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to cross over, right? No chance. Not for about four years. Yeah. They're going to wait till after, but it'll be interesting to see who actually does cross over because I think this is the, this is one of the challenges is once they do now they're, they've kind of marked themselves as an individual who has quote unquote crossed to the other side and then uh you know what are the what are the financial repercussions for some of these individuals when when they have you know a nike contract or a a wheaties contract whatever you know fill in fill in the blank contract especially if they don't get any better then

Starting point is 00:48:59 someone's gonna be like uh-huh i see you you. Right. It's a risk. Yeah. It's a one-way door at the moment. How many of those heroes show up on the Wheaties box and then show up at the Enhanced Games four years later? Call Cole Conlon. But, you know, speaking of some of this stuff, I've been watching the track and field. I was a track and field athlete myself, so I love track.

Starting point is 00:49:23 But right now, like, I don't know if you guys saw this 16-year-old kid brings up 45 seconds in the 400 three times in a row. I mean, this is, like, unbelievable. I mean, this kid, I mean, at 16, I mean, I don't know. I think he's all natural. But, I mean, like, what is he doing to be able to run that fast? And then not only – there was another 18-year-old kid who qualified. He placed fifth in the 100, ran a 9.95, but he made the relay team.

Starting point is 00:49:51 18 years old. He's still in high school. He's going to be competing. And I'm thinking, I mean, at one point in time, he had the fastest time in the world as a high school kid. I mean, it's unbelievable. The breeding right now is insane. I don't know if my parents had from, say, 20 to 40, my parents saw the increase in athleticism and size and speed

Starting point is 00:50:17 that I have seen from 20 to 40. The level of athlete right now from when I played sports to where it is now is a completely different human being that has taken over. And then you go and throw in the best scientists in the world into this thing. There is no cap, in my opinion, on where he can go when you start combining all this stuff. Crazy. I know this isn't exactly what you thought we're going to get on here and talk about an hour it was fun though we're very very excited about uh this conversation we don't we don't get

Starting point is 00:50:51 to talk about it much so uh we'll have to have you back on to get more warranty a wheelhouse on on the science of training nutrition oh i love it but we'll uh we'll do it again when you come on and say i just got back from this talk about the enhanced games. Welcome, welcome to our world. It's like, we're, we're, we're sitting around having a cup of coffee here and just wrapping on the

Starting point is 00:51:11 exciting things that you, that you brought up. So we'll definitely have you back on. Where can people kind of see your research, learn a little bit more, more about you? Well, I think the,

Starting point is 00:51:20 the best way to get ahold of me is through my Instagram handle and it's at Dr. G fit and Dr. Spe Fit and doctor spelled out. So D-O-C-T-O-R-G Fit. And I post a lot of educational content on there. In fact, that's that's pretty much all I do. So I have a lot I post on different studies. So there's a lot of things that I that I do on there.

Starting point is 00:51:40 And then I do have a website as well. Dr. G Fit dot com. I have some educational content there for some YouTube videos and things that I'll do there. And then I do have a website as well, drgfit.com. I have some educational content there for some YouTube videos and things that I'll do there. And then, you know, and my university too. So I'm at California State University, San Bernardino, CSUSB, you see it behind me. So I do some cool stuff. We had a great lab here and we have a lot of good work that comes out of here. Not just for me, but for my colleagues as well. So. Awesome. Yeah. We're going to, we'll have you back on so we can talk about all that stuff. Coach Travis Mash.

Starting point is 00:52:08 Hey, in all seriousness, I'm just excited to see what kind of research might come out of this. So we can just find out the truth, like what does happen. We just haven't been able to ethically do any of these studies, but hopefully this will allow us to do some studies that have been much needed. And maybe society can get an idea of what it's really like to be enhanced or not you know anyway mashalee.com you can read my articles on jimwarrior.com don't you feel like a lot of people get mad about steroids because they feel like they had a chance

Starting point is 00:52:37 if somebody else wasn't cheating when they don't realize they maybe just never had a chance i get mad because you know that you know that when we are knowingly cause you saw that doesn't give us a chance to do that in America, but when you're going to get China and the, you know, they've got billions of people protecting this guy, it's, you know, it is frustrating, but I'm excited about this. I want to see the gloves come off and let's see who's the best then. Yeah. I would love to go against china like that right but then you gotta start getting into uh the the gene game that's where things are really gonna get wild

Starting point is 00:53:12 that's where things are gonna get super nuts like yeah you have to inject the gloves off turn you into a super freak what happens when crisper comes in you go oh you want a deadlift 2000 here's the combination what's about three. How about three? Yeah. Why not? Why stop there? I've been talking about that for so long, and I just really haven't seen anything related to it. I don't know if it's all hidden in the shadows or if it's actually. That's because Joe Chang doesn't have parents.

Starting point is 00:53:35 That's the rumor. Rumor has it. Yeah. All right. You can find me, Doug Larson. I am Douglas E. Larson on Instagram. Guillermo, this was a really fun conversation, man. Really, really cool to talk to you here.

Starting point is 00:53:48 Thanks, man. We'll have you back on again. I'm really looking forward to that when the time comes. Thank you, guys. It was fun, and I look forward to hearing it. And good to meet you all. Absolutely. I'm Anders Varner, at Anders Varner.

Starting point is 00:53:59 And we are Barbell Shrugged, the Barbell underscore shrugged. Make sure you head over to rapidealthreport.com. That is where Dr. Andy Galpin has laid out the three-step process that we use to unlock your physiological potential you can access that free video over at rapidhealthreports.com friends we'll see you guys next week

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Barbell Shrugged - [The Enhanced Games] Redefining Athletic Boundaries w/ Dr. Guillermo Escalante, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #757

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Barbell Shrugged - [The Enhanced Games] Redefining Athletic Boundaries w/ Dr. Guillermo Escalante, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #757

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