Barbell Shrugged - The Science of Ketones, Lactic Acid and More w/ Dr. Eddie Jo

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

Dr. Eddie Jo, PhD, CSCS*D, CISSN is Professor of Sport and Exercise Physiology Director of the Human Performance Research Lab at Cal Poly Pomona University in Southern California. Dr. Jo’s expertise is in neuromuscular physiology, energy metabolism, and endocrinology, and he has dedicated much of his research to innovating the science and application of training methodologies, nutritional programming, and dietary supplementation to achieve optimal health and performance. Dr. Jo has become “instafamous” (@dr.eddiejo) with the help of our friend, Dr. Andy Galpin (@drandygalpin), who shared Dr. Jo’s unique, easy-to-read, scientific infographics. In this episode, we look into why lactate is actually good for you, how pain is protecting you, the role of endogenous ketones, performance possibilities of exogenous ketones, and much more. Enjoy! -Mike, Doug and Anders ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please support our partners! Thrive Market is a proud supporter of us here at Barbell Shrugged.  We very much appreciate all they do with us and we’d love for you to support them in return!  Thrive Market has a special offer for you. You get $60 of FREE Organic Groceries + Free Shipping and a 30 day trial, click the link below: https://thrivemarket.com/shrugged How it works:  Users will get $20 off their first 3 orders of $49 or more + free shipping.  No code is necessary because the discount will be applied at checkout. Many of you will be going to the store this week anyway, so why not give Thrive Market a try! Organifi is another great company with whom we’ve chosen to partner.  They offer a premium line of health supplements you can use to optimize your body.  Doug and Mike use their products everyday and highly recommend you give them a try. If you’d like a discount you can use the code “shrugged” to instantly get 20% off your order, click below to check out their supplements: https://organifishop.com Strong Coffee: Code: BBS20 for 20% off Strong Coffee! ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Barbell Shrugged helps people get better.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Barbell Shrugged here: Website: http://www.BarbellShrugged.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast Twitter: http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged Instagram: http://instagram.com/barbellshruggedpodcast

Athletes start adopting it because they feel like, oh, if we do this ketogenic diet, we can ramp up the usage of fats for energy as an energy, such as a fuel and also these ketones. And then now it's hitting the bodybuilding community, right? Ketogenic diets for, you know, getting shredded and all that stuff, increased fat oxidation rates and all that stuff. So I can I can say that some of it's all misapplied, misunderstood. But that's where sort of the ketone, exogenous ketones came about. Can we just supplement the ketones? All right. Yeah. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged.

I'm Mike Hudson. Here with Doug Larson, Anders Varner. And we're hanging out here at Encinitas at Physical Culture 101, one of our favorite places to train. And we have Dr. Eddie Joe here. You're the director of performance at Cal Poly Pomona. Cal Poly. Cal Poly Pomona. And I started following you, I don't know, maybe a year ago, something like that.

Yeah. Dr. Indy Galpin had re-Instagrammed an infographic. And I was like, oh, this is fucking brilliant. It was on lactate. And I was like, okay. So I re-grammed that, started following you. And then I've just really enjoyed everything you put out ever since. I appreciate it.

Yeah. I'm excited. And I think everyone listening is going to get a lot of information here. This is going to be a lot of fun. I actually think if you're listening right now and you have your phone with you, which you more likely do, go check out his channel and see what we're talking about. You've got a bunch of super cool infographics that really break down muscle physiology research into super easy-to-understand terms where instead of reading a big long research

paper, which of course almost nobody wants to do, you can just get the results right there in a single post. So what's your Instagram handle? At Dr. Eddie Joe. At Dr. Eddie Joe. Dr. Eddie Joe, I believe. And they're crispy clean. They all look very nice. It's super pro. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. How much money have you invested in those infographics? Well, if you say time is money, then I put in a lot of money. Yeah, it does take some time, but you know, like I, you know, it started off just taking like figures from my lectures, my PowerPoint lectures and stuff that I, you know, have from my exercise physiology course. Shout out to my students there. And it's just one student who just said, Hey, you know, why don't you post one of these things up? You know, I see some fitness guys on Instagram posting infographics and all that, but they're so generic.

I mean, how many ways can you put a how many? Yeah. How many ways can you say you need a caloric deficit? You know, you see tons of those infographics. And so we need to put something a little bit more sciencey and all that stuff. So they asked me, hey, that lactate study or that lactate, uh, lecture that you did today, that was awesome. That figure, it looks cool. Why don't you go and put it on Instagram? And it took me like a few days and I was just like, eh, no, I don't, I don't have time for that. And so before that, I mean, before I posted that one, um,

that first one, it was just a bunch of random shit, like in the lab, like, Oh, look, we're doing this study. We're doing this study. I mean, I had like 200 followers. And so, um, I was like was like you know what I'll just go and put it up so I cleaned it up put into a little box and then uh I posted this thing on uh on lactate myths and talk about like some of the common myths associated with lactate and lactate accumulation and fatigue and things of that sort and it just blew up and I think uh Andy our friend Andy Galpin I think he he reposted it like you said and he has what like I don't know how many followers, but, you know, he's borderline Insta-famous, I guess. At least relative to people on our field. For the PhD job.

For the PhD job. Yeah, something to brag about, right? Galpin's not a butt model, but he's Insta-famous. He's no Brett Kondras, but yeah, he's Insta-famous. So, yeah, I mean, he posted it. And just sure enough, man, my phone was blowing up. And so I got all these followers and people like it. And I was like, holy crap.

And then this is interesting. And so I told my student, yeah, this is interesting. I just started getting a bunch of followers. And he said, just keep posting your lecture slides. You already created them. So I started doing that. And now I'm like really OCD about it. It has to be all uniform, all perfect, same color schemes and all that. If you take a look at it, it's just like, oh man,

I wish, man. I was like, so when is this going to make me some money? So it's been great. Just keep working for our benefit. I appreciate it. Right. You know, but you know, it takes some time, but you know, it's fun. You know, I feel like this is why we do the research, especially in our field. I mean, we like to publish but you know it's fun you know i feel like this is why we do the research especially in our field i mean we like to publish and you know there's some researchers in our field that love to publish get that number up i got 50 pubs i got 60 and they put it up on a pedestal but for the most part nobody cares outside the scientific community even within the scientific community it's only like a small group of people the other researchers think it's cool yeah other researchers yeah and so to me it's like the reason why we're doing this

research is to help people you know non-scientific uh community like the fitness community sport athletes coaches and all that so i mean biomedical researchers do research so that they can pave the way or innovate new treatment modalities that you know doctors can use and so in the same way if we can't communicate this stuff to people in a way that they can understand what's the whole point of doing this so that really started motivating me to do more of these infographics and you know sometimes i mess up and i get a little too sciencey and i've been writing so many um it's better than to mess up and just say something that's complete bullshit exactly right and just sound like an idiot basically and that's my job so yeah man it's um that's my corner right yeah so yeah man it's uh

you know it was a challenge at first because uh you know i'm so used to writing scientific papers that writing some of this lay stuff it's it's uh you know it was starting to be challenging and so i started you know kind of doing a little, like science slash lay language kind of stuff. And, you know, I think people appreciate it, you know, and, you know, people DM me, Hey, can you like break it down even further? And I'll just take some time to do it. I don't, I don't answer everybody's questions, but, and that's funny when people think like, they get mad. Cause you don't respond to them right away. I was like, dude, you know, like I said, I'm not making money off of this. You, the other thing is, you know, people assume that everyone's like they are. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just because you live on Instagram doesn't mean I live on Instagram. Right, right, right. So even though I really do. Well, as a researcher, too, how many times are you getting somebody that's coming across and you've posted something about, like, lactate or ketones? They're like, no, I know. You're like, dude, I'm a doctor. Like, I've gone to school. i researched this stuff yeah yeah you know i'm thinking that but i i try not to say that

that just makes me sound like a dick so i just like i just say okay and then i'll just put a random like like random comment or an emoticon of a thumbs up or something say all right sure oh man i did this post on you guys ever watched that netflix documentary uh what what the health or something oh my goodness and so brutal something about like eggs and equipment i watched i watched the first like 10 minutes oh my god i was like i was like all right i got a lot of friends they're saying i should watch this like like half of them are vegan and i'm like i'm like all right i'm gonna watch this so that i can have the conversation yeah yeah yeah 10 minutes in i'm like not happening

oh man it's like i was like the entire premise of this entire fucking movie is based on complete and total bullshit oh yeah like just i mean they mask it in a way where oh we're using these doctors and we're these doctors are citing all citing all these papers and stuff, but I actually pulled up all the papers and I'm like, dude, they didn't even interpret this right. I did a post on that and I got so many trolls, man. This one guy was just going crazy, started saying some weird

shit like, I'm in my chakra zone right now, you can't defeat me. I was like, whoa, whoa, this is fun. So I just kept on responding to the guy and then it just became really, like, just comical. You get trolled by a bunch of people that obviously didn't read the same papers that you read. Exactly, yeah. Like, you're a one-in-a-million person that's actually going to go find those papers, read them, and know what they say.

Exactly. And so I think that's a huge part of your PhD training is not really to become an expertise in, like, one, like, specific field of study, but really just to be an expert at, you know, reading papers, doing the analysis, understanding what that analysis represents and to scrutinize some of those papers and some of the designs that we see. And being able to say, no, you know, I don't think you can make this interpretation from these results. And so I think a lot of the infographics that I kind of have envisioned are basically doing just that. Like, you know, you see this study and it's kind of made some, you know, made some rounds in the popular media and people are just interpreting it the wrong way. Right. That's super, super common.

Oh, so common. People say, oh, where's the research? And they post a link to an article. Oh, yeah. That actually has nothing to do with what we're talking about yeah and an actual analysis doesn't even come to that conclusion even the authors don't come to that conclusion right so you see that largely with these like you know um hypertrophy chaining studies these like nutrition studies and ketogenic studies and all that stuff and people are just going like taking off with it

maybe it's because you know industry finds one study they're like we can run with this we can sell this product or we can sell this and i i get it from that standpoint but it really perpetuates this problem of like kind of like the bro science and just like saying oh i uh uh it's it's uh proven by science so i'm right you know i was like did you really read the paper you know and so a lot of my education training is really just a learning how to not be that guy and just be able to provide a correct interpretation of these results. I want to dig into some of this, I guess the myths. We're going to dig into the myths.

Before we go any further, I want to mention and thank our sponsors. We have our first sponsor being Organifi. They make really great supplements. Green juice, red juice. They dump a lot of really good mushrooms and adaptogens and all sorts of fun stuff. Maybe we could talk about that. I don't know.

Maybe. Do you do any nutrition research specifically? Yeah, I do. Anytime someone leads with like, oh, we're about to get into a real talk here. Here we go. Green juice.

Let's go. Yeah, we can talk about that. Sure. But these, just want to mention that, yeah, anyways, we all love Organifi. Yeah, they're awesome. We're using it. Yeah, we do.

Check it out. Go over to. Really simple solution to getting the things you need in a day. Simple. Yeah, especially, again, I think we say this every time. Not everyone has equal access to organic food and all that kind of stuff. So go get some green juice, some red juice, and some of that plant-based protein. You're going to get 20% off.

Use the code SHRUG. Other... Or other sponsor? Other sponsor. That would be Thrive Market. That would be Thrive Market. Yeah, we went up and hung out with Gunner a little while back and checked out their HQ and got to see like what the company culture was like and really get like a behind the scenes look at that whole organization. Really, really impressive. Like it seems like they have a very strong mission. They have very high-quality products, and they're really focused on making sure that everything they sell is only the tip-top highest-quality things

and a very convenient way to buy online if you go to their sites. It's really convenient e-commerce, similar to Costco or to Amazon. You pay a monthly membership membership but then the price of everything is very cheap uh in our case we have free shipping available if you want to check it out where do people go for and uh you might want to watch a coffee there doug i get excited sometimes yeah coffee on the computer yeah you could anyone listening what i like about uh colton behind the camera's like that's my fucking it was just a drop yeah what I love about thrive market is you can just trust that all the

ingredients are super high quality ethically sourced and isn't gonna be full of a bunch of bullshit that's gonna make you sick so if you want to stay healthy make sure to be shopping there thrive ThriveMarket.com slash shrugged. You'll get $60 worth of free groceries, free shipping on the first 30 days. 30-day free trial. Yeah, and they have an annual membership. That's basically how they make their money. So they're giving you the food as cheap as possible.

You have an annual membership, but you'll get that annual membership taken off for the first month. So you can just try it out. Love it. Even talking to Gunner, they were saying they basically break even on all of their food products. And all of their profits come from the membership side of things. So everything you're buying from them is basically at cost for whatever it takes for them to get it to you. And then the membership is what pushes their business. So you can't get that quality of food anywhere else. Yeah i said gunner too it's ganar right excuse me sorry about

that sorry ganar yeah he's tuning in for sure for sure he lives on barbell show every episode the second it comes out if i don't post it right away he texts me yeah all right let's dive into these minutes let's do it yeah uh the one the caught my eye, I think, was one of your first ones, the one that Andy re-grammed and then I re-grammed was the lactate. Yeah. And one of the reasons I – a few things. A, I'll walk through the gym, I'll hear a personal trainer say something, I'm like, that's not quite right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or – and I'm not saying I'm the expert on this. I just – this is one of those things where I don't really know the whole story, and I'm really interested in hearing it, but I also know what's not the whole story. Right, right, right. Or the massage therapist is like, I'm going to work your lactic acid out. Oh, yeah. You know, and I'm like, you have no idea what's going on.

Oh, and you hear sports commentators all the time like, oh, that lactic acid. You know, and so, yeah, you know, it was, like I said, it was just an idea brought up by my students, you know, I teach this stuff in my class, and, you know, I implore debate, so if they, you know, if they want to debate it, then I'm all for it, and then we have a healthy conversation about it, and, you know, you know, so I knew it was a hot topic, and I think the reason, like you said, is because you hear it all the time, man, you go to the i'm not the type when i go to the gym i'm just in you know in my zone i don't like pay attention to anybody else but i do hear it like personal trainers especially talking about lactate this lactate that so what what specifically do do the does the lay person believe about

lactic acid lactate is just bad right lactate is just a burning sensation burning sensation it's the acute fatigue like the fatigue you feel when uh you know you're running a sprint or doing sprint interval training or wing gates or like crossfit or whatever that that fatigue it's not because you're running out of fuel it's because there's something inhibiting your muscle contraction that's what we call acute fatigue and a lot of people attribute that to lactate accumulation and so here's the thing some people think it makes you sore what about lactate l, lactic acid? Is that the same thing? So that's not the same thing, even though it's used synonymously. You know, lactic acid is an acid. It's acidic where lactate

is not. And so lactate is anionic. It's actually not an acidic molecule. And that's what we produce through the breakdown of carbohydrates, glucose, glycogen, and glucose 6-fos, all that stuff, glycolysis. And, you know, know during certain situations we can't really break down those carbohydrates fully through aerobic systems and so we're relying on these fast systems and it kind of it's lower cutting that carbohydrate breakdown short and ending in lactate and then there we have lactate accumulation and so here's the thing it's's like, we're talking about correlation. If we get like kind of statistical here, um, we know like the common thing that people do is they find a correlation between two things and, you know, they say this causes this, but we all know to

some extent, like, um, for the most part that correlations do not establish cause and effect. But here's the thing. The classic, um, finding was that there was a correlation a tight correlation a very strong correlation between lactate accumulation and acute fatigue like the fatigue you feel when you sprint right and so immediately the people saw that and they were like you know what lactate causes uh the acute fatigue lactate causes the burning sensation and all that stuff right but we know that the cause and effect is not established from that correlation and so and you know you see the same thing with like the the whole netflix uh what the health thing we talked about they're talking about all these correlations they're implying cause and effect cause and effect cause and effect so wait so if you did an aerodyne sprint you did like a

one minute sprint as hard as you could you get very very tired by the end of that they draw your blood and they say well your lactate went up really really high so therefore lactate the researchers didn't say this but like people think when they see this right therefore since lactate went up that's what made you tired exactly but if they tested any if they tested hundreds of other things probably some other things would be going up as well right but they only test this one thing well you say so that's what they attribute to uh your heart rate goes up your muscle blood flow goes up so there's a correlation between fatigue and your muscle blood flow going on so is that what's causing the fatigue no it's not right and so it's mostly heart rate yeah so they wanted to attribute to lactate and lactate accumulation and so uh what we find was that what

we found was that you know it's not yes there is a correlation but there is no cause and effect there okay and so we like dig deeper into what's causing this acute fatigue effect, and it has everything to do with pH, acidity. And so cells can only function as enzymes that run the cell, metabolism of the cells, the pathways that produce ATP, which is our cell's energy currency for contraction, in the case of a muscle cell, that all needs to be working fine so that you have full functional capacity of your muscles but during these high intensity max effort exercises something is inhibiting that and so that is really because the acidic nature that is kind of brought upon

about these types of muscle activities these high intensity activities and so um you know with that drop in ph and increase in acidity you have things like fatigue and inhibition of muscle functionality you have things like pain or we call it what the burning sensation and all that stuff and the thing is people thought well now well we can see this correlation between lactate accumulation and that and that those effects and so lactate is causing that drop in ph causing that acidity but the more and more research we're like well it's not actually and so we studied lactate first and we're like well lactate about 75 to 80 percent of that is actually reused like i said it's just carb breakdown that is cut short so it has potential energy within that molecule we can process it even more and get more atp produced from it so lactate's a

yeah it's a fuel yeah lactate is a usable fuel source, especially for type 1 fibers and cardiac muscle cells. That's called the Cori cycle? Not the Cori cycle, but it's part of the lactate shuttle system, right? And so, yeah, lactate does it clear, not for the purpose of relieving the burning sensation and relieving fatigue effects, but it's because it circulates. It's a fuel source that different tissues in the body can use, right? So having lactate is a good thing oh yeah and they try to make lactate supplements but because of the negative connotation associated with lactate it just didn't just didn't work right would that be like pyruvate and things like that yeah yeah so you know if you they thought well

if you supplement a lot of things in the supplement industry if you supplement like something that like a fuel source something that could support atp production well that could have some performance benefits so they saw this like scientists saw well lactate is a fuel source why not why can't we turn it into a supplement so you know there's some mixed research on that but um it just you know there's no point in continuing doing this research because the industry has already made their mind up about lactate the and the industry's driven by you know the people's interest and they're like no up about lactate and the industries driven by, you know, the people's interest. And they're like, no, lactate's bad, right? People's interest is not always on point.

Yeah. So what's the difference between lactate? Lactate is used as a fuel. It's basically something that didn't get all the way used. Right, exactly, yeah. It didn't get all the way used, and now it's going to recirculate for fuel for. Right, for more ATP production. Yep.

Right? And that could fuel muscles and some other tissues. And a quarter of that lactate is recycled to form more glucose in the liver, right? So your body doesn't like to waste things that are valuable, especially something that's dense with energy. And so we're reusing that and recycling it, right? So people think it just disappears or just gets cleared. And you ask them, well, where does it get cleared to? And they're, oh, no, it and recycling it, right? So people think it just disappears or just gets cleared. And you ask them, well, where does it get cleared to? And they're, oh, no, it just gets cleared, right?

And so it's actually reused, right? And so what's causing this acidity? And so we take a look at it, and it's really because you're using ATP in your muscle cells during high activities, high muscular activities, like during high- to max effort exercise, you're breaking down these ATPs through a process called ATP hydrolysis at a very, very fast rate. And through that process, you're actually releasing these acidic protons, positively charged hydrogen ions. And, you know, the pH will drop if the protons start to accumulate. And that's really where that acute fatigue mechanism is sort of based on is that proton accumulation. So that's why when we work out really hard and we're doing high-intensity exercise,

sprints and things of that sort, that's why we feel those effects. Too many protons. Too many protons, man, and that's it right there. I want to hear the personal trainer say that. Yeah, too many protons, right? Too many protons, bro. Yeah, I don't recommend you ever using that explanation with your general client but what does that mean yeah it's like i actually don't know what i'm talking about but i heard it on barbell shrug yeah go follow this instagram

account real quick yeah and so during these types of environments high intensity environments there's a lot of things contributing to other than the rapid atp breakdown and so we have this acute fatigue and the beauty of nature is why do we have this acute fatigue and the beauty of nature is why do we have this acute fatigue, um, um, process? Why do we have situations where, where something is inhibiting us from continuing to, uh, engage in that high, high muscle activity. And you have to think about it. It's, it's a protective mechanism because when you're, when you're exercising above your anaerobic threshold, like doing max efforts, sprints, your CrossFits and all that stuff, it's a metabolically stressful environment. And what I mean by that is that you're lowering that pH.

You're creating this acidic environment, which is damaging to cells. And so as a protective mechanism, your body tries to stop the stress that is causing that, right? So it's like a biological stop signal. And the burning sensation is the same thing. We think about pain. What is pain from a biological standpoint? It's a protective mechanism, right? It's a message.

Yeah, it's a message telling you, and we don't like pain, and there's a reason why we don't like pain, at least for most people. I don't know if some people are into that stuff, but, you know, right? It depends on what night of the week it is. Right, right. So there's a reason why we don't like pain is because we don't want to keep doing what's causing that pain right so we have all these signals telling us to stop because this is stressful and so somewhere along the lines we

just attributed all that to lactate and so i wanted to clarify that that lactate is not the culprit it's not a negative thing it's something that your body naturally produces especially during high to max effort exercise and we like to reuse it we're not going to waste it and that's not a negative thing. It's something that your body naturally produces, especially during high to max effort exercise. And we like to reuse it. We're not going to waste it. And that's not what's causing us to fatigue and to feel that burning sensation. And so I put that out there. And then another thing was like lactate causes, you know, soreness and all that stuff, DOMS and all that stuff.

And that just from a scientific perspective, it makes absolutely no sense, you know. And so I don't know where that came from. I know and so i don't know where that came from i don't know where that came from so i think people i think people think yeah okay i feel this burning sensation right and that that must cause me to get sore like there's some there's some intuitiveness to that like okay it hurts right now and so it's going to hurt later because it hurts right now right yeah you know i mean that that's uh you know i i think that's a very um like a burn my muscle the muscles burning due to uh due to uh due to so it's uh the the the drop in ph the the the acidification and you know those are triggering these sensory neurons that's

feeling pretty much being that signal is being registered as pain, you know? Protective mechanism. Stop what you're doing because it's stressful. So what does that have to do with muscle soreness? Very little, man. I mean, I think, you know, I guess it's a little bit of general intuition where you think, oh, my muscles are burning. So that might be what's causing the soreness a couple days later. Kind of like if you like like burn like skin and

then it's going to hurt right it's not really necessarily uh connected it may be indirectly connected so you know kind of going with the whole topic of soreness uh you know we call it delayed onset muscle soreness and all that and and i would say uh there's a large amount of uh people especially in the fitness community and you know know, your, your massage therapist and, you know, maybe even some medical practitioners that would say, oh, it's just a lactate buildup. Right. Not to say that's like the hundred, not to say that they're saying that that's, you know, a hundred percent what's causing it, but they'll say something like that, right? Lactate buildup. And, you know, like, you know, TV, sports commentators will say, yeah, they didn't get to clear that lactate or something like that.

Right. And so and we hear it all the time. And so the soreness really is not caused by lactate accumulating in that area. I mean, lactate is going to be used by the body. It's going to circulate. And hypothetically, even if it did get trapped or accumulated in that area, it wouldn't have anything to do with triggering that pain, that soreness. Right. And so what's causing this soreness here? And so you have to understand that when muscles become damaged, like physically damaged because you're doing high tension exercise, you're causing tears, just like when you cut your

skin, you know? And so there's going to be a response to that, right? An immune response to clean it up and heal it. So why does it sometimes why does the pain come maybe two days later instead of just like right away why right and so why is it delayed onset muscle soreness instead of just friday right and yeah right and sometimes you wake up the next day and you're like oh wow you're very sore at all next thing you're like god i'm so sore like why is there a delay right and i get that question all the time and it's really directly related to the severity of damage. So when you have severe damage, meaning like you tore your muscles, right? You feel it right away as opposed to just doing a heavy exercise and maybe undergoing some minor damage.

You feel it a couple of days later, right? So it has to do with that acute inflammatory response as I talked about earlier. And so with this acute inflammatory response, you're releasing some of these molecules. These are what are called pro-inflammatory molecules, and they start to trigger all these different things. Like I said, primary is going to start the healing process, cleaning up the area, start the healing process, but also it can interact with sensory neurons.

And these sensory neurons basically send information from the muscle area to the central nervous system, and then we register it as something, right? Sensation perhaps. And so these, these, these pro-inflammatory molecules that are released can interact with those sensory neurons to tell us that, you know, or to, to send a signal to the brain saying, and the brain registers it as pain, soreness, right? And sometimes that takes time, right?

And so, yeah, a couple of later, you might feel soreness, but that's really because the process of healing that inflammatory response is just starting, right? And so when you have more severe damage, then, you know, that's instantaneous, right? Yeah. Are anti-inflammatories killing the feedback loop? It could. It could blunt that response, right? So that's why a lot of people kind of resort to, you know, anti-inflammatory drugs and things of that sort to minimize that soreness effect. And so it's just that pathway that you're sort of blocking there.

But like we said before, what implications does that have to actually to the healing process? And so we don't know. There's some hints that show that it might blunt the healing process. Because I've had a lot of people say, hey hey take anti-inflammatories right after you train and i'm kind and i've actually had conversations with people who they're more from the marketing department of a supplement company and they're like this is good for this i'm like i yeah i i'm not like a phd but i also am not stupid like i'm not an idiot so you know i'm not i've tried to explain to people i was like i actually think some inflammation after training can be a really good thing and i'm not an idiot. So, you know, I'm not, I've tried to explain to people, I was like, I actually think some inflammation after training can be a really good thing.

And I'm not sure. And I don't know. And I know you don't know. You're just repeating what you were told. Well, it's certainly not about just about inflammation as well. Like a lot of times I've seen research that says if you take ibuprofen post-training, it can inhibit muscle recovery. But at the same time, post-workout shakes, especially post-workout carbohydrate ingestion,

it's also anti-inflammatory, which isn't why most people take it. But if carbohydrates are anti-inflammatory post-workout, but that tends to increase performance, recovery, future muscle mass. But NSAIDs, ibuprofen,rofen naproxen whatever they tend to decrease muscle recovery then it can't just be about inflammation if one hurts muscle recovery and it's anti-inflammatory and one helps muscle recovery and it's also anti-inflammatory there's more to the story there of course and there's a host of pathways that are there and we just have to figure out ways to test it and discover and measure it right and so you know I think the

research is is catching up and so it's kind of releasing more information so that we have a better understanding of what's going on. But, you know, going back to the whole lactate thing, there's, I mean, that myth has died a long time ago, but it's still being talked about. Not in everybody's mind. Yeah. Not in everybody's mind, but you know, at least from the scientific community, you know, there's no, there's no connection there, you you know and so we just always have to think of soreness that's pain that's a sense that's sensory information right so what's triggering those nerves and so we see these nerves at the end of these nerves there's these receptors called nociceptors and they're all they have all these channels that are sensitive to little things right one

is sensitive to ph when ph levels drop it triggers it when uh when you have inflammation those inflammatory molecules can trigger it when you have inflammation, those inflammatory molecules can trigger it. When you have free radicals that are released, which is natural part of the healing process, right? It triggers it, right? So you have all these things triggering this soreness. And again, from a biological standpoint, what is, why do we have soreness? What is this? We don't really think about it. We just know it's there and it's not very pleasing, right? But again, from a biological standpoint, it's it's just hey let's not mess with this part of my body for now while i'm trying to heal it right let's not continue to damage it right

but i think we're so caught up on just like trying to stop that soreness or inhibit that soreness and we don't know what's happening to that whole healing process right you may be doing something good you may not be you may be doing something that's going to slow down your progress long term right and you can use like say again going back to skin physio you can put a cream on there that might help reduce the pain but it's not like you mean it's not like facilitating or speeding up the actual recovery the healing of the tissue right it's probably at the same rate or maybe even slowing down who knows but you know the thing is muscles you know we can't like open up our skin see what's going on anytime i'm interrupting a feedback loop i i see that as a potential danger right you know and uh you know when i say like oh so what do you think what's

the best recovery recovery tool and people hate it when i say this because it's not fancy and it's like no one has ever ever in history argued against good old-fashioned rest and proper nutritional intake no one wants no one will argue that but it's boring right it's so boring right given uh giving your muscles rest not stressing it uh you know and causing more damage and giving some building blocks so that it can rebuild and i want results now yeah yeah people hate that right and so they want what's the latest supplement i can take what's the latest latest technique i can do and you know it's just but there's so much debate around those things, but there's never a lot of debate on just resting, right? I love that you compare all of that to, like, getting a sunburn.

Because if you, like, rub aloe on a sunburn, I always wonder, like, how much is this really speeding up this process? Is it a day, like an hour? Do I feel pain in 20 minutes less? Or, like, what's really going on? It all depends on if a hot chick is putting it on. That's been my experience. That's the down regulation piece.

Yeah, there you go. It's an up regulation. You can learn a lot about muscle physiology and muscle recovery and all that stuff just by observing your skin when it's damaged because it undergoes damage all the time. I use it as an example in my classes all the time. It clicks with the students. Like, yeah well it makes it different for muscle it's not like some kind of super special cell that's gonna respond differently right and so you know in terms of damage and healing it's really the same process for any cell so we got to kind of observe that and just

sort of figure well you know there's there's further questions that we need to ask about muscle recovery is all the stuff that's out there that's supposedly supposed to enhance muscle recovery is it actually heal facilitating that healing process or is it just slowing it down and so i want to look at the long-term effects here i want to see like actual the physical characteristics of the muscle with someone taking some anti-inflammatory drugs or some type of anti-inflammatory agent compared to say like a placebo control or something like that and just see what's going on put them through like a 12-week training program hardcore training program just see what's going on with their muscles right is it actually slowing down healing

is it slowing down adaptation uh yeah we just have to figure that out do you where you're gonna find people to participate for 12 weeks yeah if you're not paying them right it's really hard but uh you get a free training program yeah you know i try to sell it that way do a free body comp scan dexa scan or something like that they usually all right let's do it oh yeah we did a lot of that when we were in school is like uh you know some studies paid some didn't but i was getting a lot of data on my own body the whole time that was yeah i feel like that was I feel like that was one of the most valuable things I got by going to school was participating in the studies, being a lab rat, and then just asking a lot of questions while I was there.

Like, what are we looking at? Why? What's the hypothesis? This is great. Sometimes you get like $100. In college, you're like, that's like a 25% bump in my income. Groceries. That's funny you said that.

We once drove 500 miles for a $100 study. That's funny you say that because we did a study not too long ago, and then it was a training study, like eight weeks or something like that. And the sponsors for the study were funding the study. They didn't budget in compensation. And then I was like, you know, we're not getting a lot of subjects for this, not a lot of interest. And so they said they say okay we'll say we'll pay each subject 100 bucks as soon as i put that out there so many emails yeah all cars will do anything for

a hundred yeah just like give blood for like 50 bucks a week oh yeah this is important stuff this is the only source of income yeah terrible were they doing what was it the plasma yeah that was towards the income. Yeah. Terrible. What is it? The plasma? Yeah. That was the one. Oh, my God. Like an hour. I'd get my studying in all at the same time. Yeah. Or you'd give it like a pint.

I don't know what it was. They just told me they'd give me 50 bucks. I would have done anything. Just take as much as you want. They'd have to recycle the whole thing. I don't know. It's 50 bucks. I'll make more.

Who knows what they were putting back in. Let's take a break. When we come back, I want to talk about ketones because that's a hot topic were putting back in. Let's take a break. When we come back, I want to talk about ketones because that's a hot topic right now. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Thanks for watching the show. If you'd like to learn more about how to improve your snatch, clean, and jerk, we have a free 55-page e-book you can get at flightweightlifting.com.

It has sample programming specifically for weightlifting weightlifting how-to technique videos and other tips on how to improve all of your lifts go to flightweightlifting.com and you can download that ebook for free download it now all right and we're back with dr eddie joe talking about science yes sir of muscle physiology exercise all that stuff all that stuff you're you're like a genius i love it um and you know we we just covered uh delayed onset muscle soreness doms we covered the lactate myths that shit's not trapped in your body. Long story short. And now I want to find out about ketones because that's all the rage right now. I mean, I've been taking them here and there.

And there's a lot of interest in ketone supplementation, exogenous ketones, if you want to get fancy with terms and all that. So, yeah. I want to talk about exogenous ketones and then also is it butyric acid? Does that cause your liver to create more ketones as well um so in terms of ketogenesis like naturally producing ketones within the body so endogenously uh that usually happens when you're carb depleted and so we have different cells in our body like brain cells that you need carb like glucose right to as fuel so it can you know generate the uh the atp needed to run and all that stuff and so um the thing is uh when we're carb depleted like we're glycogen depleted our cells are depleted

that like our liver cells and we don't have uh we need to just keep maintaining that glucose levels now we need to start uh utilizing other fuel sources so like fats right we start ramping up fat fat metal fat oxidation breaking down fat so they can, we can, uh, release some energy and all that. So during that process, we start to also produce ketones. Um, so it's part of that fat metabolism pathway where, uh, it, some of it goes into ketogenesis and we produce these ketone bodies and we had three specific ones. And so, um, the reason why we do that endogenously, yeah, it's our body. And so, um, the thing is, the reason why we do that. Three different types of ketone bodies? Endogenously, yeah. It's our body. And so the thing is, the reason why we do that is because our brain can only utilize glucose or ketones.

It can't utilize fats. And so that's just kind of one way that our body sort of innately sort of responds to this carb-depleted state so that we can have brain food, right? And so. I've heard that ketones are better for for energy for the brain than glucose yeah there's some argument there that's kind of where the whole idea of the ketogenic diet sort of was born you know um you know to help uh relief uh the really that released the the risk of seizures and things of that sort and actually i think it was actually started when uh i think it was actually started when,

I think it was like Navy SEALs or something like that. They're using these rebreathers when they scuba dive because they can't create bubbles and all that stuff. And there was like a high prevalence of seizures with these military soldiers. And so, you know, this physician. Seizures underwater while you're scuba diving. So they started coming up with, well, how can we, maybe the brain is getting depleted of of energy substrate fuel right and so they they thought of this ketogenic diet to uh look to see if people like that's the concern that came out of all that right yeah yeah

so it's sort of you know you get one thing we see oh wow this is great and then you know the athletes start adopting it because they feel like oh if, if we do this ketogenic diet, we can ramp up the usage of fats as an energy, such as a fuel, and also these ketones. And then now it's hitting the bodybuilding community, right? Ketogenic diets for getting shredded and all that stuff, increased fat oxidation rates and all that stuff. So I can say that some of it's all misapplied, misunderstood, but that's where sort of the ketone exogenous ketones, uh, came about, you know, can we just supplement the

ketones? I want to rewind real quick. You said there was three different types of ketones your body produces. So the main one, so they're, they're not a whole lot of difference. The main one is beta hydroxy methobutyrate. So that's the one that typically we would consume as a, you know, as a supplement. Andrew's favorite one. Yeah, of course. I have some of those. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So, so yeah, we would use this ketone exogenously. And so the whole idea behind that is that can we just provide an alternative fuel source for our muscles to utilize? Because our muscles can also utilize ketones. And so that's kind of like the premise of a lot of these ergogenic supplements like creatine and all that stuff to provide more support for atp production you know if we can provide more um more of this fuel source could we actually enhance performance so if i'm not if i'm not ketogenic if i'm not uh

if i'm still eating carbs and i'm relying on glucose for fuel, introducing exogenous ketones, there could be a benefit. Right, right. And so we're starting to see some. But it may not be fat burning benefit. No, no. Is it like a cognition benefit? Perhaps, perhaps. And so, you know, it's sort of kind of a new area of research right now. And I think, you know, of course, when the industry finds out about like a research study that shows, oh, this exogenous supplement seems to have these benefits in terms of performance.

They'll take that one study and try to run with it. Right. And so we don't have a huge body of research looking at exogenous ketones. There's not a lot of there's not a lot of research on it. But some of the research there is they're comprehensive enough to get minds thinking, like, hmm, this might be worth looking into, right? And so it makes sense, logically speaking, if we can introduce an alternative fuel source, what kind of benefits would it have in terms of muscle physiology, muscle bioenergetics, and performance, right? We can have an alternative fuel source. We can help preserve muscle glycogen, which is a primary fuel for your muscles during exercise. And could that translate to overall increase in performance capacity?

So these are the questions that we have. And so that kind of led to my recent study looking at just one week of ketone supplementation and see what does that do in terms of performance in athletes. And so we're currently collecting data on that. So some supplements, like creatine as an example, you can supplement with exogenous creatine, um, or you can get it naturally through like you eat a steak, you get some creatine along with the steak. Is it like that for, for ketones as well? Like you naturally produce them if you're, if you're, um, in ketosis, but do you get exogenous ketones in any natural food sources? Not really. Not really, yeah. So ketones, it's really hard to get.

I'm not even 100% sure on this, but I think it is pretty difficult to get through just regular foods. And so it's something that is mostly produced endogenously, especially in the liver. And so we figured out a way to turn it into a supplement, and we want to see what that does. Yeah, I may be saying the wrong thing here, we figured out a way to turn it into a supplement and we want to see what that does yeah i i'm maybe saying the wrong thing here but but is it butyric acid that would help like so if you're

already a little bit carb depleted is there anything like butyric acid you could take that would cause the liver to produce more ketones or am i am i thinking of something different yeah i think uh yeah not to my knowledge i think it's really really where we find this ramped-up ketogenesis, this formation of ketones, is just really when you're carb-depleted. So you're on like a high-fat, low-carb or zero-carb diet kind of thing. That's going to ramp up the fat oxidation rate, and as a result, you're going to produce these ketones. And so, yeah, that's one easy way to ramp up your ketone production within your body.

So exogenous ketones could help with performance and cognition and potentially muscle. Potentially, yeah. Potentially muscle. I've noticed, I've taken them and noticed some benefit. I wouldn't say it was earth shattering. There's other things that have been earth shattering by comparison. Nothing legal. And the banned substances are the best, really.

Let's just be real. But I guess a lot of people think they're going to take exogenous ketones and burn more fat. And you're saying that's not the case. So it may improve performance, but if you want to burn fat, you actually have to pull the carbs out of your diet. Right. I mean, you have to stay on a, the thing is from a performance standpoint, we look at ketogenic diets and there's so much, the results are so mixed, right? I think it's safe to say at this point that, you know, it might not be worth it. I mean, we're not getting some significant benefits, especially endurance athletes from a ketogenic diet. And it largely has to do with the fact that your carb depleted in order for you to ramp up the keto, uh,ogenesis you have to deplete your cells and carbs and that's going to affect your muscle

glycogen levels and that's going to affect performance right so it's like you know maybe that's what's explaining these mixed results and so this is kind of where ketones come in exogenous ketones well instead of doing it through a nutritional route why not we just keep a balanced diet a good diet that's known to help like these endurance athletes and just take more of the ketones in through a supplement would that have a benefit and so that's sort of like the sort of focus right now to see does that even work didn't a lot of this stuff come out of kind of the medical community and a lot of cancer research and now it's being applied to the performance side of things yeah it's kind of funny how that works

right we sort of start in one area and it's sort of like there's maybe a couple signs of i wonder what that how that works and say the performance area or the body composition area and so many sports are played where in this like anabolic zone where carbohydrates are needed for recovery and now i've got a bunch of athletes like crossfitters that are out there not eating carbohydrates trying to run on 200 grams of fat a day and it's it gets right so it's all in context you know you would say like yeah it's good to have some carbs in your diet so essentially to refill your muscles right with glycogen because you're utilizing it right and so i mean uh i would say it's an important part of your diet at least for someone who's uh who's performing at high levels and all that.

But then someone will come and say, well, a high-carb diet, well, doesn't that make you fat and all that stuff, some BS like that? I'm like, where did that come from, right? I'm talking about performance here. Now you're just taking all that information out of content. That happens a lot, right? And so you need to kind of zone in on, like, what are we actually talking about here? Are we talking about performance? Are we talking about body composition? Are actually talking about here are we talking about performance are we talking about body composition are we talking about the like

medicine what are we talking about here so yeah i think um you know in terms of the ketone supplement right right now we're we're strictly focused on its performance benefits and so i mean we don't know what how that works in in terms of body composition and physique and all that you get shredded too who knows who knows we just have to put it to the test. So, yeah, it's a very new area of research that I'm very interested in. And it just all started with me just reading a paper. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting, you know? And so we took a paper and then we're like, you know what?

I think I see some flaws in there, which all papers have. And I feel like I can make it better. And so we designed a new study, very similar. And then we just want to see what the performance outcomes are. We skipped all the other stuff. We're not doing any kind of, you know, tissue analysis and all that. We just want to see, do you perform better after a week of ketone supplementation on a balanced diet? And that's all we wanted to see. And so that's sort of our preliminary study. If we find something cool, then we'll start digging in deeper. Right. And so kind of look forward to more ketone research coming out. It's funny how industry works though.

It's like you start selling all this stuff and it's hot. And when I do consulting with like the supplement industry, it's like, what about ketones? What about ketones? And I show them like the limited body of research, uh, that may show some benefits and that's all they need. Right. I only need one study. Right. And I will change my whole life. Right. So that's just how it's been, right? And it's so backwards here. It's like in terms of sports supplementation,

you start selling stuff based off of like maybe one or two studies and then the research catches up, right? And then eventually things stop coming, like get off the shelves, they stop selling it because the research catches up. So hopefully And then eventually things stop coming, like get off the shelves. They stop selling it because the research catches up. So hopefully, you know, I don't know. I mean, I take an unbiased approach. I just want to see, you know? And so for now, I'm pretty sure the ketone supplement industry will keep ramping up

and people will take a look at it and try it. We'll see. What supplements have you seen that are just, they've got a ton of evidence that they work but aren't being used? Right. So the funny thing is we all know that there's, like, creatine has sort of stood the test of time, right? Creatine monohydrate. And, you know, generally speaking, there's about, like, 70% of the literature out there on creatine as it relates to performance showing some type of positive effect albeit small but there's some positive effects and for some athletes who are competing with other athletes

that are almost from a performance capacity standpoint almost the same i mean they're looking for that edge right and so you know to me it's like there's a reason why creatine has to test the time you know because there's more and more research that shows its benefits even outside of performance and so we see that creatine is always sort of a staple in the sports supplement industry. And, you know, I don't ever advocate for any supplements. I don't say take this, take this, take this, because it is a supplement. You'd be surprised when someone asked me about creatine or any supplement. And my question to them in return is, well, well, how do you train? How do you eat? And they go, you know, I hit the gym like three times

a week and you know not giving me any description of what their training looks like and then oh you know i walk around in circles yeah yeah yeah i i go do some weights i lift and then i uh you know eat a balanced diet and i'm like okay so obviously you don't have a training program or a dietary program which kind of goes uh together and so i said that's the main question so that's the main question you need to you need to first ask not what supplement, but in any case, in terms of supplement, if you're, you know, you got your training program, you got your dietary program, and you're looking for that little edge. I always, uh, for, I find myself always advocating for

creatine, you know, just because the research, there's a large body research that support it. And we, I want to go that route. I don't want to just say, oh, this one study, which a lot of people do, right? This one study shows this supplement to work, so you should take it, right? And, you know, they might even take that study out of context and apply it the wrong way. But I want to look at the body of research that point towards the same conclusion. And that builds confidence for me to say, yeah, it might work for you. When you mention a balanced diet when you're doing these things, you've mentioned a couple times, what are you looking for in that

to actually use that as kind of the control and then what you're testing? So the balanced diet, I mean, that's such a generalized term, and I know everybody uses it, but diet is relative to the individual and what they want to do, right? So in any case, I never advocate for being depleted or neglecting any one of those macronutrients. Right. I just don't believe in that. And so, you know, for me, as balance is not neglecting any of the nutrients. Right. And so you can go high protein, like, you know, maybe 20 percent carbs or your caloric intake and the rest of that.

So you can go like, you know, lower protein or moderate protein, moderate fat and moderate carbs, like all balanced out like that. But as long as you're not neglecting any of those and you're taking in those nutrients because your body's going to use it, you know, it's, it's good stuff for your body. Your body wants to have those things and use it. So in your experiments, you're adding the ketones to a balanced diet where there are already carbohydrates present. Right. So you don't have to add this stuff into a fasted state. Exactly.

And so we want to see, we do dietary records and see what their diet looks like, right? We, you know, we take a good record of it. And so if anyone's going on a ketogenic diet already, they're not going to be eligible for the study. I could totally confound the results, obviously. So we look for certain things. And so we want to make sure the most part that this is the diet that they've So we look for certain things. And so, um, we want to make sure the most part that this is the diet that they've been going on for a very long time. And then we want them to maintain that because we don't want to change their diet because your body's going to respond immediately to a change in that diet. If all of a sudden they stop eating

carbs and your body's going to go under some type of stress to respond to that. Right. And so we try to maintain that diet. We're trying to make sure we, we uh we record it and document it and that's that's hard in itself but um you know uh anytime we see anybody say within a one-week period always then one day they just didn't eat anything and they never do that then we have to drop them from the study because that could affect the outcomes right so yeah there's a lot obviously that goes into these type of supplemental research a lot of control and it's there's always limitations man and someone could always like point that out like you know i'll post a study that i did and then someone will like point out a limitation that's a limitation in every single study and i'm like oh really you know so how would

you suggest we control for that and then they wouldn't really have an answer yeah and so yeah it's tough but you know we do our best we can so that's why we have to look at like a body of research that points towards the same conclusion not like just one single study because that single study may just be limited to just males but females might respond differently or someone who has uh you know high carb divers someone you know how does that really work for someone who's on a carb depleted diet, you know? And so, you know, we can't, uh, we can't extrapolate everything from one study, so we just gotta be careful. But I think as people in general, we're just impatient. We just want something. Totally. Yeah. So want the edge. Yeah. How many, uh, how many studies or how do you, how do you define, you know, there's this body of research to support something.

Yeah. A hundred studies, a thousand studies. Is there, you know, a meta this body of research to support something yeah that's 100 studies a thousand studies is there you know a meta-analysis right that's you know meta-analysis i'm glad that you brought that up a meta-analysis is a good way to to kind of see what the research says and it's just like we just hope that we have people that like doing that kind of stuff right doing statistics and all that looking at all the papers so i do actually rely on meta-analysis quite a bit and review papers and things like that. So I want someone else to look at all the research and tell me what's going on. Can you explain to the viewers what that is? A meta-analysis is basically sort of another secondary analysis on data that's already been published.

So you take a study and you take their data, their results, you document it, you record it and say to a spreadsheet. And then you get another study that kind of looked at the same thing. You have some criteria as you have to reject some studies and you can include some studies. And you compile all these results, say for like one measure, like performance, some performance measure, right? And then you do a secondary analysis on those numbers and see, is there an effect? Is there an actual practical effect? Does it translate to actual performance in real life? And sometimes we see all these studies that say, oh insight like what does it mean practically is it practically relevant does it mean that we're going to get faster adaptations does it mean we're going to beat out the next guy and so these main analysis are helpful in that regard at least in the context of you know this topic and so

um yeah uh you know there is really no number we can't say a thousand studies that's it there really is no like uh like actual number that we decided well hey this isn't enough to say that you know this works right so we sort of have to kind of just see it like we sort of backtrack it and we just kind of look up all these research studies that sort of investigated the same thing and if we're seeing like consistent results and uh you know over time like three years three years, four years, five years, as they're researching these and we see consistent outcomes, then you can sort of start thinking like, you know what, I think this is something that could be applied and this is something

that could possibly benefit athletes. So, yeah, I think even scientists are guilty of just taking one study and getting really excited, especially if it's their own study, you know, know uh classic case hmv you know like remember that craze like oh yeah yeah we get one person like getting all these phenomenal results with it and then they're just a huge advocate of it they said they promote it and the industry wants to partner when they sell it and all that stuff and you know that's saying you, they have a supplement company. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, I think even scientists need to be careful, you know, like, you know, it's just one study.

Let's just keep taking. Let's just keep expanding if you're interested enough. And that's sort of what I'm doing. You know, I'm not really discounting its effects or advocating. I just want to see what's going on, you know, so that I can share and make an infographic share with the public. Like, hey, look, you know, it seems like you have a decent body of research that shows this. And actually tell them how many research studies have been done, you know. I mean, I've taken supplements that have a ton of research to back it up. And I'm like, I really don't notice much.

And then I'll take some supplements that don't have much research to back it up and feel amazing. So, I mean mean i think everybody in addition to that just need to be paying paying attention to what's happening with themselves and we have to keep it together and to count like anecdotes right you know i never am a guy that says no it's all about science all about science well if someone feels good i mean who am i to say and it's not harmful to their body i'm like who am i to say like oh yeah it's useless it's bad because it's one or two couple research studies said it's not no it's not going to do anything right and so you know i don't bother anybody who wants to take these like polyphenols or these antioxidant supplements and

all that stuff that may not have a lot of research backing but they feel good i mean a placebo affects a real thing right and so you know like it's probably the the most important thing yeah i mean really so as long as they feel good i mean and it's probably the the most important thing yeah i mean really so as long as they feel good i mean and it's not harmful like i said then go for it yeah yeah spend your money well for many of these things as well there's not just going to be one thing that something does like if you say that that eating a steak is going to help build muscle mass and then you see a paper that says that eating steak doesn't help you improve muscle mass it doesn't automatically mean that that steak is now bad for you and completely worthless.

There's other things that eating a steak might potentially do for you from, you know, nourishing all the other tissues of your body that you're not really thinking about, from your skin to your nails to your eyes or whatever else. So just because you're siloing one benefit and that benefit didn't come through doesn't mean that something is worthless. Right. And it's really important, even as scientists and just consumers, we got to be open-minded. We can't just be so narrow-minded. And I think that happens a lot in sport and fitness where we get so focused on just like, what's the effects on muscle, right?

Right. What's the effect on performance where we don't really look at, I mean, our whole body is made up of multiple organs that are integrated, that communicate with one another, that work together. So we kind of have to look at our body from a more holistic approach. And so, you know, yeah yeah i'm guilty of that too i get so fascinated by its effects on this one organ system like muscle and i just like focus focus focus and i kind of neglect well what about all the other tissues and cells in the body right what's happening there what's

happening to overall body metabolism not just metabolism in the muscle and so you know uh i think it's really important for us to recognize that and just be more open-minded and do more integrated biology integrative physiology as opposed to just looking at one one organ system you know you know but at the end of day people want to know at least in this community people want to know doesn't make me faster doesn't make me stronger it doesn't make me you know jump or whatever you know perform better and so I like to do a lot of studies that just kind of measured that you know Sometimes people don't care what happens in the cells, you know, and so I you know, I I agree with that to some extent

What just happens with the whole body, you know, and so yeah, so simple measures or sometimes I mean, I'm a simpleton I like I like having these simple measures and just you know, people could actually read the paper and understand what we measured. Just the abstract. Yeah, just the abstract. Sorry. Learned an abstract and I'm out. I'm not reading abstracts anymore. I got infographics.

Right? Abstracts are long and they're wordy. Two or three paragraphs at a time. I ain't got time for that. That's what's so good about those. A goes to B. Got it. Yeah.

I'm in. Right. Actually, I would say one of the most valuable, as a fitness professional now, one of the most valuable classes I ever took in college was research methods. Yeah. And that was just learning how to fucking read a research paper and what it actually means. People point out research, and I was like, did you look at the methods because yeah what you're trying to apply this to doesn't match

that at all you know and that's just typical so yeah and that's it i would encourage people to take a research methods class if you can right and you i mean there's plenty or just watch your infographics yeah yeah just watch my infographic i'll take care of you right yeah trust me yeah yeah i know that's the thing man it's uh you know most people don't read these papers and it's nothing against them they just you know they don't have access to it and all that and so we need we need more communication of this stuff more dissemination and i think that's where it all is i mean what's the point of doing all this when all the science when no one knows about it. And no one can learn from it and apply it.

And so, you know, I believe in that everything going into a research study is like, eventually I want to be able to communicate this with the, the, the public society and people who can benefit from it. So, all right. So where can people find you? Instagram, Instagram, you know, that's it. Really? I have a Twitter account account but i rarely use that thing so i'm just focused on building these infographics on instagram at dr joe dr eddie joe and i don't know where it's gonna go i don't know i just did it for fun and it's just kind of like you know gaining some speed and so i think you should make a coffee table book the doctor like i think it'll be i think it'd be really good um the doctor has a period after it. I think – yeah, it does.

DR period. Yeah, DR period, Eddie Joe. You know, I get some DMs asking, can I get a print? And I was like, you actually want to – Oh, posters, dude. You're in the poster business. Dude, they were like, I want to hang it at my gym. And I was like, you want to pay me for this? And I was like, well, yeah.

And so I had to come up with a number. Free downloads. Free downloads. We were in, well, yeah. And so I had to come up with the number. Free downloads. Free downloads. We were in, dude. Yeah. And so I didn't imagine that to ever, you know, I didn't ever imagine anybody asking me if they can print it out and all that. How many infographics do you have at the moment?

Would you guess? I don't even know. Is it dozens, hundreds? No, probably like 30 or something like that. I just started this. Dude, you got to make a book. Yeah, just make a book. That's enough for the book. Cocktail book. It just started this. Dude, you got to make a book. Yeah, just make a book. That's enough for the book. Cocktail book. It'd be dope.

Yeah, I mean, maybe. Who knows? I'll buy one. I'll totally buy one. I'll probably ask you for free, but I will buy one. Yeah, I was thinking free, but okay. I was thinking a whole lot. As soon as the party's over at your house, I wish all these people would go home. Hey, you guys want to get into some lactate threshold?

Look at this. Yeah, man. Coffee table book for gyms, man. A hundred pages of lactate threshold infographics here. Oh, yeah. Let's keep it going. If every gym had that in the lounge area, that'd be great. Oh, man.

So if somebody was interested in being a student of yours at school, where do they go? Cal Poly Pomona. I mean, our website's not really, you know, that fancy, but you could always look us up. Cal Poly Pomona, the kinesiology department. I'm in the exercise science part of it. And, yeah, you can look up the human performance research lab over at Cal Poly

and Cal Poly Pomona. That is not Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. And then there's some information up there. You know, you can go on PubMed if you want. PubMed.com. Look up the research studies if you're if you want to read some of the stuff that we do in our lab. But, you know, it's a it's a productive lab, man. I got some great students.

Shout out to my grad students and also my undergrad research assistants are just pumping out research. And I'm so open minded, too. I don't want to be too narrow focused on my research and just focus on one single thing. And, you know, I like to open it up. I like to appease their interest and say, yeah, let's take this question to the lab. You know, we'll be just having a discussion, say, oh, let's go to the lab and test it out. Let's do a little case study. Let's just see what happens. Right. And that sometimes leads into bigger questions and that leads into a bigger study. And so, you know, right now we're just doing fun stuff. Like they're doing a glute study. You know, they're, they're,

they, I guess they're inspired by, you know, the glute guy. And they saw some of his studies. They're like, can we do something like that? I was like, you want to do something like that? And they're like, yeah. I was like, well, I got some EMG. I got some stuff that we can analyze and used to analyze. And I was like, let's, let's create a study.

So we just do it. And we're doing that right now. EMG on the ass. That's where it's at. We're not carrying cancer or anything like that with this research, but it's just fun stuff, you know. You know, we got the ketone study. I do a lot of sports supplement studies and some training studies

and things of that sort. And so, yeah, if you come and, you know, you connect with me, I can get you involved. I never turn away a student, you know. I mean, unless, you know, obviously their records don't allow them to get into the school. I won't, but the school, man. Yeah, unless, you know, obviously their records don't allow them to get into the school. I won't, but the school, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What if I want to be a lab rat? Oh, yeah, just come up. You're looking for more lab rats, right? All the time, man. Perfect. So if you hit me up, shoot me an email or DM me on Instagram or whatever. That's great. You know, we could get you set up as long as you meet the criteria, man.

The DMs, man. The DMs. You have fucking control. I long as you meet the criteria, man. The DMs, man. You have fucking control. I know it is out of control, man. Yeah, it's fun. It's a fun job, man. Just talk about the stuff that I love and do the research. All right.

Thanks for joining us. Anders, where can people find what you're doing? Come to movement-rx.com. We are Dr. Teresa and I, physical therapists physical therapists and myself riding strength and rehab programs shoulders low back knee come and hang out with us gym owners functional fitness athletes come get healthy learn how to move better boom yeah yeah yep and we did a couple shows you know one show one show focusing on the low back fix one show focusing on the knee fix one show focusing on the low back fix, one show focusing on the knee fix, one show focusing on the shoulder fix. So if you want more details about any of those programs,

we have full episodes on each one of those that were very, very good with you and Teresa. Check those out. For me, go to DougLarsenFitness.com. Talking with a bunch of people right now about doing some seminars later this year. Been talking with Anders, been talking with Andy Galpin, been talking with Travis Mash, been talking with Aaron Horshig over at Squat University, talking with tons of smart people about doing some live in-person stuff, which I'm really excited about for this year. I've been talking with Anders, been talking with Andy Galpin, been talking with Travis Mash, been talking with Aaron Horshig over at Squat University, talking with tons of smart people about doing some live in-person stuff, which I'm really

excited about for this year. So if you're interested in that, you can go to DougLarsonFitness.com. Also, I'm on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. Oh, and if you want to find more of what I'm up to, check out TheBloodsoShow.com. I'm committed to 10,000 interviews before I

die, so that's five a week for the next 40 years at least. I'm going to be diving into some interesting subjects. I think you'll like it. Check it out. And I'll be traveling around this year a bit. If you go over there, you'll be able to see where I'm going to be. And maybe we can meet up. I'm super looking forward to Mike Bledsoe interview at like 68 years old.

What are you going to be talking about at 60? There's really no time. Because if you would have told me what I'd be talking about today five years ago, I would have been like, no fucking way. It's got to grow. It's got to grow. Everything has to grow. Who knows?

I'll be probably 68. I'll be doing the show from Mars or some shit. It's going to be great. All right. Go over to iTunes. Give us a five-star review, positive comment. Hit YouTube. Subscribe.

Do it. See you next week. Thanks for making it all the way to the end of the show. If you liked the show, which I know you did, please go share it on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever social media channel you happen to be loving at the moment. Pinterest? Twitter? Tumblr.

Tumblr. Share it on Tumblr.