Barbell Shrugged - Why Your Physiology Loves Going Back to the Basics w/ Sam Miller, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #759

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Sam Miller is an Amazon Best-Selling Author and has more than 15 years of experience as a health, fitness, and nutrition coach. A popular online educator, podcast host, and mentor, he consistently offers simple, strategic methods for transformation and translates complex concepts into leverage for any health and fitness goal. His workshops, classes, and specialization programs have served over 5,000+ coaches worldwide. He has been a featured speaker for companies like LinkedIn and a content contributor for industry titans such as T-Nation, Elite FTS, Muscle for Life, Mark Bell's Power Project, Muscle Intelligence, and Barbell Shrugged. Work With Sam Miller: https://Sammillerscience.com https://Metabolismschool.com Work with RAPID Health Optimization Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Sam Miller is back on the show. We all couldn't remember exactly how many times because we've been each other's sphere of influence here in central North Carolina. What a place to be, Raleigh, North Carolina. When I moved here like five years ago, all my friends on the West Coast trying to build some sort of fitness, nutrition, just healthy group of people network in this new land of Raleigh being completely lost and not knowing anybody. And an overwhelming majority of the people told me, I need to go meet Sam Miller. So I actually have built a decent friendship with him over the last five years, speaking at each other's events, each other's podcasts, just a phenomenal resource. Sam not only works with

clients on their own health and performance, but also helps coaches learn how to take complex physiology when it comes to reading blood work, nutrition supplementation, and implementing it into their work, and then how they can effectively communicate those complex issues to their clients so that everybody wins. I think it's so easy in our industry and probably every industry, but this is just the one that I live in, to want to sound extra smart with all of these big jargony words. And what we really need to learn, especially on the coaching side, is how do we just effectively communicate so that everybody understands what we're saying versus trying to

sound like the smartest, which turns out to be like the most confusing person in the room. So highly recommend for all coaches to get over and check out Sam's work. Go follow him on Instagram, Sam Miller Science, and get to his websites. And speaking of websites, make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dr. Andy Galpin is doing a free video

on the three steps we use here at Rapid Health Optimization to unlock your true physiological potential. You can get in there to see the exact methods that we use to make the best in the world better. And you can access that free video over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Marble Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and our dear friend, Sam Miller. Welcome back to the show. This is like show number six? Five? I don't know if we've hit six. We maybe have four. We're at least yearly.

I was thinking like four. We did Shreds Biofeedback in 2019 or 2021, I believe. Did a bunch of testosterone stuff on YouTube. That was fun. Oh yeah, that was actually first. We bunch of testosterone stuff on YouTube. That was fun. Oh yeah. That was actually first. We did the testosterone stuff first when we met, then we did biofeedback 2021. Then you and I, uh, I believe Doug and Travis were busy. So we did a book, we did a metabolism made simple episode. Right. Metabolism made simple was in 2022, the um you and i hung out last year for my student event so you came and i i interviewed you for that that was awesome um anders crushed that i did a show

when we launched in walmart too on your on your podcast that's a lot of hanging out yeah we've done a lot of hanging out but i would say this is probably this is this is probably number four on shrugged i would say i think doug doug's got it but i'm happy to be back and i always love chatting with you guys and uh gives us an excuse to hang out for an hour so i know we live we live literally like eight miles from each other but somehow going four in the direction of you and you coming four in the direction of me just seems impossible when you when the calendars are stacked. Friends, today on Barbell Shrugged, we're going to be talking about the basics. How boring is that?

But turns out, Sam was talking about this a little bit pre-show, you come all this way, you learn all this information, and you try and go and implement it, and you realize, man, we just kind of did the basics. We'd all probably be a lot healthier and performing a lot better. And I'm kind of fired up to dig into this because I have many, many, many thoughts on this approach. But dude, I would love to kind of start this thing off of just kind of one for people that haven't listened to the past episodes, like a little bit of your journey, the depth that you've kind of studied everything that you teach to other coaches. And then we'll dig into really getting back to the basics and how people can do that stuff and implement it into their lives to

really achieve a good majority of their health and performance goals. Yeah. So this is your first episode tuning in with me and the guys are with me as a guest hanging out with your barbell shrug crew. I am the bestselling author of Metabolism Made Simple, founder of Metabolism School, connected with Anders probably back 2018, 2019. Have hung out with these guys a few times talking on a range of topics related to biofeedback, which is basically our quality of life related to our physiology and those signs and signals that our body provides on a regular basis, as well as things like lab testing, hormonal dysfunction, gut health, gut dysbiosis, intestinal permeability, all that good stuff. So, you know, Anders and I,

as well as Doug and Travis, we've talked about these advanced concepts related to nutrition, related to hormones, gut health, physiology, recovery, and athletic performance. But sometimes what gets lost is as we begin to talk about more and more advanced things, people shift their focus onto it and forget the basics. A little bit on my journey, I started off just being a guy who wanted to perform better, be leaner, be more jacked, and also kind of preserve and protect my health in the process. At a young age, I observed a lot of things related to my family members that made me a little more sensitive to that, both from a cardiovascular health perspective and other, I guess you consider them longevity related factors that most people don't consider as a teenager in their twenties. I kind of make the joke that I got labs more

frequently than I went to college parties because I had a pretty bad head injury when I was in my teens. And that really was kind of the gateway for me and learning about the endocrine system as well as kind of the gut brain connection before it was popular and cool to do on Instagram. So I'm a personal trainer at the time, you know, kind of side hustling at university campus recreation, working in nutrition stores, making people protein shakes, slinging supplements. So I've been in the industry for over 17 years now, roughly, depending on what you consider to be kind of the official start date. So always passionate about training, fitness, nutrition, and also that intersection of nutrition, training, endocrinology, gut health, and really just how our daily decisions impact our biochemistry.

And a lot of what we see and really where I've connected with the guys and seeing what they're doing with Rapid and what I'm teaching inside my Nutrition and Metabolism Specialization Program inside Metabolism School is how these daily practices and also our perception and the way we view the world, the way we show up as people, that literally imprints onto what you're going to see in that lab test is a byproduct of your past behaviors for quite literally your entire life. Now, the good news is you can change that, but it requires taking personal responsibility for those decisions that have led to that current profile. So if your lipids suck or you have highly sensitive C-reactive proteins through the roof and you have these high inflammatory markers, if you have subclinical thyroid function or low testosterone,

a lot of these things are lifestyle-driven conditions in many cases, barring some sort of hereditary predisposition. And even in that case, we still have to factor in our environment and our behavior because that's what's causing the expression of those certain genes. So as much as I geek out on micronutrition, gut health, hormonal optimization, optimizing your training and performance, and even taking a fine tooth comb through things like a food log, and I've done that well over the last decade. A big thing that, you know, Anders and I have connected on recently is just, you know, people's inability to keep that focus on those foundational drivers of long-term health. And so something that I speak to, whether it's in metabolism made simple,

or even in my teaching is yes, we do want these advanced tools to create awareness around those health issues that we may have, but that doesn't mean that we just get like five gold stars and, you know, like a stamp on the paper that like the test is enough in and of itself to drive the change. We actually have to do something about it. So the data is great. I think it can inform improved decisions and lead to changing our health behaviors. But getting that test isn't enough and you still will need to be consistent over a very long time horizon. The good news is you can probably correct a lot of the issues faster than you accrued or accumulated the issues or the dysfunction that's present. But I think people are impatient, they're distracted, and we're very inconsistent. And that's sometimes where the power

of a coach can come in. And also, you know, just really the test should serve as a tool to sort of enhance self-awareness, I think, for a lot of people of like how we ended up where we are. So that's kind of my background. My story started with a personal injury, but then shifted into passion for helping my clients with a lot of the issues that they've had. Spent loads of time in the gym coaching on the floor, but also spent a lot of time writing books, speaking and connecting with industry folks like you guys. Yeah, dude, I'm very curious. I feel like I've noticed a trend of people that have been kind of like doing this professionally for a very long time.

For me, I would say through the super meathead years, I could like back squat all of my problems away in life. Like that was like, if I went to the doctor and they were like, you just need away in life. Like that was like, if I went to the doctor and they were like, you just need to back squat. I'd be like, dude, I have pneumonia.

They'd be like, I know. And I'll go, it's fine. I'll go, I'll go back squat. And then all my problems went away. It was amazing.

And then I realized, I'll still try that. Right. And then I realized like I left the competitive side and then it was like, Ooh, this like down regulation, like meditation. It's cool. Like breath works. Awesome. I left the competitive side and then it was like, Ooh, this like down regulation, like meditation.

It's cool. Like breath works awesome. And now I'm very much in kind of like a cool physiology space, like the internal health side of things. And I'm even, I wouldn't even say I'm like moving past that, but sleep is kind of like my new, like cool thing that I, that I feel like I'm working on and like learning about and like the kind of getting back to the basics of like, I just sleep really well. I've got great energy, which means I'm probably healthier. And then I can, yeah. And I can get outdoors and like get some sunlight and like all of us, if you were to kind of even spread this to other people, like obviously Dan and blood work and physiology.

If you were to look at kind of like the shift group with Emily Hightower and Brian McKenzie, they're like so huge on the breath work side of things. 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 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 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 just my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going

forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.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 rapidhealthreport.com. And let's get back to the show. We always kind of like, we're like shifting the framework that we're viewing health and performance through. And like, what is the next lever that we get to pull and take the deep dive into it? But realizing that sleep basically should be at the heart of having really good energy and feeling great. And then good training should also be a part of that. Where do you feel like you are in? What is what is kind of

like the most basic thing that you are focusing on now? And what is like the big lever that you feel like you're pulling in your own health and performance? So with my own health and performance, I still feel like I kind of come back to you know my basics are you know resistance training uh sleep for me is something where i've had to figure out okay what are the anchors and kind of the keystone habits that can help with sleep when obviously when you're traveling or you know so this has been a pretty heavy year for for travel for me both for podcasts and uh also some family health related considerations where i feel like i has been a pretty heavy year for travel for me, both for podcasts and also some family health related considerations where I feel like I've been a human ping pong on a plane for a good part of the year, partially impacting Andrews and kind of finding my own use case, right? Like, do I really care about cold therapy because of shivering for body fat loss,

or does it actually help my neurological state and stress reactivity? Do I care about walking because I'm trying to burn more calories, or for me, is it actually helpful for digestion and blood sugar regulation, right? So as much as they are popular fitness tools, taking the tool itself and then really focusing and fine tuning on the particular application of my situation and kind of finding that like minimum effective dose for, for maintenance. Right. So for me, obviously preserving lean muscle tissue is super important from a training perspective, being able to accomplish that and recover even given travel.

I like doing some of the different aspects of like hormesis and, you know, whether it's hot or cold therapy, but also, okay, doing that, fitting, you know, fitting my schedule and where do I like to include that? How do I like to include that kind of my own purpose behind it? Um, and then as far as, uh, nutrition goes, I think a lot of it for, for me has still been in driving, uh, my, my career and my schedule, being able to support the workload and demands of like a busy professional life, which is not something I was doing when I was like a busy professional life, which is not something I was doing when I was like a 19 year old personal trainer. You know what I mean? Before I was like, oh, this is my nutrition to be jacked and swole and recover from my workouts. I literally considered

prior to this meeting, okay, well, what should I be eating so that I'm alert and functional on this podcast? Right. So when you're 19 years old and you're just thinking about recovering from your strength training hypertrophy or, okay, I'm going to back squat my problems away. That's very different than considering your mental acuity and other things. So I think I've moved away from the mainstream narrative about why we use a certain tool and more so adopted, like, how do I fit this tool that I like in my life for my own purposes? You know, and it's still, and still half the time, I'm going to agree with most people, right? It's not like I have some super far-fetched understanding or application of the tool,

but for me, maybe it means walking at a certain time that works for my schedule and makes me feel the best. Maybe it's including the cold on certain days. Like if I know that I'm coming back from a West coast trip, getting in a cold tub first thing in the morning is really going to help me kind of start the day, get outside, do some things to, you know, help with that jet lag when, you know, otherwise my body's still kind of, you know, struggling with that. Even if I've done my best when I'm on the West coast to kind of maintain a similar schedule. So I'd say a lot of it is the situational application of the tools, as much as that sounds like the super nuanced thing. I think it's really finding my own dose as well as kind of my own reasoning and rationale, which can exist both

in conjunction with or independent of the research, So it's like not being so uptight or attached to, well, XYZ medical journal says that you have to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, it's like, okay, no, if this is what's working for me and where I feel my best, I'm going to take that data and then kind of run with that a little bit. So we still want to look at the evidence base, but it's like not being so attached to it that it impacts your own kind of freedom of choice, you know, with, with the tool. So I don't know if that's the answer you're kind of going for, but yeah, it absolutely is. And a lot of that comes from like seeing so many of my friends in

the industry, like kind of like get down to the base of what they think is the most important realizing that's only a lever but it's like when i when i see like brian or the shift people it's like they focus so much on breath work um because they found that to be like the truth that that to be like the center of the venn diagram for them and their performance and the thing that they like to talk about. You see people that are still I mean, we have Brian, you know, Brian Borstein, like, that dude still writes a training program for himself. That is the most intricate, detailed thing every single day. That is like the base of his pyramid. And it has been

for the last 20 plus years that I've known him. And what makes me really think about that is when you start to take your own personal experience and the levers that you're pulling to optimize your own life and health, et cetera. And then somebody that's kind of on the more novice side or just getting into health and understanding it. And they come to you and they go, so where do I start? And I always just want to go, I don't know. What do you like? Let's just make that thing that you like better because we have so many levers that we can pull, but I don't know where, what you like to do. If you like sitting

still and breathing, let's just do that and get really good at that because then we could bring in other aspects later down the road, which kind of gets into the personalization of like one, working with clients, but two, you coach a lot of coaches and how do we give them the tools to really understand those levers and be able to communicate all these things that could be important, but finding the right tool at the right time for their clients. Yeah. So it's interesting. I actually just did a mentorship call on this this week.

And I think while, while I love health testing, so I'm not anti-testing by any means, I'd be more than happy to teach anyone how to do it. But I think a lot of coaches do not emphasize... So one of the episodes that we did together, guys, was more of a check-in tool, which was talking about biofeedback, recovery, energy levels, digestion, stress, sleep, all that good stuff. That's immensely important. But I think a lot of coaches in their rush to onboard a client, or if you're a client and you're in your own health and fitness journey, you might want to look at this as well and kind of audit this for yourself, is we kind of rush that intake and onboarding. Whereas I think you can get really thorough and without drowning someone in homework, I still think you can be very thorough and effective

in your intake process to learn more about the person. Because really what it's going to come down to is how is this person currently showing up in the world and are they keeping those basic promises to themselves related to their health, their fitness, their self-care, their recovery? Most of the time, people are kind of slacking in certain areas. Even someone who crushes it in the gym might suck from a recovery prioritization perspective. Or maybe, you know, Travis, maybe you've seen a bunch of athletes where they kill it with their training, but the nutrition sucks. Or they're doing a great job in terms of one area, but they're not, you know, doing another. So I think the, one of the more undervalued aspects of coaching, I'd say there's two. One is kind of the iterative process of those on the fly adjustments that

happen week to week, which I think a lot of coaches appreciate. I think a lot of great coaches do appreciate the week to week adjustments off the base program, understanding someone in real time and working with them to navigate that case. But I still think there's a minority of people who actually appreciate the importance of like a really good, not just really good, like world-class intake form and intake process that helps you to identify your weak points, but also understand your motivators, your goals, all of those things. So I call it getting a pulse on the transformation or pulse on the person that's in front of you. So we want to know physical goals and objectives also include things like anthropometrics there. So basic, you know, height, weight, activity level,

things like that. We want to understand key motivators. L is lifestyle factors. S, I include shreds in there for biofeedback, but you could also include different components of testing if you have it. And then E, expectations of the coaching relationship, because if you're not on the same page, you guys are probably going to break up at some point. And that's not a great business relationship if we don't have any sort of longevity there. As a coach, it takes time to learn about someone, get to know them and be able to help them out. So when I kind of have that cat or those categories or those buckets in place, what I want to be able to do is kind of

look at each area. And usually a lot of this is seeing how someone shows up, like how do they email with you? How do they talk on the phone? How do they show up on social media? Because a lot of people are kind of walking around as reactive stress cadets and then wondering why they don't have like the bodies of their dreams or the internal health that is, you know, picture perfect from a longevity perspective. And for a lot of these people, it's just like how they're living their day-to-day life. Like it is not set up in a way that is optimized to be at peak performance or achieve their dream physique or look like they could, you know, go prep for a photo shoot or step on stage or whatever the case may be. So when I really drill down to it, I think from a coaching

perspective, a lot of what I'm teaching now is that intake process. And I feel like I sound like a grandpa on my soapbox when I talk about a lot of these tools and strategies and fitness programs and all of it, you know, it's all great. And I, I love it. I'll geek out with people on it, but at the end of the day, people have to have a level of personal integrity and responsibility to do the thing that they're supposed to do. And that's one of the hardest things to do. So a lot of it is scaling self-trust, you know, by keeping those small promises yourself, you say, you're going to go for a walk, go for a walk. You say, you're going to go to bed at 9 30 PM, go to bed at 9 30 PM. But what happens is, and a lot of the coaches who are probably listening to this, your clients are not doing those things. And then they are basically breaking these little tiny commitments

to themselves every single day, which then shatters their confidence and self-esteem. And then it gets to be really hard for them to actually show up for themselves. Same thing with, commitments to themselves every single day, which then shatters their confidence and self-esteem. And then it gets to be really hard for them to actually show up for themselves. Same thing with, you know, Travis's best athletes, you know, or vendors, your top executive clients at rapid, the people who achieve that peak performance, they keep, they start with those small promises, keep those promises to themselves, show up for themselves, have that level of personal integrity. And then we can do the cool advanced stuff on top of that. But if we never actually get past our own bullshit, it gets really, really hard. The other things just basically become, it's like shiny object syndrome or distractions. Does that make sense?

Travis, how many times you thought you were too elite for linear progression, linear periodization in your life? for that i mean yeah too advanced when i was younger yeah i think you hear i mean you know louis with um crush you know he would always slam down on linear periodization which is looking back like every bit every color what you want eventually there's some type of linear progression but so yeah so i thought like the you know the conjugate method you know was like so space age advancing but it's really not and then the best looking back the best power of all time that's all he ever did you know like ed cohen linear progression the most basic of basics so i was what sam said earlier just like you know always comes back to the basics you get to you know i got out of school and i

wanted to do this crazy testing and i do but then i then i'll go to the subjective questionnaire part i'm like man like i should just start right here like you know how much do you sleep well i don't sleep you know i go to bed at all these different times or you know what's a typical day nutrition well i eat once a day and you know french fries you know so it's like you know do i need to do this elite testing probably not probably just need to start right here and like this person has got a long ways to go so but you know i like what he said yeah i do think it's very intuitive for basically everyone that if you're eating really well sleeping really well and training really well then you're gonna be you're gonna be pretty damn healthy overall that's that's a yes common knowledge at this point in modern day um culture that said i know a lot of

people that are very healthy like they're they're they're lean they're muscular they eat really well they they compete they supplement they have they have coaches etc and still their their hormones and their gut health once they get tested are still not that great um i could take this many directions here but something i was thinking about a lot yesterday was um i've said this many times i've heard people say it many times that if you lift weights that'll help your testosterone if you lift weights independent of losing body fat and getting leaner and body composition changes if you lift weights then your your hormonal profile will improve but I've never actually personally seen data to support that I'm assuming it's out there everybody says it but I've never actually seen it personally do you know know of any studies in that realm, or can you cite any research?

I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot with citing research here, but do you know what the research actually says on that versus just kind of the normal? Are you talking to me or Sam right now? Mostly talking to both of you, whoever has an answer, but mostly talking to Sam at the moment. I would say usually when we're talking about resistance training or exercise improving hormonal profile, and remember hormones, like we got to zoom out from just testosterone too. You got to consider insulin, you know, insulin, cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, you know,

thyroid, right? So typically we're going to see someone get healthier or improve the hormonal profile as a result of resistance training would be in an overweight or obese sedentary population. If someone is at a pretty good homeostasis or their status quo is that they're actually pretty lean and they're not training, maybe they're training, let's say three days a week. If you actually increase that person's training and they are a natural athlete, meaning they're not on exogenous testosterone, you may actually see a decline in testosterone, um, depending on, right. A lot of these factors related to sleep, stress, et cetera.

Um, you know, if I can get that person to sleep 10 hours a night, maybe it would stay about the same, but a lot of the initial improvements we see. So think of it, the way I like to teach it, Doug, is if we had a piece of paper or we were able to take a straight line. So like right now we're like the Brady bunch on zoom and we've got this line between you and Anders and, and me and Travis, let's say that that line that goes horizontally. And if you're listening on audio and you're not able to watch this video, think of a horizontal line in your head. If optimal is kind of to the left, so most people will eventually strive for that. And we have kind of our status quo in the middle. And then we can sort of progress or regress in either direction. So this middle point here, let's say

that's the status quo. A lot of what we see in terms of people's behaviors is if let's say we're missing sleep or we're highly stressed or we're not training or we're eating a standard American diet that moves a person towards maladaptation to dysfunction to disease. So again, if I have this horizontal line, I'm moving from, because you're not most, you know, most people, now this is very sad because we're seeing more and more childhood obesity. But if you were to take a kid in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, maybe even 90s, a lot of children were not necessarily obese or overweight. So you kind of move into young adulthood. And if you're just like a status quo average person from that average, if I were to feed you a standard American diet and make you sedentary, we would have maladaptation, dysfunction, and disease. If I were to put you in a state where

you're orthorexic or you have an eating disorder or anorexia, or you're severely deprived in terms of nutrients or you're overtraining relative to your recoverability. I could also move you to maladaptation, dysfunction, and then eventually, you know, what we see with women when they are chronically dieting, poor gut health, high stress, poor sleep, that's like autoimmune disease, right? So I can move down that spectrum to maladaptation, dysfunction, and disease, which is our body's attempt to basically adapt to stimulus until we reach a point where, you know, in the example of the standard American diet or sedentary lifestyle, that is metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, prediabetes, or type two diabetes, right? That's, that's kind of an obvious example that we could, you know, you could go to a local mall in the

United States and go walk around and look around and you can see that's what's happening or go to an airport. If you haven't been to an airport a while and you kind of take a look around, you'll have kind of your average individuals and then you have people depending on their habits can be progressively more dysfunctional or kind of move towards a disease state. We can also take that status quo and we can move towards optimal or improve that state of health, right? And that's a lot of what you guys are doing and a lot of what I attempt to do is take someone who's kind of a healthy individual and improve that and make them healthier or improve their lab markers to where there's indications that we may have a better shot of enhanced longevity or quality of life or better health span during the years that we're

alive. So out of it, Doug, I would say is in a healthy individual who's already active, more training doesn't always mean better hormones would be kind of my simple answer there. More training typically would improve the hormonal profile in an individual who's sedentary and consuming a hypercaloric diet, because what we're doing is we are improving our energy expenditure or kind of balancing that calories in calories outside of things. Muscle is also kind of a sink for glucose. So we're enhancing that insulin sensitivity in that sense. Most people who are insulin resistant or overweight also have a lower than predicted TDEE and that insulin resistance and the state of fat tissue creating an inherently inflammatory state on the body tends to downregulate total daily energy expenditure and tends to be pretty

poor in terms of our thyroid health or leptin function and a number of other key aspects of our physiology or facets of our physiology. So I don't have one particular study off my head, but if you were to parse through the research, what you're going to see is in healthy trained individuals who would be natural, right? The response in hormones would likely probably depend on the type of training program, the frequency and intensity of that program, and also what's their sleep recovery and stress kind of look like. If we were to go in the other direction, we don't have a healthy population participating in the study. The training stimulus would more than likely kind

of improve that profile, assuming, you know, we have an intelligently designed program for the most part. And that's really because in the situation where someone's already active in training, we're sort of adding a level of body burden to, you know, and could their testosterone levels recover with a period of a deload or some form of like super compensation, or maybe you're increasing their caloric intake with the training. It is possible, but a lot of times, you know, when people are fairly active there, there, there tends to be kind of a sweet spot for a natural trainee versus if someone's on exogenous testosterone or HRT, they might be able to, you know, they have something

that's maintaining that serum concentration at all times. Then you're saying if the, if the training frequency goes beyond a certain point, then especially if you're hypocaloric, you're, you're, you're prepping for an MMA fight and you're cutting weight and all that, then hormones will kind of go the opposite direction despite being in very good shape and very lean, et cetera. Yeah, being very lean. I mean, case in point, so I was this person, but also a lot of clients that I've worked with in the past have been this person. It happens with both men and women. If you're in a hypochloric state and you're training,

what starts as an energy availability issue then becomes kind of a multi or full body systems issue over time because what's going to happen is we have, again, kind of thinking of that horizontal line I referenced earlier. First, you'll see metabolic adaptation, which is the downregulation of thyroid, downregulation of testosterone, you have upregulation of cortisol. And you will also have an increase in ghrelin, which is that hunger hormone that many people are familiar with. When I'm in that caloric deficit or I'm chronically dieting or I'm doing this to, and this is for a significant intensity. This is not like, oh, I subtracted a hundred calories and I went for a walk today.

Using the MMA fighter or someone stepping on stage or someone doing a weight cut, what's happening is now if they do not periodize their training or ever kind of move out of that phase and we just continue to do it, and this is where you see with a bodybuilder, physique competitor, bikini competitor, show after show, fight after fight, weight cut after weight cut, we don't always see the same results from the subsequent weight cuts or the ease of the weight cut is different than the initial. Same thing with bikini competitions, physique competitions. If the person is competing naturally, there is a chance that after a period of time,

not only are we seeing that metabolic adaptation with subclinical thyroid function, but we're also seeing lower testosterone. Because when we're subtracting those calories, we're often subtracting micronutrients as well. And that state of higher cortisol and just overall stress in the body may impact sleep and recovery. So we tend to see that those types of people can be quite wired and tired as sort of a normal biofeedback symptom there. When you combine the subclinical thyroid function, the low testosterone, especially this can happen with men and women, and we may even see things like impaired motility, but the stress of chronic

dieting, the stress of intense training can also lower stomach acid levels. And this is where I tend to see a lot of gut dysbiosis, poor motility, low stomach acid, and it's kind of a recipe for malabsorption and a lot of gut issues. So part of the reason for this is stomach acidity helps to prevent that dysbiosis or small intestinal bacteria overgrowth. Motility is also a tool against or kind of thwarting gut dysbiosis. When we don't have motility or regular bowel movements, we basically have things sitting in the gut that are supposed to be in transit through the gut. And so when we don't have that healthy bowel transit time, that can lead to GI dysfunction as well. And a lot of times in athletes, what we see when there's that intense training without

adequate periods of recovery or appropriate nutrition and supplementation is increased intestinal permeability or what people refer to on social media as like leaky gut. So with that, whether it's contest preparation, whether it's weight cut, et cetera, unless you're doing this with an expert or you're really designing it and planning it accordingly, you do put yourself at risk for hormonal adaptations, potential gut dysfunction. And over time that can become an immune system issue as well, which is why you see so many women who have repeatedly dieted over the years and chronic stress contributing to something like Hashimoto's autoimmunity with men. It typically manifests as low testosterone, gut issues, and a sort of progression in terms of the state of the HPA axis or what we're seeing

with cortisol and reaching a point of brain fog, fatigue, potential adrenal insufficiency, and things like that. But you really have to be training hard and dieting intensely for that to happen. Please, if you are just getting started in your fitness journey, do not be afraid that that is going to happen just by simply, you know, controlling your portions and going to the gym. This is for folks who have been pushing the envelope for quite some time and have not taken adequate periods of recovery or maintenance phases to restore that homeostasis that we were talking about earlier. Yeah. This isn't losing weight. This is getting to absurdly low levels of body

fat. This is very lean. This is like shredded. And doing it many times over. Yeah, yeah. Single digit body fat over and over or trying to maintain that look or being at low body fat at high levels of performance and energy expenditure, because it's different. If I were to feed up an athlete and give them more food, more fuel, more recovery, despite their energy expenditure, that can be done. The problem is when I'm weight restricted and body fat restricted and calorically restricted and pushing the performance envelope. I can only push that for so long where that gap is essentially a massive stressor on the body. Um, so you,

you could do it for a season, but you shouldn't, it shouldn't be like a perpetual attempt for, for life. That would be, but we do see that with some people, unfortunately, depending on how they're coached, if they're coached at all, if they're doing this on their own, it is something that unfortunately is, I think social media perpetuates it a lot. The lack of kind of that maintenance phase or off season, but, you know, people are able to have a legit program design and having a good coach. yeah and wouldn't you say like bodybuilding in general if you look online especially because i mean saying bodybuilding is such a arbitrary statement since you got the extreme over here here and you got some even the aka natties over here like the the way they choose to get in shape there's so many variables you know some being you know like you look at a little norton is probably pretty safe and is you know the way he goes about it but then another guy the i guess the extreme levels

you know they're you know able to go to or willing to go to like uh lead to a lot of a lot of remember eric helms did like six pro shows in a year oh yeah remember him walking through that that's a rough year man have you talked to him about that and what what his lab started to look like it towards the end of that sam i have not but i've seen interviews or kind of discussions around i don't know if you had him on your show or connected with them. No, so I mean, really, Anders, I mean, you were kind of one of the only people I interviewed after probably 2019, 2020, but most of it is kind of quick solo stuff.

So I'll do like 20, kind of 20, 30 minute things just because we tried to sync it up with as I increased the presence on YouTube. But in terms of, I think when bodybuilders prepare for a season like that, you just have to understand that quality of life is going to suffer. Now, most of our lifestyle clients were people that you or I would work with or what you guys come, come across inside your business. Usually people are not willing to make that quality of life trade off. People don't want, you know, garbage libido and no energy to play with

their kids and can't focus at work. If someone is a bodybuilder or a coach in that industry or part of their career connects to competing or making that weight cut or dieting, I think people are more willing to deal with the effects of the brain fog, the low testosterone, and not everybody is affected the same. Like if, you know, your testosterone is that 180 or 250 might be very different than how he feels at a lower testosterone value. Some people are able to do it and they just feel a little bit lethargic and maybe they have difficulty, you know, building muscle or things like that um there is a i think some people kind of get used to it after a period of time certain resiliency

also your career and family life really matters like i don't know that you'd want to do that with young kids at home but i think no chance no again it can't be done it can't be done for a season right so i think the lesson to be the lesson to be learned here is um it's something that can be done. It can be done for a season, right? So I think the lesson to be learned here is it's something that can be done for a season. You need to plan appropriately. Don't be afraid of a maintenance phase and take the time to focus on your health and improving your health can make future dieting attempts better in many ways. Also taking time to build muscle and, you know, supporting training. A lot of that can, can go a really long way to versus choosing a wise coach as well. Cause you know, you go, you can go to the local, you know, goals gym and get the rib dude in the corner. And he's really

not going to know anything other than stop eating and do more cardio and then take this drug, you know, versus like someone like you who can give a more balanced approach and so there's i mean it's much safer nowadays to get cut for bodybuilding than when i was coming up because there just wasn't wasn't a lot of people like you available to these people and so i mean even my first show was like two a day cardio or 60 minutes of this stair climber in the morning 30 minutes to cardio post-workout resistance training yeah and i was also competing naturally in my first show and was uh i ended up with an upper respiratory infection like six weeks out which sucked

you know you don't want to do cardio with a respiratory infection so it's definitely i would say and that was, uh, that was pre 2010, probably somewhere between like 2007 and 2009. And it was super common, exactly as Travis outlined. Here's your cardio, here's your supplements or your drugs, you know, cut calories, slash it down. And then, you know, some sort of bodybuilding split for training. And there is a much more educated way. And I think health testing can inform decisions as far as what you might want to do with your individual nutrition or training, customizing that and tailoring that, which is why obviously the guys and I are such a big proponent of it. But there's still a lot of misinformation out there. And I

think there's still people who will push clients for that before and after photo or just trying to get someone lean for that sort of instant gratification versus understanding staying lean for your life is very different than getting lean one time and then completely rebounding and regaining the weight, right? So I think as I've been in the industry for a longer period of time, working with folks across their lifespan, different age groups, different priorities, different job backgrounds and professions, you realize that, you know, it is important to get lean and, and to, to a healthy degree right now, I'm not talking about stepping on stage or doing a photo shoot tomorrow or doing an MMA weight cut, but there's a big difference between getting lean and healthy, optimizing that lab work and sustaining it for like a decade or

more versus the, Oh, I did a summer cut for 10 weeks. I could see my abs, but then I regained it all by Christmas. And I'm starting over again with new year's resolutions in 2025. So that's the 12 challenges that became. So, you know, uh, who was the bill Phillips? You guys had him on the show that he was neither like the inventor go all in get ripped and bounce right back and i've done that conditioning workout probably more times like there is every time i'm in a hotel i essentially go find a treadmill and it's like seven eight nine ten seven eight nine ten seven eight nine ten two minutes uh it's like the the perfect 20 minute conditioning workout. What is that? Tell me what you're talking about. Yeah. It's, it's

the body for life. Um, like cardio thing. So there's, it's a three day a week program and then two conditioning days built into it. So it's like body part split stuff for the, for the lifting days. And then I think I got that right at least. And then two days you go and you basically, it's based off RPE, but it's like a two-minute warm-up, four rounds of

six, seven, eight, nine RPE sprint, one minute at each. Oh, got it, got it. At each percentage. And then, if you're doing it on a treadmill, you just find your things and then like two minutes at the end to cool down but it's perfect 20 minutes i've done it so many times just from doing the original program sam did you know brian was like a top five finalist when he was like 17 years old in that competition no way yeah i've had

i've had two business partners actually that were in like the top 10 nationally um that's just that's just like an era of getting into lifting weights love that love body for life i still have the books it was a good era it was it was a cool era because i was in colorado during the era so you know that's where he was. Yeah. A lot of myoplex back in college. Um, I'd actually love to, um, now that so much of this, uh, like I can't, um, get on Instagram without seeing like your, your average macro coach now talking blood work. Um, yeah. And I'd love to hear kind of from a client point of view, if they're being fed the same information on social media marketing side of things that I am. And you can go to these blood work companies and get anywhere from like three to 100 to 200 biomarkers with different levels of service attached to them and different coaches attached

to them. What is like a kind of like a call like a checklist or a framework that clients, people looking for those services can can kind of think through and actually find somebody that is credible enough to be having them look at their blood work that isn't their doctor. Yeah, that's tough, man. I definitely see that issue and social media in some ways, you know, we can magnify certain messages, some of which are good. And unfortunately, some of those messages are not so good and the quality of information is not so good. So it's similar to like when we were all coming up in the industry and maybe it was magazines or media or something related to training programs or nutrition, you know, maybe there's some good stuff, maybe there's

some bad stuff and maybe even the good information that might be misapplied for my situation. So I think where I would start off is understand your situation and your circumstances just because someone talks about those things or maybe advertises things a certain way doesn't always mean it's the best solution for you. Number two, understand the level of support or interaction in the relationship and how individualized this approach may be to your individual goals and your health history. So labs or health testing is a very catchall phrase. I could send you something that's a testing kit and it could be garbage, or I could send you something that's elite, like top-level testing. You could spend

your money on something and get a wealth of information that's scientifically validated and can be used in a variety of ways to optimize your health. And then there's other tests that maybe are fairly limited in their application. So I would be curious on the type of testing or how it might be applied to your specific goals. I would look at the person's track record in terms of potential case studies, social proof, or testimonials related to their results in terms of their past clients and the experience that they had working with that organization. And, you know, doing a little bit of, I would obviously recommend connect with, I don't like to, you know, I guess the phrase is like judge a book by its cover in a sense. I think you may need to do a little bit of investigation of just have a conversation

with the company or the person to learn more about if you're a good fit. Because just because someone uses some type of testing or advocates for it, you may also want to see as a good fit for your personality, your lifestyle, and your goals. Someone could be amazing as an MMA coach or an Olympic weightlifting coach. But if you're just trying to be like the fittest soccer mom, you know, and, and optimize your lab values and balance your hormones, then maybe that coach isn't the coach for you. So what is the use case for the coaching? And like, what does this person specialize in? I think is big. Um, you may want to ask, uh, just a little bit more on their methodology or their

process. I think case studies, social proof or past client examples are great. Although understand that sometimes people will sort of artificially manufacture those. So it is helpful to kind of look at different interviews or videos or things like that if people have them. But that would probably be my starting point. And I think not enough people. I think sometimes people get weird vibes from people. And instead of like trusting that they, for some reason will sort of justify certain things inside of our industry. And I would just say, if that comes up for you, make sure that you do have a conversation with the person before like spending much money and kind of starting there. Unfortunately, what I see a lot of right now, Anders, is people who are using some of this advanced terminology and it

almost turns into like fear mongering or scare tactics or an issue. So like inflammation, right? Or you, you have overactive blah, blah, blah or you're, you know, intestinal permeability is doing blah, blah, blah. Or because of your leaky gut, you have leaky brain and basically like, you know, you're going to like turn into the guy from the mummy movies, you know, if you don't address this, that's kind of an extreme, but I see a lot of marketing where industry terms related to physiology and biochemistry are being used and it's not being used in a way to educate and empower people to optimize their health. It's being done in a way that scares people into taking action out of fear. And rather than being this amazing tool that can like change your life, people view it as this, uh,

like a life sentence, right? Labs are a gateway, in my opinion, right? And this is even coming from someone who's had, I've had a number of different situations pop up in my own health journey. And there are times where my labs were not optimal, right? But I needed to do it as a way to inform my decisions of how to improve. I think there's a big mindset piece when it comes to labs of understanding that what is right now does not always need to be what will be going forward in your future. And that a good coach or a good steward of this information should use it to empower you to improve your health over the long term and get you excited about taking action. You shouldn't be fearful and frustrated or feel broken. And what's happening with more and more people doing lab

testing, it's just like the people who change macros and say, oh, you have a broken metabolism or whatever, which isn't really a thing. Understanding that quite literally the definition or looking behind adaptive physiology as far as science goes means that our body is very responsive and adaptive to stimulus. Our body will have internal health changes as a result of our external environment and our behavior. That means like, dude, you're the ultimate adaptation machine. It's like the opposite of a fixed mindset. And so what's happening with people talking about labs, Anders, is people are doing it in a way that is very much, you're broken. I'm the coach. I'm the hero. I can

fix you. Which I think it's more of like, as a coach, how do I teach you to be the hero in your own life based on this really powerful information we have? Like the labs and the advanced coaching, that can be your cape. We can learn some really cool stuff. And you got the Batman tool belt, and this is going to be fantastic. And we're on this journey together. But a lot of people are really, I think, marketing it unethically and in a way that I think compromises the integrity of our industry. not careful and i say we as an industry because there are good people inside the industry using this information to better you know for the betterment of individuals and to improve people's lives but if a handful of coaches here and there or thousands of coaches here and there start doing

this because it's cool and sexy and sounds like advanced terminology when those people screw up it unfortunately creates a bad rap and reputation for, uh, all health coaches, right? Even though there are so many good ones, um, sometimes the bad apples can kind of ruin it for the rest. For sure. Always a pleasure, sir. Where can people find you? People can find me. I'm Sam Miller science on just about every major social media platform, uh, similar science.com. My book is metabolism made simple. And if you are a health and fitness professional interested in learning more about physiology and a lot of the advanced concepts that we discussed today and doing so in a way that actually aligns with your core values,

makes you not want to throw up in your mouth when you go on social media, head over to metabolismschool.com to learn more about our nutrition and metabolism specialization program. There you go. Coach Travis Mash. Appreciate it, man. Mashley.com. You can go to JimWayAir.com to read all my most recent articles and videos. Fantastic. Doug Larson.

Yeah, on Instagram. Doug C. Larson. Sam, always love having you on the show, man. That's why you're on for number four. Appreciate it, guys. And I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged, Barbell underscore Shrugged. And make sure you get over to RapidHealthReport.com. That's where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin are

doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis. And you can access that free report at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.