Weights and Plates Podcast - #51 - Supplements: Are There Any Worth Taking?

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Supplements are a huge industry, and showing no signs of slowing down. The idea that a pill, or a powder, or a drink can transform your fitness and body composition is irresistible, it seems, as people continue to pour billions of dollars into the supplement industry. Do any of them actually work though? And if so, which ones?   Dr. Robert Santana and Coach Trent Jones wade through the most popular performance enhancing supplements, and offer an opinion which runs counter to what most will tell you: most of them DON'T work, and if you aren't training hard and cultivating healthy daily habits, NONE of the will work! For those of you willing to do the hard work, however, there are a couple supplements which might help you gain a little edge in the gym. But you probably didn't need it anyway.   Cycle for Pennies Condensed Article: http://doggcrapp.blogspot.com/2006/11/cycle-for-pennies-condensed.html?m=1   Weights & Plates: https://weightsandplates.com Robert Santana on Instagram: @the_robert_santana   Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream https://www.jonesbarbellclub.com

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana, your host, along with Trent Jones, my co-host. Yo, what's going on? Not much, man. Dragging ass. You know, had trouble getting started today. It's just one of those days. Yeah, my coffee cup is empty over here, and I'm kind of sad about it because, you know, had trouble getting started today. It's just one of those days. Yeah, my coffee cup is empty over here. And I'm kind of sad about it. Because, you know, you ever have those days where you like you drink a couple cups of coffee, and it's just like nothing happens.

Falls flat. Yeah. That's today, dude. Like somehow caffeine, caffeine has this interesting property where it seems like you can, I mean, you can drink the same amount every day and still get the same effect, right? It's not like heroin, right? Where you need more and more, right? Or so I am told, uh, you know, from experience, but, uh, you know, but today, so there's these, these mysterious days where like, you know, whatever, 300 milligrams or whatever, however much I had in these, a couple of cups of coffee, man, it is just doing nothing. Yeah, I think I had about two cups as well.

That's a warm-up for me. Just getting the blood moving. Yeah, I have ADHD, and I've had a physician and a psychologist both tell me that coffee is an acceptable substitute for Adderall. For amphetamines. Amphetamines, yeah, basically. Yeah. Quasi-meth, yeah. I've never liked that shit, you know.

So I just drink a lot of coffee in the morning and a lot of coffee in the afternoon. I knock right out. That's like a tall tale sign of ADHD, too, if you can drink coffee and go to bed. Right, right, yeah. Yeah, because, you know, I have to tell a lot of people, you know, check their coffee intake if they're, drink coffee and go to bed. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I, you know, I have to tell a lot of people, you know, check their coffee intake if they're like not going to sleep or, you know, they're just wide ass awake at midnight. Yeah. But it turns out they had a cup of coffee at like 4 PM. You're like, well, you know, the half-life of caffeine is pretty long.

You know, I'm sure it varies a lot from person to person, but last I looked at something like six or seven hours or something like that. Yep. Several hours. So, well, speaking of caffeine, I think today you wanted to talk about supplements, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wanted to get into that because I realized we probably mentioned them in passing, but we've never, I don't think we've done an episode on them. And we're just going to speak broadly, probably keep it short. Definitely not going to go into a deep dive into the literature.

That's not what we do here. We might sometimes. Certain paper comes out. But more just the practical applicability of taking these things because they're popular. I don't know how popular they are now because I used to learn about them in magazines. And I don't know that people read magazines anymore. And I don't see a ton of supplements on my social media feed, not to the extent that I used to see in magazines where it was just everywhere, you know? Oh, yeah, right.

Well, I've told my story in previous episodes about the, like, I bought some protein, some whey protein at the GNC and I got the DVDs with the, the special bodybuilding workouts going to add an inch to your arms in 24 hours. Yeah. It was basically like drink, like half a tub of cell tech. Um, but yeah, um, I don't know. It's I I'm the same way. It's the way that my, the, the, the algorithm has curated my Instagram and YouTube feeds. I, I see plenty of strength sports, you know, like my Instagram feed is like the most boring shit ever because it's a bunch of people squatting and benching, you know, just page after page, page. But even on YouTube, you know, I follow a lot of like strong man, uh, competitions. And so, you know, half the war and Brian Shaw andaw and all these guys and um you know yeah it's not a whole lot of supplement however i will say i keep running

into these like internet personalities that i later find out made a ton of money selling supplements so clearly people are still buying a shitload of these oh yeah oh yeah um i see a lot of ads for apps ais and things like that you know like diet apps and stuff yeah calorie trackers and yeah i see stuff like that popping up a lot but i know the supplement industry is not doing bad at all so they're selling them somewhere you know i'm just i don't see it like I used to. But back in our day, we used to open up these magazines, Men's Fitness, Men's Health, Muscular Development, Muscle and Fitness, those two were really bad with it. And, you know, every other page was, you know, some supplement that was going to make you gain lean mass in like, you know, three months, two to three months.

lean mass in like you know three months two to three months and you kind of go down this rabbit hole and you become this expert at you know various dietary manipulations and you know supplement regimens like i knew at one point like when i was 18 my friend he had a like one of those pill containers they sold the vitamin shop and then oh right Here's my multivitamins, my BCAAs, my Anno Explode or whatever. Fish oil. All this stuff, and then we were weak as piss. We were weak as piss because the guy at our vitamin shop wasn't quite as honest as your guy that said, you need steroids for that, brother.

Yeah, that guy did me a solid. He set me on the right path. Yeah, you didn't waste your time you know we my buddy took a bunch of different things i let's see what did i actually experiment i was cheap so i didn't want to buy the expensive ones so like back then pro hormones were legal oh yes yeah but a bottle of them that vitamin shot was called vpx used to make them i think they're still in business and they would name them after actual steroids so they had let's see if i remember they had paradeca one test one test i remember one test yeah one test paradeca decavar and i don't remember what the other there was a trend balloon one i've heard about yeah yeah yeah and they can they give you they give

it to you in dropper so it looks like a syringe. They wanted it to look as much like actual steroids as possible. And that stuff actually worked because they were precursors, right? Yeah. Then that all got banned in 2004 after the Ephedra scandal. They just decided to throw prohormones into the mix there. But I didn't want to pay for that. They were all like $100, and I think they only lasted like a month. Like, I was $18 million for that.

Yeah. And who knows how much testosterone or whatever those actually metabolized into versus i have no idea i know every guy i know that took that one test they got big really fast oh yeah yeah um i don't know about the other ones i remember that one though but uh yeah so i think I took multivitamins on and off between ages 18, 21 probably. And I took whey protein periodically throughout the years. I messed around with casein, protein. I think I took free-form BCAAs because they're supposed to be better. Oh, right.

I went through a phase. Yep. Yeah. Man, those things are nasty. They're so bad. I could never find a brand that actually mixed up well um yeah yeah oh and i'm mixing i'm mixing up two different supplements so no bcaas i took briefly in 2014 the guy i was working with was big on them and you know and uh i like the

flavor i think extends was it called? Sounds like a fucking erection pill, but do you remember that one? Yes, I do remember those. Yeah. Well, I think the thing was about the flavor with those is I bought some of those once and I remember it being really strong. I mean, like I got watermelon or whatever, and it was just like full face punch of watermelon. And I think they have to do that to cover up the bitterness. Because there are some lighter flavored BCAs I've bought from other companies. And man, that stuff is just super bitter. Because it would never mix right in water. And you get a little bit of that powder on your tongue. Brutal. I don't know which one. I took the purple one. I think it was blue raspberry. Yeah. I took that.

But no, years ago when I was 18, they had this pill container and it had capsules. And they were amino acids, but then they were like, quote unquote, free form. So it was like multiple amino acids. They had a bunch of essential amino acids, they called them. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. EAs, you know?

Right, right. And they were free form, you know? And I took those. So I'm like, well, I'll absorb more of them, you know? Right, right. And they were free form, you know? And I took those. So I'm like, well, I'll absorb more of them, you know? So I'm like learning all this like, you know, some little bit of biochemistry, I guess, would probably be the right word for it. And then I just become a master of all this diet stuff, you know, dietary manipulation. Kind of new stuff. I think I took one of the nitric oxide

ones at one point uh i was i know explode or whatever that was yeah that was super popular no i don't know i took nox2 by the time i know explode came out i would given up on that i tried the creatine i think i took monohydrate then i definitely definitely took the that hydrochloride was s ethyl ester because they were like i read it in a magazine in 2003 and it's like, oh, this is supposed to be better. Oh, right. Yeah. Absorbs better or whatever. Yeah.

It said something about less water retention. Oh, I won't blow, but you have to retain water for it to fucking work. You know? So, anyways, I played around with all that silly stuff. And none of it worked because I wasn't training you know so like i'm trying all this stuff out i'm fucking around with diet and then i just wasn't training correctly i wasn't dead lifting i wasn't pressing and uh i wasn't really adding weight to the bar on the isolation stuff so you know my basically the same result every time i'd get fat my chest back and

legs would grow because i squat benched and did pull-ups and then everything else would just not move and uh biggest thing i got later on was i pressed i dead lifted and i you know got stronger at all of it and i've continued to grow throughout the years and in the last year i've started doing single joint stuff and i've added a little bit each time and i've grown from that develop some golfer's elbow that I'm working through now, so my little arm quest is, you know, kind of on hold. But we're getting through it. I, you know, basically gonna have to train that more intermediate, probably hit it a little heavier every other week. In my experience, tendonitis is one of those things, like, once you fix the thing that was lighting it up, it takes a few weeks for the, for the itis to

fully kind of dissipate and then that's how i feel and then you get these little like twinges that'll like pop up like one workout then it'll go away pretty fast but yeah it takes it takes it's a long tail of uh getting that out of your system it sucks yeah i can't lock out my uh arms when i curl i think that's what caused it yeah locking the elbow out that terminal range of motion there yeah yeah i. Yeah. I mean, if I'm going to do that, I'm going to have to use my shoulder to get it moving. You know, if you try to like

do a complete isolation elbow flexion without any shoulder flexion, it's going to light you up. Yeah, for sure. I was watching, I was watching Mike Israetel this morning and he was going all the way down, but then you see a little shoulder raise there

to get it moving, you know? Yeah, just to get it going. Yeah. So I need to modify that. I was trying to go purely just moving my forearm, and it just wrecked my elbow over time. I got away with it for a while because it wasn't heavy. Then when it got heavy, and, you know, I'm curling 50s and curling over 100, you know, 40s, like 43, I think, on the preacher curl.

That was enough to light it up. For sure. So, you know, I'm working through that. But, yeah, anyhow, supplements. None of that shit enough to light it up for sure so you know i'm working through that but uh yeah anyhow supplements none of that shit worked and it kind of diverts your attention to the wrong things right so you know you got you got a hierarchy right so number one you have to train you have to train you have to train correctly you know you got to do your big lifts you have to try to add weight you have to try to get stronger i don't want to hear this hypertrophy shit. We're not advanced bodybuilders here. And even they got to get stronger. That's right. Yeah. They're lifting a lot more weight than you are. We've hammered this point to hell.

But your foundation is your training program. That's the first thing you have to get sorted out. You have to put together a rational program that's going to get you stronger and build muscle. Once you have that, the next thing is you have to eat to facilitate that. We've talked about this. You have to get enough protein in. If you can't get enough protein in, a protein supplement can be useful. Sure. Yeah. But, you know, that's a basic, that's a food supplement, you know? Yeah. We're hoping that what's in it is in it because it's a supplement. It's not regulated, but regulation doesn't make anything any better it's not like the food you buy by the way people think oh the fda should regulate supplements like they regulate food the food you

buy they don't analyze that for calories and uh macronutrients and micronutrients they did that maybe a hundred years ago and they're extrapolating. So that's not any more accurate than a food supplement. You are trusting the food company to provide you with macros that are on there, you know, plus or minus. And how many times have we run into situations where, you know, some, there'll be some legal action and we find out after the fact, like, oh yeah, well, they actually were using a bunch of this stuff that's now illegal in the food. So they got to change. Like I remember trans fats being one of those things, right? You know, I don't know. I don't know if they were listed

in the ingredients or not, but I fully believe that with a lot of processed food, what you actually see on the label in the back is probably not everything that's actually in there. Or they just, they cover it up, you know, with like a, you know, and artificial flavors or whatever. That's right. That's right. But I digress. So yeah, you know, you need, you need enough protein, you need enough carbs. And if you don't want to become a big fat ass, you got to watch fat intake. I mean, you know, for all you keto guys, sorry, you know, you need a lot of carbs. And if you eat a lot of carbs and eat a lot of protein, doesn't leave room for a lot of fat, but that does not mean very low fat. We've hammered that

to hell too. Yeah. Right. Next thing on the list. Okay. What is your lifestyle like? And that's a broad category, right? So we start with sleep. Are you sleeping enough? Yeah. Are you stressed out at work? Are you stressed out at home? You know, are you doing drugs? Are you smoking cigarettes? Are you drinking? You know, like all these things factor in, you know? Are you doing drugs? Are you smoking cigarettes? Are you drinking? You know, like all these things factor in. You got to like go down the list, you know, and see what you can and can't address. Then once you're kind of weeded through all that and figured out how to best optimize all those things, because they're not going to be perfect. We're humans. We have lives, you know? Some of you out there are not going to drink zero drinks. I don't drink

zero drinks, you know? And some of you out there aren't going to drink zero drinks. I don't drink zero drinks. And some of you out there aren't going to sleep nine hours every night. I don't. So you try to fine-tune those things to the best extent that you can. Then you can start looking at things like supplements. But then when you look at that, okay, what works, what doesn't? Well, we've talked about protein, which is a food supplement, I would consider. You're getting more of a macronutrient without having to prepare a bunch of meat or keep a bunch of dairy products refrigerated. It's convenient.

So we start there. That's easy. It supplements your diet. That's what it's supposed to do. Then next one, creatine is a popular one. Lots of research on that, and it passes a smell test. I just had a girl start taking it, and her bench skyrocketed. I can't think of any other variable that on that. And it passes the smell test. I just had a girl start taking it and her bench skyrocketed. I can't think of any other variable that influenced that, you know.

Her other lifts, which were far more advanced on the adaptation curve than the bench press, have been pretty much the same, maybe a little bit lower. But motivation is a factor there too. And, you know, she's leaner and she's benching more. So I'm looking at it. I'm like, okay, it's probably the fact she's taking creatine consistently, you know. Yeah. It does help with these things, you know, she's leaner and she's benching more. So I'm looking at it. I'm like, okay, it's probably the fact she's taking creatine consistently, you know? Yeah. Does help with these things, you know? Yeah.

You know, the quote unquote scientists are saying so and the bro last, I don't know, three or four years at least. And I stopped, you know, a few months ago, I can't remember when exactly it is that I stopped taking it. And I just kind of decided like, well, you know, I'm not training that hard, you know, I'm not doing a lot of volume of work in any given workout. So I just, I don't feel like taking this anymore. in any given workout. So I don't, I just, I don't feel like taking this anymore. And I've kind of noticed, um, since then I've had consistent trouble with my eights on, uh, particularly on the upper body lifts. Um, you know, and, and, and it's, uh, it feels like it's not a hundred percent of strength issue. It feels like I'm just like a lot of times, usually on the second or third set when I'm doing eights, I'll just run out of gas on like rep eight, you know, whereas before, you know, the last, you know, three months ago, six months ago, when I was doing eights, I'd usually have plenty of gas, right? If I ran into a weight that I just couldn't lift anymore, it'd look more like six, six, five or something, right. As opposed to eight, seven, six, um, from set to set. And so I kind of wonder if that's really, you know, that's the creatine effect. It would certainly make sense, right.

That if you have a little bit of extra, a little bit extra creatine phosphate on board and your muscle cells, then you can just get that little bit of extra juice, right? A little bit of extra ATP available to rep out, you know, another rep, maybe another two reps in a set. Yep. Yeah, I would completely agree with that. So, you know, if all the other factors are met, then by all means, you know, yeah. So just make sure it's monohydrate. All the other ones are mostly bullshit. Yeah. It's cheap sure it's monohydrate. All the other ones are mostly bullshit. Yeah. It's cheap.

It's super cheap too. It's cheap. Yeah. Um, next multivitamins, you know, this was considered a basic when I go to, into every supplement shop. Well, your basics are multivitamins and amino acids. Well, you're getting amino acids if you're eating a lot of protein, but you know, I digress. Right.

Um, multivitamins. Well, you're getting amino acids if you're eating a lot of protein, but I digress. Multivitamins. So here's my position on multivitamins because the GNC guys and the bros will say you need them because you're not getting enough for food. You need more because you're lifting. So on one side of the argument, you have your GNC guy, your bro scientists, whatever you want to call to call them your gym bros that will say you need vitamins then on the other end do you have the dietetic people saying oh you can get it from food okay that's an academic response by the way because sure theoretically you can get it from food right right but you know there a practical problem with that. Number one, there are various environmental factors that can influence the amount of vitamin you can extract from a food. So, you know, I'm not going to go into each and every vitamin.

I'll be writing about this soon, and you can refer to that. Or you can pull out a nutritional biochemistry book. But things such as heat, cold, light, you know, that can affect how much of a vitamin you get out of a food. So the label may say it has X amount, you know, and then you're not actually getting that amount. Oxygen, so the air you're breathing, you know. For a long time, and maybe they're probably still doing it today as far as I know, orange juice has been promoted as this great source of vitamin C. The problem is when that orange juice hits the air, the oxygen oxidizes the ascorbic acid, and you lose a lot of it. You don't take in as much. My professor that taught me this said that if you want to use oranges or orange juice

as a source of vitamin C, you get the frozen concentrate. So red bell pepper is a better source. It's higher in vitamin C than oranges, and you'll get a lot more of it. But these are just some examples. Or look at your milk container, random fact. You notice that it is opaque that is to keep the light from hitting the milk because light can destroy the riboflavin which is your b2 vitamin b2 so you know those are a couple obvious examples we see every day but that's why milk containers are opaque interesting yeah yeah then you know

you got then the way then the way you cook things and prepare them right you apply heat you can lose some vitamins um from the food if you apply heat you know if you're cooking sure so you know taking all these factors into consideration you know if you try to like achieve these numbers all of, all of which, many of which, not all, but many of which aren't necessarily amounts that we know we need. So some vitamins have a recommended daily allowance, which is based on research throughout the years, yada, yada, yada. Then some have what's called an adequate intake that, you know, this should be enough and won't be harmful, right? Yeah. an adequate intake that you know this should be enough and won't be harmful right yeah um so the amounts that the government thinks we need are already unclear but let's assume these amounts are sufficient you know because we did have deficiency problems in the early 20th century that were

corrected by taking in more vitamins you know know, we had beriberi, pellagra, you know, these are B vitamin deficiencies. We had neural tube defects due to folic acid deficiency. And the government decided to enrich grains with B vitamins. And we haven't had these deficiency problems since. So it's pretty clear that this helps. And it's also clear that when food was less mass-produced and we were eating fresher things, while that was good in a lot of ways, we lost out on a few things, probably because of logistics, if you think about it, and also knowledge. We didn't know that certain things were in certain foods naturally. Right. about it you know and also knowledge you know we didn't know that certain things were in certain foods naturally you know right but but as you can see it's like a crazy game of tetris when you're trying to get all these little micronutrients in right um that's not to say that you can't get

plenty of them in eating a well-balanced diet because i don't take vitamins now i'm just real shitty at taking things right right and i feel fine you know and i eat a variety of different foods i eat a lot of fruits vegetables um oats lots of meat you know and things like that if you're a virgin you know you'd probably need more not probably you need to supplement some vitamins actually b12 iron you know yeah right for sure and you know that now we're talking about minerals right so there are two different things you know your, your vitamins and you have your minerals, right? I don't think a lot of people need to supplement minerals, but I think vegetarians and vegans probably do. So as you can see, trying to optimize your micronutrient intake through food can be a challenge.

It's, you know, to the point where, you know, we've had to enrich and fortify foods with them, right? Some people might argue that we didn't have to, but, you know, that's one of those things where it passes the smell test. We had all these deficiencies back in the day. We don't have them now. We have other problems now that come from mass food production. That's just not one of them. People aren't, you know kill you know getting berry berry and pellagra at high rates here in these in the states you know we have fewer cases of neural tube defects you know yeah um so you know there's everything's trade-offs no system's perfect and i generally don't want government getting involved in a lot of things um and i don't know that enriching grains was necessarily the best way to deliver it, but it got the job done because we eat a lot of grains here, right? So

we'll just leave it at that. So now fast forward, up to this point, I'm talking about vitamins for people that aren't lifting because that's what a lot of that is based off of, right? Now you start lifting. So this whole thing that, oh, you need more. This is what GNC says. Dietitians say, get it from food. Well, they're both correct. Most of your B vitamins specifically are involved in energy production and central nervous system function. You go down the list, that's the common denominator. You're either using them for biochemical reactions involved in energy production, or you're using them for your central nervous system to function one way or another. And this will all be covered

in a little bit more detail in my article while keeping it practical. So if you are producing more energy because you're doing a more vigorous form of activity, you're probably going to need more B vitamins to do that. And for you dietetic people, don't turn off the podcast yet because I'm going somewhere with this that you'll probably agree with. So yeah, you're producing more energy because you're lifting. You're lifting something heavy. You're producing more energy than a sedentary person. So you're probably going to need more B vitamins, right? Number two, lifting specifically, even more so than aerobic, because it's so high in intensity, you are engaging. That's not the word I want to use. Because it's so high in

intensity, you're lifting something heavy, you are recruiting your central nervous system to a far greater extent than doing something that's repetitive, light, continuous, right? So if you have more central nervous system activation, I mean, it's always working, by the way. You'd be dead if it wasn't. But obviously, you have to recruit more motor units, which means more CNS activity when you are lifting something heavy. So if you are doing that, if you are recruiting more motor units and having more CNS activity above baseline, then you would expect that, okay, you probably need more B vitamins, right? And, you know, it goes down the list, right? You know, you got your macro minerals, right? Your sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, magnesium, right? Sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, they're all involved, again, energy production, right? Sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, they're all involved, again, energy production,

right? Certain reactions require those. So therefore, maybe you need a little bit more. The question is, how do you get it, right? So the dietician in me will say, well, you also need more calories to lift weights. And if you're eating more of the same foods that you eat on a well-balanced diet, you are getting more vitamins and minerals. So do you need to supplement? Well, that goes back to the Tetris thing, right? The point is it can't hurt, right? Right. Some things, you know, so like I said, they're both right. The GNC guy's right because, yeah, if you're on the same calorie level and you're going to try and lift,

right? Because, yeah, if you're on the same calorie level, and you're going to try and lift, you're going to demand more of everything, first of all, so you should be raising your calories, but you're going to need more of these vitamins, most likely. Do we have, you know, a p-value or a peer-reviewed study to, you know, justify this? Probably not. I think the data on this that's available suggests that supplementing vitamins makes no difference in performance. But, you know, it's hard to control because calorie intake is probably going up when people are performing at a higher level, which means vitamin intake is going up independent of the supplement, right? Especially if you're eating a good diet. So they're both right. You do need more, but you also need more macronutrients.

So if you're eating more macronutrients, you're also getting more micronutrients. Now, you know, I'm a diet guy. I eat, you know, for the most part, how I tell people they should eat, but most people don't eat that way. We got plenty of data on that, anecdotal, you know, quote-unquote scientific, epidemiological. It's pretty clear that, you know, we have a pretty shitty diet in this country, and it's starting to spread to other countries as far as I know.

So, you know, when I'm talking to the guy that's like, you know, I want to eat ribeyes and drink whiskey all day and do keto, okay, do you think he's getting all those vitamins? Probably not. Or let's just take the average Joe on the street that, you know, skips breakfast, gets fast food for lunch, and then, you you know eats a bag of chips for dinner and maybe a case of coke you know for you texans out there i just learned it is all called coke in texas right right that's right oh yeah yeah yeah it's all it's all coke and then you specify what you want and if you don't ask if you know if if somebody you know if you don't specify if they're like hey you want to coke with that yeah they assume you mean dr pepper unless you say otherwise like oh no no i want a sprite oh okay i got you but it's all coke i just learned this from a client uh a month ago from texas oh yeah

i talked about the case of coke he's like you know why rip calls it coke right it's because in texas it's all coke yeah everything's coke and uh you also got to be fixing to fixing to you know like i'm not about to go to the gym i'm fixing to i'm fixing to go to the gym you know my stepdad talked like that yeah actually yeah but um yeah if you're the you know if you're the average guy that skips breakfast eats fast food drinks a case of coke and eats a bag of chips you're not getting your vitamins and then then you start lifting and okay, you're taking protein shakes now. And you know, maybe eating a couple steaks a day, it's gotten better, you're getting more B12, you're getting some more zinc, but you're probably not getting all your vitamins. Or let's say that you're a meat and potatoes guy,

and you're doing that, right? Okay, you're getting plenty of potassium, you know, you're, I think everybody's accidentally getting plenty of sodium, I don't think we really need to supplement that unless you're working out first thing in the morning and, you know, you want an electrolyte beverage. But, you know, you're a meat and potatoes guy. You eat a fair diet, but you're skipping your vegetables. You're like Carl Schutt not eating a fruit. Yeah, I'm calling you out. I hope you're listening.

You know, I've been shaming him for seven years about not eating a fruit. He's going to die and never have a fruit, I'm telling you. But, you know, we have this running thing now. He will not eat fruit. So, you know, he probably needs a multivitamin because he's not eating any fucking fruit, and I don't know how much—how his vegetable intake is either. He's strong as fuck, though. Yeah, right. So, that's my point, right? Are many people—let's just be honest with ourselves, even you listening—are you really eating a well-balanced diet? I mean, I don't even think I'm eating a totally

well-balanced diet. Sometimes I go through phases where I don't eat fruit and I'm eating fucking Halo Top because I have a freaking sweet tooth and want some more chocolate in my diet. Then I circle back to fruit because I'm like, I can't live off diet ice cream. This is silly, you know? But, you know, it changes. My carb sources change and that's, you know, a lot of your vitamins come from a lot of different places. But it's usually in the carb source where people, you know, tend to miss out on some things. Like if you can get somebody to eat enough protein, they're probably going to get enough iron, enough thiamine, enough B12 and whatnot if they're eating animal proteins. You know, B2 if they're drinking dairy. But then when you get to the carb sources, fruits and vegetables get skipped.

There's a lot of vitamins there that you're not going to get elsewhere, right? Yeah, right, right. Yeah, you can get a lot with, you know, starchy vegetables mixed in your, you know, ground beef or whatever that you're eating. Absolutely. But yeah, a lot of people aren't doing that. No. So, you know, that's my point.

You know, a multivitamin, you know, that's, that's my point. You know, a multivitamin is, you know, it's harmless. I wouldn't supplement. I wouldn't go high on the individual fat soluble vitamins that vitamin K, you excrete a lot of that, but like vitamin A, D and E, you don't really excrete that it can build up and you know, you can get some symptoms of toxicity. I know people personally that have gotten vitamin E, not vitamin E, vitamin D toxicity. That's another one to bring up. You know, a lot of us aren't sitting out in the sun all day, you know? Right. Or we're in a state that doesn't get a lot of sunlight, you know? Yeah, exactly. You know, so vitamin D supplementations, I highly recommend that, you know, if you can stick with it. Yeah. Now, that one is fat-soluble, though, right? It is.

Okay. Yeah. So it will build up. Yeah. You could get symptoms of hypervitaminosis D if you take too much of it. So you don't want to take it in crazy high doses. You know, you get your levels checked every so often. You'll start to feel funny.

But I know a friend of mine, her husband was low and she's a dietician she got him on vitamin d and uh whatchamacallit he uh started he went back his levels were like 90 and i think you know 30 is the low end of the cut point you know and uh she had to back the dosage off because he was trying to, you know, get some of those symptoms. Um, so yeah, you, you know, you want to kind of be careful. I think it's a thousand to 2000. I use are usually pretty good. Yeah. That's, that's normally what I do. Like, especially in the winter months, um, is yeah, I think it's like a couple, I'll take like a couple thousand a day maybe. Yeah. It seems like, I wonder if the people that you've run into that have had this problem take

like, cause I've seen some recommendations sometimes where people are like, you got to hammer that stuff, like 10,000, 20,000 a day. Yeah, no, I wouldn't do that. Well, there's a couple of ways it's administered. There's D2 and D3. So it's ergocalciferol that's usually found in plant products like shiitake mushrooms. That's a natural. I get a lot of vitamin D because I eat a lot of shiitake mushrooms. And then there's cholecalciferol, which is what you get from the sun. And I've seen doctors prescribe D2 ergo calciferol 50,000 units once a week,

and the absorption is different. So they just take it once a week and that's it you know okay with the colicalciferol you take it every day and uh the thing people tend to know like with my friend her husband noticed bone pain so that was a symptom that he got there's other symptoms but that's one that's pretty common okay yeah so yeah yeah then then you know you got other things right so like women pre-menopausal women you are bleeding once a month and uh when you bleed you lose iron so iron supplement it's probably good if you're pre-menopausal female that's still having a regular menstrual cycle on the flip side if you're male we

are not bleeding unless you know we're getting shot and like getting into gunfights and shit you know right getting stabbed you know whatever so a lot of that iron builds up we don't much of it, you know, and that can lead to various types of cancers later in life. It builds up in the colon. So it's advised that, you know, men give blood once a year or something like that to get rid of those iron stores. Calcium, a lot of women are at risk of osteoporosis, you know, and I know today, especially because I work with a lot of female clients, there, a lot of women are at risk of osteoporosis, you know, and I know today, especially because I've worked with a lot of female clients. There's a lot of females that won't drink dairy for various reasons. You know, and sometimes it's, you know, a good choice.

Sometimes it's weird shit that's been read on the internet, you know, but you know, dairy is very high in calcium. It's not that there's not calcium in other food sources, just not that concentrated of an amount. So a calcium supplement can be useful. I've had people taking magnesium. That helps them sleep, you know? Sure.

So, you know, these things are all practically useful. These are practically useful reasons to take these things. Once you start getting into all these, you know, quote-unquote performance-enhancing supplements, and I'm not talking about steroids. I'm talking about supplements that people say will enhance your performance. I just, I think a lot of it's bullshit. But, you know, if you want to try stuff and it's harmless, you know, you might get a placebo effect out of it. I mean, that counts for something, you know? Right. Yeah. If you want to spend your money on it, and you've looked through the risks, and you haven't, you know, heard of anybody having something crazy happen, and, you know, right. Yeah. If you want to spend your money on it and you've looked through the risks and you haven't, you know, heard of anybody having something crazy happen and, you know, seems fine. Try it out, you know, see and report back to us.

You know, I'm not saying that this stuff 100% doesn't work. You just haven't seen anything work anywhere near the extent actual steroids work. Right. So. Right. work, anywhere near the extent actual steroids work, right? So why the fuck are you going to take this shit and waste your money for an immeasurable result, right? So what we're talking about here today are things that, you know, you can pretty much see, right? Like, okay, you know, I'm eating meat and potatoes three times a day. I'm not touching a fruit or vegetable. I'm

going to take a vitamin and oh shit, I feel a little bit better, you know? And that Right. And that happens, you know, that happens. Just like I get the keto guys to eat more carbs and they feel a little bit better, right? Or, you know, I have low energy and, you know, you're a female. You start taking iron, oh, I feel much better. I had, oh, I had recently, as recent as last month, I had a female telling me she was getting constipated taking an iron supplement. And I recommended her pair it with vitamin C supplement because you can absorb the iron better if you take vitamin C. And, you know, she felt better and was not constipated anymore, you know? So, you know, there are practical reasons to take some of these things. But, you know, once you get into the silly stuff, I mean, okay, you want to take a nitric oxide supplement because you like how big your arms get temporarily after a workout, then go ahead. I mean,

it looks cool. I mean, it looks cool. I mean, you can take pictures for Instagram. If you're a gym trainer, you know, some people like to see that, you know? Right. I've never done it. Maybe I should because I'm trying to train arms, you know? Some people like that beta alanine, you know, they get the little tinglys in their face and, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They get all flushed and. Yeah, and you know yeah yeah exactly they get all flushed and yeah there's you know i don't i don't think i've left any out that really need to be touched on yeah i mean there's a whole list there's a whole litany of sort of like esoteric kind of stuff like it's endless yeah beta alanine you know hmb citrulline malate or malate however say that. I mean, stuff you would find in your, if you grab, so I guess the big thing that I hear

about still today is that I, we didn't call it this, or at least, you know, nobody in high school called it this pre-workout, you know, pre-workout is pretty popular now because people do, what do you use for pre-workout? What's your pre-workout? Right. And, you know, everybody's got their formulation that they like, and it has like all this, you know, shit in it. But it, like you said, there's, there's a placebo effect for sure with some of it, but also like, frankly, I think the thing that I see about pre-workout, the reason why you think it makes you better in the gym is because it has a bunch of caffeine in it.

Okay. Like I think caffeine is the best. We didn't, we, we talked about a little bit at the beginning of the show. We were joking, but like, I think that's the one that we've left out. That's performance enhancing is, um, caffeine is an ergogenic. Yeah. It's a great stimulant. It's great at stimulating the central nervous system and, uh, preparing you to lift heavy and it works. That's the word ergogenic aid. I forgot about that word. heavy and it works. That's the word, ergogenic aid. I forgot about that word. Yeah. And, and, uh, I, you know, I, I've kind of noticed, you know, personally, if I drink, you know, I forget what the, what the upper limit of caffeine is, you know, in general, but it's, you know, it's, it's pretty high. Like I don't want to say like five or 600 milligrams. I think it's five or 600.

Yeah. Probably way past that. Yeah. Which I mean, most people like, you know, a weak cup of coffee, like if you're getting like the Keurig cup of coffee, I would bet that has less than a hundred milligrams per cup in it. I would, I would gamble that. Now we, we make here at the Jones household, we make, you know, we do pour overs, right? So we, we have been using a Chemex lately. So we grind our own coffee beans and, you know, we do the Chemex. That is definitely, it's stronger coffee by a good bit. So I would bet a cup of coffee for us has, you know, 100, 120 milligrams of caffeine. So, you know, you could theoretically drink four or five or six cups of that and, you know, reach somewhere near the max benefit you'd ever get from it. I know I would be just

like, you know, I'd be like picking my skin off at that point. I'd be so jittery. Uh, but when I go in and train, especially when I squat or deadlift really heavy, um, then it kind of soaks up the caffeine for lack of a better term. You know, I noticed it like it, it doesn't seem to affect me after the workout as much as it would be if I hadn't worked out. So, um, you know, that's a useful one. But that's what I think about all these pre-workouts is like, it's not any of the other shit that they put in there. It's just the caffeine.

You just got a huge hit of caffeine and you feel great. You think the workout goes well. It probably did go better because, you know, because of the skin. I don't even consider that. Yeah, I don't. Caffeine, I have to drink a hot cup of coffee when I'm lifting. Sure. And it's fantastic. I love a hot cup of coffee when I'm lifting.

Same here. I just drink a black. Yeah, and that's the thing, too, right? You don't have to have a pre-workout to get caffeine in. You can just drink coffee. Yeah. They used to say it's false energy. I don't know. It's pretty fucking real when it's happening, but I get what they mean, right? You still got to eat a well-balanced diet, you know? Yeah. Again, this is a supplement. You're supplementing baseline. Baseline is you want to get enough carbs, enough protein, and a variety of different sources of each. So as you brought up caffeine, I was thinking about fat burners.

I don't know if those are still a thing, but— Well, they banned ephedrine, right? Yeah, they banned—well, you got to pay attention to what they did. They banned ephedra. Oh banned ephedrine right yeah they banned well you got to pay attention to what they did they banned ephedra or fedra because ephedra is the supplement term for it's an herb right okay fedra is an herb but ephedrine is what they extract from ephedra so they just want to make sure you're buying the drug and not the supplement yeah of course that's a scam such a scam man i remember that like we banned eedra, but you could still get the active ingredient, but the active ingredients in a product that's regulated by the FDA, you know? Yeah.

So, I digress. But, yeah, basically, fat burners that work are stimulants in a nutshell, right? Caffeine is considered a quote-unquote fat burner because it's thermogenic. It raises your body temperature, raises your heart rate. Back in the day, they used to do ephedra or ephedrine. Either one, ephedrine is a drug, ephedra is an herb, and ephedra is banned. Ephedrine is still available, as far as I know, unless that got banned too. I don't think it did. But both of them effectively are stimulants. They elevate your heart rate, blood pressure, et cetera.

I don't get much of a blood pressure response from caffeine. Mine's still low, but some people do. But yeah, it was ephedra, caffeine, and aspirin. And then later on, I saw guys putting yohimbine in there, which is supposedly a libido supplement. I don't think it did anything for that, but apparently it had some thermogenic properties too. Either way, you know, most people don't need to take a fat burner supplement. You know, where would this apply? This would apply if you are trying to get sickly fucking ripped for a bodybuilding show, in which case you're doing a bunch of other unhealthy shit too. And the fat burner is probably the least of your problems. But in order for that

to even work to begin with, you have to have a calorie restriction. And typically people will start, the smarter ones, the smarter physique competitors will wait till the last minute to take that stuff. And they'll get to a point where, man, I can't eat any less than this. I can't mentally or physically do it. And then they'll start taking fat burners and probably other too let's be honest yeah right right but the average person who's lifting weights and you know just need to lose you know like the guy who hires me and says i just i don't want to have a big belly that guy doesn't need to take fat burners you know most people don't need to take fat burners when we're talking about like that now we are talking about sport and that, now we are talking about sport.

And that's an entirely different animal. You know, if you're, well, not even sport. Now we're talking about a contest, right? And contests and sports alike, you know, people will push themselves to win. And they will take risks to win. They will take risks with their bodies to win. But, you know, if you're looking at longevity and health, I mean, you can't keep taking fat burners forever and jacking up your heart rate, you know, so it's not very good for that purpose. Out of all those supplements I listed, caffeine is the only one I really take.

I don't like, you know, that's why I don't take Adderall because Adderall got my blood pressure up, got my heart rate up. So I never took it consistently. I tried it a couple times, you know, prescribed by the doctor. I didn't take it. And for those of you don't know i've been adhd before it was fashionable i was first diagnosed in 1992. they didn't even have an h back then it was just easy you're such a hipster yeah i was adhd before it was cool yeah it was before it was cool i'm a purist yeah anyways but uh. But, yeah, I take caffeine. I don't like shit that gets my blood pressure and heart rate up. So, you know, those things work in the context of other shit, right? You have to be in a calorie restriction and working out to get the most out of something like that.

But most of you don't need to take that. You know, most of you don't need to take that. I am pro-caffeine, though. Definitely pro-caffeine. Yep. You know, then, you know, the next tier up is steroids, you know, that's considered a supplement in other countries, you know, and, you know, on this podcast, I shit on them all the time because people have, you know, gotten real good at using steroids and claim they're real good at training people, and they're not real good at training people, they're just good at using drugs in a lot of cases. They're the most dangerous coaches at training people and they're not real good at training people they're just good at using drugs a lot of cases they're the most dangerous coaches out there and they

uh are all over the damn industry um it's different it's a different ball game you know i was talking to a guy yesterday you know somebody probably knows this i don't read steroid literature but one guy was saying that no working out and just getting on testosterone seven percent increase in muscle mass you know with no working out yeah i think with working out and just getting on testosterone, 7% increase in muscle mass, you know, with no working out. I think with working out, it was like 10% to 15% or something. It was the number he threw at me. I didn't fact check or verify this, but it sounds about right. Well, and I'm sure just like training, you have high responders and low responders,

you know, even the— And adverse responders. And adverse responders, right. You know, I was rereading Dante Trudell's Cycling for Pennies article. It's great, yeah. There's a bunch of different versions out there, but he actually has one. I'll link it in the show notes. He's got a version that he edited.

So he took the original thread and condensed it into just his information, and he edited it and kind of fixed up some, like clarified some points. So this is the man himself. Anyway, so I was rereading it, and he brings up the example of male strippers. He's like, yeah, cause he's talking about that phenomenon, right? He's like, he's like, just look at male strippers, you know, like these guys would get like pretty jacked and they're all like, you know, 200 pounds, maybe the bigger ones are like 225. He's like, but they never get bigger, you know? And they, but because they don't put in the work, they don't lift heavy, you know, they sort of get to this one

place and he's like, they're doing more drugs than my, like my guys prepping for bodybuilding shows are. It's true. Yeah. Um, and I just think it's hilarious. Like, yeah, sure. I guess I, you know, I, I, I'll take your word for it, Dante, that, uh, what male strippers do. I don't know anything about male strippers, but I know that if you're in the business of looking pretty, then you don't necessarily need to train to maximize that. There are other ways to look pretty. Steroids are probably the easiest. Then you have plastic surgery that's a little more invasive than steroids.

And then now you have Photoshop and what's that app that I use to edit my videos in shot? There's all these different apps that can make you look pretty. If you're're just doing it on the internet, you know, you might not even have to do very much invasively. Well, you know, I can imagine like an actor, right? So if you're like some in-demand actor and you've got to get jacked for a superhero film, like, you know, you probably, those guys probably have a crazy ass schedule. They're traveling all over the place. You know, they, you know, they may have like intermittent access to gyms and food yeah so like drugs yeah of course you know like if you just got to get kind like if you already have great genetics right if you already look like brad pitt and you just got to put on like 10 or 15

pounds of muscle to look great to look ripped for a movie then yeah sure you know they probably just get on a bunch of drugs and they you know maybe fuck around in the gym when they can yeah um but yeah sure makes a lot of sense to me yeah who was it hugh jackman denied steroids recently they asked him point blank then i'm like well of course he denied steroids he's a fucking actor they're professional liars first of all and uh why is he going to admit to something that's illegal and socially frowned upon which it really shouldn't be because what is their job their job is to look a certain way on screen. And if steroids make that easier and they're willing to take the risks, by all means, they are trying to look pretty. We are trying to get healthy, strong, and useful. Two different things, right? And that's what I always highlight

to people. I'm like, bodybuilding is a appearance contest and steroids change your appearance more than training does nobody wants to say that out loud but it's fucking true now what dante was bringing up was these guys don't keep getting bigger and i what i've noticed is a lot of guys don't keep getting stronger yeah right in the training realm you you have to figure eventually you have to troubleshoot i see guys get on and then they make they make linear progress again because they just took drugs and then they stop making progress they don't never figure out how to train then they take more drugs and more drugs and they get hurt because their form shitty and then they stop

training all together right right um so you know that that's a whole nother episode that we could talk about this shit on but my point is that you don't need it if looking pretty is all you fucking care about there are other ways to do that rather than killing yourself the way we do, you know? Right? I mean, it's a different objective. You know, there's no training for aesthetics. Aesthetic improvements are a byproduct of training. But the percent change in muscle mass for most people, not all, you have very high responders to training.

change in muscle mass for most people, not all, you have very high responders to training, but for middle of the bell curve person, skinny, fat, unathletic or mildly athletic, at best, I'd consider myself mildly athletic. You know, I have a 24-inch vertical jump. It's just barely above average. Right. You know, but you're going to see an improvement. Your body's going to change. You're going to look better than you did. I always say that. You're going to 100% look better than you did without training. You will always look better lifting weights than not lifting weights. But if you want to see like a 20 or 30 or 40% improvement in your appearance, you're coming to the wrong place, you know? And the people selling you that were either born that way or took drugs. Yes, I agree. And I'll say it a different way.

I think a lot of people, when they're asking about aesthetic changes from the program, I think what they're actually wanting to see that can't happen is they want to look like a different person. Exactly. And by that, I mean, like, they think in their head, they've come up with the solution. Like, yeah, if I just get like more jacked and I lose more fat or, you know more toned right more muscle mass and they lose more fat right and they get leaner then i'll look like this you know and in their head they have this image of someone else and it's like no like you don't have their bone structure you don't have their insertions you

don't have their anthropometry you know you're just not going you're never going to look like that person it doesn't matter no you know what you do there there's nothing you can do to look like someone else and i think that i think that's kind of um sometimes people they probably don't think about it that way when they're but that's what it is you know and that that will literally you there's just absolutely no way there's no drugs there's no surgery there's there's nothing you can do to get you to that point and to look like someone else. But you can look like a better version of yourself. Absolutely.

Yeah. Anyway, yeah. That's a whole other sociological discussion. My point is that, you know, the problem is these guys are overrepresented in a lot of mainstream pop culture media publications. And that includes fitness magazines, fitness content, etc. that are either naturally very lean or airbrushed to look leaner than they are or a variety of they made them look pretty through means other than training let's just put it that way you have a lot of men and women you know the women have been getting this longer than we have but they just have a lot of humans that have been made to look a certain way without any active effort of on their on their of their own doing you know or very little at best, right?

So maybe they are lifting weights, right? But they just kind of look that way. My stepbrother looked that way to begin with. He starts training. He looks just like these guys. They airbrushed him. He'd look even more ripped, right? Yeah.

So there's just minimal active effort, and a lot of it is sheer genetics or non-training interventions, you know, plastic surgery, makeup, steroids, lighting, you know, tanning, et cetera, you know? So, you know, in short, you know, none of these supplements are going to do that for you, and training isn't necessarily going to do that for you. We kind of got off onto a different topic there, but it kind of relates because I think a lot of people see these supplements and they think, I'm going to look like that guy over there if I take this thing over here and this can and do this workout

that this dude who looks like that said to do. Right. It just doesn't work that way. It's not going to work that way. Supplements supplement the diet, and training will add muscle to your body, will get you stronger, will make you look better. But the delta is going to vary across individuals. And the guys that typically respond

the best start out in pretty damn good shape to begin with. You know, there's some evidence that they're probably going to do well with this. Yeah, for sure. Well, I'll wrap it up by saying this. The reason supplements are so popular and everybody talks about them is because it's easy to spend money to improve your health and fitness. Right. Like that's like the easiest thing to do. You know, just go spend some money. Hey, I made a difference. I got a supplement now.

But you just spend a bunch of money for a tiny, imperceptible increase in performance. With the exception of the couple things we talked about. Caffeine. Right. Creatine. But it's hard to go and add five pounds to your squat and drive that up to what you're really capable of. And it's hard to scrape the ceiling of your genetic potential. That takes years of effort. And it's hard. And it ceiling of your genetic potential that takes years of effort

and it's hard and it never gets easier. You have to really want to do this. You got to really want to do it. And, um, you know, that's, it's like, like we always say, like, you know, training is for everyone in the sense that everyone can train, but not everyone is for training, you know, not everyone is, is, is mentally suited to this pursuit. And so, um, yeah, you know? No. Not everyone is mentally suited to this pursuit. And so, yeah, you know, it's funny how we could apply that same statement to a lot of different things, right? Like, what does everybody like to talk about in golf? They're like, oh, I just need a new driver.

I can't hit my driver for shit. Let me get a new driver. You know what? I needed, I had a graphite shaft. I need a steel shaft. That was my problem. Yeah. No, it's not.

Right. No, it's not. You just, your swing sucks. And you know, what you don't want to admit to yourself, like it's easy to go and spend 400 bucks on a fancy driver. It's hard to go and hit 10,000 drives and figure out your swing. It's going to play at anything. Yeah. So anyway, yeah. Then that's the irony, right? Like it might matter to a PGA tour pro if his uh pitching wedge is 54 degrees or 53 degrees of loft right but it but it only it only matters because he's hit like a hundred thousand

pitching wedge shots in his career right right and if you haven't done that it's not going to matter whatsoever for you so that's the irony not at all yeah at all. Yeah. So, all right. Well, you want to close this out? Yeah. Thank you for tuning in to the Weights and Plates podcast. You can find me at weightsandplates.com on Instagram, the underscore Robert underscore Santana. I have a gym here in Phoenix, Weights and Plates Gym. Website is weightsandplatesgym.com or weights double underscore and double underscore plates on Instagram. And I'm starting to put some content down on that page more now.

Yeah. If you haven't followed, if you haven't followed him, go and follow on Instagram. Cause you've, yeah, you've been dropping a lot of interesting videos. Like you kind of hit on a lot of the topics that we touch on in the show, but you, you know, in just little short little bites. So it can be fun. If you've got a friend who's, you know, you've been arguing about with, with diet and fitness and stuff, then you can link him one of, one of these Instagram videos and get some discussion going in your own little fitness community. You know where to find me at marmalade underscore cream on Instagram. That's where I post both my lifting and audio pursuits. And if you're interested in online coaching, you can always reach me at jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com.

All right, we'll talk to you again in a couple weeks. you