May 24 Instagram Q&A | ETP#156

Episode 156 is our monthly Instagram Q&A episode for May 2024. As always, this is one of our favorite episodes we get to do. And we encourage listeners to submit contextual questions so that we can help you get the most out of your personal eating and training endeavors. Catch you next month!

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Life/episode updates
12:24 - Tips for stubborn chest fat loss?
14:37 - 1 and ¼ reps are more TUT, but is it worth the sacrifice in load for hypertrophy? 
16:20 - In regards to the Pulldown and people with long arms…Bring the bar to touch chest on pulldowns is failure? I feel like I can get more stimulus going heavier but only coming to the chin. 
19:58 - How would you program for a small group of 4 people for 45-50 min strength session? 
23:41 - What are the actual differences between men and women for training and nutrition?
28:42 - I think I’m addicted to exercise. Definitely dependent. Is there a point where it’s unhealthy? 
35:38 - Thoughts on high reps (like 20+) when prioritizing leg growth? 
39:29 - Pros/cons of “smart coaching apps” (macrofactor, carbon etc…) as compared to working with a real coach?
43:13 - How to prevent muscle loss during a cut?
45:48 - How would you handle a client that struggles with binge eating?
48:42 - Recommendations for intra-workout nutrition?
52:44 - Will be entering a gain season soon but want to follow a hybrid program (Alec Blenis). How much slower should I expect my progress to be when compared to a traditional hypertrophy program? 
55:28 - How stable can a lift be before stability becomes a limiting factor? Like for split squats and db presses? 
58:53 - Strength training for a golfer? 
59:38 - Possible to increase your metabolism? Or just BS? 
1:03:05 - E2 is on the low end, lifestyle and sleep and body fat is in check.
1:05:11 - Suggestions for boosting Free Testosterone? SHBG is not high, and Total Testosterone is 600 ng/dL

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Transcript

0:28

What's up guys, happy Tuesday. Welcome back to Eat, Train, Prosper. Today is episode 156, our May Instagram Q&A for May 2024. It's kind of funny now that we've run the year three of the podcast, or this might be potentially year four, whatever. It's year three or four, we've done a number of them for May, so we have to start appropriately labeling them. We have a bunch of good questions this week, or this month, that I'm excited to dive into. But as always, Brian, can you kick us off with some updates? I'm so excited to hear about how your Misogi went, so please share. Yeah, well, we'll start with the Masogi. So that's what I did on Sunday. I'm sure most of you guys have been following along on the prior episodes, but basically a Masogi is a challenge that you do once a year. It can be anything. It doesn't have to be a hike like I did, but any sort of challenge that you feel like is so difficult that it could shift your perspective on what is difficult in life for the other 364 days. Some misogis are said to be challenges that have a 50 % chance of success, a 50 % chance of failure. I have, this one was definitely not that. So we had five guys, myself included, begin this hike at 7 a and the hike is called a skyline traverse. And it takes you from the bottom of Boulder at a place called Doughty Draw, which is actually a really cool kind of off -road biking area as well. And you begin up a mountain. And it's the, it takes you to the highest peak in all of Boulder. So you go from about 5 ,200 feet of vert at the bottom to 8 ,500 feet at the top. So 3 ,300 feet gain in the first climb. And that is about half of the entire vert that you gain on the whole hike. But basically it takes you across five peaks. So you climb up to the highest point and then you kind of like traverse your way down and up in like this meandering undulating fashion. until you get to essentially the very bottom of the fifth peak. And by that point, you're back down at 5,200 feet. And then you have to go up Sinitas Mountain, which is a very well -known mountain in Boulder that's kind of like the most touristy hike, I would say. And it's super steep. So I'll just take you through real quick, try not to waste too much time. But the first hike up to the very first peak is called South Boulder Peak. It took us... just under two hours, maybe an hour 56 to go from base to the first peak. That was really cool. The first view from there was insane. And then after that, you go down slightly just to go back up again. So you definitely don't go all the way down. It's called like a causeway or a saddle. It's like, I think a saddle is the term, but you go down a bit, maybe a thousand feet, and then you go up another thousand feet. And that takes you to bear peak. which is another famous kind of top of peak hike in Boulder, where these mountains converge into a really steep tip. And so once you get to the top, you're still 20 feet or 30 feet from the top top. And you have these rocks without great foot grip that kind of form this super tall peak cone thing at the top. And you need to get to the top basically so that you get this incredible panoramic view. of everything on all sides. You can see like the Continental Divide, Snowcap Mountains in the distance. And you can see ski slopes from up there that are like, you know, an hour and a half drive away, but you can see them from the top of this mountain in Boulder. And so we scrambled up to the top there. It was slightly treacherous. I mean, not gonna say that if you slip, you would die, but there are ways in which you could slip and you would die. And so we got up there, took another panoramic. At that point, we were... I don't know, two and a half or three hours in. And, and we had done 4 ,000 feet of vert or something crazy like that. And then from there, we take quite a long hike to descend for a while. And then we're back up again to another mountain called green mountain. And then from the top of green mountain, you straight descend all the way to the bottom. So I want to say like from green mountain to the bottom to do the final hike was. two and a half hours of descending. And that is around the point where it started to feel like a misogi to me. The first four to five hours were fine, but descending was really gnarly. Two of my buddies had poles. And so I kind of wish in retrospect that I had gotten poles, partially for the ascents to allow me to use a little bit of upper body, but also partially. for the descents to take some of the strain off the knees. Apparently it takes 18 % of the strain off the knees if you use poles when you're descending. So my legs started to feel really beat. I mean, I'd been walking at a brisk pace for five straight hours at this point and we're still in the middle of descending all the way down. In the descent, we passed Flagstaff, which was our fourth point, but we didn't really climb to get there. It was like just part of our descent. And then we got to the bottom. and we're all crushed. It's like six and a half hours in or something like that. And we had purposefully set up a car at the base of Sinitas, which is the final hike. And we had replacement water because I had gone through five liters of water already in the first six and a half hours. And so we had replacement water, we had some snacks and we just kind of sat around for I'd say no more than 10 minutes because you know, you sit too long and you don't want to get going again, but your legs are smashed. You've been on them for six and a half straight hours, you really want to relax them. So we sat down, we drank a bunch of Gatorade and just kind of chatted for 10 minutes and then boom, hit it. And the final hike was really hard. I mean, it's the steepest one of the five. It's also the shortest, but it's the steepest. And what this one is one mile of total distance covered, but you gain over 1000 feet of vert. So that means that the average grade is over 20%. So you're essentially like, we call it stair stepping. You're literally like, like on a stair stepper the entire way for an entire mile. And so I think that took us 45 ish minutes to get to the top and we summited at seven hours and 26 minutes from the start. And then we had to descend down Sinitus. And I actually think descending down Sinitus may have been even worse than just that other descent that I was talking about because our legs were so crushed from the insane ascent that there was this. wild contrast between the concentric of climbing a mountain to the eccentric of descending that same steep mountain. And I felt like at any moment my legs could give out. Like if I started going and you get that like slippery, sandy, rocky stuff under you, like I'd just say, fuck it. And just like I'm face planning, you know? But somehow we all survived. We got back to the car at just under eight and a half hours total. And... went out to eat a whole bunch of food. So I have some stats from the hike that I want to pass on to you guys real quick, but first I'll let Aaron kind of jump in with anything. my God, I did have a question and I remember thinking, okay, I gotta remember, because I'm gonna ask Brian about it. And there it goes. Did anyone's, with the descent, did you run into any issues where your legs, like your VMOs, started cramping on you a little bit on the descent? So one of the guys had really bad VMO cramps. I did not, my cramps were in my anterior tib and in the arch of my foot, which were also not great places to cramp. But also one other thing I should mention about the hike is that I was torn between what shoes to use because I had two extremes. I had hiking boots and I have my normal zero minimalist, like no heel or heel, yeah, no heel drop shoes or whatever they are, the minimalist shoes. And so my plan initially was to take the, wear the hiking boots, but take the minimalist shoes, shoes, just in case, as I was packing up my bag the night before, I realized I wasn't going to be able to fit a pair of shoes in my backpack with all my water and all my snacks and everything like that. And so I just decided to make the decision to just wear the zero minimalist shoes. And so it was the better decision, I think, but the problem with those shoes is that you feel. every single rock and pebble that you step on and my foot was constantly getting jabbed with things when I would have a drop down from like a foot or a foot and a half rock to another rock, you know, I'd feel all of that. And I would say, obviously, my legs were just completely dead, but my feet were very, very impacted to luckily, I didn't get any sort of blisters or foot contusions or anything like that. They were just tired and fatigued and being in a minimalist shoe, there's just no support. So you're gripping everything with your feet. Yeah, so if you don't have any questions, I can jump into some stats real quick. So the hike, like I said, was seven and a half hours to summit the final one, eight and a half total to get back down to the car. I did 45, almost 45 ,000 steps during the hike and the day was 40. 9 ,000 steps, which means there was a little bit of movement before and after the hike, but not too much. I burned 3 ,900 active calories, which put my total caloric burn for the day at 6,500 calories. And we ascended 6 ,000 feet of vert and covered just under 20 miles of distance. and. I spent over about two hours of time in zone four or zone five. So of the eight and a half hours, two hours of it was zone four or zone five. Luckily the majority of it was zone one and zone two with a little bit of zone three, but two hours in zone four and zone five will take it out of you. And then just, you know, being on your legs for eight and a half straight hours without sitting. So those are kind of some of the major stats from it. And, That's my big update from the weekend. As of this moment, my legs are insanely sore. I mean, it's like the biggest burden of soreness I've ever felt, like more than the worst leg day I've ever done. Everything from, you know, the muscles in my feet up through my calves and the back of the knee. Like, you know, when you get really sore and you would sometimes not be able to like extend your elbow when you do bicep curls, that sort of thing, like the back of my kneecap. is sore, like the tendons back there, and then hamstrings and for sure quads and glutes and hips. And I mean, the whole thing. So I am like, today is worse than yesterday. I'm like hobbling around, I can barely straighten my leg at all. But somehow all of my metrics of health have been insanely good, like HRV and resting heart rate just bounced right back. I couldn't believe it. I thought I'd wake up the next day with a resting heart rate of like 65. And it was like 43. I was like, huh, what the fuck? but yeah, so that's basically the story. Very cool. The question I wanted to ask was about the shoes. That's exactly what it was. So I'm glad you covered that. Cool, cool. Go ahead, what you got? I don't have any updates this week, nothing really going on. All right, cool. I did want to touch on stretch -meeted hypertrophy versus long muscle lengths, which Milo has been touching on recently. I am going to save that because I just spent so long on my misogi. And then my last update is just that I did a DEXA scan last Thursday. So I thought I was going to get the results by today and that I could talk about it, but I did not. So whenever the DEXA results come in, I guess before next episode, I'll be able to update you guys on that and see what. eight weeks of intense cardio with minimal weight training has done to my physique, if anything. Yeah, I think that would, we should put up on, sorry, you should put up, I guess, on Story to gather some votes and poll and see what people think there. And I will, of course, weigh in. That will be fun. Okay, any other ones before we dive in for today? No, let's get after it because we have like, yeah, basically an hour or less before we got to jump. Yep, cool. I guess I'll take this first one. Yeah. Tips for stubborn chest fat loss. Yeah, so this comes from a male, which I think is important to disclose because obviously females are gonna carry a lot more body fat in the chest or breast region. And the really simple answer here is you just have to reduce your body fat. The chest is not somewhere that typically as a male you are going to store. large amounts of body fat unless you are already at higher body fat levels. So the really simple answer here is you just have to get your body fat down overall and that will really solve for it. I have heard of some people having some higher body fat in that area and this is every time I've heard about it has always been in people using PEDs. and then having their estrogen higher, which of course then will shift things when you're kind of playing God with your hormones per se. But if you're not in that camp, it's really, you just have to reduce your body fat and it will come down everywhere. And there's no real tips or tricks or hacks or anything like that for anyone in like a natural setting or whatever to. bias that or anything, you can obviously train it very, very adequately, you know, and build tissue in that area, but you really just have to reduce your body fat, probably lower than you think. Yeah, I agree with all of that. And I think following the science and practically that is the answer. Anecdotally for myself, my brother used to make fun of me when I first started lifting that I had side chest fat. He would call it like armpit fat because it would be like right where the chest meets the armpit. And I think that that was mostly just, hey, I wasn't in puberty yet. That was just where my baby body had decided to store that little bit of fat. But someone suggested to me anecdotally in a forum that I should do a bunch of dumbbell flies with a huge stretch. And I did that and it went away. I think what really happened is I built muscle and I hit puberty and it masked it or whatever. But for whatever it's worth, dumbbell flies with a big stretch do at least add some muscle to that area that you're probably concerned about. This one I'll kick over to you here. I'll read, do you want me to read both of them or just the first one? Let me, let me just read them real quick and I'll combine them together into one question. So these, both these questions I want to combine together, even though they're different questions, because I think the answer can kind of be applied to both of them. So the first question is one and a quarter reps are more time under tension, but is it worth the sacrifice in load for hypertrophy? Actually, I'll answer that first real quick. The answer is that I don't think that there is a sacrifice in load when. you account for total lengthened exposures. So yes, if you're doing five reps of one and a quarter reps, and you're counting that as five reps, and then you can certainly call it and say that there'll be a reduction in load from being able to do nine or 10 reps of, of, of full reps, right? Or the weight that you could use for five reps would be higher if you're not doing one and a quarter reps. But if you look at it as lengthened exposures, what we found through the N1 hypertrophy camp is that you actually get more lengthened exposures with the same weight. So in the test that we did, it was dumbbell bench press, and I got 10 total reps when I was doing full range of motion reps. And with one and a quarter reps, I got six. So that means that I got 12 lengthened exposures. with the one and a quarter reps using the same weight, even though I got 10 full reps prior. So that means I got two more lengthened exposures, even though I did less total reps. So if you're counting volume by length and exposures, then you would say that you're actually getting more bang for your buck with the one and a quarter. And the reason I was gonna combine this into two questions here is because I wanted to reference the N1 hypertrophy camp in this answer as well and kind of tie them together. So the second question is, In regards to the pull down and people with long arms, bringing the bar to touch the chest is failure. I feel like I can get more stimulus going heavier, but only coming to the chin. And so this also is another test that we did at N1 hypertrophy camp where we had a pull down and we had it performed either full range of motion as one and a quarter reps. or straight up as partials, which is what he's suggesting. Like, hey, I'll just pull it down to my nose or my chin or whatever, not have to touch my chest every time. And because it's a short overloaded movement and it's so difficult at the point where the bar would touch the chest, that yes, it is more effective to either do partials and take them to your chin or to your nose, or just to do one and a quarter reps like in the prior question. where you can get many more lengthened exposures that way. So you'll do a full one and then, you know, a half little partial rep and then a full one and a partial rep. Depending on your pull down machine could also change this. So like if you have one of those prime pull down machines or a strive where you can change the resistance profile, then now you can, you can do full range of motion reps, but you can set it at lengthened and it won't be so hard coming to your chest. But yeah, if you have a standard pull down machine that's going to be limited, by the strength curve as far as like you get weaker as you get closer to the short position. Then doing partial reps to your nose or your chin, super great idea. You can use more load or you can get more reps with the same load. Anything to add there, Straker? The only thing I'll add is as I was listening to you speak, I was trying to think, okay, when I'm doing a straight up pronated pull down, am I ever touching my chest? And the answer is I really don't know. It might be an inch or two off. And I think like the person said in the question, with people with really long arms, I have super long arms. And it might be for me to hit my chest, I might have to be so far into the short position that it might just be like... very, very limiting, I could have to significantly reduce load in order to do that each time, whereas if I just go to like, whatever two inches off my chest, I can get a significantly better stimulus. So I think it's just gonna depend a little bit, and it also depends on the bar, right? Sometimes you get those like really nice, like long, wide, flat, straight bars, but then like a lot of times the pull down bars like a big, like a bridge sort of thing, like some of them, it really, really depends, so. I would just say like what one feels like really strong and powerful and you can create a consistent rep cadence, not necessarily cadence, like a consistent rep performance. Exactly. Yeah. So there's gonna be a lot of variables there. So don't think that like, if I'm not touching my chest, it's like, doesn't count because there's a lot of potentially limiting factors there. Yeah, I think there's actually a hard stop. Like there's a hard stop at some point where your scapula just gets in the way and you can't pull any further unless you either jut your body a little bit or do like some momentum based stuff. So I would say touching the chest probably is unrealistic in most cases, but whatever the short position is for you, if that's an inch or two off your chest, I still think that, you know, it could be potentially more effective for you to do even shorter range of motion reps. and stay more in that length and range given the current state of the research. This one I feel like makes the most sense to kick over to you, because you have a lot more experience in this one. How would you program for a small group of four people for 45 to 50 minutes strength session? Yeah, I wish I had a lot more details on this question because I don't know what their gym setting is. Like, are they just in like a CrossFit style gym with all free weights? Are they in a commercial gym and it's like a personal trainer running a group session where you're dealing with, you know, standard gym members? Or do you have like a private studio where you have 10 different machines and you have four people and you can work them through literally in any way that you want? And so I feel like my answer changes entirely. based on that. And so I don't exactly know how to approach this, because I'm not going to spend 15 minutes and break down every single one of those scenarios. But I think that using antagonistic paired supersets, so maybe you're holding down two machines at a time, is probably the most realistic route that would span across all the examples. So if you have four people, you have two of them on a pulldown, you have two of them on a chest press, and then they... will do their sets alternating back and forth with their partner. And then the pull downs will alternate back and forth with their partner. And then they switch. So now you've held down these two machines, you've switched, they do the same thing, they do the same thing. You pick two movements, you antagonist, kind of break them down like that as well. I think that that works pretty well across all the different examples of how this could be laid out. And, Yeah, I feel like there's so like this is almost could be an entire episode. So I feel kind of lost where to go from here. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I really like the antagonistic supersets. Like you said, I think making the most amount of assumptions around we're in a, you know, some sort of commercial facility sort of thing, that is the best use of efficiency and time because you're having the other two people hold down the other as you're switching. I would say, I mean, it is hard because it's, you have to make a general assumption around the capabilities, goals and skill levels of all of the four people in the group. I would probably focus on the major seven movement patterns and I probably wouldn't do really any deviation from that. Like I'd be hard pressed to be programming like lateral raises in this setting or something like that. So I think it would be, you know, make assumptions over what is the kind of, let's see what I'm looking for, similar goal across everyone. Do we, we need to be able to move well. Is there any limitations of anyone that would significantly limit the, what we could do with the group? So really know what your kind of goal is from a high level of what would be like a pie in the sky thing, and then bring in the limitations of anyone in the group and obviously any other constraints, and then really just try to develop a really robust and comprehensive program of the major movement patterns. Yeah, I think your point on staying with mostly big compound movements is also great because the part about 45 to 50 minutes, it means that you're quite limited. So I wouldn't be, you know, executing really long rest periods between sets or anything, given, you know, what we know about training density and how volume tends to drive hypertrophy or, or at least that volume can be a replacement for rest. So you can do more rest and lower volumes, or you can do less. rest and higher volumes. I think in this case, you know, because you don't have as much time, you kind of need to lean on more volumes with less rest and just get as much work as you can in. So antagonistic paired supersets, big compound movements for each muscle group, get the most bang for your buck and get them in and out. Yep, I agree. All right, next one here. Yeah, I'll kick this one over to you. What are the actual differences between men and women for training and nutrition? So I think first we'll break down training. There's actually very, very recently a meta analysis came out on this. I want to say it was from Martin Ruffalo. I might be wrong on that, so apologies if I'm wrong. But I literally think it was like last month. And with training, what we find is from a relative standpoint, right? There really isn't much, right? Women can grow from a relative standpoint about just as much muscle as men do. Men typically start with more. So the absolute delta is typically different, but that's just because men typically start with more. Now I know Brian can obviously touch on this probably a little bit better than I can. Historically, I think we see that women tend to handle higher volumes a little bit better. And they can typically have have more What's the word I want to use can have a Better consistent repeated performances at higher intensities whereas men can kind of proverbially blow their load and then can't you know You know hit that performance again to a degree women can typically perform more consistently at that higher level I think in terms of training that's probably what we're all kind of cut that but I For all intents and purposes, it's rather similar. And then into nutrition, the thing that I find most is, and the research does seem to support this from an endocrine system standpoint, women cannot be dieted as hard as men without the negative consequences showing up as. or the negative consequences show up quickly. And this is typically in hormonal dysregulation, right? Women may lose their cycle in these sorts of things. We find that they just cannot be pushed as hard before, it's not from their willpower or anything like that. It's the physiologically things start showing signs of higher stress. And that's the thing I see most common. I would also say in my experience working with clients, I tend to find women may be a little bit more inclined to neuroticism around their nutrition and missing the forest for the trees. However, my personal opinion, and this is not law, this is just my opinion, is that is not because they are women inherently. It has to do with a lot of the... history of societal pressures around body image, and they just care more. So those are my thoughts on that. Yeah, no, good points on that. Yeah, so to what you said about women handling more volume, it does seem that to be the case, but it's literally to the tune of 10 to 20 % more. So I think a lot of times people get carried away and they think, women can handle more volume. And it's like a guy is doing 10 sets and he's making gains. That woman needs to do 20 sets or 30 sets to make gains. Like that's a 200 % or 300 % increase. When you're talking 10 to 20 %... You're talking like the guy's doing 10 sets, the girl's doing 11 or 12. So it's not a significant difference enough to really, in my opinion, dramatically change results. Of course, there's gonna be outliers. There's gonna be male outliers that can handle more volume and female outliers that can. And so I think a lot of times those voices that are females that can handle a lot of volume are the ones that you're hearing being like, women need 30 sets or whatever it is, because look at me, I've done 30 sets. So I think you have to be careful of that and just kind of reflect on what the science actually says there, which is, hey, you can do a little bit more. Aaron also mentioned better recovery. And that's true both in session, like between sets, women can potentially rest less, which may just mean that they can do that extra two sets per muscle group or whatever it is in the same amount of time. But women also tend to recover better between sessions. So they maybe can do higher frequencies and things like that. Beyond that, I think that's the hard science of the differences between men and women. I don't think there's science to support cycle syncing at this point. In fact, there seems to be evidence to the contrary. And beyond that, I think it comes down to a lot of personal preference. Like, hey, I might want to spend more time on my glutes and less time on my chest or something along those lines, but you definitely don't have to. So, I mean, the way I program Paragon is that... The physique programs usually have slightly less chest and slightly more glutes, slightly more delts and upper back to compensate for kind of less chest. Not huge differences though. Like we have plenty of guys that follow the program and don't really even notice any detriment or they're like, hey, what can I do to get more chest? I'm like, just add one chest exercise at the end or whatever. So there's a number of ways around that. But either way, yeah, I think the actual differences are minimal. And so, I don't think you need to be too concerned about that, just minor adjustments here. Very well put. Okay, I'll kick this one to you and then I obviously have my thoughts on it, but I'm definitely curious to yours. I think I'm addicted to exercise. Definitely dependent. Is there a point where it's unhealthy? I love, I love this question. This is probably my favorite question. There's a lot of good questions this week, but I love, I love this question. So yes, there's definitely a point where it's unhealthy, but I think that point is really, really far away, like really far. I would call myself dependent on exercise as well. I don't want to say I'm addicted to exercise because I don't think it's unhealthy. And I think that addictions have this association of being unhealthy. But when I actually, when I, when I reflected on this question, I was like, how much do I actually exercise? And I calculated kind of the total amount of movement that I do across a day or a week. And I'll count my walks in there too. So we're talking walks, bike rides, lifting, and the occasional sport that I play or, you know, running around the neighborhood with Bryson or something like that. So I think that I average, approximately three hours a day of movement, which is 21 hours a week. I think there's certainly days where that's higher, where it could be four or five, and there's certainly days where it's lower, where it's one or less. But I think the average for me is around three hours a day, and I think that's a lot. I think that most people would look at 21 hours of movement for a week and say, yeah, that is a shit ton of movement. But I don't think that that even nearly begins to border on unhealthy. When you talk about unhealthy, I think that, it has to be the result of one of two things. One is that you can't recover from it anymore. And if you can't recover from it, it is by definition unhealthy, but that could happen at lower levels of exercise output. If you're not sleeping well, you're not eating well, you have a ton of stress in your life. Like there is a certainly a point where too much is too much when it is unrecoverable. But if you're... able to recover, you're eating enough food, you're sleeping well, your life stress is in management, et cetera, et cetera. I think that that number is really high where it begins to become unhealthy. And so recoverability is number one for sure. The second is the point where it might begin to affect your relationships and your life negatively. So maybe you're still recovering from it fine physically, but you're prioritizing exercise over. spending time with your wife or with your kids or something like that. And then I think at that point, now you're looking at these, like if it's recoverability or it's affecting your life circumstances negatively, now it begins to move into the category of addiction. But if you have the rest of everything in order, I think the ceiling for where it becomes unhealthy physically is astronomically high. man, you did a very, very good job answering that. I was going to take it in a different direction and almost immediately you changed my perception on it because you said that like, you're like, hey, I am definitely dependent on exercise. And I realized like, holy shit, so am I. Like the days that I don't move, like for instance, today is just a jam packed day. Tuesdays are my busiest checking day. We record the podcast. I had to pack for this trip tomorrow because I have to wake up at 5 a and finish the rest of my check -ins and then my flight's super early morning. I just had to do a lot of shit. I had to go get my back worked on. I just had an action -packed day. I was like, I cannot go train today. I don't have enough time. It messes with me. And it's not that I need, I'm training all the time, but I just like to get out, move my body, and get sweaty. I feel better, right? So I realize I am dependent. on exercise, right? It's just I'm dependent on it for me to feel at my highest, you know, operating best self sort of thing. I think where it becomes unhealthy, like you said, is where it impedes with relationships that are important to you. That's a big one. Because, for example, Jenny might be like, hey, on Saturday we're all getting together and we're gonna go, I don't know, to this fucking bar and listen to this acoustic person play guitar. I'm like, I don't fuck. to go train. I'm not even going to act like I'm coming to that. I'm going to go train. So I think it's where it's important to you, like relationships that are important to you. That's the kicker there. And when you start crossing into the neuroticism and that sort of thing, like I need to do my cardio every single day because I need to burn 200 calories or and then you insert this, you know, made up bad thing that happens, which isn't actually true. I think that's where it borders on unhealthy, where the fears are effectively baseless, or you create these stories that you tell yourself that if I don't do X, then Y is gonna happen, even though that's not true. And that is one, I've had that with clients, again, typically female, who are just doing insanely high amounts of cardio, and will be in a gain. Literally, they like they want to build muscle, but they are very, very hesitant on borderline refusal to pull back the cardio to like a reasonable degree, because they're so attached to it. And they think that's what they need to not get fat. So like in those cases, I would say it's unhealthy, because it's you have irrational fears around it at this point. But identifying where you are on that scale, I think is important in helping you determine if it is unhealthy, or if it's perfectly healthy. Yeah. No, those are really good points. Is that kind of the direction that you were going to take it initially? Okay. Cool. So the last thing I'll say on it is I think movement is medicine for the most part. And much like you said, you know, it makes me feel good. And I think that a lot of other people find the same. And if you actually look at the studies of where it becomes detrimental, I mean, the increases in mitochondrial function, which have the downstream effects on glucose control, metabolic control, all of these different parameters, cardiovascular health, they just keep going up. They keep going up and there really isn't a point where it becomes detrimental until you're at like pro cycling level where you're training 30 to 40 hours a week and your body begins to break down into a catabolic state. And so I do think that that ceiling is extremely high. And the last thing is, so there was studies done, on the hunter gatherer tribes that are still around like the Hadza and stuff like that. And they found that they tend to move four to six hours a day. And so, you know, I'm talking about, I move three hours a day on average. They're moving, you know, one and a half to two times as much. And that is, I believe in compliance with the way that the old tribes used to move, you know, 10 ,000 years ago. So. Yep, very good additions. Thoughts on high reps like 20 plus when prioritizing leg growth go. I think it has its place. However, I would be very hesitant to train all of exercises and all sets like that. For example, a very, and I believe I've talked about this on the podcast before, a very common programming incorporation that I'll use for newer clients that I'm trying to get them to train harder is a Widowmaker set on a light press, 20 reps on the light press. And I use it as pretty much a teaching tool for people and I think like you take one of those Like you do it properly with adequate load like two, you know one RIR and it's an actual one RIR and not a five RIR The stimulus is insane and you only need one That being said, I think the leg press is a very good example of that because your core is effectively supported through gravity and being, you know, pigeoned into the machine and those sorts of things. Doing things like RDLs and stuff, I think, you know, core and grip becomes limiting factors and stuff. So I think it has its place. If you were like really short on time, you know, and you were doing like, hey, I have like 30 minutes to train. I might do that. You might do like. two of those on the leg press and like one on the leg extension or something like that. And like, there's your quad day, you know, three sets sort of thing. But I think it is exercise selection dependent for the effectiveness for obvious reasons. Yeah, I think there's certainly value in that. I mean, you and I both remember the 20 rep squat program from back in the day. And that's as much of a gut punch as anything. Yeah. But I mean, it's extremely effective. It is, I was writing about it on my lifters story, you know, my new Instagram thing on one of my posts, I was talking about how that's how I started training literally was with 20 rep breathing squats and pullovers. So, I do think there's significant benefit, especially for legs to going up in high reps. I don't really know why legs seem to be so responsive to that, especially because like we walk around on them all the time. So you'd think that they would be less responsive to higher rep sets. But maybe that's exactly why they are responsive to them under load. That is the potential drawback or negative of doing high rep leg sets is that I think. Oftentimes, even in advanced athletes, that failure is feigned or masked by the discomfort that you're experiencing. You know, high rep leg extensions, it's that lactic acid metabolic metabolites that kind of build up in your thigh and you feel like you want to quit even though you probably could do more if you legitimately had a gun to your head, right? When it's squats or hack squats or something like that, it's more systemic. And it's like, my God, like, I don't know if I'm gonna survive if I try to do this again, less the burn, it's more the actual sense of fearing death. And so I think it takes a special unique person who's a little fucked up to do high rep sets of leg stuff. And so more power to you if you're that person, I think there is definitely, there are definitely gains to be had up there. just proceed with caution. Yeah, I think that more so than any other term of this use is like the devil is in the dose, right? Like one set most people can handle. If you turn your entire leg day into 20 rep sets, like you're in for a bad time. Yeah, I would probably do it as some sort of like reverse pyramid where it's like a top heavier set and then maybe a back offset or two back offsets or something. Yep. All right, I'm gonna kick this one over to you. Pros and cons of smart coaching apps like MacroFactor or Carbon as compared to working with a real coach. Yeah, so the interesting thing here and why I love answering this question is I've detailed before on the podcast, like in my past, I was a software engineer. I built and worked on like very complex systems. You have to build against a set number of constraints, right? And it's when X happens, then Y, or if X and Y happened, then Z, or if X, Y and Z happened, then A. The difficulty with the coaching apps is they do not take into account the client psychology. And what we know is that that is literally the number one factor in success or failure outcomes with nutrition, right? From a math and science standpoint, the coaching apps are perfect, right? And for the... right type of individual, they never need, I don't think they actually do need to ever hire an online coach or an in -person coach or anything like that. They are the small percentage. The majority of people need like, from a coaching standpoint, not, they need the X's and O's for sure, but it's circumstantial. And like we've talked on numerous times in this episode when people have irrational fears or they're like, well, I fucked Thursday and Friday up and went way over. I'm just gonna rob from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to like make up for it. And that's something that a lot of the algorithm apps will do. The downside is that just creates a vicious cycle of like, if I fuck up here, I can just pay for it here, right? And it's a vicious cycle that many people get themselves in and many people never get themselves out of it. And I just, I might be biased, right? Cause this is literally how I earn my living in that sort of thing. But I have zero concerns about the coaching apps coming for my business because I understand that. And the... overwhelming majority of my successful client like transformations and stuff are psychology transformations that we then get the physical parts like after it's very rare do I have someone who comes to me and pretty much already has all the answers and I'm just guiding like I do have some of those but it's not the majority what do your thoughts be? I don't have a lot of thoughts. I've never used one of these apps. I've never even really seen one in use. I've never taken myself on that journey. I've talked to some people that have. I know some people are really big fans of them. I think that the app gets it wrong enough that, like, to your point, I don't think they're coming for that job entirely. I think it might shrink the market a little bit. but there's always gonna be a need for somebody that actually can make adjustments through a conversation and through the psychology of working with that person individually and through knowing them that the AI at this point at least can't possibly know. And I've seen it with the RP hypertrophy app too. Like I've had people come to me for training that were on the RP hypertrophy app, which is just a smart app. but for training. And they've told me that they've made like wrong adjustments on adding sets or on this or on that. And it's like caused problems for them. And so I'm sure there's benefit, like you said, for some people that have no problem with it, but there's certainly going to be people that are always going to benefit more by working with an individual that knows them and cares for them and wants to build that relationship. Yep, well put. how to prevent muscle loss during a cut. It well. You really can't, unfortunately, right? The only way to do it is with drugs, unfortunately. What you can do is limit the depth at which that occurs through intelligent programming, right? Not training fasted, which is like one of the biggest ones that I see people doing all the time. Understanding the type of training, especially around cardiovascular. modalities and then keeping your protein and carbohydrate as high as you reasonably can while staying within your rate of loss because protein obviously adds amino acids into the available amino acid pool so that the body doesn't need to needlessly pull from connective and muscle tissue to provide that. And then carbohydrate is also muscle sparing as well. So to kind of wrap that up into a cohesive answer is keep your protein high, keep your carbohydrate as high as you can while still maintaining your rate of loss. Do not train fasted. Do not lose faster than you need to. The faster you lose, the more lean body mass you will catalyze as an energy substrate. And then there was one more. sleep, you need to optimize your sleep. There's that very, very, you know, like paramount study that's, that's probably like 15 years old at this point. But the more you sleep, the more body weight you will lose from fat mass and not lean body mass. So those are, that's a, in a nutshell. And then the thing he didn't mention was keep training hard, close to failure. So he handled all of the nutrition and lifestyle components and then I'll just come in and be like, and keep training. So yeah, that one's important too. Nothing special with training. You don't need to completely change your training. If anything, I would err on the side of lower volumes and harder efforts than higher volumes with lower efforts. But yeah, that's. pretty much it, no big changes to your training there. And then make sure that you use your training as a diagnostic tool, which can help you assess. It's not gonna tell you directly if you're losing or gaining or whether you're losing muscle, but if you begin losing strength, you can be pretty confident you're losing muscle, but you could still be losing muscle even if you don't lose strength. So at a minimum, you wanna at least try to maintain your strength as best you can. Yep, very well put. All right, and then this one's another one for you here. Actually, there's a lot for you here. How would you handle a client that struggles with binge eating? I wouldn't. And I think that this is a very overlooked thing in the space. People that come into like binge eating and in disordered eating patterns, they need someone who understands that and is qualified to handle that because this we're moving into medical realm. And anytime like I have flags in my onboarding and in my like literally last literally this past week, someone applied and in their check in, or sorry, in their form submission, they said that they struggle with like binge eating. And I said, I will not take you on as a client because I am not one licensed nor prepared to properly handle this. You refer out in these contexts, right? Know your role, stay in your lane and don't get cocky and handle things that you're not qualified to handle. Yeah, I agree. I would just say that sometimes what I've seen and with myself too, is that binge eating can be the result of not eating enough earlier in the day. And so if it can be mitigated by just making sure that you're eating more earlier on and eating more healthier foods, and then you have less propensity to be like, my God, I'm hungry. There's the brownies. I need to devour these brownies. That could be helpful. So maybe just this idea of... like, hey, just allow yourself to eat as much as you want, but try to eat as much as you want of the healthier foods and then see if that can alleviate the desire to binge later on because maybe you're just full of Yeah, and I think the last thing is be careful around the usage of that term. I think it gets sometimes kind of thrown around, but it is an important term and don't use it kind of lightly when it doesn't apply. Yeah, so it would it would be defined as like you don't want to, or you intend to have one piece, but you have 20 pieces or something like that, like you go beyond what your intention is. I think it's it's I forget since the last time I've actually looked it up, but there's like some pretty decently clear definitions, but it's it's typically like in very excessive quantities and stuff. Not like, hey, I was out, you know, all day long and didn't eat for eight hours. And now I ate, you know, a thousand calories or something like that. I wouldn't consider that as a binge, but it's it's like we're. you know, people, the emotional attachment to it in, in, again, it's all mostly psychological related. and unplanned. Like, I feel like if you go into it being like, hey, I'm gonna have a cheat meal and you're like, I'm gonna eat half this batch of brownies, then like that wouldn't be a binge. That would be like, you've decided you're gonna eat this half a batch of brownies and you accept the consequences for it. Yep, yep, very well put. Another one for you, recommendations for intra workout nutrition. Yeah, so I actually listed all these out because I wanted to answer this one very, very well. Before I dive in, actually answer this, this is something that I see. bastardized from a utilization standpoint. The purpose of intra -workout nutrition is to keep training intensity and performance high for long enough throughout a training session. If you're only training like 40 minutes or 45 minutes, you probably don't need intra-workout nutrition. It's another one of those things too is I think it's utility is higher in times of caloric deficit where there is a higher propensity on the importance. or sorry, a higher placement on the importance of keeping that training intensity really, really high. And throughout the other parts of the day, we are in a reduced capacity to recover, to fuel ourselves, et cetera, et cetera, because we need to facilitate the fat loss. So we bring in insurement workout nutrition to help keep training performance high throughout the entire training session, typically in training sessions like longer than an hour, right? So I think that's an important context. If you're a male, 20 % body fat, who's eating at maintenance, probably in trains for 45 minutes to 60 minutes, you probably don't need intra -workout carbohydrate. But in the event that you are either in a build and a deficit, you fit well within the classifications of intra -workout nutrition is going to be very beneficial for you. Some of my favorites here are Gatorade or Powerade powder. That's actually going to be my top choice. When I have choice, that is what I'm using. Dextrose monohydrate, which is basically just like a glucose derivative orange juice, pomegranate juice. I believe the pomegranate juice has a higher concentration of nitrates, if I remember correctly, and then that can help with like improving blood flow and pumps and that sort of thing. Highly branched cyclic dextrin, also sometimes called cluster dextrin. That is, if we had to objectively boil down like the best, I think that is the best. Now, how does that actually translate to you as the individual? I don't think it does. It's the most expensive. I have used it extensively in the past. I cannot say that I think it warrants the additional price over the $8 per five pound Gatorade tub at Walmart. And then, Lastly, gummy bears or Sour Patch Kids, which you probably see the TikTokers and powerlifters doing. If you go back to my original point, powerlifters are the definition of people who do not need intra -workout carbohydrate in 90 % of contexts. The downside of these, I feel like, is if you go back to where I first alluded to this. The utility of intra -workout carbohydrate is highest in a caloric deficit. I do not think it's wise to purposefully include candy in your caloric deficit because it's never going to scratch that itch. It's only going to be enough for you to constantly remember what that itch feels like. I think these are the times to completely remove these kind of groups of food because then things like fruit start being. very very tasty and tastes like candy effectively. But if you keep the candy in, you're always gonna kind of want it. So I think that is just dangerous and bleeds over into your palate and other things, which is another discussion for another day. But those would be my top choices on intra workout nutrition. Pretty much just liquid carbohydrate. Yep. Love all that. Well answered. Just as a housekeeping note, I moved the last, the other two nutrition questions to the very end, because I need to go in like 10 minutes. So hopefully I can get through these next four that are more directed toward me and then you can handle the last two. Yep. All right. So I guess I'll just read this. This question is, we'll be entering a gain season soon, but want to follow a hybrid program in parentheses, Alec Blenis. How much slower should I expect my progress to be when compared to a traditional hypertrophy program? So I don't know, I know a decent amount about Alec Blednis' program, because I follow him on the gram and I know how he trains. I would assume that his programs follow a similar model to the way that he trains or what he puts out on his Instagram page. And if that's the case, I think it's much more strength -based. Like almost all of the lower body lifts that I see him doing are one to three rep sets for the most part. He does use a lot of machines and stuff, which I think is interesting application of low rep training. Cause usually I find myself kind of leaning away from super low rep work on machines, but he'll be like on a true squat or whatever, doing a one rep max. And I'm like, huh, that's an interesting approach. If your goal is hypertrophy and you're doing a bunch of cardio and training primarily in strength rep ranges, I don't think you're going to see hypertrophy. And so as compared to a traditional hypertrophy program, that would be not as good. However, I do think Alec is very talented when it comes to training and programming. And so I'm sure that what he's putting out there is good training. I actually very rarely or ever see him post any videos of him doing upper body work. Occasionally he'll be doing like a one arm lat pull down or something like that. But I believe that his upper body work is done in more of the hypertrophy rep ranges, at least from what I see. And the truth is like in my current programming, what I'm doing on Brian's program on the train heroic app, it's kind of similar to that because I'm doing cardio five times a week and I have my lower body work is in strength rep ranges for the most part to decrease soreness and fatigue in the lower body. And then my upper body work is in higher rep ranges. That's more hypertrophy based. And so I think that model is an effective model. I just don't think that you can expect to get hypertrophy. Like I just wouldn't expect any hypertrophy to be honest. I just think you need to understand that it's a season of life and you know, maybe you'll get stronger because you're going to be doing new movements and lower rep ranges, but you likely will not see any significant hypertrophy. Aaron thoughts there. The thing I was gonna add and then you snuck it in at the end was the word significant. I don't think, like I agree with Brian, I don't think you'll see a tangible hypertrophy that you can actually see in the physique. There could be 700 grams, 800 grams, that is hypertrophy, I just don't think that's tangible or significant like Brian said. Yep. So help me kind of decipher out this next question because I'm a little confused on it. How stable can a lift be before stability becomes a limiting factor like for split squats and dumbbell presses? I was reading this one, I am slightly confused at the verbiage as well. I think they're pretty much just saying like how much can you progress a movement before stability becomes like a limiting factor for some of them? And I think it's load dependent, really. However, the examples are kind of different because dumbbell presses are quite stable because your stabilizers get stronger as you get stronger. and you typically have to move the load slower because it's heavier and therefore you're moving slower. Things are typically, in this context, stable at slower speeds. That doesn't really hold true with motorcycles and stuff, but in dumbbells I would say it does. Now for split squats, it depends on the type of split squat. For example, if we're doing like a front foot wedge, rear foot elevated split squat, you're limited by the load because of the complexity of the movement. So it's stable enough, typically. The example that comes to mind for me here is like a Bulgarian split squat. in which whenever I perform it, whenever I have clients perform it, I have them perform it supported so that stability is not a factor. And typically for me, how I coach with my clients and stuff, if stability is a limiting factor in an exercise for us to progress, we add in stability so that it's no longer a thing. Or sorry, balance, balance or stability. I never want that to be a limiting factor, so we'll make some modification to where we are more stable so that we can continue to. produce force and progress. Yeah, thank you for helping to figure that out for me. Because I wasn't sure. I was looking at it, I was like, wait a minute, those movements, split squats aren't stable and dumbbell pressing is stable. So yeah, I was a little confused by it, but that definitely helps. I agree with everything you said. My suggestion would have been to add stability to the split squat as well. But then loading can become a problem. So this is where I've personally found that. If I'm holding one dumbbell and holding my other hand supported, I don't have enough weight to actually get the stimulus that I want to get out of the split squat, unless I put it at the very end when I'm already like super fatigued. So if it's a primary movement, I feel like I need to do the split squat with a safety squat bar, and then holding on to the power rack, like a what's the name of that kind of squat where you're field. Hatfield squat, yeah, yeah. So I do like a Hatfield split squat where you're holding the power rack and you have the safety squat bar resting on your shoulders. That's been really effective for me and I've been able to get up into some really heavy weights. But yeah, stability is a concern. Otherwise, I wouldn't wanna be doing a back squat split squat, like with the barbell on my back. We used to do this in CrossFit. I remember getting up to like 225 for eight. And in retrospect, I'm like, that was pretty dumb. like one little misbalance or anything and there's 225 on my back and I'm falling over. So I wouldn't do that anymore. But yeah, I do think stability is important. And I think both of those movements are plenty stable. Worst case scenario, if the dumbbell press begins to feel unstable, you can switch to a machine or a cable press as well. All right, strength training for a golfer. This one I'm just gonna punt over to Cody Westcott golf. So check him out on Instagram, Cody Westcott with two T's golf. He'll show up. He has, you know, something just under a hundred thousand followers. He's pretty legit. And then I think these last three questions I will, I will leave for you and I'm going to bounce and go get the kids ready for school. I have a really quick question before you go. In the next question, do you have any idea what the capital BS stands for? bullshit. It's just, it's just say it or just bullshit. Sorry. okay, okay, great, okay, yes, thank you. Okay, yep, all good. All right, see you, Brian. Okay, so next question. Is it possible to increase your metabolism or is it just bullshit, which I've just learned? So yes, but not really in the way that you would think. The first is you increase the amount of muscle mass that you have, right? Muscle is significantly more metabolically active than fat tissue and requires more energy to sustain. So if you have more muscle, your body will inherently consume or require more energy to sustain it, right? So that is the kind of simplest, most straightforward. If you would like to just have a faster metabolism, you can just increase your muscle mass, right? So that's one. The second is improving cardiovascular fitness, right? And this one is, it's not the same in that point one is that it's going to inherently increase your metabolic rate, but your metabolic efficiency and the operation of everything will be better and your body will better partition things. So the metabolic flexibility is a term that's often thrown around there. That would be number two. And then a third one that I thought of that I did not write down is, a very quality functioning thyroid. So thyroid is really the best way I've ever been, it's been described from my understanding is it's kind of like your thermic or metabolic thermostat in your body. If you have a higher thyroid, your body runs, you know, hotter quote unquote, and you will expend more energy because of that. Conversely, and what we commonly, more commonly see is a lower thyroid. and your body runs, you know, I guess colder and isn't expending as much energy. Now, the next question becomes to what degree can you improve your thyroid? If you're deficient in things or there's a history of underfeeding and those sorts of things, it can be downregulated. The three kind of most important nutrients to bring in for the thyroid is iodine selenium and l -tyrosine. One of my favorite things to do with clients to get the tyros, or sorry, the selenium in is just to introduce a few Brazil nuts per day. It can literally be like three, very, very low amount there. And then not to be over dieting, dieting for too long unless we're coming through like, you know, being very overweight and unhealthy and needing to diet for that long. But those are kind of the three things, increasing muscle mass, being... Probably the largest thing that you have direct control over if the thyroid is down regulated You can get some lab work and start incorporating foods that provide the kind of raw nutrients or ingredients needed for optimal thyroid production Get some things checked and then potentially you may need to go speak to you know a doctor a Practitioner or something like that who can help with medical interventions of increasing thyroid And then the cardiovascular fitness it can help a little bit as well So I wouldn't say it's bullshit in the way that most people speak about it by like stoking your metabolism and all of these things. I would say that's largely bullshit, even if it's true in very acute situations that doesn't actually scale to any meaningful change. But you can scale to meaningful change through increasing muscle mass 100%. Next question is, this is coming from a male. Estradiol is on the low end, lifestyle and sleep and body fat is all in check. So the most important thing to point out here is I have fallen victim to this in the past. I also work with numerous clients around this, chasing optimal levels across the board on lab work on bloods. And it's important to understand is like the reference ranges on lab work is the lab, gets a population of people and it's like, okay, of this entire population, here is the low end that we see through the population, here is the high end, you know what I mean? But it's not like each person has, each person's going to be different, so we're picking like the, effectively the worst of some people to create our low end and the best of others to create the high end of the reference range. One thing that now with estrogen, right? Everyone's a little bit different, unfortunately. And the genetics and stuff play a massive role in this. Same way with once people talk about like testosterone, for example, especially with exogenous testosterone, many people have different levels where they run into estrogen problems, right? This is something that I experienced, you know, it was very real for me. My... high estrogen problems showed up at a pretty low estrogen level. Whereas I have friends that I talk to whose estrogen levels were literally double mine and had no problems. So it's hugely individual and I wouldn't needlessly try and chase numbers so long as you don't have symptoms of low estrogen, which are going to be kind of the bones feeling brittle, the joints feeling dry, libido can be negatively. impacted if estrogen is too low. If you feel fine, if libido's good, if your joints feel good, I wouldn't try to needlessly chase things up. Next question, same person, related to the first one is, suggestions for boosting free testosterone. Sex hormone binding globulin is not high and total testosterone is 600 nanograms per deciliter. So the only thing that I have seen that has, The research is okay. I wouldn't necessarily call it definitive around increasing free testosterone is boron. And you can see, you can find that on PubMed. There's a number of different studies on that. Additionally, you could try to drive your sex hormone binding globulin lower because sex hormone binding globulin is going to bind more than just free testosterone. It will bind sex hormones. So... If by driving that lower, you may also increase the estrogen, which was in the prior question. However, you don't want to crash this because it obviously has a role in our body and we don't want to push things out of really crush out of reference range needlessly. Then what I will wrap up on is I unfortunately, I think with. Unless you're gonna get into like PEDs and stuff, I think there's limited efficacy in really pulling down your sex hormone binding globulin. And what I will wrap up on with this one is. This is something that the last two questions, I really tried to, for years, I'm talking from like 2018 through literally like 2023, tried to really chase like optimality and stuff on my lab work. And I found, I mean, I spent a lot of money on different supplements and stuff. Very rarely did things ever really improve to a notable degree. And I found that my periodizations and stuff impacted things much more. Obviously with a little bit of extra body fat, I'm talking 13 % ish, something like that. Typically gonna have better sex hormones, right? Your thyroid's gonna improve a little bit. But I didn't, I really came up empty handed chasing a lot of these like testosterone optimizations and things like that. And the unfortunate reality is going from like a, 500 testosterone to like a 575, it's like sick, you know, that's 75 nanograms per deciliter. I don't think you're gonna see any tangible change of that in representation of your life, of your muscle mass, in your mood, in your libido, anything like that. We're talking like multiples for things to kind of see changes. If you're someone who's like on the very, very low end, if you have like a 200 nanograms per deciliter testosterone and you double that to like 400, you're probably gonna see an increase in the quality of life. And we also see things like improvements in lipids and that sort of thing. Then going from like a 400 to an 800, potentially, but you're moving from a little bit below optimal upwards towards optimal. You may notice something, but it's probably not going to be as profound of going from 200 to 400. And then obviously going from like an 800 to a 1600, you do see, but. obviously notable improvements in muscle mass and stuff, but that's where you're in, you know, PED realm and super physiological testosterone. So I know we have a pretty large listenership out there who's males, you know, thirties, forties, those sorts of things. If you're covering your bases, you're sleeping well, your nutrition's actually, you know, good, you're training, you're let's call it 15 % and under body fat percentage. A lot of these things aren't really worth chasing. Some of them that may be worth looking into is like the Fidogia Agrestis and Tonkada Lee. Hopefully we'll have Brian give us an update on his in a couple months. I just... It's hard to recommend these things because I just haven't seen enough real world evidence of their efficacy unless it's on the population who actually applies to which isn't as common as we're otherwise led to believe. So I'm going to wrap this episode up right here. Hopefully that was informative and helpful. If I missed anything, by all means, you can reach out to either Brian or myself on Instagram and we will give you a clarification. As always guys, thank you for submitting quality questions for us to produce these monthly episodes. And as always, Brian and I will talk to you next week. Not good.