“Science-Based” Lifting Is Killing Your Gains | Mind Pump 2665

These days, there's a lot of studies in regards to exercise, in particular, lifting. You can find a study to tell you which rep range is the best, how many how much you should rest between sets, exercises, everything. But here's the deal. If you follow science-based lifting, that's all you do. You're going to kill your gains. There's a lot of value in the old school stuff and experience. You have to combine all of it to get the truth. Don't just follow the science-based crowd. you won't build as much muscle and strength as you possibly could. >> Oh, I like this. This is it. I like this. >> I like this a lot because uh this was suggested by our our marketing team this this episode and I'm like this I love this because there are you do have on social media now this kind of science-based crowd when it comes to fitness. And I I call them science-based not because we're not science-based or because other people aren't science-based, but because all they are is science-based. they don't have any experience training everyday people >> or very little >> uh or very very little or maybe they've trained like a couple people like themselves and so they live and die by the data. So every time they communicate a point it's like here's what the study said here's how you should work out this is how the rep should look this is the best tempo and anybody with experience training a lot of people over years especially decades uh will will laugh at it because often times it's not the whole story and and sometimes it's just completely false. Uh, and you can look at the study to see why it's false, but you won't know that unless you have that experience. >> Now, I I like having this conversation because I I I want to believe or I think that this was probably you at one point. >> Mhm. >> Do you not feel like you came from this place? I feel like when you first started, you were probably a science dork. >> I think I He reads a lot of studies, but >> I you know, I I I was when I first became a trainer just because that's all I had. All I had were certifications and courses. Um, and so I just based my training off that. But, uh, I think you guys do, right? I mean, when you first started, you didn't have experience. >> No, I had no idea what I was doing. >> Yeah. You were nothing. I was >> I lean heavy on certification, but yeah, was a lot of anecdote. >> Yeah. I I it's um, you know, data is great. Um but uh exercise, diet, but exercise in particular is so nuanced and there's so many things, so many variables that there's certain things you can only learn through experience. And don't discount the experience of other people who've been doing it for a long time. I sometimes they'll counter the data. Um, but if I were confronted with uh, you know, three or four strength coaches who've been training people for years and years and years and they were telling me that a study was wrong, I would probably listen to them >> over the study because of their experience. Uh, again, I like the data. The science is great, but you have to combine it with experience to get the full picture. Um, and there there are flaws in studies and it's not just >> they're biased because some company, you know, that's what people immediately think, right? Oh, the stud is fake because uh a company's trying to sell something. That's not what we're talking about. It's just the way that studies are are put together. They can't possibly give you the full picture. Well, I think too just in my own experience, it limits a lot of um that experimentation, that self-experimentation that um I I've noticed too, like there's there's another side to this on social media where people are like really anti um the science-based community because of the fact that like everything is so data and they won't even venture into discussions >> um with, you know, especially for like ranges of motion and like like valuable exercises. This is where I found there's a lot of separation with that and like things like Jefferson curls and um and my my view of that has changed a lot as I was like a young trainer and like naive in and listening to a lot of the parameters of safety versus like how to actually prep somebody up to accomplish like a valuable exercise like that and build up their strength in that direction. So, and two, like again, context matters and and and all that with athletes and with what their capabilities are and what you're actually trying to uh reach in terms of power output and certain ranges of motion. So, there's a lot of like nuance that like science community just there's so much so many blanket statements that they're just like here's the fine line and we can't venture out of that. Well, once you've trained enough people, there come there will become a time where you will actually have trained a person where the science doesn't work. >> Yep. >> And so you can have you could have >> so many times. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I think that's where I think I finally landed there where it was just like and I I think that's also too where I' i've I I feel like sometimes I can go really hard in the opposite direction of like when someone starts to tout a study, it's just like cool. Um good to know. You know what I'm saying? But the until that client's sitting in front of me and I hear them out and I account for all the other variables, I really don't give a [ __ ] about that study because every study that is pointing me in a direction is also taking me in the wrong direction with said client. And so you see that enough times and you realize, okay, well, this isn't the end all beall. Yes, it's a good starting point or a a great idea many times or to give you some sort of direction, but I think you get yourself in trouble if you base all of your decisions based off of what the research and the science says. >> Yeah. So, one of my favorite points, we'll start with with kind of the first uh thing to consider with the sc with the data is that often times the people that are in the studies are are not like you. I remember this years ago. I had this um she was a psychology professor and we were having conversations around uh behavior science and you know medical science and I loved asking her questions and I would bring up studies to her all the time and she'd say you know s do you know what a majority of those studies are testing and I said no. She said collegeaged males. >> Yeah broke college-aged males. >> The the vast majority of those studies that you quote by the way this isn't just fitness studies. This is all studies. All studies, if you were look at all study, unless they were specifically reaching out to a a particular demographic, the vast majority of studies that are done, especially on exercise, by the way, are done on college-aged males because those are the people that sign up for studies. They're the ones that sign up for $25 a day so that we could beat you up with this workout routine or test out this new theory. And so if you're a 45-year-old woman or you're a dad with a with a job and you're, you know, in kids or if you're younger than that or maybe you are a college-aged male, but you're you don't match uh like the the sample size, those studies may not apply for you uh to you. Um and so you have to be careful with that. This is especially true for women, by the way, especially yeah >> parmenopausal and menopausal women who often don't get put in studies. >> There's very little representation. >> Very little representation. Um, and so that's what I would see very often. I would see very often certain studies on things like intensity and I'd try it to my on my clients like, whoa, they did not get the result that the studies show. In fact, I went in the opposite direction. >> What is going on? So, look at the studies and fitness studies are almost always. Read them and here's what you'll typically see. 40 collegeaged athlete athletic males or 40 novice male. It's always it's always these collegeage males that are in these studies. And you know that's a demographic whose body and uh and life at that particular time in their life is just going to respond differently to exercise to intensity to rep ranges to you know different movements. And you have to consider that when you're looking at a study which when you train lots of people you see that very clearly cuz I'll tell you what the average client that you get as a trainer is not a college age male. That's the least likely client that you get cuz they typically can't afford training. >> Today's program giveaway is maps aesthetic. If you want to win, leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours we drop it. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. Also, for today's episode only, if you get maps anabolic, we will throw in for free maps oldtime strength. Just go to maps bogo.com to get that hookup. Go check it out. And your second point that you're about to make right now, which I think is the most important, is is that these studies are ran in these short periods of time, >> just windows. >> And you're I don't care even if your client fits the study group, we understand evolution and adaptation. And what happens over time is you evolve and you adapt and so therefore it changes the variables of what went into that original study. Even the client who matches this person perfectly and this for and this study shows that this is what happens or this is the best way to do X Y and Z. Well, that's currently at the state where those those people are all at at that moment. Take that out 9 months, a year, two years and that changes a lot because of adaptation. And so, and when we talk about training, since the whole the whole that whole process of building muscle and burning body fat is getting the body to adapt, that's a that's such a key variable that like the the like let's say just to give people an example, uh we found out that you know you know and you know we study these three groups of people and this rep range is the best for building muscle. Well, that's based off of where they're currently at. take those same exact people, extend it out nine months, and the the the rep range that was worse for them now becomes one of the best for them because their body's now adapted and and and that that works for a lot of different things. And so that's where the stuff like this is like really really tough that you have to understand how to read between the lines. >> That's a great uh a great example. Um a lot of studies uh there's some studies that counter this now at this point but at one point all the studies showed this and still I would say majority of studies show this that the muscle building rep range right the hypertrophy rep range they would call it is between 8 to 12. Now the the the problem with this is that just because of the way studies are funded. It's it's so challenging to run it would be so difficult to do a three-year study on workout programs. Yeah. If you took three groups of people with 30 people each and you you followed them for for two years, that would cost so much money it would just it wouldn't be feasible. >> So they're they're 12-week studies. They're 16e studies. And then they'll compare a rep range of 1 to 5, 8 to 12, and then let's say, you know, 20 to 30. And what they'll find in that study is, oh, 8 to 12 built the most muscle. Well, here's what we know. Just to back you up, Adam, stay to stick to a rep range for too long. However great it is, at some point your training stops working as well as it used to. You doubt. >> And one of the best ways to get out of it is to go in a different rep range, >> right? >> But you wouldn't see that in a 12week study. >> No, >> you would see that in a 2-year study again, which they're not going to make >> cuz they can't get funding for something like that. Just it just it would be ridiculous. >> Well, another great example of this also is when you we see this comparison of like a leg press and a squat. And in a short period of time, the strength gains and the muscle building that you can see done in a leg press is really close to like what a squat is in a very small window. Extend that out over a year, two year or three year and you would start to see that gap widen because of how difficult it is to perform a squat and all the variables that come with that versus sitting on this track that's very easy for someone to get >> in order to attain the skills. >> Right? In other words, you could sit you could take somebody who no injuries, you know, college age male, whatever, and you can have them uh drive a leg press with good intensity very quickly. It's real fast. It's a real short learning kind of jump right in. >> You jump right in, go for it. A barbell squat uh is a very complex movement. Unless you've been practicing it for a couple years, >> uh there's a a long uh learning curve with a with a barbell squat. So, in a short period of time, leg press might actually outperform. In fact, there are studies that show that a hack squat will outperform a barbell squat for quad growth for over 12 weeks period. >> And people in the in some of the in the some of the fitness community get that confused that it's act they think it's a superior movement because of a study like that. And that's not true. No, >> it's because you're looking at it in a six week period of time. >> But you keep going, keep going, keep going as your skill develops over a barbell squat, which requires far more skill, far more mobility, a better connection than a than a pack squat or a leg press. then you'll start to see the squat start to take off and continue to build and build and build. Whereas the hack squat and the leg press start to become uh more limited, but you won't see that in a study because again studies are done for 12 to 16 weeks. So again, studies aren't run forever. >> So the only way to know this uh kind of uh information would be a trainer or coach who's trained lots of people for years and years and years. And this is what you see when you train people for years and years. I could throw a client on a leg press. We'll get some great results. But if I get that client to learn how to squat, which is going to take three months, maybe 6 months, and then we start squatting, and then we keep squatting. I train that person for three years, that squat produces returns time and time again. Whereas that leg press have to move from that at some point because it stops producing uh those returns. Yep. >> Next up is uh they don't consider human psychology. >> This is by the way, this is the most important thing to consider. >> Yeah. When it comes to exercise, the biggest problem with exercise is not the programming, the exercises, the reps. >> The the the the biggest problem is adherence. >> Yep. Mhm. >> Okay. It's how are you going to do this? That is literally the biggest. If we could solve that right there, we have solved the the fitness uh epidemic, the the problem with poor fitness and health. We've solved it. It's not again the programming. It's not the exercise. It's not the what the best rep range is. How do we get people to keep doing this forever? When you sign up for a study, you're doing what they're telling you to do. You're there for 12 weeks. You're doing it. What you're what they're not seeing is are people going to do this? Do they like it? A good example is >> if a client asks me, uh, S, what's the best form of activity? If I just want to be active, I'm always going to follow it up with, what do you like doing the most? >> Yeah. >> Because cycling may be way more effective, uh, of a an activity for fitness and health than, let's say, uh, salsa dancing. But if you tell me, "I hate cycling. I love salsa dancing." That's the one I'm going to tell you to do. Do the one that you love. And they just don't consider human psychology. And human psychology is uh very complex. And again, you get a lot of insight into this when you train people for years and years and years. I'll give a great example. When you first get a client, what they're really concerned with initially is results. I want to get results. But if I'm going to train this person for five or six years, are they going to get results for five or six years? Well, no. That's not how the body works. How do I keep that person consistent for five or six years? If I'm a trainer and if I'm stuck on results, trying to get you results for 5 to 6 years, I'm going to lose you after a year because what that's going to turn into is me hammering you, me trying to figure out a way to drive you and motivate you. What could you possibly do? >> Force. >> It's just not going to happen for the average person. Not going to become a fitness fanatic in that sense. Most people won't. Human psychology is the most important thing to consider. And by the way, studies on human psychology, because someone may say, "Oh, well, let's look at studies on human psychology." Those are the least likely studies to be duplicated and replicated. So if you look at all the human psychology studies, about 80% of them are never able to be replicated, which basically means you can throw them out the window because human psychology is so complex. >> I whenever I think about this point, I always remember uh talking to clients about swimming. Swimming is like one of the best forms of cardio. When you think of like the risk profile of it, the amount of calories you burning, it is one of the best. But it's like so and clients, I had clients that would come to me because they read some article or they heard that and they ask, "Is this true?" Like, "Yeah, it's totally true, but do you have a pool?" >> No, but my local rec center does it's open from 10:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. And like, does that fit your schedule? And is that it's like I mean, yes, it is, but uh swimming occasionally is not better than you walking every day 10,000 steps. And so you have to factor that part in. It's like it doesn't matter that that form of cardio burns a fraction more calories or is a little bit less risk or whatever the the profile is that makes it superior if they're if they can't adhere to it and can't do it consistently. So you have to always factor that in. >> That's right. Uh next up is that uh great science-based programming may simply be inappropriate for you. And I have a great example for this. If I were to look at all the studies on cardio, for fat loss, for performance, for time invested in ROI, right, return on investment. Period. End of story. On paper, high-intensity interval training is superior. It's the most superior form of cardio on paper. Now, ask me how appropriate it is for me to apply highintensity interval training to the average client. >> Yeah, >> it's almost never appropriate. It's almost never appropriate unless I have someone I've been training for a while who's already really fit. They don't have any joint problems. Stress looks good. Then we're going to do high intensity interval training. You know what's usually appropriate for most people? Walking. Walking on paper, 20 minutes of hit cardio versus 20 minutes of walking. Hit cardio is going to blow it out of the water. Fat loss. It's blow it out of the water for performance and stamina and endurance and muscle preservation, all that stuff. >> But for most people, hit cardio is way too stressful, way too hard. Actually sends them back. Injury risk goes through the roof. It's just simply inappropriate. >> I always think about the studies that we have to show how great training to failure is. There's all kinds of research to show to show how much muscle gain you get by training to failure. But the truth is 90% of my clients should almost never be training there if ever. And it maybe a fraction of their time. Yet everybody hears about that and then what do they go do? They end up applying that. And again, it really depends on where that client is at that current moment. If that client is, we're still working on their sleep patterns. We still aren't hitting macro uh hitting our macros consistently. We're all over the board, calories up and down. It's just like, man, you training to failure with all that stress and all you and not getting what the body needs. Like, what a terrible idea. >> You see this often on social media where you'll get the scientists, really smart people, too. People that I really respect, I love their content. You just they've never really trained a lot of people. Good example, Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Love her, love her content. But when she starts talking about exercise like immediately I'm like you have not trained a lot of people because she recommends highintensity interal training train to failure like intensity is what you know produces great results >> and it's like if you you take a hundred everyday people who want to get fit you're lucky if probably 20 or 10 of them can do that and it's appropriate for them. It's actually inappropriate for most people uh because the intensity is too high. The skill required to do it to perform it without risk of injury is is high and they don't have it. Yeah, that's why I always recommend >> you got to add in the sauna and then the cold punch. Go to bed at 8:00 at night. Get up at 5 in the morning. Otherwise, you're not doing, you know, the right amount of science. >> That this episode's brought to you by the pre-alcohol drink Zbiotics. Go check them out. Go to zbiotic.com/mindpump25. Use the code mindpump225. Get 15% off. Back to the show. Next up is that the winning formula, the headline doesn't always tell you the whole story. So, you may see I'll I'll I'll I'll quote or I'll give an example of study that's probably circulating now that people talk about, right, that the lengthened portion of a rep builds the most muscle. Yeah. Right. So, if I'm doing a curl, right, uh the lengthened portion of the rep is this part right here where my bicep is fully extended versus where I'm halfway contracted or fully contracted. When they compare all of those ranges of motion, the one that produces the most muscle growth is the lengthened portion. Okay, that's true. But you know what the whole story is? The mid-range and the fully contracted also build muscle. >> They all build muscle. In fact, if you combine all of them, you don't build less muscle, you build more muscle and you have more functional strength because strength is very specific. So if I just because here's what the science-based CR I've actually seen people do this train in just the lengthened ranges of motion. do all the exercises and focus on the length. Do these little short reps because it builds the most hypertrophy, you are training dysfunction. >> Yeah. >> And you're missing out on the muscle building of the rest of the range of motion. So although that one may be 10% better on the study, that doesn't mean the other ranges of motion don't build muscle. And what happens when we apply all of them? Oh, better function and better results. So the again the winning formula, you need to look at the whole story. The the rep range one is a good one as as well. 16 week study, 8 to 12 builds the most muscle. Well, guess what that study showed? One to five also built muscle. So did 20 to 30. What if we mix them up? Maybe that'll give it, you know, the best results. >> Uh next up is they don't necessarily know uh what to test. Uh so a good example of this is when I'm looking at fat loss, I can test for fat oxidation. So, what I can do is I can say, "Okay, uh, we took two groups of people, put them in a calorie deficit, so the calories are the same. This one's ketogenic, and this one is balanced, so they're eating carbs." Oh my god, fat oxidation through the roof on ketogenic. Uh, therefore, it burns the most body fat. Nah, stop right there. >> Mhm. >> You're going to get more fat oxidation because they're using ketones for energy. But why don't we test the end result and actually see which one burns more body fat? And you know what happens when they follow that up with subsequent studies? >> It doesn't have an advantage for fat loss. They both burn the same amount of fat. You just get more fat oxidation source. >> Same thing with fasting. >> Fasting spikes fat oxidation, but at the end of the day, calories being equal, uh, there's no additional fat loss. >> Another example is just the EKG stuff. Yes. Is comparing like when you Yeah. When you do an exercise, oh, this is firing like crazy. But yeah, but did it build more muscle than other say exercise? And so it does not tell the whole story just because it's lighting up on the machine that more muscle is being activated that did you actually build more muscle from said exercise >> right so what they'll often do is test mechanisms uh and they'll look at things like protein synthesis fat oxidation activation of you know mtor and you know all these different things but really what's important is at the end of the study did they build more muscle and strength or ju do we just see these mechanisms happening cuz at at the end of the day, do you care if does anybody care what the mechanisms are happening or do you really care about the end result? It's all about the end result. And then finally, they're not testing everything. They might test hypertrophy, but in the study, because you can't test for everything in a study. It's it's it's impossible. It's not feasible. It would cost too much money. >> It only tells part of the story. >> Yeah. Okay. This built the most here's a good example. Machines versus free weights. Okay. When we're comparing machines and free weights for hypertrophy, guess what we find in the studies? >> They both produce similar amounts of hypertrophy. So, does that mean that I could just do machines then and I'm going to get the same results? Maybe you will on hypertrophy muscle growth, but are we going to get the same results on everything else? Are we going to get the same function, stability, the same mobility? Uh are we going to get the same health benefits? You need to test, you need to look at all those things. By the way, to answer the question with that, similar hypertrophy, but free weights carry over better to everyday life and to sports because >> more functional benefits. >> Well, because real life is typically moving things that are free and not on tracks uh or in a fixed position. So, you want to look at the so they can't possibly tell you the whole picture. This, you know, particular exercise raises the most growth hormone or this particular exercise produced the most endurance. Are the people do they have the best life quality afterwards? they get the best results in terms of stamina, endurance, mobility. All of those things are impossible to test. But experience and experienced coaches and trainers will know because they've seen it and they can tell like, "Yeah, both great exercises, both build the legs really good, but when I have my clients do this one, you know what else happened? They had better mobility and they had less back pain and they just felt better." >> Well, yeah. And are they miserable doing the thing, too? You know what I'm saying? Cuz sometimes the the best thing for you if you just if you dread doing it back to your adherence point and you don't like doing it, I don't care if it is the best thing and it even gives you the best results if you've exper where experience just comes in. If you've had hundreds of people you've trained and you've applied the science that you know to it and you realize that okay only 5% of those people actually liked that process or adhered to it for more than a few weeks. Everybody else bailed on it cuz they hated it or complained about it while they did it. And so it's like, okay, well that's great that in theory this would be the best route to do it, but in actual application in the real world, most people dread it or don't like it or don't enjoy it. So therefore, I'm not doing it. >> Here, I'll give a great example, right? So we tend to advocate, generally speaking, for full body workout routines versus body part splits. Okay, so here's what the studies will show. Body part splits versus full body. If the volume is controlled, uh, then you tend to see similar results. But here's now I I can make lots of arguments with data on why full body routines are better, but the data that I can cite is going to kind of suggest here or there, whatever. It's not like super conclusive, but here's the bottom line. The average person working their full body three days a week over the course of five years versus training the whole body over five days, they'll do one or two body parts a day, right? Here's what ends up happening over the course of five years. You miss workouts. >> That's right. >> You end up missing workouts. And what miss what workouts do you tend to miss? The ones you don't like. >> The ones you don't like. So you end up not training your legs or your back or whatever body part you hate. You know what happens when you do full body workouts? You train your full body three days a week. You know what happens when you miss one workout? You still train your full body. Yeah. >> Two days that week. Yeah. So full body workouts are superior uh for that one factor, right? That's why our original program maps anabolic >> is a full body uh workout routine and and it's also our most popular. By the way, our routines are based off of data combined with experience. Uh, and right now if you go to mapsboggo.com, you can get MAPS anabolic. And then we're going to throw in a very popular program, MAPS Oldtime Strength. This is a MAPS Oldtime Strength is an is a workout routine based off of the programs that strength athletes followed at the turn of the century >> during the bronze era before steroids, before supplements when they had to be stronger than they actually looked even. Uh, so you buy MAPS anabolic, you get that for free if you go to MAPS. Such a cool combo to run after maps anabolic. Maps Anabolic does such a good job of building strength in the in the sagittal plane. Then you go over to something that has like these dynamic unique movements. So the combination of the two of those back are like one of my favorite ways to run a program. >> Six months of programming. Again, it's maps bogo.com. It's the price of maps anabolic. You get oldtime strength for free. All right, I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. One of the keys to fat loss is protein. It's true. If you're not eating a high protein diet, you're not going to burn as much body fat as you can. So today's episode, we're going to talk about the smartest ways to use protein for fat burn and to build muscle. You got to watch this. >> I wish I understood this earlier in my career. I think it was probably almost 10 years in when I started to just focus on this with clients. >> I knew it was important, but I don't know how important. >> Yeah. I also did I knew what was important and but I also