Ep 389 - What the Erics Actually Do

0:00What's up everybody welcome back to Iron Culture presented by the Mass Research Review. It is me Eric Traxler joined as always by the Dr. Eric Helms Helms. How are we doing today? I'm doing fabulously. Things are going well, busy, but you know we're getting it done. Got one of my workouts in this morning and yeah, I had a nice breakfast with my wife before she headed off to her one of her various field sites that she does geology things with. So yeah, and then I'll be off to a team of Lenny that do some sprinsy things after we finish recording. How about you? Yeah, so and you've been the director, is that the official title of sprins? The official title is co-director. No direct. But I am a co-director without a co. So a director is acceptable. Okay, so you're a solo co-director. Correct. Okay, but so you've been doing that for at least several months now and it seems like

1:05the place hasn't collapsed, is that accurate? Yeah, I started in January officially and so you can accurately say that I've been doing it for eight months in a week and yeah, I have not made the place collapse yet. So but there is time left in the first year. Some of these institutions, they have so much inertia. It takes a while to actually destroy them. So yes, we'll see. Yeah, I'm, I believe in myself that I can leave a legacy and as I've heard, you know, just like there's no such thing as bad PR, there's no such thing as a bad legacy. I think you can imagine, if you look at history, there's many people who are remembered and always a good thing to be remembered or a guard was of what it's for. I think history is filled with the people like that, right? Yeah, and like with a lot of like countries and organizations, the people you really remember are the founding leader and the terminal leader, you know.

2:05So if you you you miss the boat to be the founding leader. So yeah, what we'll see how it goes. That's right. There we go. All right, well, Helms, nothing, nothing new to report on my end. Just doing my normal thing, teaching, researching, etc, etc, etc, etc. But Helms, we have a interesting episode today. We planned out because normally we come in here and I ramble for 40 minutes about college sport, you ramble for 40 minutes about powerlifting. Then we both ramble for 75 more minutes about a new study that came out with an excruciating level of detail. Although I will say to our credit Helms, just today, our approach to doing that paid off, we got a lovely email from someone who we'd covered their their study on the show. And I'll also I won't say which one because you know, I don't know if it was public information, but they mentioned that they were so pleased that we took the time to discuss it with nuance and detail.

3:06And they also admitted that they were quite frustrated that many people were misinterpreting their work in the exact say in the exact way that you said they absolutely would. So while our approach to content creation is not necessarily created to go viral in this current algorithmic environment, we sometimes get nice emails from professors. So which is more valuable to a business? Who's to say? That's right. If you want to quote unquote influence the current landscape of fitness and health, you perhaps don't do that by doing deep dives on already deep dive papers in audio format. But if you have some Schrola shred of optimism remaining, which I think between the two of us, we do. Well, you solely possess it. Between the two of us, yeah, it's like between us. It's like between me and you on Musk, we have about a trillion dollars.

4:07Yeah. You guys are rich. I tell you. Yeah. But the thing is, is we are simpatico. We are mutually supporting one another and the things you lack, I bring and the things that I lack you bring. So this is, this is, this, it works. I think, you know, people think of compromise as in a relationship that every single quality or thing is a 50, 50, but in reality, there are certain things that some people bring to the table and others don't. And that's okay. And if it works, it works. And we're still here, folks, we're going on nearly 400 episodes. And if I bring the idealism and optimism and you bring everything else that you bring, because I get us in the door and then you do the things in the door. I think that's probably a good categorization. But the point is, we are actually injecting the nuance that is needed to be evidence based in a space that is slowly making evidence based, indistinguishable from everything else.

5:11And you know what? Sometimes you're an anchor in a storm. Sometimes you can actually acknowledge that the ship is going somewhere and there's other ships in the water. These days sometimes it feels like we're an anchor in a storm, but storms do end. Sometimes they do. They do. They do. They're not a gritt, Armageddon, but hopefully not this time. Still ended though. And that's an interesting way you phrase that. I kind of representing us as different, but complimentary. It's going to be a theme of this episode. So what I was getting at, yeah, you nudge me into it there. This episode, rather than exhaustively critiquing a research paper or a particular research topic, we're going to get very practical today. And we spend so much time on the show talking about what a lifter could do, can do, ought to do, should do, etc. Today, we're going to talk about what we actually do, Helms, what you do in terms of your training and nutrition currently and what I do. Because we're in very, very different phases or stages of our lives and careers.

6:16You obviously, many decades older than me and still a competitive athlete. Me fully non-competitive and very, very young. I'm a very young, young, young man, despite the hair coverage situation on the top of my head. But before we do that, Helms, we got to do the business first. So everyone, thank you so much for supporting us and listening and watching the show. If you want to take that support to the next level, which I do encourage, many ways to do that. Make sure you like, rate, subscribe, review, share the show with a friend, posting on social media, whatever you got to do to help out and get us out there and boost the algorithm that we obviously tailor our content to directly. On top of that, if you want to support our friends over at EliteFTS.com, I highly encourage you to do it. And honestly, you're going to win. It's a win-win situation because they make extremely high quality apparel and gear for the gym. I use it myself. Those wrist straps have been going for long over a decade. Try to break them. Can't do it. So make sure you go over to EliteFTS.com and use the discount code MRR10 that stands for

7:20Mass Research Review 10 that will get you a 10% discount off your order. And then finally, if you want to be an absolute top tier silver medallion platinum level member of the Iron Culture community, the cult, as they say, become a mass subscriber. What are you waiting for? Go open a massresearchreview.com, become a member of the mass community. Your mass subscription keeps the show existing and thriving. And listen, every month you're going to get something into your inbox. The first of the month, every month, it never been late since 2017. We weren't late in 2017. We started in 2017. Never been late, period. But it's a research review and listen, every single month, we are bringing you the newest, most insightful research related to your training, your nutrition, your coaching practice, everything within that genre. I think you'll find every issue has a little bit for everybody and several things for you specifically. So be sure to check out massresearchreview.com and sometimes, Helms, when we're not reviewing

8:22a specific study, we'll even sneak in some of these articles that are just an idea that we've really been chewing on for a while and we finally formalize it. And I think some of those end up being our, I would say our best and most impactful articles. I don't know if you would support that. I don't know, 100%. Yeah. So massresearchreview.com, support the show we would greatly appreciate. And all right, Helms, now down to business, we got to talk about what the heck we actually do. No, not running research institutes or running doubly labeled water labs or teaching courses in the gym, in the kitchen. Because I think this is something that a lot of people, you know, that follow folks who talk about, you know, evidence-based fitness. It's one thing to say, here's a new study, here's what I think about it, here's how you could use it. But it is very telling when you look at a person who's, you listen, if you sit in front of a microphone and you write articles every month and you talk into the microphone for hours every month, you're going to start to be known for having certain perspectives,

9:23being in this camp or that camp. But what that doesn't show is how you actually implement that. And I think implementation really shows you where your priorities are. It shows you how you weigh certain evidence against other things. It also shows you, frankly, beyond that, how you actually make that whole three-part, end diagram of evidence-based practice work, right? Because there may be some scenarios where you say, I actually think, you know, the evidence over here is slightly stronger than over there. The evidence leads me to A and Stabby. But all the other things in this whole end diagram lead me to go with the other one, right? So sometimes what you actually do is very telling. So I figured it would be a good episode to kind of talk through, you know, what you're doing currently, what I'm doing currently, the connective tissue we share, and then the, what I expect are probably going to be some pretty big divergences. So Helms, what do you say we dive in? I'm ready. Let's go. All right. So first and foremost, I think we have to cover one thing above all else because this

10:25is symbolic as well. There is so much stuff in evidence-based fitness about supplementation and, you know, all of these little dietary strategies. Training is the stimulus, right? If you're trying to build muscle, if you're trying to get stronger, training has to go first and foremost, and so we will address it first. The question is current training split, current general kind of program structure Helms, what in the heck are you doing in the gym today? Today. So every day I have a slot at six and six where I try to get to the gym. They are typically occurring more frequently when I am in the Monday through Friday, having both a two a day sessions and depending upon what my week looked like, they may or may not also be happening on Saturday Sunday. So I train across the YMCA, which is near my house as well as the Sprint Labs as well

11:28as the 18 North Campus Gym and sometimes the City Campus Gym and sometimes my home gym. And this is because I have a schedule which has a degree of unpredictability, which is new now in the co-director role. Things will come up and you'll have a visiting researcher here for a week or you'll have a minister or a director of some sport or health related thing that goes, hey, we want to do a laboratory, we want to be meeting and it's unfortunately or fortunately, actually the way I view it. Unfortunately as a bodybuilder, fortunately due to the opportunities to present my role as director, it's my job to jump in and see if we can make something of that. And, you know, make Alte Roa a more sporty, healthy, you know, country. So anyway, I think two days are really useful from an optimality perspective because you can increase the quality even if you don't modify the volume.

12:29And then from another lens, for someone who needs more opportunities to try to get more quantity, they're there. So I go in at six in the morning, I wake up pretty early, I go to bed at like 10, my typical sleep schedule is somewhere between 10 to 11 and somewhere between five to six. And I wake up and before I get anything else done, I go to the gym right across the street. And typically these sessions, if everything has gone well from the day prior, are focused mostly on peripheral muscle groups. So things like forums, cats, traps, middle delts on days, I'm going to be training, glutes and hands, some abduction. And it takes me 30 to 45 minutes, depending upon how crowded things are. However, my evening sessions are on a predictable, alternating schedule of full body push, full body pull. So it'll be like a hinge pattern, handstrings, some back work, and some biceps. The next day, it'll be a knee dominant squat pattern, leg extensions or Cicci squats or

13:30some kind of isolated knee extension, a couple pressing exercises and triceps. Now the evenings are where I have less predictability in my schedule and time and what's going on. And sometimes they become very truncated 30 minutes, you know, rest pause, drop set, superset sessions. And then I'll flex what I missed into the next morning, which has been working really well for me. So if I have a really, really busy week, that kind of happens a bunch and it ends up getting flexed into the next morning a lot. And then I do need both days on the weekends where I have a lot less spread in this demands. In fact, almost none because it's a, it's not what I'm used to of working in my own entrepreneurial businesses where you could work as much you want and you have to self regulate. And I'll end up like getting a pretty big session, a m n p m. However, if I do well, manage my timers, not as busy of a week, I'll stay on top of things. And in the weekends, I can actually just do one session.

14:32And then it gives me this natural tapering so that I can feel refreshed and I can come into Monday and and have a little more effort and gangbusters. And if I end up stringing together a lot of weeks where I'm back loading things and then I'm coming into Monday already a bit fatigued, that is typically where I end up taking like an auto regulated, uh, delote of some type where I manipulate my exercise selection or I like assess my, my body. It's like, what is the main problem? Is it mental fatigue? Um, is it, uh, joint stress or is it under recovery and overall, I'm just feeling crappy? Do I need to modify tempo, exercise selection and still maintain the stimulus, but just to be another pathway? Or do I actually just need a break? And that is kind of the overall structure of my training that is necessary for me to accomplish what is largely an unreasonable amount of total work at a intensity that most

15:33people would find unsustainable at that volume that I've built up to over the past four years. Yeah. And you've talked about how that, that was a process of building up that volume and I, I don't know if you currently have it quantified it, you know, at the top of your mind here, but you know, just to give people an idea, if, if for a typical muscle group or maybe even a muscle group you're focusing on and kind of doing a specialization phase for how many sets a week are we really talking about here? If you use indirect counting, so half is set, uh, Allah, you know, remember Allah, uh, pellant meta analyses and, and Robinson, uh, it is between 20 to 30 sets, uh, that I'm getting per muscle group per week, um, with a mixture of both direct and indirect. So, uh, most of my upper body musculature are in, are closer to 30, uh, and then most of my lower body except for glutes are closer to 20.

16:34And then a lot of my peripheral, uh, muscle groups are closer to 20. So like, yeah, uh, abs, forearms, uh, middle delts, traps, things like that, but they're also getting hit indirectly in the ways that are probably challenging to quantify. But I keep the same quantification method all the time so that I can compare like to like. And I track the total tonnage of my training and look at that weekly and monthly, which tells me both whether or not I'm getting stronger over time, but also I've direct measures of, you know, PRs and strength. Um, but also it tells me my overall workload and knowing that I keep most of the same exercises in and that I train across a broad, broad, rep range spectrum. I have to back up enough to know that it's not contaminated by it. Oh, I went on a like a high rep phase for two weeks because I had knee-tab the nitase and it was on leg press, which produces ridiculous volume load because, you know, you know, eight or seven plates of side. So I think when I look at the monthly tonnage, that is kind of how I view how well I've

17:38managed my time and also built up capacity. And I think as a total aside, something that really seems to be missing from the conversation about like fatigue and stimulus balance, like obviously it's a big like fatigue bogey man right now. And even when you, someone has a more nuanced conversation about it, people seem to be missing the key piece that like your workload capacity and fatigue resilience is a trainable trait. Um, and they're very much operating in like, this is the number of sets you should do is though that's not something that one can adapt to or should adapt to. Yeah, I know that it's a very good point for sure. Um, and so, okay, I did have a question. We're going to get into the diet stuff later, but the these, you mentioned that you've usually wake up around five or six a.m. and you usually train at six a.m. Is that first session faster or is there some kind of like light or liquid nutrition approach you're using before that? No, it is fasted, but it is also on, um, it's also caffeinated.

18:40So you know, I go into that with some, some stimulants on deck. So like the first thing I do is I, I will take some caffeine. Um, and then I will like get the dishes done. I'll do about 20 minutes of stuff that I do in the morning normally, uh, that I would do before, you know, barb wakes up and we go to breakfast and everything to let it sink in. And once I start to feel like a complete suppression of tiredness and let I'm starting to wake up more, then I'll go across the street. So it is fasted, but most of what I flex into those early morning days, unless I've just completely botched my schedule, are things that I'm happy to do in a fasted state, like wrist extensions, wrist curls. And then like if I prioritize the big lifts or the main, uh, drivers of, of my overall stimulus first. So for example, if I have a, uh, like an upper, like a full body push session, I'm not going to like do my triceps leg extension, but, oh, no time to do leg press and adventure

19:43or whatever. Um, right. So, you know, me doing triceps push downs on leg extensions the next morning is, is not an issue, um, in terms of, uh, that, but I have found that I've initially certain performances I noticed were better in my afternoon or evening sessions versus my morning sessions. But then I've started to acclimate and, and I've had a few times where I have had to flex something into the next morning. And I've been very pleasantly surprised that if I warm up properly and if I allow it to kick in and if I got good sleep, like I actually hit a, uh, I want to say either a hack squat or an incline, uh, bench press PR, which surprised me more in the morning that I flexed in. So, uh, to be fair, it's an equal, equal PR. I got a hundred kilos for five with maybe one RIR on, uh, on incline bench in a morning session. And then I also hit, it was either a leg press or a hack squat PR for like a high, not

20:45like a high rep PR, but like a load PR, like a forearm or something like that. And I was like, oh, shit. So I do think it's something one can acclimate to, um, and the data actually bears that out as well. Oh, yeah. It's, um, I don't know if you caught, uh, we did an episode of Front Page Fitness, uh, podcast that I host with Lauren Kalenzo, simple fellow member of the Mass crew. Uh, but last night, yeah, last night we did an episode where we were talking about fast training. We got a listener question. Um, yeah, it's, um, so many people sleep on this idea and totally miss it, but you can absolutely adapt to two things, early morning training and fasted training, two different things, two different adaptations. But, um, I know it in throughout my many, many years of lifting, you know, in various capacities, there have been times where, yeah, I switched to lifting it, you know, sometimes four in the morning, um, totally fasted. And yeah, you, you adapt to it and, uh, it's, uh, you know, Helms, ever since I, you

21:46know, went and did a postdoc in evolutionary biology, evolutionary anthropology, uh, that really did impact the way that I kind of zoom out and think about some things. And it's like, man, if our species was so fragile that we were just like physically non-functional if we had been fasted for God, God forbid nine hours, Helms, 10 hours. I mean, we never would have made it, man. Like, we're actually okay. And if you look at the kind of default state of being a human being, you're measuring your caloric adequacy and your protein adequacy over a time scale of weeks, not hours, you know, and I think sometimes, you know, it's, it's good to look at the empirical research and see how these different things might impact optimization. But we do need to zoom out and kind of keep that anchor securely on the ground, which is that it turns out humans like essentially all other species are damn resilient and can really adapt to a lot of things. Um, okay. So, uh, you are hitting each major muscle group.

22:46It looks like probably three or four times a week. Is that right? Yeah, three and a half. And then minor muscle groups daily. So cast, forearms, abs, middle delts. Yeah. All right. And, you know, and this is what would you describe as your current goal? What are you training for? Oh, you saw my next appearance at W and BF World and the, uh, the bodybuilding pro division. Um, I either 2027 or 2028. And I think largely that'll depend upon two things. One is I'm going to do a mini cut, probably some time in the next three to four months. And then kind of, you know, then get into maintenance and see where I'm at and send some like legit video in posing shrunks to, um, Birdo, Brian and also assess it myself and see do we think I've made legitimate progress?

23:47Um, and, you know, the last very successful season I had the dieting started in April. So I've got some time, even if I want to do 2027, I mean, April is, um, more than half a year away. So, um, the other piece will just be, do I think I have the band with, uh, next year based upon how stabilized the systems I'm trying to create in sprints are that can accommodate me, uh, being in contest prep, which I honestly, I'm, I'm very good at integrating it to my life, but it does, it, it reduces my total battery capacity, even if my, I feel like my peak performance doesn't dip too much. Yeah. Especially towards the end. And there's this little bit like the legitimate unavoidable travel, like if I want to compete at worlds, it's going to be, um, probably in North America. I mean, they are having it in Canada this year. If it moves somewhere else, it's, it's unlikely to go to Australia or Southeast Asia. Um, and even if I do the closest pro shows, we're looking at things like, um, maybe 2020,

24:49maybe we might get something down in Australia and New Zealand, but more than likely we're looking at like Taiwan again or Korea or Japan or something like that. So, um, I can, it's going to require at least a week away in most cases. So do, do I have the, the capacity to do that next year? Maybe. So 2028 is maybe just as likely as 2027. I think I'm 50, 50 right now. And with the WNBF, you have like a two year window where you don't have to worry about competing again to get your card back or anything. No, that is completely changed. So that that was a rule for a while. And I think it's difficult to kind of get some of these structural word out. Um, but that was something that did get changed. It's so long as you stay current with your fees. If you got your pro card in the modern era, um, before that rule existed and it hadn't lapsed, um, then so long as you pay your annual fees, the retain your pro card. So, uh, that, that is something that I think is a, is it was a really positive change. And I appreciate the leadership for that.

25:51Yeah. Now that, to me, that was always like a, a total no brainer. So I'm, I'm glad that they did that. I think for, if you're looking at it purely from an athlete centric perspective, to me, it was a no brainer. You got to do it. Uh, so I'm glad to hear that they did that. So props to them for that. Okay. One last question I had. You mentioned D loads. Um, I might have missed it. But how frequently are you kind of doing that assessment to see if a D load is needed? And if so, what, what that D load should look like? Honestly, it's weekly. Like I, uh, okay. I am, and because, because you, you can have an individual session where you just come in and it's rough. But if I have like lingering, uh, joint pain tend to nidus, my motivation to train is down, um, and I have had to shift a bunch of times. And I've noticed that my performances become more variable, not just down. I think that I have rarely experienced just across the board. Performance is down outside of states where I'm like dieting and I've lost a lot of weight. Um, if my, if all of those things are there together, that is when I will do a bit of a

26:54D load. And I find, so I've only probably done two in all of 2026. And some of that is also because when I travel, um, it forces some degree of a D load. So I will then account for that. So for example, when I was in Singapore, I looked at the end of my week when I got to my total tonnage and I was about at two thirds or three quarters, just because of the schedule, didn't, didn't make that an option, um, to keep my two a day training schedule with the type of training intensity that I wanted, uh, because I was trying to sort of stay on New Zealand time, which the way that worked is, you know, I was waking up around, uh, what was three or four a.m. Which was seven or eight a.m. There. So it's later than I normally do and trying to go to bed around eight or nine, which is like midnight or one a.m. The versus staying on Singaporean time. So I was under slept. So I didn't think there's a good idea to crush myself. And then in the morning at, you know, four a.m.

27:55There's not 24 hour gyms everywhere. So I'm going to the hotel gym, which is okay, um, and getting in sometimes what might be my only workout and then just seeing what the rest of the day looks like. So that was kind of like a four day D load that I just took. And I came back and the day after I got off the plane, I hit a pretty big PR on leg press. I'm like, okay, so that is something I, uh, I can't really share it on our culture, but on one of the other podcasts, I was noticing that for the first time for myself, I'd noticed that some of the, uh, the way sports sciences supposed to work theoretically seems to work for me now where when I have a, a D load or a time off or a break or some type of reduction in my overall training stress, I reliably see a stabilization of my performance, some PRs, and then it comes back, um, to kind of like the, the steady improvements that I'm currently experiencing, which is still awesome. And that wasn't something that I would predictably see as a coach when I was

28:58implementing D loads and people who were like training four sessions one hour per week. You do a D load and they're like, okay, yeah, it's like we're back to training. And it wasn't like, you know, it, it was only something I observed consistently and power lifters pushing the limit. And now in, and also in some of the bodybuilders I've worked with who were doing a lot of training, but because most strength athletes are fitting it into their lives and it is not necessary to do the most you possibly can, um, they're frankly just not pushing their physical recover limits. They're overall allostatic load with family job, life, interpersonal stress, diet and training, um, might mean that a D load will do them good holistically, but it's not like there is this training induced fatigue stimulus to where they're actually going to get a physiological boost in performance and they do a taper, which is something you much more reliably see in research settings on, uh, observations of weight lifters, power lifters or, of course,

30:03some other sport codes. It is pretty reliably seen in like high level cyclist endurance athletes. And I think when you portal over to personal training, it's like, Hey, I'm coming in three days a week to train for an hour and my personal trainer, because they, you know, read the textbook, thinks that we need to do every fourth week deal. And I'm like, I don't know that that's true at all. That's your polite way of saying I'm very certain that that's not true. Yeah, you probably need to build up more resilience rather than taking time off from the incredibly strenuous non athlete training schedule you have. Yeah. And in defense of the old heads who wrote the theory of how that's all supposed to work, I don't think they ever thought it would be getting applied to the, the personal, you know, personal training client who's in the gym, a total of 180 minutes a week, you know, doing some standard three sets of 10. So, um, all right, but cool. Yes. So it sounds like, you know, that probably ends up being what may be about 5D loads a year or plus or minus on average. Sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

31:04Well, cool. All right. So, so that is the current training approach of a person who is trying to improve their placing at a very competitive bodybuilding federations world championships. And to contrast that, I will briefly talk about what I'm doing. All right. So the backstory for all those who don't know the full war going back many years, uh, used to compete in bodybuilding. Did make it to the pro level and compete there briefly. Um, and then, um, as I'll do, right? Yeah. A competing powerlifting as well. Um, held a state record for a week. Uh, so I put that on my tombstone. Uh, but in any case, so, you know, it was big in the lifting game and it was just lifting religiously from the age of 12 to, I don't know. Uh, I don't know how old I was, but late 20s will call it. Um, but the, the season that I, uh, got my pro card, I started to notice some symptoms of, uh, of a nerve injury that were really nagging, but not enough that they actually derailed my ability to prep.

32:06They just changed my exercise selection. Um, but that ended up being essentially a protracted like seven year period of gradually worsening nerve pain, uh, running through my anterior hip. And so at first, it was like, I, I just couldn't squat heavy anymore. And then it was like, okay, dead lifts are off the menu as well. And then it was like, I can't even really leg press with a decent range of motion. And before you know it, you know, seven years of worsen worsen worse, I, it was difficult for me to stand for extended periods of time and even walking for more than like five or 10 minutes would start to bother me. Um, and so, uh, yeah, it just got worse and, you know, I was waking me up at night with this awful nerve pain. Uh, it just got terrible. So, um, all that is to say my training basically whittled down to like nothing because it was a genuinely miserable experience. Um, part of the thing that mixed in there is like, so my training started to become painful and miserable. And then COVID kind of locked me out of my gym for several weeks. And I was like, you know, life actually is better when I have more time to do things that I think are interesting. And when

33:09I'm not going into the gym and just causing a lot of nerve pain for an hour every day. Um, and so I had this nasty mixture of my behaviors got kind of totally rearranged because of COVID shutdowns and severe pain, which ended up leading to surgery and then another surgery. So just this whole many year situation that leads a person who, you know, from the age of 12 to probably 28, it was hard to keep me out of the gym. I mean, I, you know, in high school, I was doing two days at my own volition. Um, I was, you know, in college. You just, yeah, it was just the gym was my favorite part of the day for most of my, most of the, my life I could remember. And all of a sudden, I became a person who doesn't go to the gym and just doesn't work out. I mean, there, there's probably been at least a couple years in recent history where I've logged less than 10 workouts in a calendar year, you know, so like if it was literally nothing. But I am happy to say that, um, after that second surgery and after kind of working my way back, uh, I actually feel pretty good

34:10navigating the gym and doing things I can do. Uh, I did in that, in the, I should also mention in this whole process, I ended up, um, needing to go on a medication where a known side effect is weight gain and I gained a shitload of weight. And way more, I've looked in the meta analyses of how much weight people typically gain for whatever reason it wrecked me. It totally impacted me in a much more substantial way. Um, and because the mechanism by which it does it is by actually kind of messing with your appetite. And so, um, like I, I'm, as a person, believe me, who's cut weight, you know, for wrestling and powerlifting and bodybuilding up to a pro level, I know how to manipulate my diet. I've been hungry. This was something else, man. It was really something else. So I gained a tremendous amount of weight. Then it go to the gym, basically, hardly at all for a couple of years. And now it's time to get back into it. And I finally feel comfortable, um, you know, for weeks on end now getting into the gym, navigating it, making modifications where I can do what I got to do, uh, and also get my diet back together. So,

35:12the reason I bring this whole preamble is Helms, you and I are in very different states, right? I actually am in that, I am in a position right now where if, you know, when you see the study and they're like, oh, they have these people cycle three times a week and they gained muscle, that would be me. Like I absolutely would gain muscle from a dedicated cycling program three days a week. And that really colors what I'm doing right now. Because listen, Helms, if I wanted to, I could go through and try to optimize everything. But I know my psychology and the potential for backfiring there is when I look at the 75 minute arduous workout, and I'm still trying to rebuild this habit. Is that going to be enough where I say, I can't do those 75 minutes perfectly. Therefore, I guess I'll try tomorrow. That's a very, very dangerous thing, when you're trying to rebuild that. This is what you do every day kind of habit. Um, and on the other, you know, another reason that I'm not super worried about hyper optimization is listen, I'm going to grow no matter what I do. I'm going to get way stronger no matter what I do. And you might as well

36:15take the low hanging fruit while it's dangling, right? There's going to be a time in a place where I have to say, well, crap, I've, I got all the easy gains now on plateaued and I need to ramp it up to, you know, 100%. Listen, hopefully I get there sooner rather than later, but I'm not very yet. So I'm not worried about it. So we can contrast what you're doing in the gym with what I do in the gym. So you have five gyms. I have one. It happens to be in the building where my offices, right? So that's already, I got to be honest, a huge benefit in terms of building the habit, right? Because I do not wish to be fired. So I will be going to work, uh, at least Monday through Thursday and typically Monday through Friday. Um, and so what I've been doing is I've been saying, hey, in the weekends, don't sweat it, dude, because it's like, it's like a good 20, 25 minute commute. So my training is Monday through Thursday or Monday through Friday, four or five days a week. If you're going to go to work, you got to go to the gym. It's literally right there, right? So I get into the gym those four or five days a week. I get in there. I give it a good, I aim for about

37:1745 minutes. Sometimes I'm having a good time. I go an hour. Uh, and in terms of what I'm hitting, I'm at that stage, Helms, where I'm still not really a beneficiary of the repeated bout effect yet. Like it's, it's going to take, you know, a couple more weeks, I think. So basically, I go in and I say, hey, let's make today worth it. It may be an upper body day. It may be a lower body day. Um, it may be a mix of both, right? Sometimes I'll go and I'll do, you know, like, like you were kind of getting at maybe a more pushing stuff and then like a quad dominant kind of knee dominant lower body exercise or maybe I'll go in a different day and do more pulling stuff and maybe some kind of hinge hamstring, that kind of deal. Um, but yeah, so whether it's going to be an upper body day, lower body day or a full body day, I don't know until I literally step in the gym. And sometimes I don't don't even know then. Sometimes I just say, well, I, what really bothers me right now is my chest. My chest needs to get bigger that that actually bothers me. Um, and so for that reason, sometimes I'll walk into the gym and just say, I'm going to go bench for 15 or 20 minutes and then we'll see what happens. And something else will happen after that. I don't know what it is.

38:20Maybe it's from chest to more chest. Maybe it's chest to back. Maybe it's just a legs. I don't know. And so yeah, I mean, my, um, my weekly, my set volume, uh, I couldn't even possibly tell you because I'm not thinking about that. I'm just going in and establishing the habit, having a good time in the gym. And I'm in that, uh, extremely untrained state where I can have complete faith that whatever I'm doing in here is going to be highly productive, right? So I don't need to really worry too much. But yeah, for some of my muscle groups, I'm probably really flirting with that minimum effective dose kind of weekly set volume for other muscle groups, especially my chest. I'm, you know, listen, I, I remember back in the day I did small off junior. We all did. Some people admit it. We all did it though. Um, and man, going in and benching four days a week, even sometimes being on consecutive days turns out your chest actually grows a lot and your bench goes up a lot and your bench to, to me, my bench felt really, really comfortable when I was just nailing it day after day, after day. So all that is to say that that's kind of what my, uh, training looks like. Um, and what

39:25we'll talk about diet next, but, you know, listen, I'm not sweating optimization of my diet at all for training purposes, right? My, my diet right now is all focused on weight loss. I've had enough, internet hazing of everyone telling me that I, I must have forgotten everything I know and I'm a useless, uh, evidence based fitness professional because I gained some weight. So I'm, I'm focused on the weight loss on the diet side more than, uh, performance optimization. Cause again, my performance could be crap. I, I could go in with, with what I'm doing and perform at 70% of my potential because I'm low on glycogen, you know, fasted for sometimes 20 hours. I'll go and work out on a 20 hour fast. No big deal. Um, will it impair my high end performance? Yes. Does that matter for me to actually get a strength or hypertrophy stimulus at this stage? Not at all. Like anything I do in there is going to be, you know, very substantial in terms of getting a training stimulus and ultimately adapting to it. So Helms, that's kind of where I'm at with my training right now. And, um, I'm in the position that I always put my students in. So I, I do teach, uh, and weight training and an

40:29advanced weight training class in addition to the, you know, the, the lecture courses that I teach here in exercise physiology. And when I teach those courses, I always tell students, I would like for you to get stronger in this course. Um, I would like for you to learn a lot about lifting. But what I really insist upon, or the primary goal, I should say, you know, which supersedes both of those, I want you to fall in love with lifting this semester. And I want you to promise me you're going to do it for the next 70 years. After those 70 years, do whatever you want. That's what I always tell them it gets one chuckle and a lot of eye rolls. But, um, but yeah, so that's where I'm at is I'm falling back in love with lifting, um, and part it. And that involves honestly doing some stuff you don't like to do. It doesn't mean every day is a love affair. Sometimes you go in and it's purely obligation. And you say, well, I told myself I got to do it today. So I'll do it. But the thing I've noticed, um, this is a really fascinating insight. I didn't anticipate. Um, people who are really fit talk about going to the gym and they're like, they almost frame it as if their dedication is more valuable because clearly they have more of it because they're more fit.

41:33As someone who has been extremely fit, just objectively, I have. And someone who has gotten back into the gym being extremely unfit, it is a lot easier to convince yourself to work out and enjoy the workout and be locked into the workout when you're already fit. It's really, really hard to say, I'm going to train for the next six months and listen, Helm's for better or for worse, I know how this goes. I'm still not going to look jacked in six months. I'll look better. But it's really hard to convince yourself with that uphill battle. And this is something that if you're a trainer, a personal trainer, a coach, it's really important to keep this in mind with some of your early career clients that you bring on is that it takes a lot more dedication and focus and motivation to stick with it when the returns aren't already in the mirror. You know, it's kind of like, um, you know, if someone is like the kind of metaphor I would lean on is getting out of debt. It's a lot easier to convince someone to pack their stuff, their lunch instead of buying it at a

42:34restaurant when they're pretty close to reaching a financial goal. But when they're $400,000 in debt and you tell them to find a cheaper version of coffee in the morning, they're like, brother, saving that dollar is not going to do me any good. Unless you got 400 grand, we're going to come up with, I don't think the coffee's doing it. And that's kind of the feeling that I got the first couple, because I have had some sputtering starts where I get back into it, lose interest. And I've done a lot of introspection and thinking. And that's really the metaphor that I think most closely approximates it is, how are you actually going to convince yourself that this is a worthwhile endeavor when you're so far away from what you used to consider the starting line, let alone the finish line. So Helms, that's where I'm at with my training. I think that's actually really intriguing because anyone who just listened to me, then you, we don't need to point out the contrasts. They look like night and day. But I actually think there's a tremendous number of parallels that people may not

43:35have picked up on that I think are actually really important ways to attune your philosophy, whether you're training yourself or clients. And when you're talking to other people, where there's some really important overlaps. So I think a lot of people are probably thinking about me in my competitive endeavors, my scientific mindset, my focus on optimization as seeing the two of days as some type of physiological strategy. And it's not not that, but it is also a behavioral approach to reduce friction. And you were saying how important it is for you to get in the habit of being in there regularly. And then what you do is far less important once you get there. That's actually quite similar to why I go at six and six is because of my environmental constraints. And then because of what I'm attempting to accomplish that I need to create a structure that produces that type of opportunity. And I did have friction at first. It took me about three or four months to figure

44:37out how do I get this in after seeing what everyone around me if they had goals like you would be like you're training like you're your trainings like it's ridiculous. You spend so much time in there. You're great. But I went actually the last week I just had 40 minute workouts in the evening. And I was super setting everything and I couldn't bring the level of intensity and focus and my arm volume dropped a little bit. Right. I only do like a push pull like I'm choosing to not do any isolation work for my lat or my chest. So I get in a little bit of extra indirect work for my triceps and biceps. And those little concessions I notice because of what I'm trying to do. And the equivalent to missing a workout and going I don't want to let this habit stack up. So I've been trying to figure out well what do I do. And this system was largely behavioral and opportunity and friction reduction based. Right. And I think also you were talking about how optimization is not the focus because the optimization focus would even detract from your adherence opportunity and

45:42willingness to get in there. And the thing that people miss about optimization is you don't optimize in a production as fashion. Fashion everyone tries to you optimize within the constraints. You take a constraints lit approach. So the question of people going well is it good to be fasted for those morning workouts. And my answer would be what opportunity would I be losing if I tried to feed before I worked out I get up earlier. Right. I work out later. And now the entire reason I'm doing that morning workout is subverted. So it doesn't give me the time availability. So the real question is not what's optimal. It's what which one is better. Me getting up and doing training that's most of the time not impacted by doing it fasted first thing in the morning or not doing that training session at all or not having the time to do other things that makes me do less in the evening. And you simply don't get to choose you have to deal with the constraints first. So that's another example where

46:45it's actually quite similar. I am optimizing within the constraints throwback to Brian Whitaker W and BFIFPA combined champion. Obviously great genetics. Obviously a high level competitor, but he probably didn't have the elite level genetics that everyone else did at the peak peak level. And he beat some people who you would not think just kind of looking at the structure and the chassis, but he brought a level of conditioning. And he also was a full professor full time in economics with family and traveled to speak while competing. And he would tell you that those things came first before bodybuilding. And that was occurring when he unified the titles of WBF World's and IFPA Jordan Cup at the time. Now he's going to be Jordan Cup. And I think that is the mentality it takes. And the mentality of actually trying to take a reductionist approach to optimizing typically makes it less optimal. Because you're not really making a holistic rational, truly rational choice of

47:50accepting the reality in front of you knowing what you can and can't do. Looking at the past and saying what's realistic instead of committing to things that are just going to set you up for failure. And I also really appreciated the two acknowledged that people make irrational choices because of the situation they're in. Of course, if you're $400 in debt, you would want to take every single opportunity you could to save money. But that's not the way things work. You know, so I also, like if you think about the rational choice where it took from 2023 to 2025 to increase my stage weight 1.9 kilos. If someone was purely thinking about how much progress can I make on a day-to-day basis, week-to-week basis of what am I expecting when I go into gym, it could also be framed as very depressing. You know, the rate of progress that I'm going to make from now until 2027 or 2028 will be probably no more than that that I made from 2023 to 25 are potentially less.

48:53Right? Yeah. So if one is purely focused on the outcome, you see advanced athletes step away entirely and they can't keep training. And I see this all the time that people detrain from an incredibly fit state because they were purely outcome focused. It's like the tyranny of progress. And even though I have these external goals of placing higher at worlds, they are a very, very small part of my overall intrinsic drive. Like I know I am going to compete as long as I physically can and I'll never stop lifting because it's who I am. I'm committed to it. And even as I change as a person, I want to find a way to keep doing that and retell the meaning to make it make sense. So I have these process-oriented goals. I reframe what good is, what's realistic, and I'm attached to and I enjoy other elements like my identity, what I experience in the morning, the time I get to

49:54think and reflect, the fact that it sets me up for a day where I can be more effective in my relationships, my job, everything else. And all of those things have meaning. And I think when people focus on that reductionist optimization gain, they tend to crowd out those other things. And there's actually research on this that extrinsic motivation can actually displace intrinsic if there's not an intentionality behind it. And those things are also what you were talking about just through a very different framing. So in my mind, I think while these seem like polar opposites, many times like they leverage similar strategies and realities of being human and human motivation, but just towards very different goals. And of course, taking a constraints let approach towards different goals and at different levels of fitness are going to look on paper quite different, but they still respect some of the same aspects of being human. Yeah, yeah, I think they're both, I think they're both pragmatic approaches that acknowledge the

50:55realities of the totality of evidence. And that includes evidence related to health behavior psychology and human motivation, right? So that is part of the evidence base as well. And so yeah, I think they're both, and so like for me, I'll still, I'll lean on, we say this all the time in evidence, evidence based fitness, but a study doesn't tell you how you should train. It helps reinforce principles and kind of main themes of how we organize training. So I still use those principles when I'm going in this kind of, you know, messy chaotic four or five day a week program, I still know I want to hit every major muscle group at least once a week and preferably two. And if I get a third grade, three, four, whatever, but so you still apply these general principles of evidence based, you know, training, how you put together these programs, but you approach it in a very pragmatic way that is again, optimized to your constraints and your situation. All right, Helms, a great chat about training. Now I want to talk probably a little, a little more concisely about

51:58diet is probably not as much to cover here, but diet, what are we looking like these days? And not just, you know, don't just, you know, I know you won't do this, but sometimes people say, you know, I wonder what Eric Helms' diet looks like and they're expecting three, maybe four numbers, right? But I, we've done enough diet content that we talk a little more, we do, we do mention those, but we talk a little more holistically about the approach. So diet these days, what's it looking like? Yeah, I'm in a less intentional surplus than I was previously because my weight and my body composition, if it started the top out to where my weight's higher, which is great at a lower, at the same body composition. So things are working and I also have that confirmed by Dexa. This is the, the lowest my body fat's ever been at around 93 kilos or 205 for the Americans listening. And what that means now, and still I'm not like shredded, but I'm also, like if I took my shirt off, you're like, oh, you're pretty lean, but for me and where my physiology settles,

53:01which is both based upon blood work and also how much food focused do I have, how much drive do I have to eat, sleep quality, everything else. I'm in a space where I don't think that I need that much of a surplus, see prior episodes on body recomposition and also just our last episode, we talk about how much does it take to build muscle and then what's the realistic amount of muscle in a build? So a surplus is not the constraint that's going to allow me to grow probably at a rapid pace. So I'm probably hanging around maintenance at the moment and looking to make 93 look better for the next three to four months. And I am pretty strongly convinced that that is not less ideal than being in a small surplus just based upon the fact that the rate of growth I can sustain is not energetically restricted. And I'm not in a deficit either, at least not on a net basis and not even in kind of severe based on a day to day. So average calories are probably around 3,000. I know that sounds low for someone training twice a day who weighs over 200 pounds,

54:02but I'm also just a maybe a little bit lower on the total expenditure, you know, like distribution. And outside of my training, I do a lot of sitting at a desk or doing desk work. So my step count slants between 6 to 8,000 on a day to day basis. And a lot of that is actually because of moving around the gym and loading plates twice per day. So if I did not have those two workouts, I would probably be closer to 4 to 5,000 steps per day. And that's with an intentional walk-up remorning to breakfast. So number wise, I have on average just between like 200 to 220 grams of protein per day. And then I have set meal schedules and times, very kind of habitual pattern. And yeah, my calories fall on that range. And I have a very high vegetable and fruit intake. My fibers probably close to 60 grams a day. I probably get four servings of vegetables per day and two

55:06pieces of fruit per day at the moment, maybe three on some days, depending on what's in my breakfast or dinner. And the way I do it is I have almost the exact same lunch every day, very, very predictable. And then for breakfast and dinner, there is rotations. And then I either have like a scoop of way or like a bag of quest chips, which is basically baked way with season. It's like a 150 calories and like 20 grams of protein. It's basically like just a scoop away, right? So, yeah. So breakfast, we have a rotation of cafes that my wife and I walk every morning. That's the walk we get in. And I get very similar things everywhere we go. It is typically a mixture of vegetables with a side of salmon or its oatmeal with a side of salmon. And that's pretty much all I ever get. So it's a very predictable 500 to maybe 900 calories that's one place we go with the same as big, fatty, and the bowl of oats is gigantic, right? And also depending on how much of her food does

56:11my wife eat, right? So then I go into lunch and I know that it'll be and I can't help not know the calories, by the way. And so there is whatever that amount of between typically 600 to maybe 900 calories at breakfast, the fixed 700 calorie lunch that is always the same, another 100 to 150 calories from either quest chips or a scoop of way. And then dinner is also flexible. And what we do there is that we have grocery delivery just to save some time that comes with some meals, not like fully meal prepped for us, but we cook it. And it gives us those bags. So three days per week we're cooking things and those are great because we have this vegetarian meal service. So they're they typically have a decent amount of protein, but they are rich in a lot of vegetables and they pack in sometimes 10 different vegetables like wheat half a can of beans, a whole bag of lettuce, half a carrot, an onion, and I'm like, oh, this is awesome. And then that amount also tends to

57:13fluctuate between 600 to 900 based upon a meal delivery service. And then I have a little bit more before I go to bed, depending upon how hungry I am, well, I body weight's doing, and it's generally protein based. So I have a Greek yogurt before bed, and then do I want extra snacks and I'll do something like quest peanut butter cups or I'll do a protein bar. So those are like my my flex up treats. And if I'm over, then I just won't have them. And instead of my Greek yogurt, I will do something that is almost pure protein. So I'll do like a like a protein pudding or something else so I can get the equivalent to the number of calories, but I can cut it from like a 350 calorie, 35 grams of protein, you know, low fat with added sugar, Greek yogurt to like a pure protein stevia based thing that's 40 grams of protein, but only 150 calories. So I don't often need to do that, but that's kind of what it looks like right now. And that keeps me roughly at maintenance

58:13at this current body weight. If I wanted to get into a surplus knowing from history and when I was younger, I would actually have to increase it more than a small amount because this is where I do start to get some of those positive metabolic adaptations where my neat goes up, I feel sweaty and hot, and I will fidget a little bit more. So if I want to go from like 93 to 95, which I have no reason to do, I would probably have to get closer to like 34, 3500 calories. And then if I wanted to die it, it's kind of the other way. I would be able to drop a couple kilos quick and then I would probably need to be down closer to 24, 2500 calories. And the way I would do that tracks when that mini cut that does come, I wouldn't change a damn thing about the setup or the schedule. The Greek yogurt would become non-fat every time. There would never be that additional protein bar and breakfast would shift to like mushrooms and spinach plus the salmon. And then at lunch, it would go from two fruit to one fruit. Everything else would stay exactly the same. And that would actually

59:18also keep my protein at about the same. I might do a scoop and a half of way post-training. And I know that would reliably get me down to about like 87 or 88 before I would have to do something a little more drastic. Yeah. And so you mentioned that you can't help but know the macros or the calories. Presumably, you're not actually documenting your calories or macros anywhere at the moment. It's just kind of you have your kind of templated breakfast lunch dinner snacks. And if you need to substitute, you're just going to know the calories of what is actually an adequate swap or substitute. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something that I mean, we've talked about this many times before. That's something that we share in common. That was the approach I took the last time I prepped for bodybuilding was I'm going to have my meal schedule, my protein sources, my veggies, all that stuff. And at the beginning of the diet, there's going to be more starches and more fats and things like that. And then when the scale says things aren't moving anymore, then you lean them out, right? You

1:00:19make some swaps where the really starchy meal becomes less starchy, the fattier meal becomes less fatty, but the same basic structure of your meals is basically there. Yeah. So and the reason I did that, which is going to lead into how I'm currently dieting, I prefer I place a really high premium and a lot of value on simplicity and the concept of dieting, just being like set it and forget it. I some people really like to go in and tinker and do all the the term I've heard you use. I don't know where it originated, but the macro tetris of trying to fit everything and adjust things and have all sorts of novelty on a day to day basis. And I don't know. I'm getting a little bit radicalized as I continue to read this literature, but one of these days I'm going to write a more thoughtful article on it, but I have some degree of speculation. I'm not ready to go out on a limb here. But I think the novelty itself might actually be a variable worth considering in making your diet

1:01:21easier. So we've talked, for example, about how same macros, but different, you know, different palatability or degree of hyper palatability could be an actual variable that doesn't show up on the spreadsheet that is worth minding. I'm starting to convince myself working through the literature that even novelty or like high variance might actually be something worth considering along the same vein. But anyway, all that is just a big set up to say my approach to my current diet is basically, and this is not it's weird because it's not what I would recommend broadly, but I do want to acknowledge that I lived my entire life never experiencing unintentional weight gain until taking a medication where that's a known side effect. And it was very apparent to me how that changed my appetite regulation desire to eat. And I am no longer taking the medication, which is nice, but I needed the medication. So I took it. That's how medication works. So no regrets there. Take care of your health folks. But in any case, what I noticed is that my eating

1:02:26frankly, really, I don't want to get into the technicals because I know this is a hotly debated topic, which I'm not well read on. It started to feel kind of like food addiction to be completely honest. I was a person who never had a lot of food noise. I was a person who never experienced a lot of really loud cravings. And those became a really persistent almost constant part of my day. And so as and unfortunately, some of that stuff lingered with a lower intensity. Yeah, what's up? I want to ask you a question. This is actually something I've wanted to ask you, personally. So when you were competing in bodybuilding and you would have that post-contest hyperfagia, and some of that is very, very energetically driven and you know exactly what I'm talking about, like, I just need to eat and to feel human. But then there's also this like bottomless pit where you don't experience satiety where you could stop and feel kind of okay, but you really just want to keep eating even though you know you don't need it. How similar was that

1:03:29to this? Very distinct. Very distinct. Yeah. I definitely see the where the question comes from and the like the intuitive parallels. But with this one, it was more of just like it was almost like my desire to eat was on a timer. So it wasn't that I would sit down and be like, I'm going to eat three times the amount I would normally eat because yeah, like the hyperfagia after contest prep. If you're not being really, you know, vigilant about your diet, yeah, you'll sit down and literally I remember my first plan, my smart plan after diet, I was like, well, I'll just have mostly healthy stuff around like bananas and peanut butter. And then you eat literally two bunches of bananas in a sitting and you're like, I don't know if any primate can do that. And there's some primates out there who can really put bananas down. So, but no, it wasn't like that. It was more just like, dude, you had like a very satisfying meal 90 minutes ago and you're already getting those really loud cravings that not first of all, you just normally didn't get, but second of all, if you ever did

1:04:32get them, it would be after like 12 days of working hard and not eating, right? So in any case, that was just a really weird thing. And so it's not that I recommend it, but again, the idea of optimization is always relative to your current scenario or current constraints. And so I'm kind of taking like a relatively cold turkey approach where my diet's getting really bare bones. And rather than doing this whole kind of well, I'm going to do this and then I'm going to remove that and then we're going to remove that. I basically just said, listen, I have a long way to go. It's going to take a long time to get there regardless. I'm going to adopt the most restrictive diet that I can live with. And that's going to be it. And it's not going to change. And I know if I needed to ride this, this diet out for a 70 pound weight loss, I could. I don't need to, but I'm going to ride it out to the point where I feel good about it. And then I'll say, okay, now we got to the point where we're more focused on the finish line than, you know, like digging out of that, you know, immense debt I was talking about earlier. Say, let's just get our feet underneath us. Let's file

1:05:36for bankruptcy. Like, let's just clear all the debts and get to a spot where we feel like, okay, now we're at a place where the kind of, you know, the approach of just saying, let's just see how, let's make it as bad as it's going to get and then keep it. So it's no longer in the back of your mind. Well, what if we made it better this way or that way? It just is what it is. It's a tolerable diet. It kind of sucks, but it is what it is. And I'll ride it out. Once I get to a level of weight loss where I say, okay, this is a kind of body comp I'd like to maintain and even improve upon from from there, that is the point where I am going to get really deep in the stuff we always talk about in terms of what is optimal. How do I rebuild those dietary habits that are actually going to be sustainable? Because I'm under no illusion that what I'm doing right now is sustainable for a two or three year approach. I do think it's sustainable for a six month approach where every time I eat out with people, I say, listen, I know this sounds crazy, but here's what I'm doing. I know it's kind of dumb, but you know, it's temporary. You know, so for me, it's not that I recommend that

1:06:39for everybody, but I took a sober assessment of where I was at and what were the things that were really holding me back from a dietary perspective. And yeah, to me, it was just, let's rip off the bandaid, let's go cold turkey, let's treat it as a short term thing, knowing that if we don't actually then go in and do a really solid, you know, behavior oriented process where we build back to sustainable on the on the back end of it, then this is going to be a catastrophic failure, you know? So I'm curious because this is the longest disclaimer of what someone should actually do on the back end of an extreme diet or a restrictive diet that is important. You've acknowledged the behavioral sustainability, how you deal with it socially, and this is an optimal, but it's getting the bandaid off, that I've ever heard you give before telling the actual diet. So I am very curious as to what you're actually doing. I'm guessing it's something like a 20 hour timer-stricted eating approach and like just vegetables and protein or something like that. It's actually worse. Oh wow, I'm excited.

1:07:44Yeah, it's like if you want to say here's the thing, I'll give you now. If you do not want to share specifically what you're doing, you don't have to. I actually kind of don't. Yeah, because again, it's something that I would never recommend to a person. And so I yeah, I don't really want to, but I'll all say is, you know, it's basically really extreme, really low calorie, and but it's doable. I can do it for a fixed period of time, but again, I'm going into it realizing if you don't have a plan on the back end of this to actually then rebuild sustainable, realistic dietary patterns that are going to keep you at the weight you got to, then it's all for nothing. And you've completely just locked yourself into a catastrophic failure of a plan. So yeah, I don't even want to give people bad ideas because if someone told me they were doing this, I would say you're an idiot, but it is what it is. I'm such an exceptional snowflake that I get to do it and also tell people, I don't think you should do it. So in any case, yeah, it's it's exactly what you think it's basically one question. Okay. Yeah. Is it less extreme

1:08:48than what Angus Barbery did? I don't know if Angus Barbery did. So he I thought you might, but he's the guy who fasted for slightly more than a full year completely. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I've read that case report. Yeah. So you're often like four, 50 to like 180 pounds. Yeah. No, it's nothing that crazy, but it's basically like essentially on the verge of like a protein sparing modified fast. Just really low calorie. Basically, it's fiber protein and not a lot else. You know, enough fat to kind of stay like viable as a human being. Carbs are very, very low. So yeah, it's just something that you would never tell someone, hey, do that for six months and then check that check back in with me, but just knowing the energetics and the calorie content of a pound of fat or a kilogram of fat, I'm probably going to do this for a good, you know, four to five to six months. But yeah, honestly, to be completely candid, even though I didn't know his name, I kind of did just think about that case study. And

1:09:51I was just like, yeah, that's kind of what I need at this point, like not quite that extreme, but yeah, enough protein to get by, you know, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids. I actually am in that weird. I almost, I almost always tell people that are supplementing with electrolytes. You don't need to be supplementing with electrolytes. I'm actually supplementing with electrolytes because I kind of do need it because if you're not eating a bunch of like seasoned things and sauces and things like that, you actually might not be getting much sodium. And if you're not eating a huge volume of vegetables, you're probably not getting potassium with it. So, so yeah, it's pretty extreme, but that does lead me though to the next topic, which I meant to ask you about before I did my little spiel, which is supplements. You mentioned the foods you eat. What kind of supplements do you take now? Yeah, so I have, I have been trying to optimize in a hierarchical fashion, everything that I think can help me get to my, my peak physique. And one of the things that I, because this year, I have been actually struggling to get the

1:10:55training volume in, right? And kind of this, this is a behavioral carrot. And this is going to show you another parallel between doing something that is on paper less than optimal, but works for my psychology. The fact that I am just taking creatine and caffeine at the moment plus a like a multivitamine green spouter and iron, but those are entirely based upon my blood work and the fact that I eat a largely plant based diet and looking at like my ferritin levels over time, right? Yeah, and that's a big disclaimer because it is not generally recommended for men to take iron as a supplement. So yeah, that should, that should be definitely driven by targeted testing. Yes. And if you have low iron and you're a man and you go, oh, cool, then maybe I count for it, get further testing. Cause that could be like internal bleeding, something you don't know about like there could be some really serious issue going on there, and which of course, I excluded and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and cured because I, I did pretty comprehensive testing and I have a good GP who have a good therapeutic

1:11:58alliance with. Um, but I think, Bob, probably, in my case, the reason why I have, I struggled to get up to high level iron, is I'm training extremely hard, and very frequently, and you will You'll also see like in relatively high volume high intensity athletes and those with impact are causing a lot of muscle damage. You can see lower iron stores. That's both due to hepsidine release from training really, really hard, but also from the actual physical damage, whether that's contact sports or even foot strikes. I know it kind of sounds crazy for bodybuilding to put you in that similar space, but if you could also combine that with the fact that I have a relatively low iron content protein source diet, I'm mostly plant-based, but not entirely. I don't want to get into the ethics of what I eat and why. Then it makes sense, and I exclude the other options. I do take iron supplementation regularly because of that, and I also take a multi-vitamin powder, essentially, that is formulated by someone I trust, and I think it actually makes

1:13:02sense, and it has a very good ingredient profile. Then creatine and caffeine, and that's literally it. There are a few supplements that I do want to take, but I told myself I was only allowed to, once I got to the level of volume that I know I can accomplish, and I figured out a system I could be consistent, and I've now had a month of doing these three and a half weeks. At the end of this week, I will have had a full month minus the travel, which I don't count, of being able to get in the intended amount of training that I want at the intended intensity without sacrificing quality. Once I do that, I'm going to consider getting some citralline mallet, and potentially maybe considering, we've talked about it before, and I'm blanking on the supplement. It's given to feed lots, and there's some people on the table.

1:14:02That's a good thing. Yeah, be tain. I was thinking about getting in b-tain, but I actually need to look at my diets. I'm wonder how much I'm getting in from my vegetable consumption and everything's like that, but I do get in enough of the right types of vegetables to where I think my dietary nitrate is high enough, but I think taking citralline would actually be cool. I even need to find a third-party tested pre-workout that doesn't have a bunch of other crap that I want, which is almost impossible. I wouldn't care if it had beta-aligning, but I don't need beta-aligning. Although, maybe the way I train, I could benefit from beta-aligning. I've wondered that because I have zero rest, almost. That's not true. My supplementation really does just consist of caffeine and creatine, and what I would describe is multivitamin mineral supplementation targeted and tailored to me, which is the bare minimum that most people would consume.

1:15:04Yeah. My situation is a little bit unique, but it's same principle. Multivitamin and creatine check. With caffeine, I don't take it as a supplement, but I think I picked up this summer helms. I am a bit of what you might call a psychopath. I've heard that people with psychopathy are drawn to very bitter tastes and flavors. That's why I like very bitter and hoppy IPAs. I like double and triple IPAs, really strong beers that most people spit out and say, this is gone bad. I really like spicy things, and I really like very strong coffee. The thing I picked up this summer is I realized that the instant coffee you get that's dehydrated, you can make basically the strongest coffee in the world by using that instead of actually, there's a limit to how strong your brewed coffee actually gets. I don't supplement with caffeine, but I drink I would say sludge.

1:16:08Yeah. The absolute strongest, heaviest coffee you could possibly imagine, it still dissolves. It dissolves, but I am pushing the solubility of water in terms of how much I'm packing in there. Again, multivitamin creatine caffeine check because of my unique dietary situation, I'm also supplementing with electrolytes and I also supplement with a decent amount of fiber as well. The general principle, though, is for performance creatine caffeine, for the main kind of thing, now you mentioned since you're shooting for much higher ambitions than I am currently, maybe some other borderline performance supplements, citralline, b-tain, things like that. Then we also had... We need a third party tested and there's no negative data. I'm pretty stringent. Exactly. When you say no negative data, meaning no data showing a plausible and convincing indicator that it harms performance or health.

1:17:10Correctly. I would even say I need neutral and mostly positive. If it's just neutral, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I don't see the potential upside to it, even if it's plausible because even third party testing is not perfect, there could be supplement interactions and it's also going to cost something. I have a very, very high threshold for what I will consider for a supplement compared to maybe most. Yeah. Big picture thematically, creatine and caffeine are the kind of pair for... You're going to feel better in the gym. Just do it. Pretty much. I also didn't do supplemental caffeine until I started doing the AM workouts. That was part of the strategy because I'm taking it at like 5.30 AM, right? I know that even though I'm taking a relatively large bowl, it won't affect my sleep. I am actually... I've had genetic testing. I'm a caffeine fast metabolizer. But even then, before this, I was not supplementing with caffeine.

1:18:11I would drink coffee, but that's it. I was training in the evening. I'm not going to... It would not be worth it. It was a strategy because of my training strategy. Yeah. So morning caffeine is kind of a no-brainer, creatine, kind of a no-brainer. Not critical, but in my as well throw it in the mix. Multi-vitamin, if it's well formulated, nice thing to fill the gaps. Performance supplements relative to your ambition level, basically. Anything else is really targeted based on your unique needs. For me, I do need some supplemental fiber. I do need some supplemental electrolytes. I'm good on the iron front, but you need iron, right? So that's kind of like... I think the general... Again, very different approaches to supplementation, different lists of supplements, but the overall kind of conceptual approach, I think, really lines up in terms of how we identify what needs to get slotted in there or what ought to get slotted in there. Cool. So we've talked training. We've talked diet.

1:19:12The last thing is basically just cardio and step counts. So this is one where... I actually covered mine. So why don't you get into it? Well, yeah. Well, you covered your step counts. Are you doing any cardio? Here's the thing. I legitimately probably sit in zone two to zone three for most of my 45 minute to 45 minute to an hour workout in most cases. Maybe not so much in the morning because it's all peripheral work. And I have really good blood work and cardiovascular markers. I was actually joking around with some of my colleagues like, I should just get acclimated to our treadmill and do a VO2 max test because I think it would actually be decent. I will say the only time that I do intentionally do cardio is when the weather's bad for a persistent period of time and when my schedule does not allow me to get in those morning walks consistently and then I have a roar in my house and obviously like you, I train at work a lot.

1:20:14Another friction thing to see you know, my backpack every day I put my lunch and my laptop or laptops in it and I also put workout clothes regardless of what's going on just so they're with me. And my belt sleeves, wrist wraps, gym pin and my Versa grips and two different belts actually sit in the back seat of my car all the time so that I know I can do what because I can't always predict what's happening and that's the type of behavioral thing that you would often use as a trainer. So anyway, the only time that I will do cardio, I'll jump on the roar in the morning or I'll do something on like the bike at work is when I have not been able to get in my steps and I see it and then I will purposely get in because obviously it's happening because of the weather's bad and the timing's bad, I will do like a 20 minute hit interval session. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, so on my, to your point, Helms, I actually did get my VO2 max tested back in the day

1:21:16when I was in like really good bodybuilding shape, had a lot of muscle on me, had very low body fat and was walking around a college campus all day. And if memory serves like, yeah, it was, it got measured in the low 60s. Like it was, yeah, like, because I'm good. Good. It was, it was, I believe it just cracked into the low 60s of memory serves. I had a resting heart rate, you know, in the low 50s at the time because yeah, I mean, I was, I was just, you know, I was really, really fit. I didn't do any cardio, but I was constantly on my feet. I was very briskly walking around campus all day, lean, muscular, all that stuff goes into the VO2 max calculation. So yeah, there's a lot of folks who, you know, they're sitting there and say, well, I heard I had to do cardio for my heart health. And I think if I had to guess, Holmes, I do think that we've talked on many occasions about offshoots from the drug enhanced game that make their way into the natural game. There's a lot of people who are on, you know, anabolic that are terrible for your cardiovascular system who do year round, a certain amount of minutes on the stepper or the incline treadmill

1:22:21or whatever. And I think a lot of natural bodybuilders think, I guess I have to do cardio always. Yeah, there's a lot of folks who if you're, you know, if you have relatively solid body composition, you know, more, more muscle than average, you're on your feet, a decent amount or like you said, Helms, your training style is such that you're kind of moving around keeping your heart rate elevated for an extended period of time. You may find that all your blood markers check out looking great. Your resting heart rate looks great. Your blood pressure looks great. Your VO2 max, if you get it tested, looks, looks good to maybe even pretty great. So there's a lot of people who use it. Yeah, if you want to do more cardio, I do think your cardiovascular system will adapt a little more. But what are you missing here? You know, what is the gap that you're trying to fill for a lot of people? They can just chalk up the fact that they're pretty much covered if their goal is to just have a, you know, reasonably healthy cardiovascular system and metabolic profile. On my end, I am, you know, I work on a campus.

1:23:21I'm walking around at my, for better or for worse, my lab isn't a very different building than where I teach and where my office is. So I have to do a couple walks a day, which is frustrating, but I guess the bright side as it gets me walking. So I am routinely clocking in at just north of 10,000 steps a day without doing any intentional walking outside of my activities of daily living. And yeah, you know, my, I'm doing so much effort on the getting back in the gym in terms of resistance training and so much effort on the dietary side. I don't see a huge need for cardio, but it's the kind of thing that, you know, if I were for example to get down to a body weight that I feel good about, and I noticed that my blood pressure was still a bit high. That's something that, you know, happens in my family to some extent. And I've, especially when my weight starts to get higher, my blood pressure starts to pick up a little bit. If I get down there and I notice that, then yeah, I'll probably work in either some more intentional brisk walking or some even more structured cardio.

1:24:23One of the challenges for me, Holmes, is that while I am feeling a lot more comfortable navigating a resistance training workout with all my nerve stuff, it was a hip issue. And I've tried to do when my, I've tried it in the past to do rowing, cycling, and running. None of them were really good. They're actually pretty, pretty bad. So I'm kind of at least for now stuck with walking, but I am interested in seeing with time and with building back up some core strength and more mobility from training more regularly. I'm optimistic that I can at least get back to running. I think cycling may always be a no, and I can live with that. But I do miss running, but fortunately, I think running is something that could be on the menu in the future. And I do think as I lose more weight, it'll only become more feasible to run more comfortably. So yeah, that's kind of one of those interesting things where I think in a vacuum, you would look at my situation and say, okay, aiming to lose weight, you know, cardiometabolic health

1:25:25is probably not as good as it used to be. Not really critically concerned about optimizing resistance training adaptations. Cardio is a no-brainer, but again, because of the nerve pain issue, yeah, it's one of those things that's kind of on the back burner and could be incorporated if needed and tolerated. But for now, I'm trying not to push my luck. And let's be honest, getting back into the gym, Helms were both busy people, right? And so you talked about how trying to make it work and trying different schedules and you finally got this kind of system in place that works. For me, maybe I'm just a baby, but even, you know, carving out that resistance training time felt like a chore after getting so used to not needing to do it. And so I'm trying not to push my luck and overload my schedule with, well, now I've got these other cardio bouts I'm making time for. And when am I going to shower if I do it in the morning and I'm on campus and things like that. So, yeah, again, getting back to that idea of, you know, there's kind of optimal and evacuum versus optimal, given the constraints we're living with, which is really the true

1:26:29version of optimal that we should be using to dictate decisions. No, well said. And I only have like two little things to add. It's like, there were some benefits to being in this level of condition that I did not anticipate. And it actually helped me. I don't think I realized how fewer doors I had open to make training auto regulation decisions until I got into better cardiovascular condition. Like in the past, if I thought, oh, I've got some knee pain and I know it's just tendonitis related. But if I could reduce load or change tempo, I could work around this. I would just have to do like BFR like extensions, right? Because the loading requirements and the way my body is shaped and fits and feels, you know, leg press and the haxquats, it's too heavy. It's off the table. Smith machine squat's not going to happen. And if I lowered the load enough, I would get body. I'm like, oh, what a 15 plus rep set on haxquats or leg press.

1:27:29I'm not going to do anything else. That occurs on a regular basis. Now, it's mentally painful. It's physically painful, local, muscular, endurance-wise. And I have been shocked that I have done 25 and 30 rep maxes and actually failed to try to attempt another one on leg press now. And I need two to three minutes rest and I can move on to not a quad exercise. Obviously, but something else. And I was like, that was just not on the table. Or I can do like slow tempo, which ends up being a similar load and time moving and cardiovascular demand, but it qualitatively feels different. And you may or may not have the juice to do one verse to the other. And sometimes one feels better when you have 10 to the night as first the other. But those things, not on the table, but previously too much cardio respiratory as well as even nausea and psychological demand compared to now. And some of that I keep, keeps surprising myself because I have 15, 18 years of not being

1:28:33in this kind of shape for lifting. And I'm like, oh my god, this is going to crush me. And I'm like, okay, it was hard, but I'm good now. So I'm kind of like fixing my old PTSD from this type of training. And I think some of that was just that I was always combining powerlifting with bodybuilding. So my conditioning for lower body compound movements, hinges and squats was very low. So I could accommodate high loads and I only did high rep stuff for everything else. So that's been a surprise. And it means that I can go, I can never let my cardio respiratory shape be a bottleneck for appropriate rest times what I can superset, drop sets and rest pause. So it has made it so that I can get more effective work done in a smaller time periods. And the last thing I'll say is that I actually don't do those like dedicated cardio sessions unless I'm dieting because it's not for health. It's just a maintain higher energy expenditure. And I don't have time to actually go from a 6 to 8,000 step count to 10 to 12.

1:29:37So if I miss my morning walk for whatever reason where I have a very sedentary day while dieting, it has a notable impact on my energy expenditure. So those are things that are kind of like non-negotiables during prep. But in the off season, that roar is up against the wall pretty much all year, you know? Yeah. Very short anecdote relative you were talking about, you know, just the cardio element impacting your resistance training and the benefit of being in pretty good shape. And even the potential for nausea when you're not, when I first got back in, so folks may remember, I basically got my first surgery and said, great, this is incredible. And then I went back into it and I immediately got an umbilical hernia because I wanted to train hard and my tragic years of detraining with my core musculature. I mean, I popped like a balloon basically. It was how it worked out. So I said, I'm not going to do that again. And so after, you know, getting back into it more recently, first workout, I'm like, okay,

1:30:37I'm going to do some dead lifts, but I'm going to do them kind of lightweight and just, you know, sets of five light, but just, you know, short rest periods. And like that way, I can kind of feel my way toward an appropriate workload and scale up and down the rest periods and stuff. Dude, I thought I was going to puke my guts out from just kind of pushing the tempo with those short rest periods. Um, it was really striking to me as someone who had been not really doing any cardio or weight training. My first weight training session back where I was actually really activating large muscle groups with short rest periods. Dude, I, I felt like if you put me on a track and said, okay, you're going to run 16, 200 meter sprints with a minute rest between them. It was just absolutely disastrous. But the thing that's incredible about, especially cardiovascular adaptations, dude, they can happen quick. Like, like, if you really stick with, um, yeah, coming back at it, you know, really in just a couple weeks, your workouts feel dramatically different. And again, like, I got to say, I, I would prefer to have not gotten in terrible shape and

1:31:42had to like rebuild from basically square zero. But um, this whole process has really been so illuminating a person who's never dealt with appetite regulation issues, dealing with that for the first time. Absolutely rewired the way I think about obesity and weight management and the way people work with clients, um, getting back into the gym after being extremely weak and out of shape and unfit really made me rethink of like, oh my god, I, because I started, I was pretty jacked by the age of 13. And so I didn't have that whole process of getting into the gym and saying, oh, god, I have so far to go and all that stuff. And, you know, feeling like I just did a few sets of deadlifts with short rest and now I feel like I'm going to puke. I never would have looked at that on paper and said, by the way, you should think about how you're going to manage the nausea that may, may occur with this, right? So I do think it's, uh, while I would have preferred to skip this whole process, it has been quite a, quite an, an illuminating experience that's brought a lot of insights and a lot

1:32:46of empathy. And, uh, you know, if I ever do get back into like keeping a pretty decent roster of clients as a coach, I think that this has done more for my ability to coach than any amount of reading research, any amount of certifications could ever hope to offer. Um, so yeah, there's, there's always kind of a bright side when we go through some of these, uh, challenges with, uh, with our own fitness or health or training, which is, you know, it, it's useful to kind of see what this looks like from a different perspective. And so my, one of my goals moving forward is to continue communicating that, that those new insights and perspectives, because I think for the fitness industry to be healthy and for the fitness industry to function well, it's no surprise that a lot of people who are generally pretty fit and have been fit most of their lives gravitate into coaching positions. Um, but, but making sure that there's a lot of awareness of, of, uh, what that feels like from the other side of the fitness spectrum, which is the position a lot of your clients

1:33:49are going to be in. That's a place where I do hope to make a mark moving forward with my content of just really advocating for considering, uh, you know, what your clients are feeling like when they're true beginners or coming from a place where they're really far away from their goal. So well said and, and it continually important reminder. Um, and I think, uh, the more people can expand their own worldview, it's the closest thing we can get to having the lived experience of others. So I think that's a fantastic message tracks. All right. Well, Helms, we just covered it. Uh, what you're doing, what I'm doing, very, very different and yet very much the same. All right. Anything you want to, yeah. No, I just really appreciate this. And I hope, um, the people take this for what it's intended. This, these are not recommendations. These are actually really good examples of what does it take to implement research? Because no matter how translational research is, um, unless it's purely observational, it's

1:34:51not a record of how it operates in the real world. And you have to find a way to integrate it into it. And it should look different for each individual person. I think a lot of people who don't fully understand, uh, the meaning of evidence-based practice or the reality of what it looks like, kind of think that there's some templates that would look appropriate for the same goal for different people. The only thing they would adjust is, oh, what's your weekly schedule? And then that template is a three, four, five, six or seven day program. But ultimately, um, the way that we do evidence-based practice is finding the thing that will stick and work for each individual person's psychology and environment, uh, training history and goals. And that is an almost infinite number of combinations. And whichever one does optimize the whole system, acknowledge against constraints without you saying, oh, well, I don't like your system because that's actually who they are as DNA as well as lived experience and personality.

1:35:53That is the only way it should occur. So these are not recommendations. They are examples of what happens when you actually translate research into practice. Absolutely. And I want to get out ahead of one criticism, Helms. I am certain there's going to be, well, I'm not certain. There's a decent non-zero probability that some people are going to say in the comments, Eric Trexler is essentially an idiot. His approach is too far from the conventional optimal approach. And he's being too easy on himself in the gym. He's being too hard on himself with the diet. And this is all going to be catastrophic. And I will say number one, fair enough. Number two, the thing about fitness is there's receipts at the end. So I would just say, maybe you're right. Who knows? But I'm going to give this shot. We'll check in in four months, six months, and we'll see. But Helms, this is just a very funny, quick aside, you know, Brian Johnson, the like Biohacker guy who's going to like live forever. So his new thing, he's doing a little side quest.

1:36:55Now normally his Biohacker things are all just like, I'm going to gain some kind of fuzzy composite metric that tells me I'm 18 years old, right? His new side quest is to dunk a basketball. And so I don't know if you heard about this, but so his goal now he's actually tracking like his front squat and his deadlift and his vertical jump. Now Helms, you understand how grave a situation this is. He has moved from the realm of squishy, fuzzy composite made up metrics to tangible things that like are resisted by gravity and physics. And so I told Lauren, I think that this is the beginning of the end because yeah, I think once you have to actually start testing your protocols against tangible outcomes and the receipts are they're there. You can actually see, are you jump in higher or not? That's where a lot of the, a lot of the mysticism that drives biohacking really runs into a brick wall. So listen, I wish in the best, I hope it goes well for him, but I'm curious to see how that goes.

1:37:55And I would say the same thing applies to me. All my outcomes I'm going for are tangible here. So if I am indeed an idiot, I will cover that candidly in the months that follow. Hey, we'll check in with us sometimes next year where I get on stage one kilo less, place worse and tracks is no longer exercising at all and has a hard attack on camera. And you will know that we are indeed both idiots and we'll go from there. Absolutely. But you know what, don't check in, don't wait a year to check in, check in every week iron culture. That does it for this episode, but we will be back in seven days. Hope you have a great week and we will see you soon.